Recent months have seen increasing interest in the idea that Rio+20 could be the launch pad for a new set of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). But what would SDGs cover, what would a process to define and then implement them look like, and what would some of the key political challenges be? This short briefing [...]
Any global framework for development which is agreed after 2015 will be a political deal between states. This paper looks at recent trends in policy and politics in emerging economies and traditional donors to assess where a consenus might lie. It suggests some principles for a post-2015 agreement which emerge from recent policy developments
Paper from ODI and UNDP, authored by Claire Melamed and Andy Sumner, summarising the evidence on the impact of the MDGs, and looking at current trends in poverty and in global governance that will affect the shape and the scope of any future agreement on global development.
Why resource scarcity will be a game changer for global justice agendas, and what aid donors, NGOs and other development opinion formers need to do about it. WWF / Oxfam report by Alex Evans.
The Rio 2012 sustainable development summit is at risk of being the latest in a long line of damp squibs on environmental multilateralism – but could still make real progress, if it focuses on greening growth and building resilience to shocks and stresses, and above all faces up to the issues of fair shares that arise in a world of limits.
How national and international governance systems need to be reconfigured to meet the challenges of food security in a world of tighter supply and demand balances and increasing volatility. Report for Oxfam’s new Grow campaign by Alex Evans. (May 2011)
Article on scarcity of resources in Pakistan and what it means for the country.
Text of speech by Alex Evans to Institute for New Economic Thinking annual conference at Bretton Woods; the YouTube video is here. (April 2011) Download Speech
Article published on China Dialogue on reasons for the new food price spike, including potential implications of the current drought in China. (February 2011) Download Article
Eight critical uncertainties for development over the next decade, and ten recommendations for what ActionAid – who commissioned this report – should do to prepare for them
Article published in World Politics Review on current American foreign policy
Report asking how organisations can prosper in what will be a turbulent period for world order
Center on International Cooperation report on what forms of multilateral cooperation are needed to manage scarcity of resources
Background paper on whether resource scarcity and climate change will cause increased violent conflict
Chatham House report on how the UK’s new coalition government should upgrade and reform the way Britain conducts foreign policy
Introductory remarks by David Steven at a Brookings Institution seminar on risk and resilience in the global system (March 2010)
Talk given by David Steven at Gresham College on risk and resilience in the UK housing market, as part of a Long Finance Roundtable meeting (March 2010)
Report by David Steven in response to the FSA’s Mortgage Market Review
Brookings Institution report by Alex Evans, Bruce Jones and David Steven on how globalisation could fail – and how it could be made more resilient. Published to coincide with the 40th anniversary World Economic Forum in Davos.
Report by Alex Evans and David Steven analysing the post-Copenhagen context on climate change, including a proposed 12 point action plan. Written for the Brookings Institution / NYU Center on International Cooperation Managing Global Insecurity programme.
World Food Programme report on the state of the science on what climate change means for hunger, plus policy recommendations. Authored by IPCC Impacts Chair Martin Parry with Mark Rosengrant, Tim Wheeler and Global Dashboard’s Alex Evans (December 2009)
Presentation by Alex Evans to a seminar organised for the UN Department of Political Affairs by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (August 2009)
Article on risk and resilience by Alex Evans and David Steven – part of a special in World Politics Review on risk and resilience in a globalized age (July 2009)
Report by Alex Evans and David Steven exploring the future international institutional requirements for managing climate change, and including three scenarios for climate institutions between now and 2030. Commissioned by the UK Department for International Development. (May 2009)
Article by Alex Evans and David Steven exploring resilience as a political agenda – part of a special edition of Renewal on the transformation of foreign policy (February 2009)
Climate and cities think piece, co-authored by David Steven and the British Council’s Peter Upton (29 January 2009)
Chatham House pamphlet by Alex Evans on how scarcity issues will shape the outlook for global food production, and the actions that policymakers need to take at the international level and in developing countries to ensure food security in the 21st century
Paper by David Steven, presented to “Reforming International Institutions – Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century,” a conference organized by the United Nations University and the British Embassy in Tokyo (Jan 2009).
Speech by Alex Evans at the Tomorrow Network (25 November 2008)
Paper by Alex Evans and David Steven on financial reform and wider multilateralism, published ahead of the G20 ‘Bretton Woods II’ Summit (November 2008).
