Obama's Look Inward to a Zero-Sum World

R.A. analyzes President Obama's State of the Union speech in the Economist. This section is worth pointing out:

Americans are motivated by competition and patriotism, and if that's the only way to rally the country behind fundamentally sound policies like subsidies for basic research, then that's the card you play. And, in practice, Mr Obama's reforms will probably not do much more than offset the crummy, mercantilist choices made by other governments elsewhere. No one is talking about going back to the early 19th century, or to the days of communist containment.

I don't see that that's an acceptable excuse. People who live outside of America are people just like Americans, and we should all rejoice in their rising prosperity, the more so when it occurs through additions to the stock of human knowledge that will benefit people everywhere. If an American president can't communicate that simple idea to his citizenry, out of fear that he'll be drummed out of office on a wave of nationalistic outrage, then he doesn't deserve to be president and his country doesn't deserve to win a damned thing, least of all the right to call itself "exceptional", a beacon of hope and freedom. A zero-sum world is a world without hope, and if Mr Obama is convinced that's what we're in then I don't see much need for him to stick around.

It is no mistake that the SOTU neglected to address foreign aid in any meaningful way. Being that it is only 1% of the budget makes it a marginal issue from a financial perspective. However, given the tone of the address, it is not a part of US economic interests. This contradicts when Obama told the UN General Assembly in September, "we will work with emerging economies that have rebounded strongly, so that rising standards of living create new markets that promote global growth. That is what our commitment to prosperity demands."


If asked explicitly, there is no doubt that Obama would say the same thing again, but when facing the national spotlight in a broadcast speech to Americans he focused on domestic needs first. My concern is less the words of the President as much as it is the audience. Speaking to the American people, Obama believed that they want to hear about new jobs programs that will restore the manufacturing sector and compete with countries like China.


In essence, Obama is calling for the space race 2.0. The US is less attractive to manufacturers because the field is not level, he argued. In arguing that point, Obama plays into the fallacy that hard work alone will make the difference between success and failure. If the US and China were to be on equal footing it wouldn't even be a match in his eyes.


Somehow the argument ignores the ways that the US has stacked the deck in its own favor. One example is farm subsidies that maintain the present level of US agriculture. There is little movement to remove the subsidies so farmers in Mexico and Kenya can stand on even ground with US farming giants.


By looking further inward, the United States continues to ignore the impact its actions have on the other 6.7 billion people who share this planet. Taking such a stance throws support to a pervasive world view among Americans that we live in a zero-sum world.  In doing so, an opportunity to look at ways to raise the level of living for people, no matter their nationality, is lost.

The Future of Foreign Aid Money

Reuters is stepping up to provide more comprehensive coverage of humanitarian aid. Recently, they launched the 'Future of Aid' section that is filled with graphics, stories and videos about humanitarian aid. The present focus of the section is centered around aid spending.

In a survey of 41 relief agencies, Reuters asked aid experts to weigh in on how money is spent and advise what ways the humanitarian sector can be improved. Based on the feedback, Reuters came up with a list of ten ways that aid agencies can stay ahead.

1) Be better prepared for an increase in climate-related disasters
2) Devise new ways of operating in urban areas like city slums
3) Work more closely with local people to avert disasters and reduce their impact
4) Lobby governments to invest more in reducing the risk of disasters
5) Spread the word about why humanitarian aid must be provided impartially
6) Be more transparent about how aid is delivered, as well as its successes and failures
7) Train aid workers to be better leaders and learn from their mistakes
8) Cut red tape at the U.N. and improve coordination between U.N. agencies and NGOs
9) Operate more like a business, with a clear focus on results
10) Look for new sources of funding, including the private sector

When asked which factors are most likely to increase humanitarian need in the coming years, the respondents overwhelmingly pointed to climate-change related disasters. "The rising trend in the number of disasters over the past five years shows no sign of slowing down," said Gareth Owen, humanitarian director at Save the Children UK. "Year on year, we are responding more frequently and on a larger scale to increasing numbers of disasters."

