education

13 October 2017

Posted on October 13, 2017 Leave a Comment

The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor 2017 is launched during the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank where the broader economic mood is positive with messages welcoming a global economic recovery. It is labelled “Tackling inequalities”. It shows that since the late 1980ies global inequality has declined while inequalities within countries have increased for half countries in the world. It unpacks 3 policy debates — progressive taxation, universal basic income (UBI) and public spending in health and education — without making explicit recommendations to policy makers. As UBI remains a hotly debated topic (that Horizons has summarized for you) and as the conversation around our house is growing on universal child grant, the report is worth browsing through.

In “The Red Cross presses Silicon Valley to fight cyberwarfare”, FastCompany interviews ICRC President Peter Maurer who met big techs to discuss responsibility and possible game changing role in humanitarian contexts. Arguing that governments with cyberwarfare capacities are not interested in regulation, he points to areas of convergence between the private sector and humanitarian organizations and suggests that collaborating with big techs could be a way to shape necessary norms and standards. Watch that space.

My graph this week is from Alvaredo and al “Measuring Inequality in the Middle East, 1990-2016: The World’s Most Unequal Region?” It combines household surveys, income tax data, wealth rankings and national accounts to estimate income concentration for 1990-2016 in Middle East countries. It then compares results with other parts of the world to show that the top income share in the Middle East is higher than in Western Europe, USA, Brazil and South Africa.

One week after unveiling the “Human capital project” aiming to create a human capital index for each country with the help of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (yes, same crowd who worked on the Gates Foundation SDG report), World Bank Group Jim Kim announces: “Soon, we’ll publish The Changing Wealth of Nations, and for the first time, we’re looking at human capital as part of the overall wealth of nations. It turns out that more than 65 percent of the wealth of all nations in the world is in human capital.”

6 October

Posted on October 6, 2017 Leave a Comment

Antonio Garcia Martinez’ “Chaos monkeys” is a deep dive into the Silicon Valley ecosystem illustrated with the up and downs of Martinez’ career from the Goldman Sachs credit derivatives desk to the Facebook ads team. His writing style is casual and witty but also show-offy and sexist. If one manages to rise above that, the second half of the book gives an illuminating unpacking of the digital advertising mechanics, and is worth reading. Rarely can one find straightforward and comprehensive information about this exploding sector which increasingly shapes economies and societies. And Martinez does that with brio. Here is a digest of a couple of chapters I’ll share with my kids (while they remind me again that “Facebook is for old people”): Facebook makes money through (people clicking on) ads; Facebook does not sell users data to ad companies, it triages and packages users data for better ad targeting; Targeting was initially done by classifying users’ “likes” and allowing ad companies to plug targeted ad in their feeds; The big revolution in targeting was about bridging online with offline users data (what you do on Facebook with what you buy online and offline with the same credit card); The bridging is done by connecting real world IDs (eg home address) with digital (mobile, tablet, desktop) IDs; “What is generating tens of billions of dollars in investments and endless scheming inside the bowels of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple is the puzzle of how to tie these different sets of [IDs] together, and who controls the links.”; This allows these companies to have full pictures of behaviors; “The match rate (ie the percentage of offline personas that can be found online) for Facebook’s Customs Audience product is as high as 90%”. Martinez says that this information (and more) is shared publicly by Facebook but agrees that it is not easily understandable. And he adds that too many people don’t care, even though they should. Oh, and I should also probably add this other quote: “Facebook has run out of humans on the internet. The company can solve this by either making more humans (hard even for Facebook), or connecting what humans there are left on the planet. This is why Internet.org exists, a vaguely public-spirited, and somewhat controversial, campaign by Facebook to wire [the developing world] with free Internet.” I’ll stop here.

The International Financial Corporation’s “Tackling childcare: The business case for employer-supported childcare” investigates the business impacts of employer-provided childcare. It complements a literature review with an in-depth analysis (~100 interviews and 40 focused group discussions) of 10 companies in different countries. It shows benefits for recruitment, retention and productivity. On-site child care helped the Village Nut Company (Kenya) attract young talent and prevent urban migration; cut staff turnover at Nalt Entreprise (Vietnam) by a third; and led to a 9% drop in sick leave absence in MAS Kreeda Al Safi-Madaba (Jordan). The evidence is here. The impact for companies is clear. This could move the needle for women who remain outside of the workforce in much larger numbers than men (27 percentage point difference). A no-brainer for action!

