Via the PSD Blog, I found this item by Jeffrey Sachs and Glen Denning, urging G8 nations to fulfill their promise to Africa. What's most interesting is that Sachs employs a frame he hasn't used much, which urges donor nations to look to the leadership of Africa's own success stories, like Malawi and put our money where that success points the way.

It is through support for these kinds of proven, home-grown initiatives, Sachs argues, the G8 can trigger a green revolution in Africa and truly help these poor countries help themselves. Interesting.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You like the environmental reframing, yes?

We got your environmental reframing right here: young messaging dynamo Scott Paul took another whack at the "energy independence" frame over on The Washington Note, picking up a theme he and colleagues have been developing for Citizens for Global Solutions. Scott notes an Edmund Andrews piece in the NY Times on "the fight over coal-to-liquid fuels in Congress. Advocates of 'energy independence' and 'reducing dependence on foreign oil' say ramping up coal-to-liquid production will get us closer to our energy goals."

As Andrews writes, "[The conflict over coal-to-liquid] reflects a tension, which many lawmakers gloss over, between slowing global warming and reducing dependence on foreign oil." Scott responds:

Of the two, slowing global warming is clearly the right policy goal. The ultimate goal should be even more broad and ambitious: shifting the global energy economy to reliance on abundant sources of clean and sustainable energy that are climate-neutral, pro-development, and cannot be used as geopolitical leverage. I'm still working on the bumper sticker, I guess...

With sequestration and coal burning technologies being where they are, the climate impacts of coal-to-liquid fuels would be at least as detrimental as those of oil. Plus, subsidizing these fuels in the U.S. would do nothing to address the oil addiction from we're suffering from, which is global. No matter where the U.S. gets its energy, the global energy market -- and U.S. energy prices -- will continue to ebb and flow with the price of oil.

Calling out politicians who casually mention "reliance on foreign oil" and "energy independence" because they're catchy and politically popular may seem nitpicky to some. But these terms are handcuffing a critically important policy debate.

Bradford Plumer in the June 4 issue of The New Republic also focuses on the seemingly irresistible political candy that is "Coal-to-Liquid-Fuel" (Mmmmmmmm: coal-based liquid fuel!) As Plumer notes: "...Democrats who prefer to talk about energy independence first and global warming second will be playing right into Big Coal's hands."

Posted by David Devlin-Foltz at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Josh, a proud graduate of Wheaton College, wrote yesterday of the growing number and quality of environmental studies programs at the member schools in the Consortium of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). It's a significant trend and part of the larger ferment represented by increasingly outspoken positions on global warming taken by such evangelical Christian leaders as Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Josh is our go-to guy for all things evangelical Christian (as I am for all things Unitarian-Universalist-and-recovering-Christian-Scientist), but he encouraged me to add a little historical perspective on this phenomenon on CCCU campuses. From 1993 to 1996, when I was helping the Pew Charitable Trusts distribute part of the fortune accumulated by the founder of the Sun Oil Company, I had the pleasure of working with the small handful of CCCU members then developing their environmental studies programs. They were few, and they were cautious -- for good reason: biology teachers from several schools told me that roughly 75 percent of their incoming first-year students believed in the literal truth of the Biblical creation story. That made it a little tougher to teach, say, why human-generated climate change could outpace evolutionary processes of adaptation. Some of these pioneering professors also had a problem getting their administrations, colleagues and students to say the words "environmental" and "environmentalist." They prayed over it. (I didn't.)

When those early leaders began speaking of their environmental concerns as "creation care," I know they were expressing their deep religious convictions; but it was also a truly inspired (Inspired?) bit of reframing. Check out Creation Care magazine, the journal of the Evangelical Environmental Network, right here.

Posted by David Devlin-Foltz at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We hear a lot of discussion about whether the rise of blogs, which lower the barriers to public comment and tend to rely on recycled reporting, lower the overall quality of public discourse by overwhelming fact with opinion. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm writing this on a blog, I have my own misgivings on the subject.

