Current and Future Threats

12/19/2018

CURRENT AND FUTURE THREATS:

A Baseline Assessment

This report was created at the request of Concentric Solutions International to identify potential threats to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Threats evaluated are those that are currently known as well as those that could emerge over the next one to three years and that could arise from or affect the foundation's programs, initiatives, public perception, reputation and cybersecurity. This assessment also identifies the types of individuals and organizations that could pose these threats.

Agricultural Development

The primary threat to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development Program comes from its involvement in genetically modified organism (GMO) research. Opposition to the use of biotechnology in agriculture has been a feature of public-interest activism for 20 years, and while activity on the issue is waning globally, there is continued reason for concern.

Gradual public acceptance of GMOs is taking place in part due to the limited attention and fanfare the issue is receiving. The mainstream media have been very quiet on the issue, in light of the growing recognition that some new GMO varieties could soon bring dependable crops to famine-prone areas. If anything, this relative quiet spurs more dramatic and radical opposition from the minority of activists who staunchly oppose the further development and cultivation of GMOs and want to bring the issue back into public discourse.

Globally, anti-biotech activists’ interest in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be proportionate to the amount of fanfare the foundation receives for funding projects using GMOs and to the perception of the foundation’s partnership with Monsanto. It is likely that European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace International will publicly oppose the partnership if it gains much press attention (which would likely portray the foundation as being part of the vague “agribusiness machinery” led by Monsanto). It is less likely that peasant farmer groups would be interested in targeting the foundation directly since they are more concerned about direct confrontation on the ground in Brazil.

Physical threats to the foundation due to its work on GMOs could come from the Brazilian Landless Peasants Movement (MST) and Indian activists, who have a record of lawless and violent protest. Such groups as Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Greenpeace International and Action for Solidarity, Environment, Equality and Diversity (ASEED) Europe,could confront executives in some circumstances, but they are unlikely to escalate protest to physical confrontation. Thelevel of risk to the foundation will depend on the degree to which it is perceived as supporting the development and cultivation of new varieties of GMOs. Complaintslikely will not focus on the specifics of the foundation’s work. Rather, they will be more focused on the general allegation that the foundation, through its support of GMOs, is a cog in the larger “corporate agriculture” or “agribusiness” industry. Activists allege that this industry actually creates food shortages, steals indigenous intellectual property and foists new technologies on an unwitting public.

North America

The anti-biotech activism of the 1990s and early 2000s was characterized by corporate campaigns and public-education campaigning. In the past five years, this movement has largely dissipated. The campaigns against companies such as Monsanto and Kraft and the high protest turnouts that characterized this period are now rare. Much of the biotech-centered activism has been absorbed into a larger sustainable-development movement designed to promote long-term social change in order to reduce personal consumption and change how corporations think about producing products.

There are signs, however, of a new opposition to biotechnology. The anti-biotech movement was revived in March with the decision by Wal-Mart not to sell milk that comes from cows treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST. This decision by the world’s largest retailer sends a message to consumers that there is legitimate concern about some biotechnology applications. It also emboldensthose opposed to GMOs in general who have seen their campaign as a lost cause in the United States. There is also a new movement afoot, led by veteran campaigner Jeffrey Smith, to introduce a U.S. anti-GMO campaign in June that will be financed by the organic food industry. Finally, RAN, the most effective direct-action activist group in the United States, recently developed an agribusiness campaign that will eventually deal with the question of GMOs. While the campaign is currently focused on soy and palm cultivation in developing countries, the group intends to use later phases of the campaign to raise the GMO issue in the United States. RAN’s entry into the GMO debate could bring a direct-action challenge to any corporation or nonprofit perceived as supporting “corporate agriculture.”

Outside North America

GMOs remain an active issue in Europe, but the focus there has shifted away from the corporations and the marketplace, and is now on pressuring government leaders not to allow the sale of genetically engineered products within the European Union. Anti-corporate campaigning on the GMO issue in Europe typically focuses on food producers, including Nestle and Unilever, as well as retailers like Sainsbury's and Carrefour.

