To:           Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, David Cameron

From:      Alex Evans and David Steven

Date:       10 May 2012

Congratulations on your appointment as co-chairs of the UN’s new High Level Panel of Eminent Persons to advise on the design of a framework to replace the Millennium Development Goals after 2015. The Panel has a major opportunity to build a vision for global development over the next generation, at a time when most governments are primarily focused on much shorter term fire-fighting and crisis management.

Your task, however, will not be easy. The Panel will start work after the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) – an event that is likely to be a disappointment at best, and could yet prove an abject failure.

You will have to demonstrate that the Panel can avoid the many mistakes made in the run up to Rio. On the one hand, this means working patiently to rebuild consensus, at a point when the development agenda is showing signs of becoming dangerously polarised. On the other hand, you will also need to inject a sense of urgency into the process, if a new framework is to be in place in time for 2015.

In this memo, we set out eight steps that will help ensure the Panel asks the right questions in the right order, in a way that encourages your fellow leaders to move towards a clear and coherent strategy over the next couple of years.

1. Beware the curse of the sequel. Most targets are quickly forgotten, but the MDGs have become a ‘universal language’ for international development. They will not be improved without creative thinking, a hard-headed approach, careful political management – and recognition of how much the world has changed since they were agreed. Many have badly underestimated how much work needs to be done. Your first job will be to jolt them out of this complacency.
2. Focus on the poor first and foremost. Rio +20 will put Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the international agenda – but the obstacles to such ambitious goals are substantial. Developing countries are right to worry that the poor would be the first casualties of a bitter, and possibly fruitless, fight to agree SDGs. You will need to reassure them by making it clear that you will make recommendations on poverty first – in an interim report – before moving on to consider broader goals.
3. We have halved poverty. Now let’s end it. Poverty rates are falling at unprecedented rates – a success that you should celebrate – with fewer than 900 million people likely to be living on less than $1.25 a day in 2015, comfortably exceeding the MDGs’ headline target. This provides the world with an historic opportunity to set goals for ‘getting to zero’ on absolute poverty – achievement of which would be a truly epochal shift.
4. ‘Getting to zero’ will radically change the development mission. Every success in the fight to end poverty makes the remaining task a little harder: the ‘last poor’ will be the hardest to reach. The Panel must challenge development organisations to explain how they will react as the ‘geography of poverty’ shifts to fragile states, or unstable regions of otherwise prosperous countries, where results will not come easily. It should also provide a platform to the g7+, a group which represents some of the world’s most fragile countries, to tell the international community what help they need to build societies able to deliver better lives to their citizens.
5. But emphasise the opportunities too. Many African countries are beginning to surf a demographic wave, as growing numbers of young people enter the workforce and dependency ratios fall. During the global economic crisis, many of them maintained high growth even as the rest of the world slowed down. Their future looks hopeful – as long as they are connected to global markets, and as long as national institutions are strong enough to generate jobs, and support inclusive and sustainable growth.
6. Rather than a grand design, aim for a loose family of SDGs. The Sustainable Energy for All initiative has shown the potential for sustainability goals to be developed by a disparate alliance of actors who have the will and the capacity to implement them. Instead of attempting to build a rigid SDG framework, you should explore the potential for building on this foundation, with different partnerships all bringing their own approach to achieving significant improvements in one or more aspects of sustainability.
7. Provide space for innovation. The world is changing rapidly, but the international system moves at glacial pace. Provocative questions are needed to open up space for new thinking and approaches. What will a post-2015 framework do for the half of the world’s people who will be under 30 in 2015, for instance? What can be done to help the world’s towns and cities provide decent lives for a billion additional residents between 2015 and 2030? How will poverty reduction evolve in a world where we have the name, address and mobile phone number of growing numbers of poor families? And what types of partnership can deliver impact in a world where governments often hold only few of the cards?
8. Get people arguing about concrete options as soon as possible. The international system is capable of debating vague generalities for the next two years, without ever bringing to the surface important areas of disagreement. Even if, as a Panel, you don’t find the definitive answer for what a post-2015 framework should look like, you will have made a huge contribution if you move quickly to define the choices the world faces, set out the benefits, costs, and risks of each option, and catalyse a genuine global debate.