The agencies surveyed seem slightly optimistic, but largely think that many things will be the same in the coming years when asked about changes in funding and the role of the UN.  Advocating for disaster preparedness is not a new call from NGOs.  Evidence overwhelming points to it being more cost effective and the best way to mitigate large scale disaster.

The Horn of Africa is a prime example where Kenya and Ethiopia, who were focusing on drought preparedness in arid regions, were able to better handle the drought that southern Somalia.  The problem is getting donors behind the idea. "Funding for disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness is not very 'sexy' for donors -- global, domestic and private," said Jouni Hemberg, director of international cooperation for FinnChurchAid.

In 2010, governments gave $12.4 billion in humanitarian aid, almost three times as much as private contributions, which amounted to $4.3 billion, according to estimates from Global Humanitarian Assistance, a British-based aid monitoring group.

But 22 agencies forecast a drop in government funding for humanitarian aid over the next five years.

One casualty of the recent economic downturn has been the Global Fund. It came under fire after an internal audit found rampant graft among recipients. As a result, countries pulled funds and the Fund announced that it would not offer new grants in the coming year. The good news is that Gates announced he will inject $750 million to help keep the fund afloat.

Although the scandal contributed to the loss of funding, it also provided an out for donor countries with cash-strapped economies. Foreign aid is one of the first cuts suggested when money is tight and there are plenty of calls across the G20 to make those cuts a reality. In the United States, a budget proposed by the House Republicans included a complete cut of USAID.

As seen in the video below, the status quo is ill equipped to adequately address disaster relief. The cause is not due to lack of ability; the relief sector is excellent given the many constraints under which it operates.  Providing disaster relief is hard and complex. IFRC's Matthias Schmale, suggests that humanitarian organizations "Provide more credible leadership through less marketing and spinning, and ensure actions match words."

The survey respondents, seemed to agree with Matthias with calls for greater transparency. What individual and large donors can do is hold NGOs accountable. Additionally, large donors can cut down the burden of red tape and individuals can make donations that are not earmarked so that agencies can properly respond to the disasters that are not splashed across the front page of the New York Times.

Mapping Twitter Trends in Africa

A survey of twitter use across Africa by Portland Communications finds that the majority of tweets come from South Africa, well ahead of the next three in Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt.  Here are some interesting facts from the survey:

• 57% of Tweets from Africa are sent from mobile devices.

• 60% of Africa’s most active Tweeters are aged 20-29.

• Twitter in Africa is widely used for social conversation, with 81% of those polled saying that they mainly used it for communicating with friends.

• Twitter is becoming an important source of information in Africa. 68% of those polled said that they use Twitter to monitor news. 22% use it to search for employment opportunities.

• African Twitter users are active across a range of social media, including Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Looking at the numbers, I can't say anything really stands out. I makes sense that most tweets are coming from mobile devices and the majority of users are young people looking to connect with their friends and read news.

What I would like to know is diversity of follower base. For example, how many people does the average user in Africa follow and what is the average range, in distance, of followers. We may find that it is still a rather local endeavor given that many tweeters are using it for social reasons. However, we could find that connections are expanding to bring in more continental and global connections.

Finally, I want to know more about North-South and South-North twitter trends. I am personally trying to do more to ensure that I find and follow as many people in the Global South as I can that are engaged in aid and development discussions.  Unfortunately, I have not found as many people as I would like.

Anyone else have reactions or new questions based on the study?

Who Are the Top NGOs in the World?

Update 1PM 1/25/12 at bottom of post.

According to the Global Journal, the top 10 NGOs in the world are:

1. Wikimedia Foundation
2. Partners In Health
3. Oxfam (GB)
4. BRAC
5. International Rescue Committee
6. PATH
7. CARE International
8. Médecins Sans Frontières
9.  Danish Refugee Council
10.  Ushahidi

The first 9 are not terribly surprising, but Ushahidi sticks out like a sore thumb.  Not because it may or may not deserve the #10 ranking, rather it is the new kid on the block.  Wikipedia is also a young NGO compared to the rest, but its ubiquity and use is so wide that it feels a bit like an old hat.

