peacekeeping

4 March 2016

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Ricardo Haussman’s “The problem with evidence-based policies” is an interesting read. The title is misleading because the piece focuses only on randomized control trials (RCTs). The argument goes like this: “evidence-based” is the new motto of development work; RCT is perceived as the evidence-generation gold standard; but RCTs are not adequate to get feedback on social interventions which “have millions of design possibilities and outcomes”; so iterative approaches with quick feedback loops should be preferred. AidThoughts reminds us that this debate between “randomistas” on the one hand, and adepts of “doing things differently” on the other is not new. And I side with AidThoughts in rejecting the black-and-white Haussman perspective. Chris Blattman’s response is also worth reading. He argues that the problem in our field is less about an RCT-invasion than about lack of rigorous evidence and good feedback on our work all together. He also shows how RCTs can pave the way for more iterative approaches with real time feedback loops, using a good illustration from the International Rescue Committee.

Shawn Donnan’s “Global trade: structural shifts” tells us that for a growing number of economists the global trade post-crisis downturn is structural, not cyclical. A key underlying trend is that globalization is driven less and less by trade in goods/services/finance, and more and more by data flows. Businesses don’t ship machines from A to B anymore, they send digital orders from A to 3D-print machines in B. This is an exciting read with great infographics. But I am left thinking: how does that apply to food? I, for one, am not ready to eat 3D-printed food.

My graph of the week is from George Gao’s “UN peacekeeping at new highs after post-Cold War surge and decline”. Last year, the number of uniformed peacekeeping personnel reached the all-time high of 108,000. Over the past 20 years, the peacekeeping contributor landscape also evolved: today 82% of peacekeeping forces come from Africa and Asia (29% in 1995) while only 6% come from Europe (52% in 1995).

My quote this week is from Lindiwe Mazibuko’s “There is no one waiting to save us. We must save ourselves”: “[The rise of financial remittances coming from the young African diaspora] got me thinking about skills remittance, talent remittance, social and political remittance. If these people have the passion to give back to their communities monetarily, imagine how different our politics would be if their skills, influence, leadership, talent were put to work in the service of the public good.” [7’15”]

8 January 2016

Posted on January 8, 2016 Leave a Comment

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.”

23 October 2015

Posted on October 23, 2015 Leave a Comment

Van der Lijn and Smit’s “Peace keepers under threat? Fatality trends in UN peace operations” deconstructs the commonly held view that the increasingly dangerous contexts peacekeepers are operating in bring growing risks to their lives. Using casualty data from 1990 to 2015 for all UN peace operations personnel (uniformed or not), they show that this assumption is not validated. While 1998-2005 witnessed an increase in fatalities, there has been no clear trend since. The nature of deaths has changed : the “number of personnel killed by malicious acts in 2013 and 2014 was at its highest level for 20 years”. Yet again, the authors show that these remain much lower than the casualties suffered by UN personnel in the 1990ies in former Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Somalia. Also to note the particular case of MINUSMA (Mali) which has sadly topped the fatality ranking over the past couple of years and is now one the deadliest in the history of the UN.

Schroeder’s blogpost “Humanitarian UAV (“drone”) experts meet at MIT” was useful to get an update on the discussions of the “Humanitarian UAV Network”, the progress on the “Humanitarian UAV Code of Conduct and Guidelines”, and general directions of practitioners in this area. The network gathers experts from the UN (e.g., HCR, WFP, OCHA, DPKO), donors (e.g., ECHO), NGOs (e.g., American Red Cross), academia and think tanks. Meeting last week, a year after their first get-together, they saw a visible increase in the number of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) projects piloted by humanitarian actors from the IOM to map displaced populations, to Catholic Relief Services to track coastal rebuilding, to MSF and UNFPA testing UAVs for health programs. The use of UAVs in our industry has led to passionate and controversial debates which the soon finalized “Code of Conduct and Guidelines” hope to appease. The document covers data ethics, community engagement, partnerships and conflict sensitivity. The views of our innovation unit on this topic can be found here.

My graph this week is from The Financial Times & Climate KIC’s Climate Change Calculator. Ahead of the Paris climate negotiations, 146 countries have made voluntary plans to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. What will all these pledges amount to? The climate change calculator gives an indication and lets you play around with numbers to visualize their cumulative impact on global warming. If countries continue polluting as they do today, the planet will warm by 6°C by 2100 (remember the Paris agreement should keep us under a 2°C rise). With the 146 pledges made to date, the model tells us that the planet will warm by 4°C. That won’t be good enough.

My quote this week is from Bill Easterly’s “The father of millions” because, honestly, when is the last time you heard him say something positive?: “The revolution in child mortality has many impersonal causes — including the spread of lifesaving medical technologies — but also some very particular heroes, of whom perhaps the biggest is James P. Grant, the director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) from 1980 to his death in 1995.”