Speech by David Steven to RUSI Conference on UK Resilience (8 October 2008)
Chapter by Alex Evans and David Steven in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office publication, ‘Engagement: public diplomacy in a globalised world’ (July 2008). Download Chapter
Draft report by Alex Evans exploring multilateral system reforms needed in order to manage resource scarcity issues more effectively. The final version will be published in early 2010 (July 2008)
Speech by Alex Evans at UK Parliament (8 July 2008)
Speech by David Steven at the UNU G8 Symposium (4 July 2008)
Speech by Alex Evans to United Nations Association UK (7 June 2008)
Speech by David Steven to the UK Defence Academy’s Advanced Research and Assessment Group seminar on Strategic Communications, Public Diplomacy and Afghanistan (4 June 2008).
Speech by David Steven to the University of Westminster Symposium on Transformational Public Diplomacy (30 April 2008).
Briefing paper by Alex Evans, published through Chatham House’s food programme (April 2008).
Speech by David Steven to RUSI Conference on Critical National Infrastructure (16 April 2008).
Paper by Alex Evans and David Steven, commissioned by Gordon Brown and presented to heads of state at the Progressive Governance Summit (April 2008).
Chapter by Alex Evans and David Steven, as part of the British Council’s Transatlantic Network 2020 book ‘Talking Trans-Atlantic’ (March 2008).
Article by Alex Evans for the Environmental Policy & Law Journal (January 2008).
Report by Alex Evans and David Steven, written for the London Accord (December 2007).
New paper by Alex Evans on climate policy after 2012 from the Center on International Cooperation (October 2007).
Chapter on the FCO from Manchester University Press’s Alternative Comprehensive Spending Review, by David Steven (September 2007).
Note by Alex Evans and David Steven about how to restructure the UK’s foreign policy system in order to manage trans-boundary global risks better (April 2007).
Talk given by David Steven at the Wilton Park conference: The Future of Public Diplomacy. Focuses on strategies to drive public diplomacy to the heart of the foreign policy armoury (March 2007).
Articles and Publications
Delicious
Rss
Twitter - David Steven
It maybe worth pointing out that Edelman policy affords those who have issues of moral conscience’ the opportunity NOT to work on a client project, if they feel strongly about something.
That doesn’t prove much. What PR firm in its right mind would put staff onto an account if the employee in question had big moral issues about the client?
Anyway, to come back to the question…? I’m keen to have an engaged dialogue, but not sure there’s much point if your side of the conversation is limited to key messages you’ve pre-agreed with E.On
This is all quite entertaining. No doubt WS and H&K have already sent the poaching letters to E.On, if you can’t contain your own crisis and all that…
That said, I really don’t mind companies dipping into pockets to engage in PR strategies (however misguided most of them end up being). The truth is that PR companies really don’t matter – despite all the glitz they attract, the horrible truth I discovered as a young boy scout heading out of parliament to the public affairs world, is that they have close to zero impact on the policy world. I suspect Mr Phillps, belatedly realising that blogging with a proper policy wonk in the form of Alex Evans is perhaps a ‘bad idea’ is now spending most of his time, (as most accounts end up doing) reassuring the half whit in-house guy at E.On that ‘going forward’ they have a ‘strategy’ in place of effective crisis communications. He will of course need to re-pitch this idea (probably in about six months time) by way of powerpoint presentation to maintain what is actually probably a pretty lame retainer of about 10k a month. If that. Bad luck Robert, you were probably a bright student once, and certainly probably didn’t want to get dragged into blogging on random websites…
As for ‘moral objections’, fear not, I was told on day one don’t worry, we don’t work for BAT as we can make much more money out of healthcare these days. Make of that what you will, even more worrying is that one of the best money spinners going for London PR firms is from HMG itself… presumably they also wanted an ‘engaged dialogue’… the only problem for the tax payer was that the silly bunnies used to pay WAY more than 10k a month…… wait a minute, DEFRA could pay WS to ‘engage’ with the protestors to engage with Edelman who could then engage with E.On who could then engage back with DEFRA and maybe even drop in on DECC to give them a couple of ideas should Dieter Helm have become totally bored of the whole thing (the fact that DECC seem to think setting ’2050′ targets is still credible for utilities to lift a finger leaves us all a little worried) … Alas, this would all be far too much influence for a PR firm – back to food companies I’m afraid, much easier to promote obesity on the QT that address global warming…
Sorry, still not Edelman engaging i’m afraid. Just wanted to suggest to ‘Real PR’ that although PR companies may have ‘close to zero impact’ on the policy world directly, if their pitch is successful (and let’s be objective, selling coal to the British public isn’t like selling coals to Newcastle because of its ready-made traditional, ergo, ‘sensible’ image) then it could convince a lot of voters that coal is a pragmatic choice, which might insidiously affect coal’s continued use. Having so much of the CO2-producing stuff could be another persuasive element.
