Why is education and awareness raising so important?

Well, first and foremost, consider the issue of family planning: there is no doubt developing countries need to lower their birth rates dramatically to reduce the social, environmental and economic burden of providing education, healthcare, food, water and jobs amongst other things, to so many people. For sure, some of the poor in those countries understand this and want to have less children but cannot, for reasons including sexual pressure from males, lack of access to (or awareness of) contraceptives and reproductive health knowledge. 

But, for many they are not aware of the impacts their children will have: the impacts on the child, on the parents, on the wider family, on the country, or on the environment. They have not done the calculations: if they have they probably still believe that having more children helps provide for the family in the medium-term, and for their parents in the long-term. Overlooked is the real short-term needs as well as a sophisticated understanding of longer-term impacts from splitting land up between children for example. Of course it is on the larger-scale where most of the problems lie, and this falls to the government to deal with (i.e. in providing social services, employment, food etc).

Thus it is hugely important for governments to take the lead, for their own self-interest, in in-expensive education and awareness campaigns for their citizens to better understand the impacts their children might have. Without creating this desire, through role-models, peer pressure, media, peer-to-peer education and so forth (varied and thought-out campaigns utilising all available channels), the poor may never even want to limit their family size.

Once such a desire is created, then specific education on family planning and contraception can be provided along with increased access to a variety of contraceptions and other longer-term social activities to address larger issues such as coerced sex, female empowerment, poverty etc.

As previously proposed, many of us 'rich' are unable to take responsibility for our own lives. We need the government to build barriers in the road to stop us crossing the road when it is unsafe, we need companies to reduce their promotion of bad foods, as we cannot stop ourselves eating too much of them, we need regulations to restrict smoking, because we smoke too much. This is not new, but it is depressing. However, we are educated, and we know what choices we are making and the sacrifices we are making.

The poor though, are not as well educated, so do they have an excuse for making such bad choices, which an interesting article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review proposes they regularly do, with significant negative impacts. As the author notes:

The consequences of bad choices are bad for everyone, but even worse for the poor, who lack the resources—financial, psychological, social, and political—to compensate for their errors.

A recent field study in Sri Lanka reveals that more than 10 percent of poor male respondents regularly spend their entire incomes on alcohol.

More generally, poor people “could easily save more without getting less nutrition by spending less on alcohol, tobacco, and food items such as sugar, spice, and tea,” Banerjee and Duflo conclude. For example, the typical poor household in Udaipur could spend up to 30 percent more on food if it did not spend money on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals.

Evidently education is not the answer to this conundrum, since the rich have education too -or, a fairer comparison might be that the poor in the rich countries have good education (comparatively) but still make the same mistakes. Or is the answer that our education, one that is influenced by school, peers, families, media and more, all geared towards taking away our sense of personal responsibility, or focusing too much on short-term, or personal, gain? If it is, then this could be changed. Whereas, if this is more genetic and evolutionary, then it might be harder to change. Food for thought...

Business approaches and Traditional approaches needed, to reduce poverty

Yes, i totally agree with Paul Polak, Jacqueline Novogratz, CK Prahalad, Stuart Hart, Nancy Barry and the others who think a new, business, approach is needed to help combat poverty. It is, for sure. It helps create new products that the poor need and can afford, and can access. It helps create jobs. It empowers the poor and unleashes them do work hard to reduce their own poverty. It can be sustainable. It can be scalable. There are many many books and reports written about this approach, how it is changing the world, how it is changing the business world and how it is making aid and traditional appraoches to poverty reduction/eradication a waste of effort, time and money.

However, as much as I agree with them, I have to say that there are a number of things that determine poverty, and the business approach will nto solve all of them. It will not help put children in school, not will it get rid of corruption, or write laws that protect citizens, or protect citizens by enforcing those laws (though business could play creative roles in all of these, in some way).

Aid is still needed -more aid and better applied. Governance is a key issue, and one, unfortunately, where so little progress is being made. Ultimately irregardless of how one tries to reduce poverty, be it through aid, loans, business etc... a country needs a good government that sets the right framework for a country (i.e. laws that are implemented), does what is best for its citizens and so forth.

