Analysis
Millennium Development Goals and the Measurement of Change
Written by Gavin Chait
They are, briefly:
- Goal 1: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by halving the proportion of people who earn less than $ 1 a day
- Goal 2: achieve universal primary education for children everywhere, both girls and boys
- Goal 3: promote gender equality and empower women by eliminating educational disparities between boys and girls
- Goal 4: reduce child mortality by two-thirds for those under five.
- Goal 5: improve maternal health by reducing the maternal mortality rate by two-thirds
- Goal 6: combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other illnesses by halting the spread of HIV and reversing the incidence of malaria and other illnesses
- Goal 7: ensure environmental sustainability by halving the number of people without access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation
- Goal 8: develop a global partnership for development through a global non-discriminatory trading and financial system, tariff and quota reductions, debt reduction, affordable medication, work creation, and technology transfer
Many of these are very broad goals and significantly less defined than indicated above. In 2004 Bjorn Lomborg, working in Denmark, collected eight of the world’s top economists (including three Nobel laureates) and asked them to evaluate the most important development tasks. They started from the premise that there is a finite amount of money for development and so certain goals must be prioritised in the short term which will allow for sufficient economic growth to complete the list.
Their goals came out (in order of priority) as:
- Goal 1: control HIV / AIDS transmission and spread
- Goal 2: provide micronutrients to reduce malnutrition and hunger
- Goal 3: liberalise trade by reducing subsidies and tariffs
- Goal 4: control the spread of malaria
- Goal 5: development of new, low-cost, agricultural technologies
- Goal 6: improve access to community-managed water supply and sanitation
- Goal 7: create small-scale water technology to improve livelihoods
- Goal 8: produce research on water productivity in food production
- Goal 9: lower the cost of starting a new business
The Copenhagen Consensus was published
as a measurable yardstick. Thus far the Millennium Development Goals are falling far short of their target; not least of which is a failure to take the South African government to task over their pathetic response to AIDS.As The Economist says of the UN, “denouncing bad behaviour by states will always be easier for a private body than for an inter-governmental agency.”
And so it is significantly easier for a private measurement organisation, like Whythawk, to offer an opinion on how well development organisations are meeting their self-appointed tasks than it will be for them to do so themselves.
Development without a goal is directionless. A goal without impartial measurement will never be achieved.
The quiet nobility of the men by the side of the road
Written by Gavin Chait
Yet, no land was under plough. Instead the locals were queuing patiently outside UN feeding stations waiting for their daily ration of grain. And you would too. Farming is hard work. If international donors are happy to provide you with the basics you need to survive why would you work?
And this is the difficulty of development: how do you transition to a post-conflict development model from that of conflict-survival? A people who have learned to accept assistance from the outside will pay little attention to their own development. In Zimbabwe the very foreign governments that Robert Mugabe rails against are responsible for feeding his starving people. North Korea is the same. It is unlikely that people will learn to hold their leaders to account if those same leaders are divorced from any responsibility for their people’s well-being.
Social development focuses more on the immediate needs of survival than in supporting those who are helping themselves. So there are feeding schemes, and community gardening projects, sewing projects, craft projects … the products are not commercially viable but the purpose is to keep the poor occupied rather than to help.
Across Africa men and women leave their families and homes and travel, seeking opportunities. Some head north to Europe, some south to South Africa and – in countries not their own – they seek employment and opportunities denied them at home. Some have degrees or technical skills but immigration laws prohibit them from formal employment so they park cars, sell trinkets or wait tables.
Some, lacking even elementary skills, collect on convenient corners and stand by the side of the road. Patient, noble and dignified. They are not begging; they are hoping. Hoping that someone will stop and hire them for the day. They do not question what they will be asked to do. They do not negotiate their pay. They are a pair of hands and a willing body.
Our orientation is all wrong. We spend more time assisting those who do not help themselves than those who try. By doing so we create a moral hazard where we encourage people to be less effective than they could be.
One of the most horrifying side effects of the chronic unemployment in South Africa is that people who have AIDS would rather not take anti-retroviral drugs. The reason is simple: with AIDS they get a government disability grant; if they take the drugs and get healthy enough to work then they will lose that grant. Most would rather stay sick than struggle to find work.
By the side of the road those who would work stand and wait.
The end of wild seafood and the myth of "free"
Written by Gavin Chait
In the case of water, it falls out of the sky; air is always around; and fish breed without any human intervention.
And, since they are free, no-one is responsible for them. Factories and households happily dump their waste (organic and otherwise) into the nearest river or ocean; cars and factories belch fumes into the sky; and wild fish stocks are almost finished.
Governments have attempted to shore up fish stocks by issuing permits for quotas but these are only as good as their ability to enforce them. European and Asian fishing fleets have a wonderful time over-fishing in the territorial waters of developing countries who lack the navies to protect them. Carbon credits are an attempt to put a price on pollution.
Yet any attempt to place a value on fresh water, clean air or available seafood tends to result in screaming and vociferous exclamations that these things should be free since they turn up on their own.
Love is touted as free; see what happens to you if you attempt to love everyone equally. Even cell-phones are given away on contracts for free. Richard Branson has had an impossible time trying to convince South Africans that this isn’t so - that “free” phones get priced into the contract - but he’s had to give in and offer his own “free” phone.
The same goes for development services which are given away – you guessed it – free. If the services were truly free then none of these organisations would be permanently attempting to raise money.
Call it a rule: the quality of any “free” good will degrade with time if there is a significant demand for it.
