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13 April: Multilateralism failing us? Big techs saving us?

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OECD Angel Gurria is clear: there is not enough international cooperation between governments to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. To be sure, we did not enter the crisis on a strong multilateral footing. And according to Oxford University Ngaire Woods, nationalist responses and competition have so far prevailed. International organizations have also shown the limits of their power – largely a reflection of that given to them by their member states. Stephen Buranyi, for instance, gives a great historical account of why the WHO can’t handle the pandemic.  So it was refreshing to see 200 former presidents, ministers and heads of international organizations come together to ask the G20 to step up its game. Initiated by Gordon Brown with LSE Erik Berglof holding the pen, the letter calls for heightened global cooperation in response to the twin health and economic crisis and a $8 billion package to help prevent the second wave of Covid-19.  Let’s see if/how finance ministers respond this week when they regroup at the 2020 World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings.

In “How Chinese Apps handled Covid-19”, Dan Grover gives a good overview of the key role played by Chinese big techs in the crisis response. They provided information through integrated tools, helped triage patients towards fever clinics and coronavirus hospitals, scaled telemedicine services, and developed health QR Codes for reporting and tracing. His blog post was published a few days before Apple and Google announced their partnership to develop a new contact tracing platform. Does this further feed into reversing the tech backlash trend flagged two weeks ago? It’s probably wise to take the long view on this one by, for instance, watching the 3-episode PBS “Networld” of Niall Ferguson [available on youtube if you are not in the US]. Little is new in the documentary but I enjoyed thinking about the parallel between today’s digital networks and ancient analog networks used to foster revolutions, and learning about network theory.

My picture this week is from MIT Tech Review Will Heaven’s “Why the coronavirus lockdown is making the internet stronger than ever”. It shows that, with the lockdown, internet connections moved from city offices to suburban homes, ie from highly powered hubs to scattered locations with low bandwidth and outdated cables. According to Heaven this has accelerated traffic capacity upgrade, infrastructure expansion, and data plan loosening – making the internet stronger for more. This is not how I was thinking about this before reading this article. I was thinking about how the lockdown amplifies digital inequalities between urban and rural, and between rich and poor.   

My quote this week is from Brookings Kemal Dervis: “A clear parallel between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change is becoming apparent. Both feature emergence, path dependence, feedback loops, tipping points, and nonlinearity. Both call for eschewing traditional cost-benefit analysis in favor of drastic mitigation to reduce exposure. And, both highlight the need for much closer, forward-looking international cooperation to manage global threats.”

29 March: People count on businesses to act. So what should they do?

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The 2020 Edelman trust barometer – surveying 34,000 people in 28 countries – showed that 74% of people expect their CEOs to take the lead on change to address global issues. In the context of COVID-19, a follow up survey with 10,000 people in 10 countries re-affirms that people trust their employers to respond effectively and responsibly to the pandemic, and 78% want businesses to act to protect employees and local communities.

So what should businesses do? I asked 4 experts working closely with businesses in the context of the crisis: Peter Bakker, Lise Kingo, David Nabarro, and Anthony Renshaw. First, they pointed to businesses’ duty of care going beyond the health and safety of employees, to also secure employment continuity. Second, they highlighted the key role of businesses in providing medically-verified information to employees – important as employer communications is the most credible source of information about COVID-19. Third, they suggested that businesses find ways to support health systems. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) lists such actions on its website, and the UN Global Compact calls on business leaders to support workers and communities.
Smaller local companies, providing employment to the majority of people around the globe, are the hardest impacted by the crisis. For WHO COVID-19 Special Envoy David Nabarro, all should support SMEs where governments might not provide direct stimulus package. UN Global Compact CEO Lise Kingo is working with global companies to keep the SMEs of their supply chains in business. For SOS International Medical Director Anthony Renshaw, local SMEs which are still open can contribute to the response by adjusting their practices such as defining specific shopping hours for the elderly, or their processes to manufacture supplies required by the health system. Looking forward, all interviewees noted the opportunity to rethink business models; reimagine the social contract of business with society; and move towards a model of integrated capitalism. And putting things further in perspective, WBCSD CEO Peter Bakker argued that this crisis was “a warning that the power of nature is stronger than any human constructs”.

For The Verge’s Casey Newton, who is usually quite critical, big techs’ response to COVID-19 has so far earned them brownie points. They have promoted high-quality information. They have offered money, supplies, and jobs. And this has put the big tech backlash on pause.

My quote this week is from NY Governor Cuomo’s 24 March briefing [35’26’’]:  “And at the end of the day my friends, even if it is a long day, and this is a long day, love wins. Always. And it will win again through this virus.”