With issues like poverty and Climate Change, where incredibly fast progress needs to be made on a massive scale, there is a need to engage governments and improve the aid agenda (where actually some progress has been made, despite constant environmental degradation, increasingly unfair trade, increasing population growth, wars, greater incidence of diseases amongst others) AND for business to utilise business approaches to poverty reduction. Let's pay more attention to the business approach, but not forget the need for aid and 'traditional approaches to poverty reduction'.

Blanket statements criticising 'traditional approaches' as useless, are not useful. Instead one needs to see how they have helped and learn lessons to improve traditional approaches, and use their lessons in business approaches. Ultimately business will find it very hard (though possible) to thrive when there is no effective government creating an effective marketplace.

Who is pressurising Chinese companies in Africa?

What comes into my mind when reading some of the endless articles of Chinese companies irresponsible practices in Africa, like this from Bloomberg news, is not the reasons why it is happening (of course there is pressure to keep costs low and pressure to access resources), not if Chinese companies are any worse than Western companies (either past or present) or other 'developing countries' companies (presumably not that much difference, but more Chinese companies out there and China is in the spotlight more) -but i wonder what the people running these companies are thinking.

I am a strong believer that people are inherently good, though also selfish. This thus means many people will put themselves over others, but if it is a matter of 'a bit more wealth' vs 'death for a child', i am mystified how people can, as human beings, make such a choice. The answer might be that such a choice never happens -that poor decisions create accidents, rather than people purposely acting irresponsibly knowing the impact it will have. Besides, if it is not forced labour, if it was so bad, wouldn't the workers find work elsewhere?

Is not this just the same as has happened (and still does happen, though not so explicitly any more) in China for decades? If China has improved (somewhat), will Africa improve too? Why did China improve and what lessons might this hold for Africa? Does Africa need a strong state to establish and enforce laws (though China's strong state only selectively enforced its own laws)?

Does Africa need more pressure from the West (presumably this makes no difference, as there has been pressure for a long time with no impact) or does Africa (note, the use of the term Africa in this post is inappropriate, but we will use it for simplicity) need other forms of pressure -from customers (Western end-customers might care; direct Chinese middle-men or end-Chinese customers probably do not care), from media (Chinese media will rarely criticize Chinese companies), from Chinese NGOs (are there any that do this kind of thing, apart from INGOs in China?) or from other groups..... I have to say, it does not look good.

The pressures that helped China clean up its act somewhat (some will say that it is still getting worse in China!) do not exist in Africa, so I am wondering how can we encourage some kind of pressure...from Chinese NGOs on Chinese companies, from Chinese media on Chinese companies, from Chinese government on Chinese companies or from any other source of pressure -ideally inside China and ideally with some actual leverage on Chinese companies in Africa. Any ideas?

On a slightly different note, many of the companies that get into the news about Africa are either state-owned, privately owned or micro entrepreneurs. What is the role of the Chinese government in monitoring these activities? Is there a role at all? For some activities, where there is funding from the Chinese state (through the export-import bank) there is a clear role and clear line of responsibility, and the Exim bank, as it is known, is claiming to take its responsibility seriously (though not as seriously as other International banking institutions that have signed up to the Equator Principles and similar collaborative agreements).

For the others operating in China, the government is unlikely to see a need to interfere at all. There is no such 'Alien Tort Act' for Chinese companies operating overseas, as there is for American companies; which can be prosecuted in the USA for irresponsible activities outside the USA. Any lawyers out there know of any Chinese legislation that could be use, say by an INGO, inside China to sue the companies mentioned in the Bloomberg report?

Fast-tracking poverty reduction

In the world of poverty reduction, shortcuts will not work, but there are various ways to speed up the process and increase the impact of projects (such as that mentioned in the previous post):

+For example, it is now popular to try to leverage your resources to gain other resources so that the impact of your contribution is bigger. Other resources could be from governments, other businesses, other partners or from local populations (remember that when locals have to contribute for something they always value it and respect it more).

