Analysis

And then there were Twenty

Large global organisations are notoriously inefficient.  Detractors like to accuse them both of forming shadowy international conspiracies that threaten the Earth, to being incompetent, incapable and corrupt.

The World Trade Organisation is often subject to such protests.  Every one of its 153 members (even tiny Rwanda at 0.006% of the world economy) has a veto and can prevent any meaningful work being done.  Accordingly, the Doha round of trade talks has been in dead-lock since 2001.

Kenya and the mixed expectations of technical investment

The wealthiest Kenyans are barely distinguishable from the poorest South Africans, yet East Africa is now a flurry of excitement as investors congregate.

In August, the first of three major undersea broadband cables which will link East Africa directly to the global telecommunications network went live. Seacom cables have a capacity of 1280 gigabits per second.  However, the best residential speed offered by Kenya's largest ISP remains capped at one megabit per second. That speed is available only at night and on weekends, for over $100 per month. Other cables, including Teams and Eassy, expected to come online soon may result in increased competition.

Self-sufficiency implies a tolerable level of dead babies

In 1967, President Julius Nyerere of newly independent Tanzania, announced the Arusha Declaration.  In it, he described a new African Socialism and the imposition of self-sufficient collective farming villages.

The Ujamaa policy would reduce Tanzania’s people to the poorest in the world, and disrupt the nation as the army and police forced them onto barren and famine-struck land.

Nyerere wasn’t alone in his fatuous and violent pursuit of self-sufficiency through collectives.

The delicate subject of patents

Obesity is proof, if ever we needed it, that human beings have an innate lack of understanding of how much the society in which we live has changed.

Our evolutionary antecedents lived in a world of uncertainty and anxiety, more so than today.  Food was seasonal, and seasons could be good or bad.  All the more reason to tuck in and put on the fat while the going was good.  Those with a better ability to store weight would better survive future famine, drought, fire or flood.

Circumstances have changed.  Our intelligence has allowed us to circumvent circumstance.  We don’t need to store fat against future lack; we can just head down to the supermarket.