annualreport.tni.orgTNI Annual Report 2022

PDF Report Toggle Navigation Goals Achievements Board Report Finances People DONATE 2022 evanclayburg@gmail.com 2023-06-29T15:40:02+00:00 2022 annual report 2022 annual report TNI envisages an equitable, democratic and peaceful world in which all life may flourish. Message from the director Just as the world emerged from the COVID pandemic, Russia did the unthinkable and invaded Ukraine. This caused the biggest refugee crisis of the 21st century, pushing the numbers of forcibly displaced people around the world to over 100 million. The war triggered a global energy crisis, jeopardised critical food supplies, and saw inflation woes rock much of the world. Already massively inflated military budgets soared, and Ukraine became the guinea pig for testing ‘artificial intelligence’-powered combat vehicles and generating the data that will shape warfare of the future. READ FULL × Message from the Director Just as the world emerged from the COVID pandemic, Russia did the unthinkable and invaded Ukraine. This caused the biggest refugee crisis of the 21st century, pushing the numbers of forcibly displaced people around the world to over 100 million. The war triggered a global energy crisis, jeopardised critical food supplies, and saw inflation woes rock much of the world. Already massively inflated military budgets soared, and Ukraine became the guinea pig for testing ‘artificial intelligence’-powered combat vehicles and generating the data that will shape warfare of the future. At a time that the world urgently needs to move away from fossil fuels, concern to reduce dependence on Russian gas saw Europe push African countries to increase oil and gas production to meet its immediate needs. The final declaration issued by COP28 in Egypt at the end of the year managed to avoid mentioning the need to move away from fossil fuels, even as the year was marked by unprecedented heatwaves across Europe, Asia and North America and then devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria. The COP did, however, finally agree to the establishment of a global fund to compensate vulnerable countries for climate-related ‘loss and damage’. This is somewhat of a victory insofar as those states, whose economies are most responsible for climate damage, have long resisted accepting the liability implicit in considering such a fund. Whether, and if so in what form, any funds are forthcoming remains to be seen, but reparations are certainly now on the political agenda. Meanwhile, we cheered the effective death knell of one powerful mechanism protecting the interests of the fossil fuel sector: the Energy Charter Treaty. Five European member states in quick succession announced they would be terminating membership, largely due to the risk of being sued by energy corporations for billions where states decide to introduce policies that may threaten future profits. In no small way, this move was down to the very vocal and broad-based campaign against the ECT and investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms that TNI and allies have been building for many years now. The race to secure resources and dominate green – as well as tech – markets heated up in 2022. In an effort to compete with China, the USA introduced its protectionist Inflation Reduction Act, which provides financial incentives to spur domestic production of green products, such as electric vehicles and solar panels. In a similar move, the EU prepared for the passage of its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will levy a carbon tax on imports – also primarily aimed at protecting domestic producers from Chinese competition, but likely impacting African exporters most. Meanwhile, Indonesia banned the export of nickel and bauxite, intending to use its natural resources to build a national battery industry, for which they are being challenged at the WTO by the EU. At the same time, Chile declared its intention to nationalise lithium mines and has proposed building a kind of OPEC with Bolivia and others to control production and pricing of lithium. Many southern governments are increasingly emboldened to challenge the existing global system, including the role of powerful transnational corporations, and are finding new leverage to do this. A new international economic order is in the making. The question for progressives is how to ensure the outcome is not simply a reorganisation and redistribution among elites, but fundamentally transforms our economies, societies and polities such that they serve the kind of vision to which TNI aspires. These developments were among the key concerns to which TNI applied itself in 2022. More can be found in the body of this report. We worked with 177 organisations in 55 countries around the world undertaking research, making the analysis available for developing social movement strategies, and influencing public discourse. A major point of convergence during the year was the Future is Public conference, attended by 1,000 delegates from 100 countries, which TNI co-convened in Santiago de Chile. We took particular responsibility for the sector meeting, seeking to build common ground among the movements present. One of the architects of the Future is Public was our colleague, Satoko Kishimoto, who had worked tirelessly since she joined TNI in 2005 to build a global movement in defence of public services. On the strength of this, she was encouraged by a platform of citizens in a district of Tokyo to run for mayor in 2022. To her own astonishment, she won – making history as the first woman ever to serve as mayor of Suginami, and certainly the most radical mayor too – and TNI could not be prouder. 2022 was a year of quite some change within TNI. We constituted bigger programme teams, mixing up pre-existing teams, and appointing some new leadership. The idea was to break open silos, encourage greater internal cooperation and more collective strategising across all the regions of the world where our team members are based. We also established our new Knowledge Hub, which will be the home of our next generation of associates and fellows, tasked with helping us with the big picture and exploring new lines of work. We experimented with new social media, including Mastodon as Twitter threatened to implode, and TikTok, where we managed to reach 5 million people in our first year. Our Arabic language publishing increased significantly too, as our North Africa-focused work expanded. TNI’s total income rose by 23%, largely due to increased funds for our work on Myanmar. We were pleased to gain the confidence of some new foundations, mainly for our work on energy transitions. This has also helped our goal of diversifying our funding base further. We ended the year with a positive result, derived from unrestricted income we were able to secure, despite some major currency exchange losses. This goes towards our continuity fund, which is our guarantee that we can continue to be fully operational for a while should we lose a major grant. As the year closed and her second term of office came to an end, Pauline Tiffen stood down from the Supervisory Board. We are immensely grateful to Pauline for the role she has played, her diligence, commitment and care towards TNI. And last, but certainly never least, on behalf of the Institute my heartfelt thanks to everyone who worked with and supported TNI this past year. I am extremely proud of what we achieved, and we did this with you. Warmly yours, Fiona Dove Executive Director, Transnational Institute Close Message from the Supervisory Board chair 2022 saw TNI move forward with a new, fit-for-the-world-today Strategic Plan, developed over many months, with significant global discussion and exchange online, often as testing as the world we face! READ FULL × Message from the Outgoing chair of the Supervisory Board 2022 saw TNI move forward with a new, fit-for-the-world-today Strategic Plan, developed over many months, with significant global discussion and exchange online,...