+Another popular option is to organise a competitive process. The idea being that although the contribution only reaches (say) 5 people, (maybe) 15 people were inspired to try (and thus might continue even without your prize) and you can be sure the person/project you support is the best one to support. Competitions can be a great way to discover and promote new ideas especially.

+Partnerships, as always, can (though not always) create situations where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, especially, if in the case of a poverty related project, the value of the in-kind contribution would otherwise be prohibitively high (products, labour, advice etc).

+Learning from previous lessons and sharing your lessons with others helps ensure that projects become iteratively better, and if your project was successful or developed some resources that can be useful for others, they should be promoted and shared to increase their impact.

+Although organising conferences is an old favourite of many, and criticised and expensive by many others, there is a need for these kinds of activities. Though much could more could be written on these, it is important such events have clearly defined goals, are designed to achieve those goals and is not an event in isolation. Ultimately some events, like the Global Clinton Initiative or TED have value incredibly greater than the cost of organising them, though for others I am not sure. Tip: if your conference is related to poverty reduction or environmental sustainability, don't have expensive or environmentally unsustainable events!

+Choosing between starting something new and potentially successful vs. selecting something already successful and scaling it up is difficult. Both are needed and both have great impact -ultimately the choice here will depend on the specific options available.

+Try to use human nature and the market, rather than always trying to change it (though there is a place for this as well). Even altering is easier than changing! The old saying of 'banging your head against a brick wall' is very valid and many people do not realise this. Though the temptation is to head straight for the target, a more convoluted path may, in fact, be better. Incentives and punishments need to be used in the right way and in the right combination.

An inspiration, a hero, a role model.... Anita Roddick died yesterday

Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop is one of the few people I could call either a hero, a role model or an inspiration to me. Way before people were talking about CSR she was doing it (1976) because it needed to be done for business reasons and for social and environmental reasons.

Her whole life has been devoted to issues she truly believes in and issues her company truly believes in. Lets just have hope in others like her and hope that there are many many more people like her still to come.

For Dame Anita, the truly exceptional entrepreneur, business and ethics came together. "Businesses have the power to do good," she wrote. "That's why The Body Shop's Mission Statement opens with the overriding commitment, 'To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change.'" Capitalist with a Conscience

Spread good ideas

The biggest problem about poverty reduction is a lack of knowlege about how to reduce poverty and a lack of education about aspects of poverty -hence the poor often lack health knowledge or education or ideas to improve their economic efficiency (i.e. knowledge to improve crop yields etc). Many NGOs work in concentrated areas to make a difference through an integrated, long-term approach.

This is great, but maybe it would be more efficient to work in disparate villagers and trust (or facilitate) other villages to learn from the NGO's actions in 1 village, in order to replicate it. This does of course require a visible improvement in poverty and a clear link with the cause; which the nearby villagers can learn from. Peer education on a village/geographic level could be a great way of quickly and efficiently spread education about how to individually act to reduce your own poverty. The Millennium villages concept has adopted this idea.

Migration

Migration is often unplanned, but actually it is also, often planned, or at least encouraged. Since the importance of remittances has now been well recognised in contributing to a developing country's economic growth, international migration is often encouraged, despite the brain-drain consequences.

Internal migration is also often encouraged as a solution for those whose geographical location restricts their ability to escape poverty. But, of course, migrants are often mistreated and exploited. Furthermore, how is migration related to outsourcing and the whole freedom of work/movement issue? It seems that migration is actually the opposite of outsourcing. Instead of sending work to poor people to do it, the poor people come to the rich countries to do it (or replace 'countries' with 'cities' for internal migration). Is there a correlation of any kind? Which is better -migration or outsourcing? How are the drivers different and what is a more successful way of reducing poverty?

Has Development failed?

