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30 June 2017

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Nelson and Detrixhe’s “The World Bank’s “pandemic bonds” are designed so investors pay in the event of an outbreak” explains how the just-launched pandemic bonds work. Investors who buy bonds basically act as pandemic insurers. This allows the Bank to release money to poor countries as soon as an outbreak occurs. Take Ebola, $100 million could have been made available as early as July 2014 with such instruments but “money did not begin to flow on this scale until three months later, by which time the number of deaths had increased tenfold”. So that’s a useful tool. And investors are ready to take the risk: the pandemic bond sale was 200% oversubscribed. These instruments have been used for years by insurance companies to transfer risks of natural disasters to financial markets. And they could be applied to other emergencies beyond health and natural catastrophes.

Ziad Haider’s “The case for a Global Council for Refugees” calls for the creation of a new structure that would bring together private efforts supporting refugees. It illustrates how the private sector already helps refugees, mostly around getting jobs. It points to similar business alliances in other areas, e.g. the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. It lays out the main functions a Global Council for Refugees would play: repository of existing initiatives to avoid duplication; one stop-shop for partners; peer-to-peer catalyst, and advocacy amplifier.

My map this week is from IFAD’s “Sending money home: contributing to the SDGs, one family at a time” which presents the flows and trends in remittances during 2007-2016. The report is full of great facts. 1 billion people are involved with remittances: either sending or receiving. Half of remittance senders are women. Remittances flows to developing countries grew by 51% over the past decade while migration from these countries only grew by 28%. And look at Asia-Pacific: remittances increased by 87%!

 

 

My quote this week is from Iraqi Nori Sharif, the videographer of the brutally disturbing “Nowhere to hide”: “It is difficult to diagnose this war. It is an undiagnosed war. You can see all the symptoms: death, pain, sorrow. But you don’t understand the disease.”

12 May 2017

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The Economist’s “A growing share of aid is spent by private firms, not charities” is worth reading as it crunches US and UK aid data to put numbers behind this trend: 25% of USAID and 22% of DFID spending went to private firms in 2016, both on the rise. The drivers behind this growth are: a shift from project-delivery to system-shaping  requiring technical advice that firms are best equipped to provide;  a “doing more with less” aid culture leading to more outsourcing; and private contractors’ ability to quickly match time-bound freelancer teams with complex development problems. Private contracts are also getting bigger leading to the market concentration of contractors and a growing number of consortium where small fish are used as “bid candy” by lead contractors. The Economist documents some of problems associated with these trends including higher delivery costs and risks of frauds, calling for aid agencies to take a close look at their bidding and contract practices.

WFP’s “At the root of exodus” puts numbers on the food/conflict/migration nexus. It models data from 88 countries with negative net migration and 178 countries with outflow of refugees during 1990-2015. It shows that the number of people migrating increases by 1.9% for each percent increase in the number of food-insecure people, and by 0.4% for each additional year of conflict. It also shows that migration can increase food insecurity both for those leaving and those staying behind, and that food insecurity is a significant determinant of the incidence and intensity of armed conflict. The study complements these findings with qualitative data collected through focus group discussions with 231 migrants from 10 countries in Greece, Italy, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, and validated via 570 household phone surveys in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Once on the move, food and economic security are key determinants of whether people keep going or settle. Half of Syrians interviewed in Jordan and Lebanon want to move elsewhere while only a quarter of those in Turkey plan to.

My visual this week is from the Developing Human Connectome Project which just released its first open access data. The EU-funded project aims at creating 3D brain maps of fetuses and newborns to understand how the human brain develops and what triggers certain afflictions like autism. Adult brain maps already exists. So these guys are focusing on the 20-44 weeks post-conception window, and doing MRIs on hundreds of babies in the womb.

 

 

My quote this week is from Eurasia Ian Bremmer’s “The wave to come”: “Nationalism is alive and well, partly because the problems that provoked it are still with us. […] Now here’s the really bad news: an even larger crisis is coming. The popular fury convulsing Europe and the U.S. may well spill over into the rest of the world. Just as the financial crisis, which began in the West, produced rumbling aftershocks around the globe, so the nationalist explosion will rattle the politics of countries on every continent.”