On the face of it a good point from C. Ellis, but guess what, here comes staggering point no.2 about PR companies. They not only have asbolutely zero impact on the policy making world, but they also have close to zero impact on any serious media. The fallacy that public affairs now uses media pressures to impact the political system is simply a non-starter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking the mick out of the PR world, but just pointing out to the world that you shouldn’t really take this seriously (something that even decent policy wonks such as Alex seem to think is worth commenting on). It is in effect, just like many other industries a game so that corporate comms can all cover backs.
Here’s a good example; Edelman produce a press release for E.On noting the merits of coal for energy security – oh, that’s a new one. They send it the FT – eerm, Ed Crookes takes one look at it and either deletes it or decides to run a piece taking the proverbial. Some random online wire might copy paste it – that clocks up as ‘column inch coverage’ – if you’re lucky you just might catch the Indi (which doesn’t actually have a proper energy team believe or not) to write some nonsense. When the junior intern does the daily or weekly media sweep for said client – the game continues.
Now, what most people think they are getting when they hire a decent PR companies is personal contacts that would help to generate positive coverage for them given that any serious players in PR are either ex-fleet street editors. Supposedly the FT or Times become a credible shot. The snag, (as no doubt E.On, RWE et al have found out), that being ex-Fleet street editors, these guys aren’t stupid. The amount of times we worked on client portfolios trying to PR something totally lame was about 98% of the time. It was only when we got the occasional decent bit of news / material to PR that the ex-fleet street boys would ever make the call. On this 2% case, the reality was precisely was that it didn’t actually need PR assistance anyway – it would easily have made the news anyway. This all made the ex-fleet street boys glow nicely though and saved them from looking like total PR losers in ex-colleague eyes… the occasional ‘evening meal’ with editors past and present with the Sun (or some such rag) would also be laid on for clients to press the point once a year that they were gaining ‘influence’ but in the final analysis it all really didn’t amount to much. It did however keep the game going that bit longer before having to knock-up yet another tedious powerpoint pitch to retain the client…
Enough PR nonsene on this blog – back to policy stuff.
Hi everyone, it’s horrible to walk into a room blowing a trumpet, but just to put into context what is to follow, I was one of the Naked Truth activists the other day.
Now. We don’t want to get into a massive argument over who’s been approaching who to chat – that would derail from the important issue, and therefore only play into Edelman’s hands. Suffice it to say that it would be silly to get all the way to the building in question and then refuse to talk. How could the activists avoid such a discussion, being superglued to the lobby?!
The fact of the matter is that we would talk happily, if it were in public. The only conversation we have been offered is a one-on-one behind closed doors. That is simply not acceptable. We will not be fobbed off with a backslapping discussion that alienates the public from the issues. We would be retreating under the protective smokescreen from under which Edelman has until now successfully disseminated its greenwash.
Ultimately, Edelman’s CEO has stated publicly that he supports what he describes as Eon’s “balanced” energy policy. This so-called balance is in fact a brief tip of the hat to renewables, just enough to satisfy the press, then back to coal. Compare Eon’s “balanced” energy policy (building the first new coal-fired power stations in UK for 30 years) to the legally binding emissions targets that have been in place, and we see what kind of company Edelman is happy to represent. If Eon were as green as Edelman make out, why would it be the long-standing number one target of UK environmentalists? There’s plenty of other targets out there!
What was important on the day was that people read the banners and fliers, and discussed the issues with other people in the street. The media were hooked, as you’ve pointed out, and Edelman’s disgraceful role in climate change has been brought to the public’s attention. Whether or not you agree with our methods, can you disagree with our message?
I hope this helps. If people are interested, I have two video links. The first is of documentation of the action itself. The second is of a follow-up video we recorded the night after.
http://visionontv.blip.tv/file/2542762/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjgfY_EZcWc
It’s probably also worth pointing out that Mr Phillips has been challenged to point to an area in which Edelman disagree with Eon, has replied to that challenge, and has failed to point to such an area. Opt-out policies are largely irrelevant – as has already been pointed out it would be silly to have someone work on an issue, who disagrees with the “party line” on the matter. It’s interesting that Mr Phillips seems unable to present an Edelman line that in any way deviates from Eon’s. Given this, discourse seems sadly redundant.
Matthew
“On the face of it a good point from C. Ellis, but guess what, here comes staggering point no.2 about PR companies. They not only have asbolutely zero impact on the policy making world, but they also have close to zero impact on any serious media.”
I’m not here to talk about E.ON, coal or Edelman per se, but the above comment by “Real PR” is an attempt at humour, right? Any serious scrutiny of the media reveals that the majority of stories do not originate from the blood, sweat and tears of fearless, investigative hacks. They originate from the releases and briefings generated by PR companies. The hacks simply package and publish them. If you do not understand that elementary fact then perhaps you’ve a lot to learn about the business. Is H&K recruiting rookies now?