Although this tactic has been on the decline in recent months, a report released by Greenpeace in March that focused on Monsanto could signal an uptick in anti-GMO corporate campaigning. The report, called “Monsanto’s Seven Deadly Sins,” claims that the company is telling half-truths about the safety of its GMO seeds and does not want the public to know there are GMOs in the food it consumes. Specifically, the report says that Monsanto does not trust international organizations such as the United Nations and that it pulled out of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, which Greenpeace describes as a stakeholder organization looking at science, technology and good farming practices as ways to reduce hunger and poverty. Greenpeace said Monsanto pulled out of the assessment group because it did not promote GMOs. The report also levels criticism against Monsanto from the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa over the company’s alleged claim in an advertisement that there are no substantiated scientific or medical reports that prove negative health consequences from consumingGMO foods.

Anti-GMO campaigning has begun to increase in developing countries, especially among peasant farmers in Brazil, where MST and its ally La Via Campesina (both leftist populist groups) are the main anti-GMO organizations. These two groups have significant public support -– claiming upwards of a million supporters -- although the number of dedicated supporters is likely only a few thousand.
The objectives of MST and Via Campesina are to promote the livelihoods of independent farmers and workers and to reduce development of land in Brazil by corporate agricultural interests. The groups are ideologically anti-corporate and have protested against a variety of companies, including those involved in agriculture, mining and natural resource development.

Via Campesina is an umbrella organization that includes chapters in the United States and Europe. These chapter subgroups have connections to international environmental groups such as RAN, Greenpeace and ASEED.

Monsanto is seen by the farmers as being the corporate actor most responsible for taking away the livelihoods of peasant farmers. Monsanto is also criticized for having a close relationship with the Brazilian government. MST and Via Campesina view the agricultural empire of the Maggi family as best representing the problems raised by the mixing of agriculture, business and politics (Blairo Maggi is the governor of Brazil’s largest agricultural state, Mato Grasso). Brazilian farmers have waged a campaign against Monsanto for the past five years and, in March, destroyed a greenhouse and experimental plots of GMO corn to protest the Brazilian government’s approval of a controversial Monsanto corn variety.

In addition to concerns in Brazil, a larger group of activists is focusing on the relationship between biotechnology companies and the intellectual property of indigenous cultures. Activists in South America, South Asia and parts of Africa allege that major biotechnology companies find traditional hybrids developed over millennia by peasant and indigenous groups and use the hybrids to create new patented and globally marketed products. This debate, sometimes termed “biopiracy,” focuses on what, if anything, the companies owe the societies that developed the hybrids. At the international level, the debate is currently taking place at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), but indigenous rights advocates are unlikely to be satisfied with any finding that emerges from WIPO.

In Kenya, the public is currently debating a GMO regulatory bill that was first drafted in 2005. This “biosafety bill” would require extra testing and regulatory oversight of GMO products, but NGOs claim the bill was written by the biotech lobby and the U.S. Agency for International Development and therefore is biased in favor of GMOs. Opposition groups, including the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, small farmers and religious organizations, claim the bill is being debated without the input of NGOs and without an environmental impact assessment and therefore request the bill be withdrawn from the legislature. Labeling-related issues are also surfacing. A law professor from the International Environmental Law Research Center in Nairobi wrote in a local newspaper editorial in June 2007 that the GMO regulatory bill will prevent Kenya from exporting food-related products to regions such as the European Union, where special GMO labeling is required. The Kenya Small-Scale Farmers Forum has echoed this concern in the media, claiming small farmers will lose revenue if their product is associated with GMOs.

Finally, there is staunch opposition to GMOs in India. Many elements of Indian society, particularly rural peasants, maintain a deep distrust of major multinational corporations and technology. GMO protests can be very large and emerge from small grassroots organizations. The most important organizations in India that can generate opposition to GMOs include Greenpeace India, which focuses on public education campaigns and government lobbying, and Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, which is a militant farmers group that has targeted Monsanto by burning company-owned fields and threatening legal action against the company. The farmers group also has thrown stones at KFC Corp. restaurants to protest the company’s stance on GMOs. Activism in India can be highly unpredictable -- the more the foundation is perceived as part of a larger agribusiness front, the greater the threat exists of radical individuals or groups targeting foundation executives for protests.

Financial Services for the Poor

Development-focused activists generally view microfinancing as a positive tool to assist the poor. No significant organized campaigns against microfinancing exist in developing countries. However, some individuals (especially academics) have begun to criticize certain practices in the industry, such as high interest rates and the segments of the poor populations that are receiving the loans. Another emerging issue related to microfinancing is the “underground” use of microcredit as a way to increase dowry payments in developing countries, particularly in Bangladesh.