In reality the very claim that things should be “free” creates an implacable and insurmountable lie. Rather we should discuss efficiency and cost. When a good is given away via an implicit subsidy then the real cost is hidden from the end-user. When a charity raises funds with the intention of giving something away then, without an external and impartial observer (such as Whythawk), it is impossible to measure the efficiency and cost of the service they provide.
There is an intrinsic cost to everything. If we fail to express that value the danger is that the free good will be used up like sweets at a children's birthday party.
Deforestation around Lake Victoria - shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania - makes the area a less efficient rain catchment for the lake, and overfishing and pollution are damaging its $ 400 million-a-year fishing industry. Imagine that anyone using Lake Victoria in any way had to pay for that use, from dumping pollution to cutting down the trees that support it, then we could put a value on the lake. Without value, it becomes a puddle. Say what you like about the evil intentions of private water companies, at least they place a value on their product and so have a vested interest in ensuring its continued availability.
The danger is that, slowly and implacably, the things that the poor, dispossessed and uneducated could do to earn a living and support their lives are starting to run out. There are few coastal fish left to catch from small boats, polluted water is degrading subsistence agriculture, and bad air causes illness and entrenches poverty. The technical skills required to work are rising rapidly so that the average factory no longer has place for a completely unskilled person.
The barriers to stepping up and out of poverty are starting to rise. Unless new and determined energy is put into re-inventing development the gap between rich and poor may be as severe as that facing the Incas when confronted by Pizarro and the might of the Spanish
.X Challenge: Develop the cheapest most effective school
Written by Gavin Chait
How have budget carriers managed this miracle? The simple expedient of having a wide range of competition lowers prices. More importantly, though, budget airlines simply keep their planes in the air for longer, turning them as quickly as possible, packing in extra seats, and offering no frills at all. You get exactly what you want and no more.
Where, then, are the development services based on the same principles? Taking exactly the opposite route is Oprah Winfrey and her astonishingly overpriced Learning Academy1 catering to a microscopic number of kids. At $ 7 500 per year this is no cheap solution to educational problems. Overnight Winfrey has created the most expensive school in South Africa. A significant step in the right direction is the Tersia King Learning Academy1 in Tembisa township on the East Rand. They manage to offer independent-school quality learning for between $ 550 and $ 1 250 per year. But that still isn’t cheap enough.
For those who think that computers may offer a solution, research by Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann of the CESifo economic research organisation in Munich declares not. By analysing data from a study involving tens of thousands of students in 31 countries organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they show that higher computer use in schools correlates with lower maths scores and a reduced reading ability. One laptop per child isn’t going to change this.
In essence the requirements are good teachers, a pleasant study environment conducive to learning (no guns, no gangs, and kids with enough food in their bellies to concentrate) and a basic education program designed to teach essential skills and self-study techniques.
The X Prize revolutionised commercial space flight by offering a prize to the first team to achieve a private space trip.
Well, here’s a challenge: what would the most efficient and effective education system look like, and who will be the first person to offer it on a large, repeatable scale for $ 100 per year per student?
Anyone wanting to join us in developing this challenge please contact us.
1 Whythawk has not rated either organisation and so expresses no opinion on the effectiveness of these organisations
A revitalised UN may improve development in Africa
Written by Gavin Chait
At a recent international biofuels conference1 held in Cape Town a British businessman stood up and declared, “Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to be the middle-East of biofuels.”
He bases his claim on soil analysis which demonstrates that less than 20% of some of the best agricultural land in the world is currently under plough. And all this land lies in a broad swathe across Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, , Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique. Most of the agricultural land in South Africa is already farmed but the country, with its deep-water ports and good infrastructure, would be a perfect gateway for agricultural manufactures to the rest of the world.
Instead of accepting this information gleefully and rushing off to grant investors concessions to set up biofuel farms, the Minister of Energy from Malawi said, “We don’t understand this technology. Please can you donate funds to help us?” Sounding less like a savvy business environment and more like a basket-case. This statement would be echoed, one way or another, by other African leaders during the event.
The image of Africa as some sort of delinquent and addled idiot-savant is epitomised in an advert from the Kamitei Foundation,2 a development organisation specialising in education in rural Tanzania: “We have riches but we’re too stupid to use them on our own. Please come do it for us.”
The South African government is attempting to go it alone but have adopted completely the other extreme. They refuse international assistance to the point of making investment almost impossible. The same British businessman who was so excited about the potential of Africa was less than excited about South Africa. “I am very impressed with Mozambique and will definitely be investing there,” he said to me. “But South Africa is impossible. Full of businessmen and politicians who talk big and then stand in the way doing nothing but demand hand-outs.”
It is, therefore, with a great degree of optimism that I observe the actions of the new Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, former foreign minister to the Republic of Korea. He has expressed outrage at events in Darfur and a vigorous interest in Africa. South Korea has gone from third-world kleptocracy to first-world Asian Tiger in only a generation. He is unlikely to view the mewling pleas for continual aid from Africa with any sympathy. After all, South Korea has become wildly successful without massive foreign aid, but with lots of investment.
Whatever its failings, the United Nations is still the best hope for international cooperation and Africa is the world’s difficult child that just doesn’t seem able to kick some vile habits.
I hope that Ban is able to bring a little tough-love to bear on this troubled continent.
1 Note that the Cape Argus articles linked on the conference page were written by Gavin Chait of Whythawk Ratings
2 Whythawk has not rated Kamitei and so expresses no opinion on the effectiveness of this organisation
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