The goal of ending absolute poverty is within reach for the first time. With skill and luck, you can prise open the space to begin building a new consensus on development that lasts for the long term. You will be at the forefront of helping the world seize these opportunities. We cannot imagine a more significant political legacy. We wish you luck in your endeavour.

The original goals have been remarkably successful. Even in a single organisation, most targets are agreed and then quickly forgotten. The MDGs, which took a decade to stitch together, have prospered since their final agreement in 2002. Most developing country governments, and nearly all donors, have at least partially aligned policies to them.

Poverty rates have also dropped remarkably quickly (and not just in China) and progress towards social development targets seems now to be accelerating. How much of the good news can be directly attributed to the MDGs is hard to prove. But if you accept that goals can only ever be a part of the answer to a complex problem, then the British PM should start by asking why the MDGs did so well, not by assuming that his Panel is easily going to come up with something better.

His first question should be to ask what makes for an effective set of goals. I’d identify five criteria. They should:

• Be resonant – powerful, simple and clear enough to communicate with politicians, media, public.
• Form the main elements of a common strategic language, enabling different types of organisation to understand and work with each other.
• Be amenable to implementation, not just on a technical level, but given likely political and resource constraints.
• Have sufficient authority and clarity that it matters whether or not they are delivered fifteen years down the road.

Conversely, effective goals avoid:

• Too much complexity – every interest group in the world will want ‘its’ target included and for technocrats more is usually more. Resisting a ‘Christmas Tree’ framework will require a willingness to pick tough political battles.
• Straying into areas where consensus doesn’t exist – goals make countries more likely to do difficult things they believe are in their best interests; they can’t be used radically to change their identification of those interests.
• Distorting incentives in a way that is significantly counterproductive. Goals will inevitably have at least some adverse consequences, but the detail and balance of the framework will determine how serious a problem this is, as will the quality of the data on results (to avoid cheating).
• Making promises that aren’t really meant – some countries will be happy to sign up to goals they have no intention of doing anything to meet and it is possible to imagine leaders embracing a set of empty promises in 2015 just so they can have a big announcement to make.

So my advice to David Cameron would be to take three types of failure very seriously:

• A failure to agree – lots of talk that leads, ultimately, to another multilateral car crash.
• A framework to forget – we get agreement in 2015, but it’s largely ignored thereafter.
• A strategic realignment to no great purpose – we get goals, try to implement them, but it doesn’t work out due to a lack of will or because the goals are the wrong ones.

None of this is to say that I think that, as Chair of the Panel, the PM has been handed (or worse, lobbied for) a poisoned chalice. Sequels are usually worse than the original, precisely because of the complacent assumption that the original’s success will easily be replicated. Cameron – and his team – need to make it clear from the beginning that they are intent on avoiding this error.

(This post is based on a talk I gave to a seminar recently at Brookings. Alex and I will publish a Brookings paper on the post-2015 challenge in the next few days.)

Daily Summit was a blast, but I was left with one frustration – how tough it was to get people working for the governments at the summit to talk openly, and on-the-record, about what they were trying to achieve.

There were statements galore and gazillions of press conferences – but little that bridged the gap between ‘official positions’ and the gossip in the corridors that only insiders get to hear.

So I wrote the Human Voice, an article about what I hoped blogging would do to the way organisations communicated with the outside world:

How long ’til a Chief Executive of a major multi-national has a blog? Which government minister will boldly blog where no minister has blogged before? When will blogging become a way of communicating for senior civil servants?

And when are we going to hear from the organisational infantry – slogging away in the trenches, but fighting interesting battles and helping win the occasional war?