My graph this week is from the 2018 World Development Report “Learning to realize education’s promise” and shows big learning gaps between poor and rich children in African countries. A good graph pointing to sad realities.

My quote this week is from the late Tom Petty: “I’d have to give technology a D-plus. I think it is unhealthy for rock. I can hear digital anything. It sounds different. It’s very cold.”

5 May 2017

Posted on May 5, 2017 Leave a Comment

The Financial Times Foreign Affairs chief Gideon Rachman published “Easternization: Asia’s rise and America’s decline from Obama to Trump and beyond”. I have not read the book but this interview gives the gist of the argument. It is not new, it strengthens the message around a trend that many have documented. What was interesting to me was Jessica Mathews saying that she was not convinced because (i) global leadership takes more than global economic (and even military) power; (ii) China has to balance between global, regional and national hot issues; and (iii) there are other forces in “the East”, such as the rise of India, that are still looking West. And what was equally interesting was to read, in parallel, Danny Quah’s (Eastern?) perspective. In “Can Asia lead the world?”, Quah agrees that it takes more than a growing economic, military and population footprint to lead globally. He argues that Asia’s leadership strategy should focus on soft power and that its driving values could be different from liberal democracy. Ultimately, he says that Asia will only be able to lead if it has a story. For him, that vision does not exist, yet.

Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson’s “Writing that works” is the book I recommended when a colleague asked me for guidance on improving writing skills. I love that book. It identifies the most common writing weaknesses and gives specific tips that you can use to practice, practice, and practice until you get it right. I don’t, so I go back to it regularly and am never disappointed. They give guidance on how to write memos that get things done, plans that make things happen, proposals that sell ideas, and resumes that get interviews. It is a good way to spend 11 dollars. At one point, I also had Josh Bernoff’s “10 top writing tips and the psychology behind them” pasted on the wall next to my desk so that I could check it from time to time. I should put it back.

My graph of the week is from NYU Center on International Cooperation’s Global Peace Operational Review which, among other things, tracks the new Secretary-General (SG)’s senior appointments (USG and ASG) throughout the system by gender and nationality. 17 male vs 14 female so far in 2017. That’s for his new appointees. Overall, at this level, the situation today is 71% male vs 29% female. Not great. The SG committed to reaching parity at senior level by 2021 and across the system before 2030 and he asked his Gender Parity Task Force to come up with a plan to get there. Let’s watch and see.

My quote this week is from 80-year old Nobel Prize Daniel Kahneman: “There are studies showing that when you present evidence to people they get very polarized even if they are highly educated. They find ways to interpret the evidence in conflicting ways. Our mind is constructed so that in many situations where we have beliefs and we have facts, the beliefs come first. That’s what makes people incapable of being convinced by evidence. So education by itself is not going to change the culture. Changing critical thinking through education is very slow and I’m not very optimistic about it.”