22 March 2020: Back

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Two years ago, I left UNICEF and stopped What I Read. Several of you reached out recently and I realized that I missed these weekly exchanges with colleagues around the globe, most of whom I had never met in person. Glad to be back hoping you are all well!

The Guardian’s environment editor, John Vidal, reviews recent research on the connections between biodiversity and pandemics in “The tip of the iceberg: is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?”. Disrupted ecosystems are a breeding ground for new viruses. Natural habitats degradation accelerates the transmission of infectious diseases from animals to humans. And today the majority of new diseases affecting humans come from animals. This shows how the health of the environment, the health of humans, and the health of the economy are interconnected. Two thoughts. One, the SDGs which capture such interlinkages remain the right compass. Two, the crisis response should be designed around these interdependences to ensure long term recovery.

Will the COVID-19 response put climate action on the back burner? Paris Accord architect Laurence Tubiana draws a parallel between the two crises: “It’s a lesson:viruses don’t respect borders, climate change doesn’t respect borders. If we do not manage the climate crisis it will be the same.” UCL Economist Mariana Mazzucato argues that “it’s a chance to do capitalism differently” and that bailouts should be structured around the green new deal strategy. Indeed, for New Yorker Bill McKibben, as large corporations are seeking governmental support, there is an opportunity to make it conditional to meeting the Paris Accord targets because “taking money from society means that you owe society something.”  

My graph this week is from the 2019 Global Health Security Index, the first assessment of pandemic preparedness for 195 countries. It compiles publicly available data about countries’ levels of health security along six dimensions – prevention, detection, response, health system, norms compliance, and political system. Led by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security with the Economist Intelligence Unit, it was launched in 2017 shortly after health security featured prominently at Munich Security Conference and Bill Gates called for an “arsenal of new weapons—vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics – to prepare for epidemics the way the military prepares for war”. Published 6 months ago, the index showed that no country was fully prepared. It ranked US 1st, France 11th, Singapore 24th, Italy 31st, and China 51st. In view of COVID19 responses, revisions might be needed. But what worries me the most is what will happen in the 72 countries classified as least prepared.

My quote this week: “Stay home!”

23 June 2017

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Youseff Mahmoud et al’s “Entrepreneurship for sustaining peace” is the curtain raiser for one of the International Peace Institute conversation series on prevention and sustaining peace.  Mahmoud is argues that the UN refocus on prevention be accompanied by a shift away from deterring conflict towards sustaining peace. Conceptually this means moving away from a highly politicized and securitized approach to prevention. Operationally this means moving away from crisis management tools only. Adopting the sustaining peace approach, this article looks at how economic opportunities contribute to peaceful societies by offering more dignified lives and countering sentiments of marginalization for entrepreneurs, their families, and their communities. It uses two examples to illustrate how that works: Colombia and Tunisia. It highlights the unique potential of youth entrepreneurship by pointing to the correlation between positive peace and the Youth Development Index and arguing that the demographic dividend could also contribute to sustaining peace. And it provides 3 operational recommendations for UN field operations and country teams: map existing entrepreneurial initiatives that have explicit peacebuilding benefits; develop an integrated entrepreneurship development strategy; and encourage host countries to create environment supportive of youth-led social entrepreneurship as part of peace operations.

Several people shared the IOM’s “UN-biased” video with me this week. It speaks of decision biases in the work place and how they affect hiring decisions, in the United Nations. Some numbers. Where equally qualified candidates are considered, mothers are 79% less likely to be hired. Women take 5.4 years to be promoted to a P4 level whereas men take 4.6 years. In performance reviews, women receive 2.5 times more feedback about aggressive communication styles than men. Overall 62% men work in hardship duty stations, and while 30% of applicants are women, they are not selected. At senior level, 16% of males versus 40% of females are more likely to be divorced, separated or single. The video also suggests 5 very practical recommendations to counter biases in recruitment. Just take 5 minutes and watch it. Go IOM!

My graph this week is from CBInsights’ “Google is ramping up pharma activity” and shows that google has made as many pharma deals (6) in the first half of 2017 as it did during the 2010-14 period. While all eyes are on Amazon investing in the food industry, google is moving in the healthcare space with expectations of transforming the sector.  What strikes me is tech giants strengthening their monopolies with one hand while growing their philanthropic arms with the other: over the same week Amazon Bezos bought Whole Foods, he also crowdsourced ideas for how to spend his billions.

