by Mark Weston | Mar 24, 2011 | Africa, Conflict and security, Economics and development
A man from the British government rang me up the other day and asked what I thought would happen in the next five years in West Africa (the advantage of being interested in an obscure subject: you don’t need to know that much for people to think you’re an expert). This is like asking someone to predict which lottery numbers will come up this week but, having prefaced all comments with the get-out clause that the only thing certain in such an unstable part of the world is uncertainty, I ventured a few guesses.
The first thing to note if you’re a Western government is that of the five really key countries in the region – Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Guinea (in order of importance based on the impact of what happens in them on other countries) – four have quite serious internal divisions to deal with. Nigeria faces rebellion in the Delta and increasing unrest in the middle belt and north; Senegal has the long-running Casamance rebellion; in the Ivory Coast there is a dramatic north-south divide which is threatening to explode (again) into war; and Guinea has the disaffected Forestiere region and simmering resentment among some sections of the large Fula community. In other words, four of the region’s five most important countries are bedevilled by internal instability. This complicates policy-making and means Western governments, businesses and civil society organisations taking an interest in the region cannot be sure who will be in charge next month, let alone five years down the line. You only need to look at the recent elections in these five countries to see how shaky are their foundations: few would have predicted that Guinea’s elections would go off peacefully, but they did; elections in Ghana, the beacon of good governance in the region, looked tense for a while before a result was called; and the Ivory Coast, which had enjoyed a few years of peace after a brutal civil conflict, now has two self-declared presidents who may soon declare war on each other. (more…)
by Andy Sumner | Mar 24, 2011 | Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Economics and development, Global system
More horizon scanning out this week – it’s a growth industry – from the Irish NGO, Trocaire (and some inputs from IDS).
This scan is a bit different – it’s one written for an international NGO audience with a timeline to 2020.
Lawrence Haddad’s blog summed up the 3 key points well in a post about the launch of the report:
The top 3 “burning questions” for INGOs are:
1. Advocacy: how do INGOs protect their independence and ability to speak out on issues that may be unpopular with important stakeholders? In other words, to what extent does funding compromise stance?
2. Downward accountability: How do INGOs ensure that they are as (or more) accountable to the people they reach as they are to the development partners that fund them?
3. Flexible and responsive: How can INGO’s experiment and innovate without falling victim to development fads?
His conclusion – NGOs: be less obsessed with ODA and focus on other government departments, focus more on global public goods that your own government can affect, such as climate, trade, and security regimes, and try to focus on transformative actions.
Sounds good to me – in short in a world of fewer poor countries and fewer countries needing or wanting resource transfers over time, looming on to the horizon are development assistance as development policy (aka ‘policy coherence’) and global public goods and how these will relate to any MDGs 2.0 – a second generation of the Millennium Development Goals – the UN poverty goals – if there is a second generation after 2015.
And for those with a view to looking further ahead – there’s some thought provoking scenarios for 2030 from the Guardian’s Development blog…
by David Steven | Mar 24, 2011 | Europe and Central Asia
“Language is one area of culture that Nicolas Sarkozy can’t dominate,” complains Hélène Cixous in the Guardian, “so he mangles it with a calculated barbarity… You’ve got to see what he does to language. He mauls it, he beats it, he pummels it, he dismembers it. Pushing syncope to the limit, he swallows half the syllables and he spits the rest in his opponent’s face.”
I hate to put Global Dashboard in the embarrassing position of defending the vertically-challenged French President, but seriously? This from Hélène Cixous? Author of some of the worst linguistic atrocities ever perpetuated?
Pure I, identical to I-self, does not exist. I is always in difference. I is the open set of the trances of an I by definition changing, mobile, because living-speaking-thinking-dreaming. This truth should moreover make us prudent and modest in our judgements and our definitions. The difference is in us, in me, difference plays me (my play). And it is numerous: since it plays with me in me between me and me or I and myself. A “myself” which is the most intimate first name of You. I will never say often enough that the difference is not one, that there is never without the other, and that the charm of difference (beginning with sexual difference) is that it passes… [continues ad nauseam]
Really, really, really: not fair.
by Alex Evans | Mar 23, 2011 | Off topic
As Mother Jones says, “You should, like, strongly consider applying to work for this guy:”
We want to add some talent to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigative team. Every serious candidate should have a proven track record of conceiving, reporting and writing stellar investigative pieces that provoke change. However, our ideal candidate has also cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once because some fool wanted to screw around with their perfect lede.
We do a mix of quick hit investigative work when events call for it and mini-projects that might run for a few days. But every year we like to put together a project way too ambitious for a paper our size because we dream that one day Walt Bogdanich will have to say: “I can’t believe the Sarasota Whatever-Tribune cost me my 20th Pulitzer.” As many of you already know, those kinds of projects can be hellish, soul-sucking, doubt-inducing affairs. But if you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.
For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterfucks. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.
Send questions, or a resume/cover letter/links to clips to my email address below. If you already have your dream job, please pass this along to someone whose skills you covet. Thanks.
Matthew Doig
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
1741 Main St.
Sarasota FL, 34236
(941) 361-4903
matthew.doig@heraldtribune.com
by Claire Melamed | Mar 23, 2011 | Economics and development, UK
Uh-oh....
In an article in the Daily Mail today, Peter Mandelson takpes a pop at the Labour Government’s aid policy. He says:
‘I’m not anti-aid, but if you ask me where I would put my money, it would go on trade rather than aid as a key to African economic development.’
Sigh. One of the most unthinking cliches trotted out by people who want to sound knowledgable about development is to repeat the tired old mantra that ‘trade not aid’ is the secret to reducing poverty. Sadly they’re just revealing how little they know – it’s a completely meaningless distinction.
Trade and aid are completely different things, and they’re not in opposition to each other. Companies trade, and governments give aid. The roles can’t, and probably shouldn’t, be merged. Aid can help trade – there’s no point in having the perfect trading system (something which Peter Mandelson conspicuously failed to deliver during his tenure as the EU’s trade commissioner), if you don’t have any roads to move stuff around the country, or people who can read, or people who are well enough to work. Trade won’t help you then, but aid might.
Governments can’t, as Peter Mandelson seems to be suggesting they can, ‘put money into’ trade – unless he’s suggesting, in a most un-New Labour way, that the government set up state-owned companies to trade with Africa. What they can do is to provide the sort of aid that can help economic development and therefore trade – a lot of which they’re already doing, like investing in education or in health. Given the uncertainties involved in the aid business, donors won’t always get it right. But silly slogans like ‘trade not aid’, are even less likely to help.