This article questions whether the theory of 'development' as proposed by the UN, World Bank and IMF mostly, has failed. The article makes sense but has a ridiculous notion of development, only focusing on those 3 organisations who though shoot above their weight in some developing countries regarding their influence on policies, really have very little impact at all because they only worked at the governmental level until recently.

Development in its modern sense is about government -yes, in theory good governments lead to their citizens creating their own development by operating in a peaceful society which respects rights and gives the freedom to make the most of the market. Unfortunately most governments in impoverished countries are not like this, and trying to change those governments has (as history has shown) only made things worse. Stability and peace is the most important requirement for development. It would be nice to have functioning education, healthcare etc.. or even a functioning market, but without these, it is necessary to help create them.

If governments cannot create them, then other actors must and this is whether civil society comes in: NGOs, trade unions, co-operatives and of course, individuals. Of course there is a role for business/entrepreneurship too. Development is about all of these actors, and it is not failing; it is struggling to be efficient in overcoming the government deficiencies, the market deficiencies and the instability most developing countries are in.

Secondly development as seen by grass-roots organsiations, individuals themselves, and now even by the UN/IMF/WB is now seen as the opposite of what the article describes: it is about bottom-up, empowerment, skill provision, access to markets and so on. It is about partnership between different societal actors and it is about, eventually, reforming those limiting factors -especially government, through a gradual process. It takes time to educate citizens, train teachers or health workers, or create distribution channels for medicines, credit etc.

Once countries have skilled empowered citizens, they will inevitably be able to enter government or create new (capable) governments. If the WB/UN/IMF model has failed, that is really of little significance to development now, as those actors are now so minor. Much more important are civil society actors, entrepreneurs and 'foundations'. Development has barely even started yet... but in the last decade or more, it is sure that there are enough cases of it working in different ways in different countries to prove it can work. Just give all those actors the chance to do their bit and it will work, from the bottom-up.

Unfortunately development takes a long-time. That must be accepted. Unfortunately there are bad people doing bad things which is continually restricting development's potential. That must be accepted and worked around. There are many exciting examples of development taking off -explore the nextbillion.net, ashoka.org and hundreds more organisations that are connecting technology, people and organisations to create more success and scale-up successes to create greater impact.

‘Strategic’ CSR in China

Why should a company ‘do’* CSR? Because it is in its own benefit to do it.

What CSR should it ‘do’? That which benefits the company the most.

The word strategy always sound good, and in a CSR sense, it means doing something that is of maximum, long-term, benefit. Strategic CSR is not, necessarily a strategy in itself, but a commitment leading to a direction identifying certain areas a company will focus on which will improve itself and society (either at the same time, or at a later date). Thus an investment in staff makes it easier to attract new staff, reduces staff turnover (and hence recruitment costs), increases staff morale and productivity etc. An investment in the supply chain improves partnerships with suppliers, increases their efficiency, reduces risks from being associated with suppliers who break the law etc.

In the last few years, a new are has developed focusing on strategic CSR within a company; normally including a team crossing the functions of sales, marketing, research & development and corporate affairs. The objective: to develop products that fulfill a societal need, and to deliver that product to those who need it, profitably. Simple examples would be a company that makes soap that has tremendous hygiene benefits. Thus by improving the distribution a company can get soap to more people who need it and by reducing costs poorer people can afford it. It might not be easy to do either of these, but it can be possible and should be attempted because if it can be done, sales can be increased.

Many multinational companies are now focusing on this area; though not so much in China (as they are still obsessed with the higher margin middle and upper class customers), but i am sure it will be an area to watch for more. Interestingly though, China’s very open capitalist market economy has led to many companies employing these kinds of strategies anyway, without having a dual goal of helping society AND making a profit. They just want to make a profit; but the side-effect is to help society. It is easy to buy things like soap in even the most remote areas of China.

What is next, is the products and services that are harder to distribute en masse and harder to profitably sell to the poor; such as water purification systems, education, sanitary toilets, advanced farming tools, good quality roads and so on. The list of possible products and services the poor do not have in China, but need to improve their lives is a long one. The challenge is to develop a needs-based product, get it to customers and sell it to them profitably (yet at a price they can afford -or possible along with micro-loans).