But take a step back and thank the heavens for the New York Times, which puts this worry in perspective. Television, surely the medium with the highest barriers to entry, turns out to be no paragon of journalistic virtue -- particularly where Lou Dobbs is concerned. Whether he's talking about illegal immigrants infecting Americans with their leprosy or just stealing our jobs, today's story Dobbs is worth a read. In brief:

The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's encouraging to read that the cultural pendulum is beginning to swing away from bottled water -- even in the world of haute cuisine -- toward the more sustainable, logical and safe (oddly enough) option: water from the tap.

The “eat local” movement first became popular in California, so it makes sense that “drink local” is catching on there as a way to reduce the environmental costs of manufacturing and transporting bottles of water, as well as the mountains of plastic that end up in landfills.

But soon the owners of Del Posto in New York, the most elegant and expensive of the restaurants in the empire of Joseph Bastianich and Mario Batali, will be joining the nascent movement — once they decide on the proper containers for their filtered still and carbonated tap water. Etched on the glass will be an explanation of why bottled water is no longer available.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here, I wrote about the Center for Global Development's Nancy Birdsall's smart thinking about setting a price for the innovative thinking the World Bank does so well. Steven Weisman writes in the New York Times that Zoellick seems to be looking in this very direction:

In his remarks to reporters, Mr. Zoellick also suggested that the international community must rethink having the bank provide loans to countries like China that have access to global capital markets and possess huge foreign exchange reserves. The bank, he said, could move more into providing technical assistance to these countries

But these early signs don't necessarily mean a massive shift at the World Bank. How this philosophy will combine with Zoellick's zeal for tough talk, his difficult to diagnose attitude toward global development arena remains to be seen. But we'll all be watching.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dana Milbank files a snarky Washington Sketch, complete with accompanying video, about a press conference with Sudanese Ambassador to the US, John Ukec Lueth Ukec yesterday. Ukec was responding to President Bush's new sanctions regime which was greeted cooly by advocates and legislators alike. Ukec's apparently erratic comments included threats on the nation's carbonated beverage supply as well as the usual denials of any genocide happening in Darfur:

Khartoum Karl went on to say that, all evidence to the contrary, his government does not support the murderous Janjaweed militia. "It cannot happen," he said, "so rule it out." As for the Sudanese regime itself: "We are the agents of peace, people like me, my colleagues who are in the central government of Sudan."

What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.

"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Sometime let's you and me go to lunch and I can tell you why I don't get along with the Pope. But that's not going to stop me from lauding this latest move by the Holy See:

The Vatican's traditional colors of white and gold are starting to look green with a new solar energy project.

A rooftop garden of solar panels is set to be installed on the Vatican's Paul VI Audience Hall. The solar energy project will begin next year and, when completed, will create enough electricity to heat, cool and light the entire building year-round, the Catholic News Service reported.

"Solar energy will provide all the energy (the building) needs," said Pier Carlo Cuscianna, head of the Vatican's department of technical services.

And that is only the beginning. Cuscianna said that he had in mind other sites throughout Vatican City where solar panels could be installed, but that it was too early in the game to name names.

Although Vatican City State is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, a binding international environmental pact to cut greenhouse gases, its inaugural solar project marks a major move in trying to reduce its own carbon footprint.

When the project is finished, more than 1,000 solar panels will cover the football field-sized roof. Whatever solar power the hall is not using will be funneled into the Vatican's energy grid and benefit other energy needs.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Continuing in the "how religion contributes" (or not) to our public life in America vein, Andrew Sullivan quotes on his blog for the Atlantic a conversation between Peter Steinfels and Gary Dorrien, the Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City:

Q. What insights of Niebuhr’s are most pertinent for the nation’s public life today?

A. His sense that elements of self-interest and pride lurk even in the best of human actions. His recognition that a special synergy of selfishness operates in collectivities like nations. His critique of Americans’ belief in their country’s innocence and exceptionalism — the idea that we are a redeemer nation going abroad never to conquer, only to liberate.