Ushahidi, on the other hand, was born as the result of the Kenyan post-election violence in late 2007 and early 2008.  It is the toddler among a group of adults. It is also the most polarizing of the group. There are the supporters who say that crowdsourcing information can bring about more transparency by putting power in the hands of the citizens.

Critics argue that one size does not fit all and the context for gathering data varies greatly from country to country.  Even when the service is used, it is a question of what can actually be done in response.  Finally, the down side to crowd sourced information is that you are trusting that people will provide factual accounts.

It appears that the Global Journal was persuaded by what Ushahidi could do in the future.

The organization is quick to point out, however, that Ushahidi’s products hold far more promise. As Executive Director Juliana Rotich explains, some of the uses will be humanitarian, but the software has already been utilised in unforeseen ways: “I think that is telling; we are a platform company, we make technology that can be used and customized in different ways, and this affords people a lot of creativity”. Ultimately, the possibilities for combining social activism, public accountability and geo-spatial information are limited only by the imagination of the organizations and groups seeking to drive change. It is for this reason that Ushahidi has had such a pervasive impact in such a short period of time, and why it has opened eyes to the potential for other fruitful marriages of new technologies with longstanding NGO priorities.

I would have not included Ushahidi in the top 10 if I was making the list, but they would not be too far off.  Potential is important, but it should be tempered with a little patience.  Kwame Brown was supposed to be the next great NBA superstar and he is now the poster-child for how everything can go wrong when a player has an unlimited upside and little discipline.

All in all, the list is a who's-who of the international NGO world. I am glad to see that Water for People received some well deserved recognition by being ranked #17. The water sector has become one of the sexier development areas thanks to the rise of celebrity driven NGOs like Charity:Water and Water.org, but there are organizations that have been at it for a while and do it right. Water for People is one of those NGOs.

Noticeably absent from the list are World Vision.  The global giant of an NGO has one of the largest (maybe the largest?) budgets in the world and for some reason was not included on the list. I cannot find any explanation as to why WV was not included in the top 100 and I frankly cannot venture a guess.

Yes, there is good reason to criticize the organization for its sponsorship programs and Super Bowl t shirt give away, but there is no doubt that World Vision does a lot of good in the world.  Certainly it is deserving to be listed among the top 100 NGOs. There is not a single one in the bunch that is without its flaws.

(Update: Tom Paulson points out that the Gates Foundation is also missing from the list in his post yesterday. That too is a gap, but it may have been relegated due to being a largely grant-giving NGO.)

The editors do deserve some credit. The overall list is quite good. It does not make the mistake of filling space with celebrity-driven NGOs. Not that they are bad, rather they are the ones that garner a lot of attention without any consideration for their program design or impact.

My suggestion to them for the next list would be to devise an open scoring system and share how each NGO was rated with a correlating score.  This may help explain how the rankings are determined and why ONE, Charity:Water, the Enough Project and World Vision did not make the list.

Who else do you think is missing from the list or should not have been included? Check out the rest of the rankings below and add your thoughts in the comments section.

Update: Global Journal responds to Tom Paulson's post where he raises similar questions.  They tell him that Gates did not fit the criteria of an NGO (fair enough) and World Vision was considered, but did not make the cut (also fair).  He is then pointed towards the website that will publish the methodology.  I went there and found this letter from the editor that was supposed to answer the question of how the decision was made.  To save you the trouble, the letter only gives the way the Global Journal decided to define what qualifies as an NGO.  How exactly the list was determined and how it was to be weighted is not shared.

The Unifying Force that is Football

Members of Ghana's Black Stars singing the night before their opening match with Botswana at the African Cup of Nations 2012.