China, with a huge market offers significant opportunities to do this by achieving economies of scale and scope. It is, of course, also a country with 20 million people in absolute poverty and around 200 million in poverty -second only to India. However China also offers numerous challenges, such as Intellectual Property Rights and logistics. The challenge to entrepreneurs (and of course, current businesses) out there is look for the needs that poor people have and try to serve that need profitably.

*I dislike the use of the word ‘do’ but ‘do’ is the simplest word that everyone will understand. To explain how to ‘do’ CSR is not possible in a simple blog post; though use of the word ‘do’ does imply something very simple, it is indeed definitely not.

Macro Micro-finance

The greatest problem for countries to trade their way out of poverty is lack of infrastructure, especially roads. Even if the government funded the big main roads throughout the country, and the government maintained them, what about the small roads connecting through to the villages? Well if we presume that these small roads are only used by the villagers themselves to transport goods out of the village, or into it, then the villagers could pay for and maintain the road. They have free labour to some extent (in the off-season) and only need the materials/expertise (though we are talking simple roads here).

If we believe that improved roads really will help the village trade and increase their income, why not lend them money to build the road and get them to pay it back over time; once their incomes go up. The loan would be guaranteed by the whole village as they all have a stake in it. This idea of collaborative, group-ownership, lending model might work. The returns might not be great; and the loan would have to be paid back over quite a long time, as the initial cost is quite high -but it could still be profitable, and the primary purpose is to utilise funding more effectively in ways to support development.

Now, once the road is built, villagers' incomes increase and so they can become traditional microfinance clients, and this can be much more profitable.

What is the role of NGOs?

NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) is a very loose term covering all kinds of organisations: normally anything that is not a government or for-profit enterprise. It could include churches, chambers of commerce, business association, lobby groups, trade unions, charities and more.. However the way it is generally used is to describe an organisation that is organised like a business in order to serve a social purpose and without focusing on profits.

Thus typically there are 'grass-roots' NGOs often formed from a few volunteers campaigning for a local issue or providing care for some disadvantaged section of society; there are larger charities that provide welfare to those in need and there are the bigger Development NGOs that aim to influence government and business and effectively use resources to e.g. reduce poverty on a large scale.

Moving quickly past such a brief summary, in recent times there has been a blurring between business and NGOs into the so-called world of 'social enterprises' whose primary goal is to serve society but who wish to make profits at the same time. Many think that these are more effective at solving societal problems as it is more sustainable, more competitive and more efficient. It is noted that the best way to solve problems requires large-scale solutions and these kinds of scales or innovations are often only achieved through a profit incentive and a functioning market to make organisations more effective.

NGOs are often profitable in some sense: selling a service to make money (e.g. running a home for disabled people) or providing benefits to a corporate partner (e.g. advise on reducing their environmental footprint or training their suppliers) -they just pay less tax and promise to spend any profit on further programs. They do not have owners as such, and this is normally seen as their advantage: no money to stock-holders or to rich private owners. However it is also seen as a disadvantage: who are they accountable to?

Interestingly NGOs and businesses alike seem to be converging on a model that governments ar supposed to use -but often fail to do so. The model of being accountable to various stakeholders locally and otherwise. Governments are notoriously slow to change, and rarely due if changes negatively impact those in power, or those who might get in power. Now that many companies engage with local groups; NGOs engage with local governments and communities it seems like both sectors are listening.

It's pretty clear that NGOs are not changing the World; neither are ineffective governments (which are still too frequent around); and neither are aid agencies. Business, it seems, could be the answer; but it requires a stable environment and infrastructure and this is often lacking. Thus the current trend for NGOs to work with governments and businesses (using Aid) to try to focus on this issue 'sustainable livelihoods'. Is this the future role for NGOs?