I've confessed to being fascinated by Niebuhr's ideas before; my ears prick up when he's trotted out in favor of one cause or another. But I was once again intrigued to read Niebuhr invoked as a corrective balance to what might be termed neoconservative idealism (or "justice through strength"), rather than the more traditional sort of idealism ("justice through peace").

Niebuhr's ideas are remarkable -- in our political context -- because 1) They are a moderating force while coming from a deeply-felt religious perspective (these seem at odds when we think about how religion and political moderation are presented these days); and 2) They threaten so many, on the right and the left. Always a good sign.

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One of the most counterintuitive facts of life must be that others in one's own community, religion or line of work most easily rub us the wrong way (or, in the case of Iraq, do much worse). So it has been for environmentally-minded Christians in the U.S., trying to emphasize the importance of "creation stewardship" to mainstream evangelicals. The latter have, by and large, exhibited the sorts of attitudes that incensed Friedrich Nietzsche, among others: calling the created world good but acting with otherworldly disregard.

So it is something to read about the cultural shift that seems to be underway at Christian colleges and universities:

Integrating creation care with academics is a growing emphasis on Christian campuses around the country. According to Paul Corts, president of the interdenominational Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), about 40 of 105 North American member schools have adopted significant green initiatives.

And of course my heart swelled with pride on reading that my alma mater is leading the charge (perhaps that's the wrong metaphor since we ditched our old mascot, The Crusaders, but old habits die hard) of applying ideas about good stewardship and making them work in the professional and academic space:

In January, an environmental summit on the Wheaton College campus brought together Christian college students from all over the United States. "We need to cultivate younger leadership," says Wheaton College senior and environmental studies major Ben Lowe. "Rather than reinventing the wheel, we can share ideas, offer feedback, and cooperate with each other."

Roll Wheaton Thunder, roll.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

The Global Peace Index was launched this morning, serving up for the first time a measurement of exactly how peaceful 121 of the world's nations are. The ranking is based on the idea that peacefulness as a concept can be measured somehow, and their methodology -- tabulated by a team of academics and the Economist Intelligence Unit -- uses the expected external metrics as well as a surprisingly robust measurement of internal peacefulness. This includes indicators such as number of deaths from organized internal conflict, level of violent crime, ratio of police and internal security personnel to total population, and ratio of people in jail to total population.

Why the concentration on internal peacefulness?

Two sub-component weighted indices were then calculated from our group of indicators, 1) a measure of how at peace internally a country is; 2) a measure of how at peace externally (its state of peace beyond its borders). Our overall composite score and index was then formulated by applying a weight of 60% to our measure of internal peace and 40% for external peace. The heavier weight applied to internal peace was agreed within the group, following robust debate. The decision was based on the innovative notion that a greater level of internal peace is likely to lead to, or at least correlate with, lower external conflict—in other words, if ‘charity begins at home’ - so might peace.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Quietly scanning the op-ed page this morning amid the chaos of my family's morning routine, I felt a surge of hope when I came across Michael Gerson's piece about the Bush administration's newly hardened line on Sudan. I was somewhat deflated when I read the piece through and wondered if I missed something. Where was the I'm-finally-out-of-the-White-House-and-can-speak-freely passionate compassion that everyone says Michael Gerson carries about in loads? Why isn't he lauding the administration and demanding they go further, push harder, move more boldly to end the genocide?

Rich Stazinski at Citizens for Global Solutions has an answer:

Apparently Gerson's commitment to ending the genocide in Darfur stops at supporting one of the ICC or moving beyond rhetoric and holding his former colleagues to the same standards that he once held our allies. Michael Gerson is by all accounts a moral man and brilliant public servant. So why then can't he bring himself to fully supporting a diplomatically robust, internationally engaged, multilateralist U.S. role in the global efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Darfur? Maybe he just couldn't find the words.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It appears the Bush administration went with the safest choice from a shortlist of possibilities in selecting former US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick as the next president of the World Bank. It could be argued that now is certainly not the time in his presidency for Bush to pick fights with other nations, and naming another ideologue like Paul Wolfowitz could have electrified the world community enough to revisit the arrangement which gives the US president the power to name the head of the Bank.