 

 

My quote is from Mark Zuckerberg’s opening speech at the Facebook’s first Communities Summit because, as flagged earlier, it marks another step in how the social media platform is being transformed into a new type of global governance entity: “The idea behind our new mission is to bring the world closer together. Ending poverty, curing diseases, stopping climate change, spreading freedom and tolerance, stopping violence: there is no single group or even country that can take these things on alone. So we have to build a world where people come together to take on these big meaningful efforts. This is not going to happen top down […] We want to help one billion people join [Facebook] meaningful communities and bring the world closer together.”

 

2 June 2017

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Nora Rosenberg et al’s “The effect of HIV counselling and testing on HIV acquisition in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review” finds that despite big investments in HIV counselling and testing, we don’t know much about its impact on prevention. That is because this impact has not been systematically evaluated: only 8 decently-designed studies were found for sub-Saharan Africa. And they show that individual HIV counselling and testing is neither consistently good nor bad for prevention. These important findings come out of a systematic review of the literature on the topic. Systematic reviews are often seen as the “poor relation” of research methods. They don’t bring academic glory. Yet, as argued here before, they produce the most useful evidence for policy makers. And with the advances of natural language processing and text mining techniques, we could automate large parts of the search process to increase our capacity to conduct systematic reviews that inform our work. I, for one, am excited about the future of systematic reviews.

I spoke to several colleagues about Mia Schaefer’s “The new kid” this week. The school-commissioned personal essay describes a 14-year-old’s mixed emotions about having a new baby brother. I thought she did a good job at articulating this. But of course, as the mother, I am biased.

My graph is from SITRA’s “This is how we create a circular economy in Finland” because it is super clear and because SITRA is hosting the World Circular Economy Forum next week. We pointed to the rise of the circular (or sharing) economy, in Horizons, two years ago. When looking at the list of speakers it struck me that all UN professionals engaging in that conversation were environmentalists. Why? There are huge opportunities for “social” practitioners in this space from restructuring service delivery systems, to reducing inequalities, to formalizing invisible economic relations, to fundraising.  So I was happy to also see this week that NESTA had selected 8 organizations from the social sector to support via their ShareLab Fund.

 

 

My quote this week is from Cate Blanchett’s interview with David Miliband in Town and Country: “Being a mother was, for me, undeniably a central point of connection to the refugee crisis. Learning that more than 10 million of the world’s refugees are children, and then meeting refugee parents in Jordan and Lebanon who had fled to protect the lives and futures of their children—well, that was personally heartbreaking and galvanizing. As a parent I connected with their desire to protect their children and provide them with every possible opportunity in life: a safe home, an education—but most important, a childhood free from the horrors of war.”

And to make you smile at the end of a week full of bad world news, you get this.

19 May 2017

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Delivered earlier this week during the Belt and Road Summit, Zheng Bijian’s “China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) plan marks the next phase of globalization” presents OBOR as a global game changer. Indeed, this is the biggest infrastructure plan ever: 65 countries, 62% of the world population and 30% of global GDP. The total investment need is $5 trillion. China already pledged $113 billion, 9 of which in the form of aid to poor countries. More funding will come from the BRICS’s New Development Bank and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. Unless you are in the Americas, chances are that what you do is somehow connected to this initiative. I guess, even if you are in the Americas, there will be externalities. Looking at power dynamics in the region, much of the talk focused on India’s lack of support. Next summit scheduled for 2019.

Danny Hernandez’ “How our company learned to do better predictions about everything” is what I shared when asked about best practices to improve organizational data literacy. Let me be clear here: I don’t know anything about best practices in that area. But I read this interesting article the day before I was asked the question. The company is Twitch, an Amazon offshoot. It invested in growing the predictive skills of every single staff member irrespective of functions and ranks. An initial phase warmed up employees by asking them to play with past company metrics, like “how much do you think our sales grew last quarter?” Once they got comfortable, they were asked to make predictions that would impact their work, like “how confident are you that you can complete this project in 3 weeks?” At first, Twitch employees were not excited: they did not believe in predictions, were afraid of making bad predictions, and thought that there was not enough evidence to make good predictions. But after the training, 96% of them said they would recommend it to a colleague. This initiative improved Twitch’s collective forecasting capacity. And it boosted efficiency as employees got better at evaluating ideas, defending funding proposals, and setting expectations. Other good ideas I heard this week: have data days in your teams or spend 10 minutes everyday on data issues. I am adding the latter to my daily routine.

CBinsights’ “From virtual nurses to drug discovery: 106 artificial intelligence startups in healthcare” maps the growing AI health market which is revolutionizing the whole industry from direct assistance to patients, to diagnosis, to drug discovery and mental health treatment.

 

My quote this week is from Elon Musk’s “The future we are building – and boring”: “I am not trying to be anyone’s savior. I just want to think about the future and not be sad.“

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