DevPolitics

TED Talk_Mother and daughter doctor-heroes

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mother_and_daughter_doctor_heroes_hawa_abdi_deqo_mohamed.html

Above is an inspiring TED talk of Somali mother and daughter doctors who run a medical clinic in the middle of the civil war. These two brave women made me think once again how single individuals can play important roles for development of their countries. Under the shadow of the continuous unrest in Somalia, Doctor Hawa Abdi and Doctor Deqo Mohamed have 90000 patients and treat 400 people a day. Most of the patients are women and children who are suffering most from the civil war. Their clinic is open to everyone obeying their two basic rules: the patients should not promote political division in Somali society and male patients should not beat their wives. These rules show the desire of the doctors for peace that Somalia misses for years. Their mission is tough as they are trying to make a difference in one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries of the world. They claim that ‘they are the leaders of their community and hope for their future’ but I believe they are more than that. They are not only hope for their community but also hope for the development all over the world.

Economic and Social Rights, or Justice?

At one of the Conflict Series this semester, Graeme Simpson, the Senior Advisor to Director General of Interpeace talked about “Towards a Peacebuilding Continuum: Peace, Development, and Reconciliation.” His fascinating discussion of peacebuilding and reconciliation included one aspect that I found particularly useful for our classroom discussion on “what is development?” In peacebuilding, Simpson explained, there is a strong semantic difference between “social and economic rights” and “social and economic justice.” Simpson argues that the latter needs to be our working language for three reasons. In describing social and economic equalities as a “rights,” it assumes that the people have the ability to make a claim to a legitimate government, when this is not actually the case. Second, it assumes that people have the ability to enforce those claims when the government fails to provide them. Third, the expansion of rights vastly overlooks the social and economic inequalities that prevent the government from providing what they may very well consider rights. Rather, Simpson posits, we create a culture of justice whereby citizens can expect social and economic opportunities and provisions from not only a legitimate government, but also from their fellow citizens. Without a focus on justice, we will fail to deliver these necessary agents of human development. As one of the team members who argued against the human rights approach in the CARE Bangladesh case, I thought this was an interesting argument that was not in our readings. But it did make me think about how a little word, rights or justice, can have such an impact on the approach aid agencies take.

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What can be done to stop Land Grabs In Africa ?

In many African countries land is sold or leased to foreign interests often with little protection for the people occupying the land ( see “Hunger and food security: Is Africa selling the farm?” http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18118 ).
Those people who lose their land are the least powerful people in their country. Land Grabs are fueled by the movement to bio fuels and countries that such as Saudi Arabia that do face issues of producing sufficient food for their own societies.
Those who lose rights to use the land are the least powerful in their country and because the system of land tenure it is not clear what legal rights they could exercise.
"As much as 90 percent of Africa is under customary tenure, which means it's held by the state on behalf of the community, who are then given the customary right to the land," says Ruth Meinzen-Dick, a land-rights ¬specialist at the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, the one responsible for India's green revolution in the 1960s.”
(Scott Baldauf, “Hunger and food security: Is Africa selling the farm?” , The Christian Science Monitor, February 6th 2011)

What can be done? Is there anything that can be done in the international legal regime to stop this process such as the Kimberly process for diamonds? Is there a way to empower local communities to exercise their rights and demand for the political leadership to allow foreign land purchases when they do not impose costs on the people?

Your best friend calls you and tells you he/she's really sick? How do you show you care?

What can be done to stop Land Grabs In Africa ?

In many African countries land is sold or leased to foreign interests often with little protection for the people occupying the land ( see “Hunger and food security: Is Africa selling the farm?” http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18118 ).
Those people who lose their land are the least powerful people in their country. Land Grabs are fueled by the movement to bio fuels and countries that such as Saudi Arabia that do face issues of producing sufficient food for their own societies.
Those who lose rights to use the land are the least powerful in their country and because the system of land tenure it is not clear what legal rights they could exercise.
"As much as 90 percent of Africa is under customary tenure, which means it's held by the state on behalf of the community, who are then given the customary right to the land," says Ruth Meinzen-Dick, a land-rights ¬specialist at the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, the one responsible for India's green revolution in the 1960s.”
(Scott Baldauf, “Hunger and food security: Is Africa selling the farm?” , The Christian Science Monitor, February 6th 2011)
What can be done? Is there anything that can be done in the international legal regime to stop this process such as the Kimberly process for diamonds? Is there a way to empower local communities to exercise their rights and demand for the political leadership to allow foreign land purchases when they do not impose costs on the people?

TypePad Conversations » Answer this question!

Politics of Poverty: Ideas and analysis from Oxfam America's policy experts | Oxfam America Blogs » Blog Archive » Aid reform – the path ahead

Politics of Poverty: Ideas and analysis from Oxfam America's policy experts | Oxfam America Blogs » Blog Archive » Aid reform – the path ahead.