Ten years’ later, of course, all this is commonplace (thanks largely to Twitter). But many organisational bloggers/tweeters remain unbearably stiff and formal or – worse – pepper the world with exhortatory missives about the greatness of their product, the importance of their issue, or the awesomeness of their boss. It can be hard to take.

So hats off to Tom Fletcher, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, for this tweet:

Interesting piece on paintballing with Hizballah. (RT not endorsement, &breaks our travel advice on so many levels). vice.com/read/paintball…

— Tom Fletcher (@HMATomFletcher) March 24, 2012

Not only did it make me laugh – it  alerted me to what is a great article.

We figured they’d cheat; they were Hezbollah, after all. But none of us—a team of four Western journalists—thought we’d be dodging military-grade flash bangs when we initiated this “friendly” paintball match.

The battle takes place underground in a grungy, bunker-like basement underneath a Beirut strip mall. When the grenades go off it’s like being caught out in a ferocious thunderstorm: blinding flashes of hot white light, blasts of sound that reverberate deep inside my ears.

As my eyesight returns and readjusts to the dim arena light, I poke out from my position behind a low cinder-block wall. Two large men in green jumpsuits are bearing down on me. I have them right in my sights, but they seem unfazed—even as I open fire from close range, peppering each with several clear, obvious hits. I expect them to freeze, maybe even acknowledge that this softie American journalist handily overcame their flash-bang trickery and knocked them out of the game. Perhaps they’ll even smile and pat me on the back as they walk off the playing field in a display of good sportsmanship (after cheating, of course).

Instead, they shoot me three times, point-blank, right in the groin.

Against HMG travel advice, indeed. Read the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.

In particular, the decision to return the Churchill bust had them flogging each other into paroxysms of indignation. “The President has never even mentioned the Anglo-American alliance in a major policy speech, and has little affinity for Britain,” complained Nile Gardiner.

“How can you explain a policy toward Britain that makes no strategic or moral sense?” asked Charles Krauthammer. “And even if you can, how do you explain the gratuitous slaps to the Czechs, Poles, Indians, and others? Perhaps when an Obama Doctrine is finally worked out, we shall learn whether it was pique, principle, or mere carelessness.”

The ‘Churchill’s bust’ meme has recurred regularly ever since, as a symbol of a relationship that is irretrievably broken. Here’s race-baiter Mark Steyn sewing it into a 2009 piece on Muslim-take-over, in which he suggests that, due to Churchill’s views on Islam, “ the bust will almost certainly be arrested at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.” Hah-bloody-hah.

So how did today’s love-in between President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron go down with the Cornerites? Huge relief that the special relationship is at last on the mend? Or, instead, concern that our centre-right PM clearly has much more in common with America’s centre-left extreme-socialist leader than any of the candidates for the Republican nomination?

Neither. Just stony silence (so far, at least) in the right-wing echo chamber.

1. High prices are being driven by fears of war with Iran. But we’ve been there before. Back in 2009, many were hyping a military strike and nothing happened. If markets get bored of waiting and begin to discount fears of an imminent attack, oil’s risk premium could shrink fast.
2. Higher prices are bringing more oil onto the market. Iraq is now producing more than at any time since 1979 and hopes to quadruple production by 2017. Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of rigs it has deployed.  Offshore exploration is picking up as memories of the Deepwater disaster fade. Remember too that we’re yet to see the full supply response to the 2008 spike.
3. At the same time, demand is being choked off by high energy prices. Oil helps explain why the US recovery is so anaemic. Meanwhile, both China and India have revised their growth projections downwards. HSBC has dubbed oil ‘the new Greece’ – catchy, an exaggeration, but at least somewhat true.
4. Oil prices are putting import-dependent emerging and developing economies under growing fiscal pressure. In India last week, I was taken aback at how vulnerable high energy prices have made the country’s government. Energy and food subsidies have driven the deficit to an expected 5.6% of GDP this year. Many countries will have to cut expenditure or subsidies, or raise taxation somewhere along the line (and face the political consequences of these actions).
5. The United States is importing less oil than at any time since 1999 – in part due to lower demand (changes in consumer behaviour due to the 2008 price spike are still filtering through the system) and in part due to resurgent domestic supply (tight oil etc.). Together with its growing shale production, this represents a significant shift in the pattern of demand.
6. Speculative pressures appear to be pro-cyclical and could unwind rapidly. Oil consumers  are hedging (or trying to) against an Iranian supply shock, while pension and index funds are betting that oil will go higher. A change in sentiment could lead to a sudden bout fall in the price, as trade in paper-based oil exacerbates, rather than controls, market risk.
7. It’s happened before. Brent was above $145 in July 2008. It then fell to $54 in just six months. Admittedly, the bottom had fallen out of the world economy and we seem to have stepped away from imminent catastrophe in the Eurozone, but the historical precedent should still dent the confidence of those who assume that, for oil, the only way is up.