21 April 2017

Posted on April 21, 2017 Leave a Comment

I enjoyed Yuval Harari’s “Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow”. You may have heard of its prequel “Sapiens: A brief history of humankind” which critics compared to Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” and which became an instant bestseller after Gates, Obama and other influentials put it on top of their lists. Sapiens focused on the history of mankind. Homo Deus looks forward, to the future of mankind. Harari’s thesis is that while “the great human projects of the 20^th century [focused on] overcoming famine, plague and war, the new projects of the 21^st century [will be about] gaining immortality, bliss and divinity”. The 20^th century agenda was to save humans from external afflictions while the 21^st century mission is to upgrade humans by engineering their bodies, brains and minds. The scenario he unfolds in the book is depressing. The upgrade is affordable only to a small elite becoming superhumans, while most people remain in an inferior human caste losing their value as machines take over. The new religion guiding this future is dataism – faith in the power of algorithms. At first, dataism serves humans’ aspirations and enhance their lifespans, happiness and power, but it later outsmarts them leading to their extinction. Harari draws a parallel between how humans have undervalued animals and progressively led to their extinction, and how algorithms will treat humans: “Dataism threatens to do to Homo Sapiens what Homo Sapiens has done to other animals.” Yes, it is intense and feels rather crazy as I am trying to summarize it here. But Harari is a very good storyteller. He packages knowledge and connects ideas in an exotic and punchy way. So, often I have found myself super absorbed in his arguments forgetting to question their foundations. And there are many instances where we should. His technology-optimism is a case in point. Early on in the book he sets the scene: “every technical problem has a technical solution”. And thereafter he never questions the progress of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence nor their ability to surpass human mortality and consciousness. But again it is a fun and captivating 400-page journey that will for sure kick your thinking out of the box. I’d recommend the read.

Meredith Bennett-Smith’s “The case for being grumpy at work” uses evidence to reject the correlation between positive attitude and productivity. And she highlights the gender dimension of her argument. Here are some of the research-supported facts: women do not make it to corner offices if they look too happy; faking happiness can lead to depression or heart attacks; mild grumpiness increases communication and critical thinking skills while anger can boost creativity; and overall controlling emotions in the workplace is a lose-lose for the firm and the staff, especially for women. A bon entendeur…

My visual this week is from Hootsuite + WeAreSocial’s “Q2 2017 Global digital statshot” which shows the continuing explosion – scale and pace – of social media usage. 2.9 billion people are now active on social media. This number is increasing at a rate of one million additional users a day! Wait, what?

My quote this week is from Richard Branson via Rufina Park’s “The Future of learning and education: children, educators, and creatives as co-creators”: “Children look at the world with wonder and inquisitiveness, and see opportunities where adults often see obstacles. I believe that we should not only listen to them more, but also act more like them.”

2 July 2015

Posted on July 2, 2015 Leave a Comment

Publications on trends often focus on risks and threats, the depressing stuff. Inspired by the long week-end awaiting some of us, here is a selection of feel-good readings that came my way this week.

Ausubel’s “Nature Rebounds” presents positive trends with the combined effect of restoring nature. Farmland and forest use are reaching peaks; water, petroleum, and transportation uses are plateauing; and green vegetal cover expands. All this alongside a population growth slowdown. The paper concentrates on the US but Ausubel argues that “within a few decades, the same patterns, already evident in Europe and Japan, will be evident in many more places”. The only dark spot in this bright picture is oceans and fisheries damage. Technology optimism permeates the analysis. A little too much for my taste. Also it would have been useful to picture these trends vis-a-vis “planetary boundaries”. I asked myself: Is the rebound effect sufficient to stay within a safe environmental space? But overall this is a great read and a good reminder of the need to look back, to better look forward.

Roser’s “Visual history of the rise of political freedom and the decrease of violence” also takes the long view. The 19-slide presentation transports us from archeological evidence of widespread prehistorical violence when the share of people killed by other peoples was often more than 10%, all the way to today when the global rate of battle death is less than 1 for 100,000 people. The story, told through graphs and maps, links the decline of violence to improvements in education, literacy, political freedom and democracy. Like the rest of Roser’s work, this presentation exemplifies the power of good visualization.

My map of the week is from Bevington and al’s “A multitemporal, multivariate index to dynamically characterize vulnerability of children and adolescents in Nepal: Using science in humanitarian response”. While the title is a mouthful, the map distills all this complexity to show children vulnerabilities at the village level, in real time. You can zoom in and out, you can map specific vulnerabilities (children displaced, available schools, functional healthcare facilities) or specific hazards (landslide from rainfalls, landslide from earthquakes, landslide post-quake), or you can combine all this together in one map. The architecture behind the curtain triangulates data of different nature and frequency from the Nepal National Census to NASA’s high-resolution satellite imagery.

My quote of the week is from IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s Address at Grandes Conferences Catholiques: “If I had to pick the three most important structural tools to reduce excessive income inequality, it would be education, education, education.”[Emphasis in original]