As the most trusted type of organisation in the World, will NGOs be able to bring partners and stakeholders together to find solutions to allow business to flourish -to create meaningful jobs? Jobs, is the ultimate issue here -and this is really only something that a business (whether it is for-profit or not; including collaboratives) can provide. This week the good news is that more people have jobs now than ever before, but more people do not have jobs too (as the population constantly grows).

I am excited by some of the work that Plan is doing in China: trialling new methods and schemes that government (especially in developing countries) is unable to try (too slow, too corrupt, too cumbersome, too political, too hierarchical, too poorly trained); raising issues that otherwise have no-one to raise them and so on. The end result should be either government, business, or individuals doing something different that is better than what they were doing before.

The problem is so much that NGOs do is not sustainable, not an efficient use of resources -and often fails. Not that it is always their fault: after all most businesses fail too. Interestingly NGOs tend to try much much harder than businesses to make their projects a success. I am still looking for the balance between time/money spent researching, measuring etc vs. actually doing, subsidising, training etc.

In the future I see NGOs having to better define their 'ownership' in order to work out where they fit in society; since their roles overlap with all other sectors (including the media). I see them struggling to keep their 'independence' whilst being involved in so many 'partnerships' (including revenue generating activities). I think accountability will be come a bigger issue: NGOs will have to carefully balance how they spend their money on staff (pay more to get better?) and on research and evaluation. But I hope that NGOs will be given more slack to fail more, learn lessons and so on. International NGOs will need to start incubating ideas, being more innovative, spinning off from themselves to remain flexible and innovative and better define their relationships and purpose to other (grass-roots) NGOs.

In many areas NGOs are in competition with each other for resources: a good thing no doubt; but more partnerships are likely to form to prevent competition ruining funding streams or affecting transparency. NGOs have undoubtedly become more professional; and the next step is to move into the relm of M&A, spin-offs and so on. It excites me to end this post with the concept of taking the real world to NGOs: could venture capitalism have a role with development? How can you define the worth of an NGO? There already exists 'tables' of NGOs which are most effective with their money. It would be great if these very basic methodologies could develop -and who knows what might happen?

Business is having its time turning into an NGO through social enterprises; now NGOs need to do their bit to come towards business by tackling the challenges outlined above. And, who knows maybe a time will come when NGOs and Business will be one and the same -all serving to create jobs and services that society needs, whilst being accountable (and responsible) to society.

partnerships

Reflecting back on a 'Strategic Marketing' course at University reminds me that I did learn something.. and indeed, still remember something of use from University. Namely that though partnerships tend to be seen as a end in themselves, and a very popular concept nowadays, partnerships to really be a mean to an end.. and once the end is achieved (or as close as can be), the partnership should be dissolved (therefore when it is created, such a dissolution point should be planned for).

I also remember that the professor's definition of strategic partnership made for interesting thinking: combining different strengths of organisations together for example, or that a partner often enters a partnership hoping to actually beat its partner -partnerships are rarely equal and partner's unstated goals rarely the same. Of course there was much more to the course, such as the difficulties of creating and integrating joint activities, managing them and so on.

In my work I look at strategic benefits in a philanthropy way: between organisations of different sectors, which explicitly have different objectives from partnerships: a company might hope to improve its reputation whereas a charity might want to help poor people. However these partnerships are often fairly successful.

What about partnerships where all partners' over-riding goal is a philanthropic one? This strikes me as interesting because everything in 'business' is about motivation: if the motivation is so strong and commitment so great, might success be achieved? So the recent trend for all kinds of people to start joining coalitions or partnerships to fight some aspect of poverty. Many are not real partnerships; indeed a coalition is often just a membership of a club where you contribute something and a central secretariat actually does something with it. But for actual partnerships; with each partner contributing something, doing something, having a direct stake in the outcome etc -then are these partnerships more successful (the typical MBA textbook will state how often mergers fail to add value, or how often partnerships do not bring much benefit to either partner!) than traditional business partnerships (which my professor was talking about)?

I hope to find out more over the course of my career; one thing is sure, is that these new partnerships (Cross Sector Partnerships, Corporate Community Engagement and so on) are rarely assessed adequately in the context of how successful the partnership is (if it is actually a partnership, rather than just a 'sponsorship'); and only the outcome of the partnership is assessed (and often badly).