So will oil fall? Much depends on what happens with Iran, of course. Other supply shocks could play a role, which is why reports of an attack on a Saudi pipeline  caused palpitations last week, and why MEND’s seeming resurgence in Nigeria is causing concern.

Oil exporters, meanwhile, are desperate to keep prices high(ish). Their fiscal breakeven points are now worryingly high, as governments use oil revenues to buy off restive populations. Saudi Arabia needs oil above $80 and Iraq above $100 before they start eating into surpluses or running up debt. In Russia, Putin’s tears of triumph may flow for less happy reasons: the Finance Ministry says it now needs S117 oil. Don’t expect to see them rushing to flood the market with supply.

And oil is clearly riskier and more expensive to produce than it was in the long, long bear market that followed the East Asian financial crisis. In the medium term, a new floor is probably being set for the oil price, determined by the cost of production for tight and deep sea oil, and for tar sands, and for opening up resources in some of the world’s least stable states. That floor, though, could be somewhat, or even considerably lower, than the current price.

My sense is that we can expect to see an extension of the current period of volatility. The scenario where prices jump again is realistic, but so is one where we see a lurch downwards. The market seems pretty frothy to me, and too many analysts have jumped uncritically on the high price bandwagon.

Policymakers need to continue to plan for unusually high levels of uncertainty. And they should be sure to ignore the false prophecies of those who claim to know what the oil price is going to do.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To say, the ex-speaker is bullish on US domestic energy prospects is an understatement. He sets four objectives: (i) zero dependence on imported energy from potentially hostile states (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, etc); (ii) over a million additional high-paid jobs in the energy sector; (iii) a strengthened dollar due to a reduction of energy imports and increase in exports; (iv) gas at $2.50 per gallon.

Newt’s vision is based on massive exploitation of what he believes are more or less unlimited unconventional oil and gas reserves. The US could have three times as much oil as Saudi Arabia, he argues, and gas for 100 years or more. The geopolitical consequences of this bounty will be striking. As President, he would have the Saudis firmly in his sights:

I want to get to a point where we produce so much oil in the United States that no American president will ever again bow to a Saudi King. I thought, frankly, it’s time that we tell the Saudis the truth: We know that they are the largest funders of schools called madrassas, which teach hate. We know that they spend several billion dollars a year exporting a very, very extreme version called Wahhabism, and we know that they are not straight with us.

And up until now, our presidents have been too cautious to say, “Oh gee, I don’t want to offend the Saudis. I don’t want them to do something with their oil supply.”

Well, we have an opportunity now to turn that around. We have an opportunity to build up the American oil supply, the American natural gas supply, so we can then tell the Saudis the truth, so we can deal with them from a position of strength, so we can no longer worry about the Persian Gulf.

And at that point, if, in fact, the Iranians want to do something with the Straits of Hormuz, maybe the Chinese have a problem or the Indians have a problem or the Europeans have a problem. But I am not sure at that point that the Americans will have a problem if we become once again what we were in World War II, the leading producer of oil in the world.