The Center for Global Development, this thinking-man's go-to on World Bank issues, is surely busily drafting a cogent analysis of the upsides and downsides to a Zoellick presidency. The survey conducted last week by the Center seeking information about the traits the next WB president should have and the potential candidates for the position revealed a perfectly acceptable but hardly resounding assessment of Zoellick.

At this point in the Bush presidency, perfectly acceptable is about all they can hope for.

UPDATE: Foreign Policy Magazine's Passport blog offers a ringing endorsement of Zoellick.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last year, as the battles on editorial pages and increasingly on the streets of American cities raged over reforming America's immigration policies, the GII conducted a review of the messaging approach employed by many commentators to discuss the issue. (Our client was Realizing Rights.)

We looked at the analysis as an opportunity to search for a frame that could break through the regular divisions that were drawing the debate more sharply with every passing day. On the more liberal immigration rules side, there was the "nation of immigrants" frame. There was the "good for business" frame. On the side of stricter rules, commentators often employed the "rule of law" frame, which allowed them to wash their hands of all the negative impacts of the harsher rules. Other arguments were framed in terms of security or the classic "they're taking our jobs" frame. Both sides variously used the hand-wringing "system is broken" frame.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed pretty clear that a lot of Americans had already made up their minds about immigration, and the various frames merely keyed into the preconceived notions of one group or the other.

In my opinion, the frame which was most susceptible to abuse -- rendering it ineffective and almost helplessly hippie-sounding -- was the nation of immigrants frame. While the facts of this argument are convincing, it sounds pleading, not thought through and easily debunked (we're a nation built by immigrants, but many of those immigrants arrived on slave ships and against their will, for instance).

Lawrence Downes files an interesting editorial observer piece expanding the nation of immigrants frame thoughtfully. He cites the work of a Japanese American law professor who looks at the thing immigration once was in our country: an understood path to assimilation and American citizenship. The comparison to the system we're on the verge of building now is fascinating.

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The anonymous Girl from the South collects some smart best practices of successful online destinations, distilling them down to a hot six ways to keep credibility, exploit opportunities and build a presence online.

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From Matthew Yglesias, I learned about this long, thoughtful, well-reasoned editorial in the LA Times assessing the different methods of attacking global warming. Although I feel like everyone who writes about global warming should at this point be able to say "everyone knows what's going to happen if we don't take action about climate change," I see that the editorial doesn't agree with me, and leads with the long, accurate gloom and doom scenario before running the three methods that the public sector can use to address the rising tide. Between regulation, cap-and-trade and a carbon tax, the editorial makes a compelling argument for the carbon tax. Very compelling in fact:

A carbon tax simply imposes a tax for polluting based on the amount emitted, thus encouraging polluters to clean up and entrepreneurs to come up with alternatives. The tax is constant and predictable. It doesn't require the creation of a new energy trading market, and it can be collected by existing state and federal agencies. It's straightforward and much harder to manipulate by special interests than the politicized process of allocating carbon credits.

And it could be structured to be far less harmful to power consumers. While all the added costs under cap-and-trade go to companies, utilities and traders, the added costs under a carbon tax would go to the government — which could use the revenues to offset other taxes. So while consumers would pay more for energy, they might pay less income tax, or some other tax. That could greatly cushion the overall economic effect.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

The NY Times this morning profiles an exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum highlighting "Design that Solves Problems." A major theme of the exhibit was the power of thoughtful design to give the poorest people in the world an opportunity to do for themselves.