HT Bonnie Koneig

Feeling Conflicted

By John Bowman

On October 4, 2011 the Duke Chronicle published an article addressed to Coach K, otherwise known as Mike Krzyzewski, Duke’s men’s basketball coach and the university’s best claim to fame. The article, penned by two well-respected Duke students, vented frustration over the university’s refusal to let the Enough Project advocate and Entourage star Emmanuelle Chriqui judge a dunk contest in Cameron indoor stadium as part of “Countdown to Craziness,” the first Duke basketball event of the year. 

Chriqui’s appearance was to be the highlight of an event to showcase the efforts of Duke students to implement the Enough Project’s Conflict-Free Campus Initiative. The initiative seeks to scale down the investments of universities in companies with ties to “conflict minerals,” minerals mined in the Congo that are valued for their use in electronic devices, so named because of claims that they are fueling the current violence in the Congo. 

The article’s primary frustration is that the decision to exclude Chriqui seemed financially motivated. Many of Duke’s donors are being targeted by the Enough Project for using Conflict Minerals in their products, donors who might balk were Duke to feature an organization that all but accuses them of funding mass murder so publicly.

The article was hugely popular. Hundreds of students posted the article to their Facebook pages and hundred more “liked” it or commented to show their support. I followed suit, outraged at the apparent injustice and underhandedness of Duke’s actions. After all, the issue seemed so simple: because I think the murder and rape of civilian women is intolerable and because electronics manufacturers finance the rape and murder of women in the Congo, I should use my purchasing power to support products that don’t fund the violence in the Congo in order to starve those carrying out the murders of funds. 

It seemed like a simple solution to a pressing moral problem. In fact, the article piqued my interest so much that I decided to pursue a research project in one of my classes on the conflict minerals and their role in the Congolese conflict. But my project proved difficult. Few sources on the conflict in the Congo mentioned conflict minerals and those that did downplayed their role in the conflict. Instead, a confluence of political and ethnic factors dominated the books and articles that I read. 

So what began as an inquiry into the role of conflict minerals the Congolese conflict became an exploration of their role in American discourse on the Congo. I wondered why talk of conflict minerals dominated the discussion if the minerals themselves did not dominate the conflict. If political ambitions and ethnic tensions played an equally large role in the Congolese conflict, why were they not included in its videos and advertisements? The answers I found were frustrating and disappointing.

The Enough Project succeeds in garnering such widespread support because the strife in the Congo is unequivocally branded morally intolerable and unjust, as opposed to other international conflicts, in which Americans can identify political motivations and implications. 

Conceptions of peace in politically sensitive regions like the Middle East run a broad gamut. For example, some view peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the creation of a Palestinian state while others see it as the complete eradication of Palestine. Any organization lobbying for peace in Israel-Palestine would face questions about its political agenda, and yet the media ignores the limits of Enough Project’s advocacy for peace in the Congo, instead lauding it as courageously humanitarian. 

Even the name of the Raise Hope for Congo campaign glosses over the Enough Project’s specific objectives in the Congo; the Enough Project’s zeal to meaningfully “raise hope for Congo” substitutes a generic and nebulous desire to alter the status quo for a concrete goal and a clear means to achieve that goal.

By painting the DRC as a pit of senseless violence, sadistic rape and human rights abuse, the Enough Project strips the Congo of political viability. The Enough Project thus distills the Congolese conflict so as to cast it purely from the perspective of human rights and humanitarianism. Such a characterization of the conflict casts the Enough Project’s cause as sacrosanct—few Americans would not wish to save helpless women and children from rape and death.

The implications of the Enough Project’s oversimplified characterization of the conflict are far-reaching and potentially devastating. The Enough Project seems all too willing to ignore by failing to acknowledge the political and ethnic intricacies of the conflict in its promotional material (Mamdani 2009). One example of such a misunderstanding of appropriate policy mechanisms is the Enough Project’s recent backing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act, which was created to increase the accountability of electronics companies so as to discourage them from obtaining minerals tainted by the Congolese conflict. 