Thomas W. Dichter, an international development activist and anthropology Ph.D., is probably the best-known critic of the microfinancing industry. His 2003 book, “Despite Good Intentions,” is often quoted in critiques of the industry. Dichter argues that microlending is often viewed as a cure for poverty and, as such, is being overhyped and overused -– microlenders have begun lending to people who cannot benefit from the loans.

Microlending is also beginning to be seen as a business activity more than a development activity, and that perception is tainting the activities of those organizations advancing microlending projects. The decision by Mexico-based Compartamosto become a public company in 2007, for instance, has been roundly criticized by Mexicans and even other lenders such as the Grameen Bank.

In October 2007, Santi Rozario, an anthropology and sociology professor at the University of Newcastle Australia, wrote an article for the “openDemocracy” discussion Website about her research on the microcredit-for-dowry issue in Bangladesh for the NGO CARE Bangladesh. She wrote about several instances in which the husband’s family expected the wife’s family to apply for microcredit to increase their dowry payments. The professor says the purpose of the microcredit loans in Bangladesh is to empower women but the loans are contributing instead to dowry inflation.

The controversies surrounding microcredit remain isolated to a few critics and a few stories. As long as microcredit schemes continue to show positive results in developing countries, the critics will have difficulty winning support from credible mainstream relief and anti-poverty organizations like Oxfam or World Vision International, who could draw more serious activist attention to the issue. Because the practice of microlending involves capitalist goals, however, radical anti-capitalist organizationscould see the controversies as providing opportunities to discuss “alternative systems” to global capitalism. These radical organizations, characterized by the vocal elements of the anti-globalization movement, can raise potent mass demonstrations. Among groups that would lead such movements are Global Exchange in the United States, ASEED Europe and Consumers International and Third World Network in Asia.Among the local groups that are most easily mobilized are MST in Brazil and various “civil society” groups in India (essentially, any organization that is not state-backed).

Global Libraries

The Global Libraries Program faces a variety of potential threats based on freedom of information claims by religious and activist groups and some authoritarian governments. It is difficult to predict these potential threats, however. In general, the main threats to the Global Libraries Program involve the types of books that are on the shelves at these libraries.

Potential threats and locations include:

• In Saudi Arabia, authorities have confiscated bibles and other religious books from tourists.

• In Pakistan, books have been banned that are deemed unflattering of the founder of Islam, the Prophet Mohammed, and that are deemed unflattering to Christianity, such as “The Da Vinci Code.”

• In China, the Communist Party has banned books that are deemed sexually explicit or politically or culturally sensitive, including books about peasant uprisings and books that are pro-Taiwan or pro-Tibet.

• In North America and Europe, book-banning is much less common than it is in Eastern and Middle Eastern countries. Nevertheless, activist groups tend to be much more active in North America and Europe and have succeeded in pulling books about controversial and often religiously charged issues such as abortion off the shelves of local libraries. Other controversial books in the West include how-to books such as “The Anarchist Cookbook.”

The foundation’s Global Libraries Program should be particularly concerned about librariesin the Middle East and China, where the atmosphere is politically charged and freedom-of-information bans are routinely implemented.

Global Health

The Gates Foundation faces a number of potential threats because of its work in the field of public health. These risks are posed primarily by a perceived link between the foundation and clinical trials that utilize animal testing, possible connections with Huntingdon Life Sciences and the foundation’s work with AIDS-related clinical trials.

Clinical Trials and Animal Testing

Using animals in medical testing is an issue that has played out at various levels of activism over the past decade, from the release of educational materials by more moderate groups such as the Humane Societyto the fire-bombing of university researchers’ homes by militant groups. Animal rights activists typically select a corporate target that engages in animal testing and then campaign against the target’s corporate customers and other companies that have relationships with the target. Their objective is to putmarketplace pressure on the target, believing that it is much easier to convince a company that produces a consumer product to end a relationship with a specific meat supplier than it is to get the meat supplier to stop killing animals. The activists typically pick corporate targets that have high brand visibility such as well-known food suppliers or restaurants.

Almost any organization involved in medical research or care has at least an indirectconnection to animal testing. The most violent animal rights groups know this but usually choose targets whose relationship to animal testing is fairly direct -– a contractual relationship with Huntingdon Life Sciences, for instance. Most drug, chemical and cosmetics firms have recently seen a slight decrease in the attention given to them by violent direct-action protesters.