For example, one of the simplest and yet most elegant designs tackles a job that millions of women and girls spend many hours doing each year — fetching water. Balancing heavy jerry cans on the head may lead to elegant posture, but it is backbreaking work and sometimes causes crippling injuries. The Q-Drum, a circular jerry can, holds 20 gallons, and it rolls smoothly enough for a child to tow it on a rope.

Interestingly, most of the designers who spoke at the opening of the exhibition spurned the idea of charity.

“The No. 1 need that poor people have is a way to make more cash,” said Martin Fisher, an engineer who founded KickStart, an organization that says it has helped 230,000 people escape poverty. It sells human-powered pumps costing $35 to $95.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On TPM Cafe's America Abroad blog, Ivo Daalder contrasts neoconservative ideas of what makes America exceptional with Barack Obama's answer to that question. It makes for a stark comparison. Here's a bit of Obama's powerful speech on the subject:

[America is a] place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form “a more perfect union” on this new frontier...

This collective dream moved forward imperfectly—it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It’s answered by us.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hoping to compete for the hotly contested title of loosest screw in the central Asian former Soviet republicans (after longtime champ and self-declared Turkmenbashi Saparmurat_Niyazov gave up his title upon his death last December), Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon has banned large weddings, funerals and circumcision ceremonies. This AP dispatch also notes that "Mr. Rakhmon (formerly Rakhmonov) recently decreed that the Slavic ‘’ov” be dropped from the surnames for all newborns and outlawed gold fillings." If you follow the link above about Turkmenbashi, you'll note that he too had a thing against gold dental hardware. I assume Paul Wall has something to do with this.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk has an excellent sprawling survey of the fallout from the IAEA report on Iran's nuclear progress. Although mostly technical, it actually says what's happening: There are arrays or big groups of centrifuges that convert raw uranium to the kind you can use in nuclear reactors. Iran has x number of these groups and they ran them for y number of days, etc. I'm a fan of this kind of reporting, as long as it can be made accessible to the public.

Pulitzer prize-winning former Washington Post managing editor and now Remnick's golden boy at the New Yorker Steve Coll filed an excellent piece late last summer about the facts behind Iran's nuclear program and the distribution network that probably made it possible, that of Pakistani criminal-cum-hero A.Q. Khan.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times today carries a fascinating story on the strife over renaming streets in Durban, South Africa:

On May 1, at least 6,000 marchers paraded through the city’s downtown, protesting local proposals to bestow new names on as many as 180 major streets and buildings. Black and white, stick-wielding and peaceful, the demonstrators massed at city hall to complain — not about the idea of renaming landmarks, but about the new names themselves.

Specifically, they complained that some names seemed chosen not to honor modern South African heroes, but to heap glory on the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa and in the metropolitan area that includes Durban.

More specifically, they complained that some of the proposals seemed intended to slight the party’s political rivals.

Cases in point: Some white Durbanites who support the minority Democratic Alliance party were offended by proposals to name neighborhood lanes after Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Yasir Arafat — A.N.C. heroes who, they argued, were hardly democrats, and hardly in the anti-apartheid forefront.

They were even more incensed by a proposal to name a street after Andrew Zondo, an African National Congress guerrilla who killed five white civilians in a 1985 bombing in that very neighborhood.

“It’s akin to naming one of the streets in downtown Manhattan after one of the bombers of 9/11,” said John Steenhuisen, who heads the Democratic Alliance caucus in Durban.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It seems this whole blogging thing might just catch on. So I decided I’d better add my thin, reedy voice. I was inspired not just because Tarek and Josh, the resident cool kids, were doing it. Nope – I was inspired as well by this article from the current issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review: it explores what makes a good program officer, and how much the program officer’s reputation extends to the foundation as a whole. It’s another fine contribution based on the careful confidential surveys of grantees conducted by the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

So why is this blogworthy? For me, it’s personal. I have spent many years working for foundations. Or more precisely, I have worked for program officers. Lots of program officers. It’s almost always a personal connection, not an institutional one. The best among them are sources of intellectual stimulation, useful connections, and timely counsel. They have told me for years, explicitly or implicitly, if my work was good or bad, valuable or expendable. (There is even one at my house who tells me, gently, whether I’ve done a good job with the laundry.)