Because the Enough Project “succeeded in framing the debate as a contest between [itself] and greedy corporate interests,” it marginalized the economic needs of the Congolese civilians that it purported to be defending (Aronsen 2011).The bill’s passage resulted in a steep drawdown in the presence of American electronics companies in Congo and an equally steep decline in the livelihoods of local miners uninvolved in the conflict who were stripped of a reliable source of income.

I do not intend to cast aspersions on the Enough Project’s aims or motivations. Much of the Enough Project’s work brings valuable American attention to an issue that might otherwise remain ignored. Despite the fact that some experts have dubbed it the deadliest conflict since World War II, the conflict in the Congo has remained largely untouched by the mainstream media. Though awareness does not constitute meaningful change, it certainly begins to muster the political will necessary for systemic reform. The Enough Project itself recognizes that “there’s no magic-bullet solution to peace in Congo,” as noted by Enough Project associate David Sullivan, but it continues to vaunt itself as the broker of such a remedy (Sullivan in Kristof 2011). 

The Enough Project not only draws American attention to the Congo with its promotional materials, but also attempts to educate consumers about conflict minerals, providing them with a spurious sense of information. While these materials are not entirely inaccurate, theirs is a characterization of the conflict fraught with an imprecision that denies Africa substance and complexity. The videos convey an American ascendency over Africa, characterizing conflicts in Africa simplistic and caused by American consumerism, while simultaneously imploring Americans to sacrifice a small piece of their First World privileges to help the innocent victims of the Congo. 

Though this portrayal does not necessarily paint Africa as inferior, it nevertheless fuels an American sense of entitlement and fosters a modern-day “white man’s burden” that it expects American consumers to shoulder. This moralizing and guilt mongering doubtlessly proves valuable for both consciousness-raising and fund-raising, for what it lacks in exactitude, it compensates for with an ability to rouse the viewer to action while failing to relate a comprehensive understanding of the conflict.

In order for a comprehensive solution that truly alleviates the violence in the Congo to be designed and implemented, meaningful discourse is necessary, discourse that the panacea-peddling of the Enough Project precludes. In order to truly raise hope, and not merely hype, the Enough Project should acknowledge the complexity of the Congolese conflict to allow for broader and more meaningful dialogue on how to understand the Congolese conflict and how to prevent it from claiming more lives.

Works Cited
Aronson, David. 2011. “How Congress devastated Congo,” The New York Times, August 7. http://www.nytimes.com/.
Kristof, Nicholas. 2010. “Death by Gadget,” The New York Times, June 26. http://www.nytimes.com/.
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2009. Saviors and Survivors. New York: Pantheon Books.

Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, John Bowman is a Robertson Scholar at Duke University. Yet to declare a major, John hopes to chart a course of study that will allow him to explore the ethics, economics and environmental considerations of international development. He is particularly interested in how sustainable development in the Global South can address both humanitarian and environmental needs. You can contact John directly at jtb27@duke.edu.

The Unsustainability of Sustainable's Usage

XKCD nails it with this cartoon. Adding the word development after 'sustainable' makes the cartoon all too perfect.

Weekend Tunes: Dog is Dead

Oh hey there weekend tunes. It has been awhile.

I am getting back into the swing of things and that means that more of the fun stuff like this finds its way into the rotation.

Happy Friday and enjoy the upbeat 'Glockenspiel Song' from Dog is Dead.

Bonus to anyone who knows why I know about this song.

Book Review: Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid

Countries in the Global South, like India and Ghana, are still seen by many as charity recipients.  It is due to the fact that ‘developing’ countries like them receive a sizeable amount of aid from international donors.  This long held view is beginning to shift in as nations move to middle income status and people understand that innovation and growth are possible at all levels.