Aid reform – the path ahead

The task of ending global poverty is up to poor people themselves. But by making some changes, the United States government can do a better job of helping poor people and their governments win the fight.

April 28th, 2011 | by Gregory Adams

The United States government has made real progress in the last few years to make its efforts to fight global poverty more effective. President Obama’s new Global Development Policy, released in September, is the centerpiece of these efforts. The new policy—and implementing reforms at USAID—have been rightly celebrated. But much more remains to be done to make the US a true global leader in the fight against poverty.

Today, the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network—of which Oxfam is a founding member—released its updated agenda for reform. The highlights:

• Reduce waste by fixing old problems: for example, the US government’s outdated model of delivering food aid wastes about $600 million per year;

• Provide clear, accurate data: USAID’s Aid Dashboard (screen shot below) is a great first step—but it needs to be expanded to include more data that will actually help citizens in poor countries demand better results, such as strategy papers and evaluation data;

• Get Congress on board with reform: so far, reform measures have not been put in law, meaning that they could be easily changed or gutted. Congress has been eager for reform; the President needs to get their buy-in to protect reform;

• Be clear that diplomacy and development are different: good diplomacy and good development are not always the same thing. Acting strategically means making hard choices, so development professionals need to have the same voice and vote as diplomats when setting priorities;

• Make sure poor people’s needs come first: we can’t end poverty by making all the decisions in Washington; priorities need to be set by poor people themselves. This means getting rid of earmarks that undermine country priorities, and funding the things that citizens and governments tell us they need, rather than the things that we Americans think they need;

A nurse supplies a female patient with a prescription at Kibuga health center in Kibuga, Rwanda. Photo by Kate Hold/Oxfam

• Keep rebuilding USAID: Administrator Raj Shah has been making great strides to rebuild USAID to serve America well by fighting poverty; Congress needs to back him up with the resources to finish the job.

Taking these steps won’t end global poverty; that task is up to poor people themselves. But by making these changes, the United States can do a better job of helping poor people and their governments win the fight against poverty.

On Ai Weiwei’s “Beautiful life”

On Ai Weiwei’s “Beautiful life”

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jnaYl199o

The missing Chinese artist and human right activist Ai Weiwei made this documentary “beautiful life” about another human right activist—Feng Zhenghu, who has publicly denounced Chinese government’s wrongdoing in 1989 and was since denied to entering China –his home country – for 8 times. And at the 8th time, when he was forced (in his own words, kidnapped) to go back to Japan, he decided to fight. And so he stayed in Narita airport for 80 days, refusing to go into Japan custom and demand going back to China and finally suceeded. Ai documented the whole event and made the “beautiful life”.

What really interests me about this video is not the “fighting government” part, but rather how calm and reasonable Feng was in the whole event. His demand was simple: as a Chinese citizen, he has every right to go back to China. And his demand was also down to earth: government should be willing to communicate with the people rather than still in a mindset of “govern” the people.

Compared with many other activists calling for “democracy” “freedom of speech”, I find his approach more pragmatic and feasible. And I believe the ultimate change Chinese people want to see can only be achieved with accumulation of many smaller changes (I don’t want to see another bloodshed revolution that would reduce the country back 30 years). Therefore maybe instead of shouting for those sensitive words that has little effect and easily get themselves into trouble with the Chinese CIA agents, the activists should adopt a more pragmatic approach, target on a more substantive topic, like homeless people protection, migrant workers’ kids education, etc. and use their talents and energy on these real things to make small changes, and the final big change everyone anticipate would come. After all, as the last dictator of Taiwan Mr. Jiang Jingguo said, “There’s no party that can rule forever.”

 

 

 

Microfinance after Yunus: Jonathan Morduch

Last week Prof. Morduch shared his thoughts about the future of microfinance in the wake of the dismissal of Muhammad Yunus from the Grameen Bank.    Echoing the feelings of many,  he expressed his remorse for the manner in which Yunus was fired from his position and the political undertones of the whole process.  However, he went on to describe the ways in which Grameen Bank fell short of achieving excellence.

Prof. Morduch explained that Yunus' legacy rests in the fact that he created this new system geared to the most disadvantaged to seize much needed opportunities.  Yunus also succeeded in creating reliable institutions and trustworthy relationships in regions where structure was absent.  But Yunus focused too much on "anyone" being able to establish credible microfinance operations.  In his speeches, he commented on the simplicity of microcredit when he should have focused on HOW he created this institution that made the Grameen Bank so successful.  

In addition, Prof. Morduch commented on Yunus' disdain for the potentional profitability of microfinance.  With this mentality, he kept out potential investors and created a skewed incentive system.   Yes, Prof. Morduch agrees the Grameen Bank accomplished many great things, but many of the success stories are "hand picked" and more advanced research on the loan data must be conducted in order to give an accurate portrayal of the bank's success.   