I have also been a program officer, in effect, for the Carnegie Corporation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. So I have this whole complicated love – hate/ self-love – self-hate thing going about how much individual program officers influence the work of their grantees. And I know how much those program officers influence the reputation of their foundations. So the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s effort to ask grantees to categorize program officers as “great, good, and mediocre” caught my jaundiced eye. And the recommendations for improving grantmaker communication with grantseekers can do more than burnish the reputations of their foundations; it can help improve the work we all do together.

We like efforts to improve communication between grantmakers and nonprofits – especially where advocacy planning and evaluation are concerned. Advocacy is tough. It works better when foundations and their grantees agree on what policy change they want to bring about, how they think change will occur, and how they will know they are making progress. Helping that happen is what we’re all about at Continuous Progress Strategic Services; and we’re happy to learn from and with a bunch of foundations and consultants working on this same problem. Stay tuned for more information from the Advanced Practices Institute on this topic convened by Atlantic Philanthropies, the Casey Foundation, and the California Endowment.

In the meantime, I'll keep sorting the laundry.

Posted by David Devlin-Foltz at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

GW Political Science Professor Henry Farrell notes a rare moment of harmony between Matt Yglesias and Tom Friedman's column. The issue is foreign-born students taking their Ph.D.s here, but there being no system to keep "the world's best minds" here as American citizens. To be fair, Yglesias comments that if we're to be "stingy" with either work visas or student visas, he'd push to protect classroom slots before workforce ones. But regardless, keeping these Ph.Ds is termed a "no-brainer."

Here's where Farrell takes issue:

The home country in question isn’t going to benefit very much from its most economically productive citizens ... going to the US to study, if they don’t ever come home. This point applies with especial force to people coming over to study for advanced degrees in technical subjects.

So if you are solely concerned with the economic benefit of the US, it’s indeed a no-brainer. If you’re worried about the rest of the world too (or instead), it’s anything but.

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I'm fascinated by the wary, almost preemptively exhausted approach media is taking toward the idea of treating Russia as something less like a friend to the US right now. After a thrilling honeymoon in which President Bush unforgettably measured Putin's soul with firm handshakes and good conversation at the ranch, things have steadily declined. So steep has this decline been that open discussions of a new Cold War have cropped up in unlikely places.

The chatter probably peaked ten or so days ago when Secretary of State Rice had to directly confront the Cold War renaissance rumors and put them to rest. (I'll note with passing irony that Rice did concede it was time for "intensive diplomacy," something I don't believe we get much of from this administration, see Darfur, Iraq, Iran et al.)

That pretty much let the media off the hook, and gave them clearance to not dig deeper. Why would we be potentially heading toward a new Cold War? Almost every reference to this is coupled with US plans for a missile defense system, though not much else is said. It is almost as if the missile defense plan is part of the landscape, as free of scrutiny as the USA PATRIOT act in the days after 9/11. The American missile defense plan -- which required us to withdraw from a major arms control treaty -- is viewed as a taunting maneuver by the Russians, and the effect of pressing forward with the plan probably bears more scrutiny if our media gatekeepers were interested. More than none, for sure.

Also deserving of scrutiny is the declining state of any semblance of democracy in the supposedly democratic Russia. This morning the New York Times editorialized on the death of the Russian media, and the New Yorker detailed painstakingly the stranglehold Russia's state-friendly corporations have on independent speech in the country. Russia is an un-free place today, run not by communist thugs but by oligarchs and their thugs.