What has followed has been a decade of growing investment in what has been termed the “base of the pyramid.”  The BoP represents the estimated 1 billion people who live on $1.50 or less a day.  Although incomes are extremely low, there is an untapped market in this group that will only grow as incomes and livelihoods grow.  Corporations and individuals realized that by playing a part in the growth of the BoP, they can not only improve the lives of 1 billion people but tap into a giant market of consumers.

In Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid researchers Ted London and Stuart Hart have complied a set of lessons learned and ideas from leading researchers and practitioners.  Each chapter focuses on how to access and work with people living in the BoP.  “[T]he debate is not anymore about how many are really poor; it is about how to bring the benefits of gold standards at affordable prices and increase access,” write the authors in their introduction.

The book grew out of the 2009 Creating and Shared Roadmap: Collaboratively Advancing the Base of the Pyramid Community conference attended by roughly 100 people ranging academics and NGO workers to entrepreneurs and corporate executives.  Through this collaboration, the 8 authors gained insight into how to make their chapters as instructive as possible to actors looking to participate in the BoP space.

From the development perspective, the book’s strength lies in its discussions of lessons learned and consistent message of patient development.  Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen Fund, is emblematic of this arch by describing her idea of ‘patient capital’ in her chapter co-authored by Robert Kennedy, William Davidson Institute & Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.

“A patient capital investor may need to be willing to tie up money for ten years or longer,” say Novogratz and Kennedy.  They argue that change will be a slow process that needs consistent investment to allow change to emerge.  An important lesson BoP investors, whether it may be an individual, an NGO, a corporation or USAID, should take to heart.

Nogogratz and Kennedy provide the most tempered section on the book in terms of the need to balance monetary profit with social gains.  They say outright that patient capital organizations must be willing to forgo maximized profits for higher social impact.

Patient innovation is an equally important aspect in ensuring that the needs of the BoP align with investors’ goals.   The Chotukool mini-refrigerator exemplifies this need for patient innovation as described in Patrick Whitney, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, explains in his chapter on reframing design for the BoP.

Indian manufacturer Godrej and Boyce set out to make a cheap ($50-$100) cooling unit where people could store or even freeze food.  Rather than design the unit first and ask questions later, the team from G&B went directly to the people they hoped to buy the final product. 

What they learned was that there was no need for freezing food, the unit did not have to get all that cool to extend the life of food, and it had to be mobile for when items in the house are moved around or the family moves into a new home.  The final product met all of the needs learned by the G&B team and came in a price point, Rs 3500 that was within the desired range and half of the price of the cheapest available refrigerator.

The book is weaker at points when it focuses too closely on markets and comes off as a ‘how to get rich off the poor’ guide.  Those moments are few and far between doing little to detract from the book’s overall strength.  I do recommend it as a whole.  The chapters I highlighted are the ones that I found to be most relevant to international aid and development, but are not the only sections worth a read.

 “We should not promote BoP venture development – or indeed, any poverty-alleviation approach – if we do not also have the ability to assess and enhance its on-the-ground impacts. By building impact assessments and community engagement into the business model from the start, BoP ventures may succeed in providing value for all stakeholders simultaneously, rather than elevating one over the other,” say London and Hart in the concluding chapter. The lessons shared are simple.  In order to reach and support the poor, we must first begin to work with those living in the BoP.  When it is done right, innovations, like the Chotukool, can develop into successful offerings for the business and the consumer.

Disclosure: I was provided a review copy by the authors of the book. They requested that I write a fair and honest review.  The thoughts here are entirely my own.

How to Pitch a Softball to Sachs

JM Jeff, you are outspoken about results-based aid – but people often take the opportunity to have a pop. Does that ever get to you?  

JS I think there are two things that are completely different. One is the words, and there's a lot of words flying around. And then there is the fact of malaria down 40% over a decade. Believe me, the only thing that matters is the second one. 

There's a lot of verbiage around this issue – a lot of it by critics who don't seem to ever leave their offices, don't know what's happening in the field, don't really see it. 

...and on to Bono with the next question.

Read the full interview on the Guardian Development site.

HT Bill Easterly