As is often the case, Newt has tapped deep into the Zeitgeist by choosing today to go large on energy. Talk to American policy makers and they have become incredibly bullish about the prospects for the domestic sector (although few, of course, rising to Gingrichian heights of enthusiasm).

Citigroup recently proclaimed the end of Peak Oil, triggering a debate on whether shale gas and tight oil prospects are fundamental game changers or whether they will have a more marginal – although still significant – impact (see Chris Nelder for example). No-one credible I have talked to would disagree that a shift of some kind is afoot.

Newt is also right to see potential geopolitical advantages for the US. American energy demand is fairly stable and its domestic endowment is growing. In contrast, China and India face decades of rapidly increasing consumption of all natural resources. They also still have lots and lots of resource-hungry cities to build. Their transition is going to be much more tricky to handle.

The US also has leadership in key technologies (fracking, enhanced oil recovery, solar, even nuclear) that are increasingly valuable as energy demand grows. And it’s well-placed on food and land (although water is a big problem for some parts of the country).

Characteristically, of course, Gingrich overplays his hand (that’s his shtick). America sitting back while the Gulf implodes? Good luck with that. And market prices for oil – less so for gas – are set globally. Demand overseas will continue to drive the price the American consumer pays for gasoline at home: ‘oil isolationism’ is, and will remain, a fantasy.

And, of course, climate change does not get a mention in Gingrich’s current world view (although it used to), even though new fossil fuel discoveries are putting huge amounts of new carbon in play. That is not a problem that can be ignored ad infinitum.

I’m expecting Newt’s energy fervour to be much mocked, but don’t bet against him getting some momentum too. And the mood could spread. We might see quite a lot more bullish talk on energy in the American presidential debate.

Update: Just reading the transcript, one misses some of the glory of Newt’s delivery, which is Pinteresque at times: “Under President Obama, because he is so anti‑American [pause] energy, we have actually had a 40 percent reduction in development of oil offshore.”

Update II: The Onion weighs in:

As Newt Gingrich continues to cede ground to Rick Santorum, the former House speaker’s campaign team has responded by advising him to stay focused on the belligerent, mean-spirited message that has long been the hallmark of his presidential run, sources confirmed Monday.

“Newt’s rhetoric can become abstract and idiosyncratic at times, and we have to gently remind him that he just needs to be himself, to be the Newt people are familiar with—the Newt devoid of any discernible scruple beyond his own insatiable instinct for self-promotion,” campaign director Michael Krull said Friday, explaining that whatever lies at Gingrich’s cold, depraved core is what will make or break him with voters. “Every time he veers off course and talks passionately about about outer space or how the United States has to stop spending beyond its means, I tell him, ‘Look, your greatest asset is being a remorseless asshole.”

Heartland Documents Reveal Fringe Denial Group Plans to Pursue Koch Money, Dupe Children and Ruin Their Future

So what do we have? Nothing less or more than you’d expect. Papers that show the organisation believes climate change is a hoax and that it wants to raise money to promote that view. As if any of that’s a surprise.

There’s really no news here at all. No smoking gun. No admission that Heartland knows global warming is real, for example, but isn’t saying so. Or that it was behind the hacking of UAE’s Climate Research Unit. Rarely has so much hot air (geddit?) been expended over so little.

Now I know why I am supposed to get all riled up by this story. (i) Heartland is wrong. (ii) It’s wrong in a way that is convenient for its funders. (iii) And, of course, this is sweet revenge Climategate – where the media also got its knickers-in-a-twist about innocuous emails written by climate scientists.

But none of these reasons stop this being a stupid non-story. Especially not the fact that something similar (or worse) was done to ‘our’ side.

But then… then… there’s Heartland’s asinine reaction. I know that, in the media age, s/he who is most offended against wins, but this is truly ridiculous:

The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

It’s a criminal offence even to comment on this story? And you’re worried about your reputation? What reputation?