I'm not sure why the press here doesn't peer more closely at the intersection of Russia's declining freedoms and the saber-rattling these two countries are engaging in as we approach next month's G8 summit. Our nation's eagerness to tamp down rumors of a rift could come from a desire to preserve some friends somewhere on the globe. But I don't know if Russia's the best bet for a long-term relationship.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nicholas Kristof writes about Dongguan, China in today's New York Times. His account of Dongguan's workers makes a powerful point for advocates of poor people the world over: "American" virtues like ingenuity, diligence, entrepreneurship and respect for markets can be found anywhere -- and that's a good thing, even for Americans:

Keep towns like this in mind when American protectionists demand sanctions, after the latest round of talks ending yesterday made little progress. Some irresponsible Democrats in Congress would have you believe that China’s economic success is simply the result of currency manipulation, unfair regulations and pirating American movies.

It’s true that China’s currency is seriously undervalued. But places like Dongguan have thrived largely because of values we like to think of as American: ingenuity, diligence, entrepreneurship and respect for markets.

The people in Dalang, the Sweater Capital, used to be farmers, until a Hong Kong investor opened a sweater factory at the dawn of the 1980’s. After a few years, the workers began to quit and open their own factories, and both the bosses and the staff work dizzyingly hard. One factory worker here in Guangdong Province told me that she works 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, 365 days a year, not even taking time off for Chinese New Year. She chooses to work these hours to gain a better life for her son. If protectionists want somebody to criticize for China’s trade success, blame that woman and millions like her.

There's plenty to celebrate on a humanitarian level here, but what about a better life for American children? Kristof reminds us that the sort of success China is having will eventually reward Americans with a new market:

The Chinese development model is running out of steam. Labor shortages are growing and pushing up wage costs. Factories are having to spend more money to improve worker safety and curb pollution. The environment is such a disaster that 16 of the world’s most polluted cities are now in China.

China will also be forced to appreciate its undervalued currency, further pushing up costs. The “China price” will no longer be the world’s lowest, and millions of jobs making T-shirts and stuffed toys will move to lower-wage countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

So if China is going to continue its historic rise, it will have to move up the technology ladder and shift to domestic consumption as its economic engine.

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Longtime Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson takes a look at some studies examining the impact of 'offshoring' or outsourcing of manufacturing jobs overseas. His conclusion: that the widespread panic about the practice is unfounded.

Samuelson reviews some new research on the issue, including a report examining the Bureau of Labor Statistics account of mass layoffs, to see how many stemmed from offshoring. "The answer: 4 percent. That included both manufacturing and service jobs."

That's a small number:

In 2004 and 2005, the BLS counted almost 1 million workers fired in layoffs of 50 or more. That isn't a huge number in a labor force of about 150 million. Moreover, most causes were domestic. The largest reason (accounting for about 25 percent) was "contract completion"—a public works job done, a movie finished. Other big categories included "downsizing" (16 percent) and the combination of bankruptcy and "financial difficulty" (10 percent). Only about 12 percent of layoffs stemmed from "movement of work"—a category that would include offshoring. But two thirds of those moves were domestic.

This research is probably right, although it seems like some statistics can be manipulated to point undeniably to the sky being purple. But not discussed is the difference between rapacious US companies taking their labor force overseas to dollar-a-day workers in Indonesia and China and the much more depressing thought that there is job loss, but it's because foreign competitors are pushing American companies out of the marketplace.

Think about it: Ford isn't making a mint manufacturing cheap cars overseas. Toyota is while Ford continues to struggle. US Steel didn't close down it's mills in Pittsburgh and open mills in Japan and Korea. Steelmakers in those countries sold cheaper products and drove the US mills mostly out of business. The American manufacturing sector lost nearly 3 million jobs since 2000. And although the victims profiled in stories like this one both cite outsourcing (in the case of Freightliner moving truck plants to Mexico and Pennsylvania House buying Chinese furniture and putting their logo on it), the true culprit is probably the trade deficit, which allows the displacement of American-manufactured goods by very cheaply-manufactured things from overseas.