24 February 2017

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Last week-end, back-to-back with the G20 meeting of foreign ministers, the 2017 Munich Security Conference gathered diplomats, politicians, and military/security experts to talk about the future of transatlantic relations, of NATO, and of the EU, and about the security situation of the Middle East and the Pacific under the banner “Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?“. Every February, I follow this meeting to monitor the growing securitization of development. As usual, the curtain raiser for the conference does a good job at pulling together great infographics in one place.  Four points that I did not see in headline news but caught my attention. One, I heard Angela Merkel, Bono and SG Guterres say that investments in girls’ education and empowerment were key for peace and security. Two, in his closing remarks the Chairman of the Conference proposed “to complement the 2% goal [ie NATO’s recommendation to spend 2% of GDP on defense] with a larger 3% goal [focusing on] defense, foreign policy, development assistance”. This proposal is in line with the growing focus of politicians on the development/security nexus. While this not new, it is now put forward in blunt terms. See for instance EU Foreign Affairs Mogherini’s quote: “Investing in development, investing in the Sustainable Development Goals, investing in humanitarian [aid], is not charity. It is an investment, a selfish investment, in our security”. This rhetoric might help rallying taxpayers, but it can also negatively affect financial flows to those in need. Just last week, I flagged how aid was moving away from far-away conflicts towards humanitarian contexts with direct ties to EU migration. Three, last year, the Munich conference held its first ever panel on global health security…at 10 pm. This year the “small bugs, big bombs” panel was programmed mid-day and pulled out the big guns: Bill Gates, Paul Kagame, David Miliband, Stefan Oschmann, Peter Salama, and Erna Solberg. Setting the stage, Bill Gates pointed to the connections between health and international security saying that we were ignoring them at our peril. He called for an “arsenal of new weapons—vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics” and argued that we needed to “prepare for epidemics the way the military prepares for war”. And this year for the first time, climate change, previously systematically addressed together with energy security, got its own “climate security” panel. Fourth, an energized 13-min speech by SG Guterres is worth watching as it gives a good sense of where the house is going. If you don’t have time, watch the 2-min “deep” UN reforms part [8’45’’-11’] covering:  (i) peace and security strategy, operational set up, and architecture; (ii) the development system coordination, accountability, and evaluation; and (iii) management. He wrapped up his statement on the need to look into new issues which are changing the nature of relations in our world, and possibly defining the crises of tomorrow. He named AI, genetic engineering, and cyberspace. And he called “absolutely crucial” the development of a “capacity of analysis and discussion to be able to think about models of governance for these new areas that will be essential in our lives in 10 years.” Hear! Hear!

Even though I canceled my account 7 years ago, Facebook was in my face all week. First, Mark Zuckerberg came out with a manifesto: Building a global community. Wow: Is this where the new international order is going to come from? This week, Facebook also made it possible to wire money internationally via its platform, walking in the footsteps of Tencent whose messenger + payment combo revolutionized the banking sector in China. This is one of the peripheral trends reshaping financial transfers to developing countries, and to refugees, in a context where remittance flows are three times bigger than ODA.

My graph this week is from Data Selfie, a Chrome extension that allows you to analyze what you do on Facebook, the way Facebook does it. Data Selfie allows you to peak behind the curtain and see what natural language processing and machine learning algorithms do with the digital crumbs you leave while browsing through your old high school friends’ vacation photos. Pretty cool.

 

 

My quote this week is from Cari Romm’s “The key to productivity is a good desk neighbor”: “Replacing an average performer with one who is twice as productive results in his or her neighboring workers increasing their own productivity by about 10 percent, on average. The effect also only worked one way: Lesser performers could improve by sitting next to more competent colleagues, but those colleagues wouldn’t find themselves dragged down by their seatmates.”