With better research and expansive investor network, microfinance can extend to greater numbers of people in need.   Using the institutional achievements of Yunus, coupled with new advancements in resources, microfinance can go from something big to something huge. 

Two ways of overcoming government failure | End Poverty

Two ways of overcoming government failure | End Poverty.

That is why you often hear that a particular policy will not be implemented because there is no “political will.”  Seemingly anti-poor policies and outcomes—untargeted and costly fertilizer vouchers in Tanzania, 99 percent leakage of public health funds in Chad, 20 percent teacher absenteeism in Uganda, 25 percent unemployment in South Africa—persist.  Yet these are countries where the median voter is poor.  A majority doesn’t vote in favor of policies that will benefit the majority.  Why?

The explanation lies in the large number of “political market failures” in these democracies—situations where for various reasons, such as ethnicity or lack of information, people vote along lines that are different from outcomes such as health, education, agricultural productivity or jobs.  Knowing these voting patterns, or indeed feeding them, politicians campaign on other issues (or on platforms that perpetuate these policies)—and get elected. 

What can be done in these situations?  One is to take these political market failures as a constraint and work around them.  For instance, South Africa is piloting wage subsidies to young people as a way of stimulating employment without violating labor regulations or union-negotiated wages. 

These are examples of what Jim Robinson calls “politician-proof public policy.”  They don’t always work.  An attempt to reduce health-worker absenteeism in India by introducing time-date stamp machines to record attendance failed when, the night before the program was to start, all the machines were vandalized.

An alternative is to address the sources of political market failure directly, through non-partisan interventions.  For instance, if the problem is that voters are poorly informed—they don’t know that political inaction or corruption affect their daily lives—why not help them become better informed?  Why not publish data, in accessible form, about the health and education outcomes of each politician’s constituency, and how the government is performing in improving these? 

This approach may not lead to the precise, desirable policy reform, but it will improve the system so that poor people are more likely to vote for a politician who advocates policies that are in their interest.

Universal Moral Sense: a move towards the supranational state?

A few weeks ago I attended a lecture sponsored by the newly created NYU Dialogue on the Global Civil Society. The initiative focuses on the extent to which “a universal moral sense, capable of underpinning a global society, is either evolving or can be created”. Given the evolution of NYU as a Global Network University with portal campuses in Abu Dhabi and now Shanghai, I wondered; if we are really beginning to detach from nation-states boundaries and truly embracing the idea of a supranational state, how are we going to square our differences and come to terms on common moral sense?

The lecture featured The Right Honourable Gordon Brown, NYU’s Inaugural Distinguished Global Leader in Residence and former Prime Minister of the UK who introduced Amartya Sen as the key lecturer. Mr. Brown provided introductory remarks focused on his recent book Beyond the Crash; Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization. His remarks pointed to the interconnectivity of global problems and the need for countries to come together and develop joint solutions to common global issues. Mr. Brown introduced Amartya Sen, who discussed his views on “Adam Smith, Globalization and the Universal Moral Sense” and the implications of The Wealth of Nations on this larger conversation about global ethical standards.

The lecture had the potential to offer provocative insights into the meaning and nature of morality in the context of a global civil society. However, in my opinion, the lecture offered some links into the relationship between economic and moral forces, but mainly centered on a complex academic interpretation of The Wealth of Nations that was difficult for me to follow. My main takeaway from this event is related to Sen’s response to an audience member’s question of how to reconcile our personal sense of morality with the actual decisions we are required to make as part of our jobs. His response was that we need to stay true to our morality and question those decisions we think we need to make. I think that if we now recognize the importance of a moral underpinning to our role in global civil society, we then need to shift the dialogue towards the tangible such as the identification and application of global moral elements to our daily roles and their contribution to global problems and/or solutions.

Event: IPSA Conference

On April 8th I attended IPSA’s Trade Up: Strategies for Pro-Poor Economic Development conference. I went to the Growing Inclusive Markets session and was really impressed with the presentation by Joshua Levin of the World Wildlife Fund. He talked about sustainable agriculture business development and sustainable food markets. He emphasized that there is not enough time to stick with traditional approaches to saving the environment and improving food security. The World Wildlife Fund has identified 15 commodity priorities that include palm oil, sugar, cotton and aquaculture and tries to work with targeted companies that control these markets to improve agricultural commodities production. At first I was surprised to hear that the companies were cooperating with the WWF because I assumed they wouldn’t really care about sustainable agriculture. However, Mr. Levin pointed out that these companies are very concerned with having inputs in the long term. They now need to incorporate sustainable agriculture when they are thinking about the bottom line. Currently, the WWF is working with companies to inform them how they can produce more with less; holding roundtables on sustainable supply chains that use less supplies and water; and working with banks to help them understand environmental risk of commodities as well as how to invest in assets.

IPSA did a great job and I can’t wait for next year’s conference!