Thanks for that one TRJS! Alas, I learnt rather too much about the business which is why I called time on it. If you re-read my comments, you’ll note that the repackaged press releases does of course account for the vast majority of ninth rate sloppy journalism, but it’s important to distinguish between serious outlets and pap. If we all want to do pap then that’s fine – it’s just as I note, the cyclical industry disease between PR and ropey journalism – all of which keeps cliets happy. On that note Matthew, you are quite right, you would be totally wasting your time having a discussion with Edelman as they really are quite trivial as far as the entire debate is concerned. PR is PR – not policy hot beds.
Assuming you actually have any serious ideas as to how to square the circle between energy security and climate change (which if you do, I would be all ears given Alex’s previous critiques of very bad NGO policy advocacy) you are probably best off taking them straight to the government. Indeed, forget E.On, they will merely respond to policy changes – no more, no less as it really isn’t their job to look at externalities. I’m not going to bleet on about dark spreads, CCS, feed in tariffs etc etc etc, that deserves a proper blog page in its own right, but if you want anything to happen, governments will have to do the heavy lifting first which will be economically and thus, politically painful…
As for the rookies comment, I would agree TRJS. Most of the PR people I met, particularly in consumer, tech and health are so dumb that the main reason why they can crack on with the job in hand is precisely because they have close to zero understanding of the real policy issues involved. Put it this way, a head of healthcare at a rather large global PR firm that H&K might consider its biggest London competitor had never heard of TRIPS…. eeerm, right. One of many, many examples I could list if you really want … Some people were extremely good, but not many. They also didn’t last long as they had the intelligence to work out how stupid the whole thing really was.
By the same token, it’s entirely possible that TRJS is a random punter, or indeed that he might well be an Edelman employee trying to be a little more subtle than Mr. Philips. Gosh that sounds very conspiracy theorist – sorry TRJS is you’re not. If you think about it using the web (and blogs) to get messaging out (Mc Donalds got onto that early doors and caught a cold when NGOs realised it was all about as genuine as a nine bob note), is tacit recognition of having to resort to lame media rather than serious ‘opinion leaders’. The new age of media, democratising, lively… zzzzzzz, dull, and mostly full of nonsense (current site excluded naturally).
In a way, that’s the problem with PR; too much worrying about ‘positioning’ and not enough focus on what it is they are actually positioning in the first place…. If they understood that, then PR might actually really start to count; some of the brigher journalists might just rethink the delete button, but certainly not yet… To bring this back to some vague kind of policy relevance rather than a boring insight into PR, this is probably the only factor holding back Cameroon from a certain victory at the next election. No one is really quite sure whether he is the real deal or not, not least becasue of his PR background he seems to have taken into office – too much fluff, not enough policy “it’s the PR stupid” springs to mind. It really is the only thing keeping him from certain office – fancy that, the vagaries of PR save Mr. Brown…. certainly a thought for government departments to keep in mind next time they decide they want to ‘engage’ with the public via PR consultancies in future. On that note, I hear DLA are very good when it comes to ‘drumming’ up support for runways – anyway…
PS Top tip from one rookie to another TRJS, if you want to get a hit in Guardian, Times etc go via the Evening Standard – it’s more or less where the main Q is taken from for the following days news … Likewise, if you want to get into the Sunday’s, normally go for Thurs or Friday weekly’s to stand a fighting chance. You might just get lucky…
Nevertheless, Climate Camp caught the attention of Global Dashboard.
Hi stuck record,
Thanks for the response, I’ve posted on pretty much every story/blog that has come up about this, and as far as I can see you’re the only person who’s responded. This Phillips bloke has posted on most of them too, he knows they exist, yet seems unable to find the reply button. Odd.
We reject false governmental solutions – government policy supports Kingsnorth, a 3rd runway at Heathrow, fails to bail out Vestas, plugs CCS, the list goes on. We’d welcome any positive moves by a government to tackle climate change, but a culture change is required first in order to force the government to act properly. We won’t achieve that by talking in shady backrooms with Edelman spin doctors or government hacks – these kind of “solutions” alienate the public.
We stood on roofs and in lobbies for close to 5 hours, waiting for someone to dare talk to us. It didn’t happen, so I guess we’ll have to take to the roofs again.
C. Ellis, the media/blog response has been phenomenal, clearly we’ve kicked up quite a storm. Hopefully the greenwashers will start talking OPENLY soon and we can get down to it.