 

27 January 2017

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Read Pierre Bayard’s “How to talk about books you haven’t read” and feel better. Or don’t read it and try to engage in a conversation about it. Not only is this ok, but it will also enrich the conversation and enhance your creativity. This is Bayard’s thesis. He first explores different forms of “non-reading”: a. the book you have never opened, b. the book you only have heard of, c. the book you have skimmed, and d. the book you have forgotten. Is d. better than a.? It does not matter says Bayard. What matters is to change one’s mindset: consider non-reading as an activity, and make a clear distinction between reading a book and talking about it. The latter involves a third party and should be guided by the context and nature of your relationship with that person, not the content of the book. Engaging in the conversation at that level can be done in different ways: by referring to the broader “collective library” to which a particular book belongs, connecting to arguments other people make, or simply using one’s creativity to invent what the book is about. In the end, for Bayard, it is about talking about one’s “inner library”. Bayard gives guidance about how to talk about a book you haven’t read with a large audience, a professor, the author (!?), and a loved one. He uses literature classics to illustrate his points. Like this Oscar Wilde quote: “I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.” It is a refreshing and funny book. So drop the guilt and test it out. And if you want more, there is a sequel: “How to talk about places you’ve never been“.

Tristan Harris’ “Tech companies design your life, here’s why you should care” is a good wake up call. Google’s former product philosopher argues that big techs are destroying our agency capacity by high jacking our attention through a bunch of tricks that feed our needs to be linked, looked, and liked. We’ve all thought about this before. But we also know that changing habits is hard. And in this case we are battling something bigger than us: hundreds of machine-augmented brains who spend their days thinking about how to keep us on the screen. Tech products are designed to hook us via instant gratifications that fill in any spare time we have, leaving no room for complex feelings like boredom or sadness to sink in. While it is problematic for us, it is detrimental for children and their emotional and social development. One can’t fix this alone. It’s all about changing the design, says Harris, so that tech products are aligned with a higher concept of a life well spent. And he believes it is possible. We brought Harris to our Conversation with Thought Leaders series to talk about “ethical design for digital natives” and it was enlightening.

My graph this week is from ILO’s “World employment social outlook: Trends 2017” which shows, using Gallup data, the share of working-age population (aged 15+) willing to permanently migrate outside of their countries. This number increased between 2009-2016 for all parts of the world but South (eastern) Asia and the Pacific. It is yet another signal that international migration either forced or voluntary, either conflict-, climate- or unemployment-generated, is on the rise. The report is worth a scan as it unpacks data on the growth of global unemployment per regions and gender (summary here, videos and interactive maps, here).

 

 

My quote this week is from Jim Estill in “The Canadian who spent C$1.5 million to rescue more than 200 Syrian refugees”: “I still don’t see what the big deal is. And I’m surprised more people don’t step up and do it. I didn’t want to grow old and say I stood by and did nothing. So I decided to do my small part.”

8 January 2016

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The most important document I read over the past couple of weeks is Deschamps and al’s “Taking action on sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers”. This is the report of an independent review on sexual exploitation and abuse by international peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic. The brutal facts: In 2013-14, several children from the M’Poko IDP camp aged 9-13 were sexually abused by peacekeepers in exchange for military food rations and small amounts of money.  The report is appalling. It shows how the UN system systematically failed to timely and appropriately protect and care for these children, and to properly investigate, report and follow up on the violations. Many parts of the UN are judged at fault. The report describes a machinery caught up in the implementation of its complex procedures and the fragmentation of its responsibilities where action and accountability are always someone else’s business. It shows how the system ends up not delivering its most fundamental human rights functions. Shockingly, more staff time was devoted to assigning blame for a leaked document than to caring for the abused kids. This should be mandatory reading for every UN staff member.