So why is there a constant panic (which I'll freely admit to joining) about offshoring? It strikes me that people want to be able to point to a guilty party when bad things befall them. Our nation's difficulty in keeping Americans working in blue collar industries is a crime searching for a perpetrator. The idea that in some way it's the fault of American policies and our own standards doesn't sit well. Money-hungry corporations and CEOs sending jobs overseas gives victims someone to blame.

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The economic development business has been in love with tech before, but Andrew Mack and Jeremy M. Goldberg argue on NextBillion.net that African leadership and an active private sector will spur technological change at a faster pace in the years to come:

What will it take for ICT in Africa to REALLY catch on?

The answer is as simple as YouTube, the same as anywhere in the world – DEMAND, specifically demand from networks of fearless, innovative tech-friendly young Africans. And what will it take to bring African youth and young adults more into the global chat room? Why not start by building bridges – and programs – to work between young techies in Africa and the US?

There are already good models that can be leveraged and groups with much to teach us. Perhaps the largest is GeekCorps, with more than 3,500 technical experts in developing nations around the world. Another group is Kabissa, an international NGO that trains African NGOs on the use of ICT. In addition, there’s the International Education Resource Network or iEARN, an organization that enables teachers and young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to enhance learning.

We should build on these examples but we can go further, with broader reach and a broader focus on creating sustainable businesses. Imagine young African and American TechCorps members paired to work on technology projects, providing training aimed at youth, taught by youth, with an end goal of building not just friendships and skills but legitimate, lasting young business networks. Imagine some day soon – projects currently being outsourced to international firms could instead be “in-sourced” to TechCorps teams on the ground with support from the TechCorps network around the world.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Simultaneously derided as last year's news and hyped as the next big thing, LinkedIn is a pretty handy tool that does exactly what it says: links users to other folks they know, and lets them vet each other and acquaintances in common for suitability in various opportunities. I can browse the contacts of my contacts, and ask someone I know if person x would be a good fit for project y.

And now there's this:

With a network of over 11 million professionals spanning the globe, LinkedIn is an immensely powerful platform. A few of us here decided that we should be doing more to leverage the network to promote positive social change, and LinkedIn For Good is our first step in that direction.

You can now learn more about outstanding nonprofit organizations and donate directly from the new nonprofit pages on LinkedIn (see a few examples below).

Posted by Tarek Rizk at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What to think about the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)? Its introduction offered a glimmer of promise in the difficult task of delivering development assistance that does more than keep people alive, aiming to improve conditions in poorer countries for the long haul. Results and reactions have been mixed.

Sarah Lucas is a longtime friend of the GII and adviser to the Center for Global Development who spent the last several years in seven countries in various stages of the MCC process -- among others -- examining what's been working and what hasn't. You can read her analysis of the MCC here.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We hear a lot about how the U.S. response to its energy needs and CO2 output -- as important as it is -- pales in comparison to what is needed from China, India and other big countries amidst the process of industrialization.

There's no way around the fact that the sheer size of the Indian and Chinese populations will ramp up demand for all forms of energy as more citizens become consumers. But there is some creative thinking afoot about how much energy usage must increase to facilitate economic growth. A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute argues that from buildings to transportation to industries, there is an opportunity to improve energy productivity -- the level of output we achieve from our use of energy.

The same level of energy services can be produced with fewer inputs if use is less intensive (e.g., smaller appliances), if technical efficiency improves (e.g., higher-mileage car engines), or if fuel mix shifts, say, from biomass to more efficient electricity. In turn, output can grow more quickly than demand for energy services because of sectoral shifts -- say, from energy-intensive industrial sectors to services -- or from an increasing share of growth taken by non-energy-intensive, high-value-added activities within a sector (e.g., increasing share of investment banking versus retail banking).

The report wades, using case studies, into the details of energy usage in a range of sectors, but the point is an important one: the oft-made case that developing countries can't worry about energy use and its effects until they have developed their economies may not hold much water.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)