HIV/AIDs as a reflection of our society

just watched a movie called A closer walk which I encourage everyone to watch; one of the many very good points is that HIV/AIDs and our failure to stop it spreading reflects about our society in general. Of course every society is different between regions, countries, cities etc; but there are some interesting thoughts that came into my mind.

First I started thinking about social stigmas -related to sex, related to old or disabled people, related to people of other races and sexes. And the obvious truth that we start with a negative stigma of almost anything different or anything we do not understand, but once we come into close contact with it and reach across the divide to make a personal connection, then we can lose the stigma. But the problem is if we think this way then we start with holding stigmas towards so many people and have to work to overcome them -rather than the opposite. I understand the evolutionary perspective of having to earn trust and fear people or things that are different or we do not understand for own survival; but today we come into contqact with so many people and things that are different: much more than in the past; and we effect so many more people that are so different to us, without even knowing it!

How can we change these stigmas? Are we as humans, humane people? It seems not. Despite knowledge and awareness we often do nothing, for so many reasons -some simple and some complex. The more reasons there are, the more solutions there are -which makes it harder to solve on one hand, but also offers more opportunities for us to do something -just pick one small solution that fits our personal situation. Despite evident visibility on our own streets of people less fortunate, we as humans don't seem to do anything about it. It's not often about desire, or about means, or ability (though all often are missing); but more generally about behaviour.

What does it take for society to change? To take responsibility for itself? I mean, our society is killing itself in so many ways... Yes, there are 'bigger picture' ideas: of there being more people creating more diseases killing more people, of poverty being inevitable no matter what and so on.. but what strikes me, is that we COULD actually do something about it.. it is not just out of our hands!

Now for a problem I do not have an answer for- if in some countries 40% people have HIV/AIDs and whole families and friendship networks are dying from it; why is HIV/AIDs becoming a bigger problem? Surely everyone is affected by it; surely they can see it, see the effects and will want to stop it -for their own, selfish sake -but this is not happening. If there are cultural reasons for this (man involving the role of women in society) then how come the culture does not change? Yes, we need to understand different cultures, respect them etc. But there is no point in preserving a culture if it is not fit for the modern society.. if by preserving a culture it wipes its own people out. They need to change their culture to survive (and not necessarily change to a certain or specific culture; but make some kind of change)!

Finally a point was made by the Director of the movie, that there are somethings that are fundamental rights and others that are a privilege: The rich may have more priviledges than the poor, but we should not have more rights.

Disconnectedness

Some of you may have heard of the G8 (Group of 8 wealthiest nations) who meet yearly, and on occasion of their meeting in Scotland recently, there were several concerts around the globe organised to raise awareness of some key decisions those Leaders (India and China are also invited as observers) could make and their impact on poverty.

A recent online discussion took place with some comments on what these concerts did or did not achieve and why; and by taking on some of the thoughts I have developed some thoughts around the idea of disconnectedness which explains a lot of things, and is an important aspect for responsible leaders to bare in mind.

The example I will use is Climate Change and poverty. For climate Change, none of the people who are causing it (the 'west') are actually witnessing its consequences on them (more flooding in Bangladesh doesn't affect them, for example), and if some of the consequences do (for example a hurricane in Florida, USA) then there are always externalities that can be blamed -in the case of the weather, this is always unpredictable and it cannot easily be correlated with climate change, and the changes happening are gradual (not instant). All of this means people do not see the consequences of their actions.

With poverty, there are many charities showing videos of poverty in rich countries and these have an impact on people; who donate money. But, the amounts they donate have little real impact. What might have a bigger impact is buying products from those countries, changing trade rules and so on. Not only do people not donate more money (because although the pictures are horrific, they are only pictures) but they do not change other lifestyle/business options (since the impacts of these only indirectly affect them).