Davis and al’s “Do socially responsible firms pay more taxes?” looks at the relation between corporate tax payments and corporate social responsibility (CSR). I read it after this Economist article whet my appetite. Using data from a large set of US companies, Davis and al analyze links between tax and CSR behaviors between 2002-11. They show that high CSR firms are avoiding taxes the most and are spending the most on tax lobbying. This indicates that CSR and tax payments are used as substitutes not complements by [US] firms. These findings are important because UN CSR approach and guidelines (including our Children Rights and Business Principles) view corporate tax payments as positive contributions to social welfare. As the authors conclude: “If policy makers are trying to improve social welfare, understanding this trade-off is important in the design of tax laws”.

My visual of the week is Sander and al’s “The global flow of people”. It depicts migration flows within and between regions. It shows that the largest movements happen between South and East Asia, Latin to North America, and within Africa. The authors also have a “Global flow of refugees” version which clearly shows that most movements are regional in nature.

My quote this week is from Lucy Kellaway’s ”Big brother management: Farewell performance review, hello data systems”: “In 2016 the job of management will be taken away from managers. […] The most visible sign of the new world will be the end of the annual career appraisal. […] The end started half way through 2015 when Deloitte and then Accenture announced that they were getting rid of their performance review. Deloitte let slip that it spent an unconscionable 2m hours a year to produce yearly reports for its 65,000 people—making it among the biggest corporate wastes of time ever invented.”

16 October 2015

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I spend two long evenings buried in Jesper Morch’s “Kenya/Somalia Chronicles 2002-05“. These are the best UNICEF-produced field documents I have come across. Jesper is a UNICEF-hall-of-fame kind of guy. The excerpt above tells the story of his last months in Somalia where UNICEF operated the largest UN business, delivering most essential services available at the time, with staff risking their lives every day. Among other things, it relates his confrontation with the Puntland Government about power abuse and threat to staff, how he got subsequently shunned by local UN heads, and the successful resolution. This excerpt and the 10 volumes of his Kenya/Somalia diaries are only part of the story. He wrote chronicles during his years in Indonesia (1982-94), Tanzania (1994-98), South Africa (1998-2002) and Vietnam (2005-10). They give a concrete and contextualized account of what it means to work for UNICEF in situ from the Burundi and Zaire refugee crisis in Western Tanzania, to UN reforms in Vietnam. Jesper’s narrative approach is analytical and personal. The style is direct and jargon-free, with no UN fluffiness nor diplomatic coating. Views from the work-front are intertwined with those from the home-front (such as the excitement around his wife’s pregnancy, or the intricacies of getting the family together with 2 kids, 2 jobs, 2 dogs, and a complex environment). I felt a like a voyeur at first, after all I don’t know that guy. But I quickly eased in, after all this is exactly how life feels.

For all the talk about refugees in Europe and the motivations behind their migration, we seldom hear their voices. Led by the Berlin Social Science Center, the first survey of Syrian refugees in Germany captures their views on why they left and what it would take for them to return. The survey was conducted with all self-declared Syrian refugees (889) in the registration centers and refugee housing of 5 German towns between 24 September and 2 October. It is not representative but gives good indications of the refugees’ opinions: Most left because of imminent threat to their life; nearly all want to return; more are fleeing from President Assad than from ISIS; and most say President Assad would have to leave Syria for them to return.

My graph of the week is from The Economist’s “New rules, same old paradigm: A plan to curb multinational corporations’ tax evasion is an opportunity missed”. Every year, $240 billion are lost to corporate tax evasion. Loss in revenues for developing countries amount to 1.75% of GDP, 3 times more than in rich countries. While the Financing for Development Addis Conference flopped at making any substantial progress on tax evasion matters, G20 Finance ministers just agreed to a 15-point action plan. Critics argue that this is not good enough: it increases the complexity of the international tax system while not doing enough to regulate transfer pricing (i.e., prices of goods and services applied between parts of multi-national companies with entities in different countries), and is not inclusive enough of poorer countries tax concerns and capacities. But it is a step forward.

My quote this week is from Harvard Kennedy School’s Amitabh Chandra via Bloomberg News’ “Princeton University’s Deaton wins 2015 Nobel Prize in economics”:  “Angus Deaton is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of economics”.

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