Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

oxfam.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 158 posts

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#51

Post by perihelions »

starttoaster wrote: post #37

Why not link to the horse's mouth instead of some random site with expiring TLS certs? https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/41-billion-world-ban...

Yeah, this domain is weird spam.

- "As published on: africa.cgtn.com, Friday 18 October, 2024."

I can confirm the OP text is indeed identical to the text on that CGTN article (Chinese state-owned media). This is simple plagiarism—among other things.

edit: On that tangent, CGTN Africa itself plagiarized Oxfam's press release—it's obviously the same text, run through an LLM for rephrasing. It's SEO spam all the way down!

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#52

Post by Reason077 »

edm0nd wrote: post #24
riazrizvi wrote: post #11

Some context, Oxfam isn't a perfect organization. They struggle with fraud and graft. This is a part of their ongoing effort to reduce it, and sometimes yes that does mean pointing the finger past themselves too.

Seems like they are based in Kenya and fraud/corruption is rampant in some of these African nations. Really sad but its seemingly been like this for so long which is why many of the countries there are in constant civil wars, coups, and their populations poor/starving. If hundreds of billions of dollars in aide over 2 decades isn't fixing these nations, what will?

Oxfam is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya because it's considered a relatively stable/safe country with relatively good facilities and infrastructure. Nairobi provides a good central location to reach other parts of Africa where much of their work is based, and Kenya also provides a favourable regulatory environment for these international organisations to operate. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is also based there.

Both of these organisations certainly have their issues with corruption, fraud, and grift, but that would likely be the case no matter where they are based. If anything, being physically closer to where much of the money is being spent should help them keep a closer eye on the work that they're funding.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#53

Post by normie3000 »

ianeigorndua wrote: post #50
dosinga wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kenya is not a rich country, but hardly suffers from "civil wars, coups, and a starving population". Not all African countries do.

If you really believe that, you should take a look at the Wikipedia page of Kenya, especially the history section.

Which part of it?!

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#54

Post by stonethrowaway »

mistrial9 wrote: post #21

the readers here are being "chumped" IMHO .. lots of comments fall hook, line and sinker for an obvious rage-bait. Does not the article say that these are "declared allocated" but not yet dispersed? Is this related to the multi-hundred billions pledged through the Paris Accords system that have not actually been applied to anything yet? Intelligent people here are quick to jump on a 2-dimensional puppet headline to p…

You don’t actually expect us to do something about this, do you?

Outrage posturing is the name of the game. Say a lot. Sound serious. Threaten action. Do nothing.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#55

Post by cle »

Retric wrote: post #48
cle wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't China and India in the Global South? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South

Personally I don’t think China is a developing economy at this point. ~25k per capita GDP (PPP) and sub 5% economy growth per year. India by contrast is just 11k per capita GDP (PPP).

I'd maybe agree, not sure. I'm mostly interested in figuring out what the "activist demands" are, specifically. On the surface using these common definitions, they seem a bit extreme.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#56

Post by geysersam »

cle wrote: post #38

> Activists are calling for the Global North to provide at least 5 trillion U.S. dollars annually in public finance to the Global South as a down payment on their climate debt to those least responsible for climate change but most affected by it. Huh? I'm pretty sure the Global South produces significantly more carbon emissions than the Global North. Like double. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong?) From a quick…

Okay but what are the numbers per population? If you include 80% of the world population in south it's quite unsurprising that they constitute a large part of the emissions.

Besides, the debt is something accumulated over time. Even if the emissions of India are large today they were much lower 40 years ago, while European emissions were probably larger at that time.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#57

Post by elmomle »

edm0nd wrote: post #24
riazrizvi wrote: post #11

Some context, Oxfam isn't a perfect organization. They struggle with fraud and graft. This is a part of their ongoing effort to reduce it, and sometimes yes that does mean pointing the finger past themselves too.

Seems like they are based in Kenya and fraud/corruption is rampant in some of these African nations. Really sad but its seemingly been like this for so long which is why many of the countries there are in constant civil wars, coups, and their populations poor/starving. If hundreds of billions of dollars in aide over 2 decades isn't fixing these nations, what will?

One idea I've read in the works of Ivan Illich (among others) is that the best thing we could do for developing countries that struggle with corruption is to leave them the hell alone when it comes to financial matters (aside, perhaps, from canceling their World Bank debts, which often come from loans made to past corrupt governments and for which the people are unjustly held accountable) and let them sort their problems out. Injecting money, even with the best of intentions, tends to make things worse when there are already structural problems.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#58

Post by 93po »

1024core wrote: post #46
starttoaster wrote: post #37

Why not link to the horse's mouth instead of some random site with expiring TLS certs? https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/41-billion-world-ban...

@dang: maybe change the submitted link? Thanks!

you have to email the mod team, hn@ycombinator.com. i think?

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#59

Post by dang »

starttoaster wrote: post #37

Why not link to the horse's mouth instead of some random site with expiring TLS certs? https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/41-billion-world-ban...

Changed from https://www.ifcreview.com/news/2024/october/green-finance-ox... above. Thanks!
Post reply on HN