This idea, I believe, is universal; that unless you see a strong correlation (ie. relationship) between your individual actions and either individual or larger consequences then you won't change your actions in order to change the consequences. In a business concept one of the obvious applications to this idea, is how 1 person contributes to an organsiation.

Someone may steal some stationery, not seeing any impact, or they might make a decision with an impact on someone else, or in the future (so not affecting them). For the individual these actions make no difference, but for the organisations they do. Similarly when designing a business plan, the individual should see how they contribute to the whole, and how non-performance affects the bigger results.

Its important then to motivate people with incentives that are directly related to the individual's contribution. Its important for mutual accountability so that when someone does something, the results are noticeable (positive or negative). Think about what other situations this 'disconnectedness' occurs in and how you could remedy it -how can you change processes so that the inputs and outputs are closer aligned?

And if you can think of any ways of making poverty less disconnected for rich people, maybe we can find solutions to those kinds of problems too!

Africa...

SDN: promoting real sustainable development, "Let Africa fight its own devils".

Another hot topic, certainly, and one that focuses on how the rich can most help the poor. Leaders of the rich world have a responsibility to help others (it is in their best interest, as world leaders are finally realising, in regards to terrorism or immigration etc). How they do this, is in great dispute!

Most solutions focus on aid (in-kind or monetary) and technical support. Ironically a lot of this focuses on removing current processes that were put in place by rich countries to start with (such as trade barriers, debt and so on) -which shows how short-sighted the leaders who implemented them were.

I wanted to comment on this particular article, since one of the big changes in recent times has been that Aid agencies should work together towards common goals (!) and with the host country government (if possible); the aim is that the poor tell the rich what they need, and how that should be used. That sounds like a good idea. In the past, aid organisations presumed they knew best, and provided conditions on the support they gave (focused on reforms). This idea is now losing credibility; hoping that the poor will create the necessary reforms themselves (be them the same or different to what the rich have suggested/forced before).

This article argues along the free market lines, that actually what has most helped the poor in the past has been the free market, and supporting institutions. Should these exist, aid would not be needed (although it makes an exception for AIDS which is a 1-off 'first' in world history) to overcome poverty (over time), and any solutions would be long-term, natural and sustainable. Thus the rich should focus on providing the environment/framework/institions for countries to then develop themselves out of poverty. Certainly, they should remove the artificial restrictions they imposed (import tarrifs etc) before, but most importantly, they should aim to provide advice and change the institutions that are ineffective in much of Africa.

What should responsible leaders do when they want to do something, but no-one quite knows what the best way is to do it? Working in partnership with those they want to help is the obvious way to devise the solutions, however this has never happened before. The rich have never dealt with the poor -they just deal with those who supposedly 'represent' the poor. Now as NGOs grow more powerful (and presuming they can better represent the poor and be accountable to them), this could change -but the change is too slow.

The second thing is they should start with changing themselves. Set examples. As with the Tsunami, compete with each other as to who can hope the most, quickest! For so long, the rich have realised the impact of debt interest payments are having and the impact of trade restrictions...and what has happened? and what more is likely to happen? The answer is little (something will happen, but not enough for sure!), because we have to balance our own self-interests with our desire to help others. IF both these changes adversely affected the rich, so that they become worse off; then this would help no-one. the trick is that someone explains and creates a precise strategy for how to make these changes without long-term adverse changes.

That is the trick, but the crucial aspect, is that it requires some responsible leadership. It requires someone to start taking action, to do what they say, to acknowledge the consequences of their actions; to make decisions, to bravely set an example. Everyone talks about requiring more action; which is great, in theory. And example: The rich are discussing the World trade issue (Doha round in the WTO); great. They are even engaging different stakeholders in this, and even talking to the poor. But, it is not enough. Why only meet every 6 months? Why does the 'round' take years and not months?

Granted, the changes required are big, and need to be carefully managed. But if there was the will, then there would be a way. And right now, it is clear that the will does not exist, for a multitude of reasons, not to be discussed here. Responsible leadership requires determination, effort and a long-term vision. Not a short-term, selfish perspective.