Anyway – I have commented on Heartland-gate and will continue to do so if I don’t have anything better to do. And, if Heartland doesn’t like it, I think the gentleman below captures my sentiment very well….

Update (21/2/12): Predictably enough, this sorry saga has degenerated further. On the one hand – and quite extraordinarily – the Heartland crew has followed through on its threat to get legal with the blogosphere, going after sites that have:

Posted links to a document titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy.”

Posted links to certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute.

Posted blogs or web pages discussing any or all of these documents.

The final clause would draw into its net most of the Western world’s media – and Global Dashboard. And this from an allegedly libertarian think thank.

Then we have last night’s confession by Peter Gleick that he obtained and then leaked the documents. Time will tell if he also faked one or more of them. Idiot.

(BTW how long until Gleick resigns from this Task Force on Scientific Ethics?)

The Agenda 21 conspiracy theory is back in the media, thanks to a New York Times report on Tea Party opposition to bike lanes, smart meters, public parks and other dastardly measures that the United Nations is preparing “to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.”

For UN nerds and sustainable development saddos, Agenda 21 is a stunningly tedious ground-breaking attempt to bring together environment and development in a ‘dynamic programme’ to be implemented by a ‘global partnership’ of international organisations, governments, businesses, and local communities in ‘every area in which human impacts on the environment’.

Agenda 21 was agreed at the Earth Summit in 1992 and was briefly a big deal in the 1990s. Even my local Council here in rural England briefly had an Agenda 21 group. Now though, despite being regularly reaffirmed at UN summits, it’s largely forgotten. Neither has it had much, if any, impact on global development, sustainable or otherwise.

But the American right has never seen it that way. I don’t know who first read Agenda 21 and got the fear, but back in 2005, Nancy Levant (author of the anti-feminism tract, The Cultural Devastation of American Women) was already freaking out:

No one told me about Agenda 21. I found it by accident on the Internet. Then I went to the U.N.’s website and read Agenda 21…I started documenting and keeping running lists because, I discovered, Agenda 21 was huge, highly developed, and a done deal…

I also realized that there was no way to explain Agenda 21 easily. It’s too big, profoundly sophisticated, intentionally masked and hidden by corporate agendas and ecological ideologies that are, themselves, exploited by corporate agendas.

But more than that, I realized that for Americans to understand Agenda 21, they would have to come to terms with a truth that, I fear, they won’t believe. What would that truth be? Let me try to say it in one sentence: Agenda 21 is the end of America.

The paranoia, however, goes further back than that – to 2001 or possibly long before (the NYT says that Tom DeWeese has been working on the issue since 1992). At its most extreme, adherents believe that Agenda 21 is a front for a broader “global depopulation eugenics program” which will see six billion people culled from the global population.

The big boys have got in on the act, as well. Glenn Beck portrays Agenda 21 as the perfect example of how globalist elites hide their cunning plans for world domination in plain sight (he’s particularly suspicious of the local government organisation for sustainability – poor old ICLEI). Alex Jones, pushes the idea of a eugenics cult particularly hard. Even David Icke is in on the act.

The UN has always tried to ignore this stuff, imagining it will stay safely out on the fringe. But it hasn’t. Here’s Newt Gingrich opposing Agenda 21 as “a series of centralized planning provisions” that will take control of American private property.  He sees it as an example of how the UN is seeking to establish “extra-constitutional control” over the United States.

Last month, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution recognising the “destructive and insidious” nature of Agenda 21 and the push is now on to get this condemnation onto the party’s platform for the 2012 Convention.

Opposition to Agenda 21 – and to the UN itself – is  now firmly in the Republican mainstream, in other words. The UN could do with thinking carefully about this as it prepared for the Earth Summit’s successor, Rio +20. It wouldn’t want to give the next generation of conspiracy-minded whackjobs more meat to feed on, would it?