March 2008

One of the foundational commitments of CommGAP is the belief that a national democratic public sphere is an essential and self-perpetuating part of the architecture of good governance. At the very heart of a democratic public sphere is a media system that is independent of government control and is both free and plural. It must be possible for a thousand flowers to bloom; it must be possible for a boisterous cacophony of voices to be heard. We believe that such a media system will be the grand forum for public debate and discussion on issues of common concern. We believe that such a media system will be a grand corrective of political misdeeds.

Accurate estimates of the fall-out are certainly a moving target , but a recent paper estimates the financial and economic cost of the crisis, predicting total loan losses of $400 billion and a 1.3 percent lower GDP growth this year. This paper also contains a nice explanation of how the subprime crisis infected other financial markets and the channels through which it affects overall lending standards and economic activity.

For those of us who grew up in developing countries, political discourse about poverty is an everyday thing. Political campaigns in the Philippines, for example, place poverty upfront and center. Candidates for local posts, such as barangay (village) councilor, all the way up to the highest office in the archipelago invariably campaign on poverty issues. For instance, memorable slogans from relatively recent elections include "para sa mahirap" ("for the poor") and "pagkain sa bawat mesa" ("food on every table"). Not at all surprising in developing country contexts where poverty and inequality are so ubiquitous.

These reflections ran through my head as I attended a brown bag lunch CommGAP organized a couple of weeks ago on a Panos London publication entitled "Making poverty the story: Time to involve the media in poverty reduction", authored by Angela Wood and Jon Barnes. Presented by Barnes at the brown bag, it incorporates research findings from six African and Asian countries. The paper makes the case that mainstream media are essential in boosting public awareness and debate on poverty reduction.

What is good governance, and how should we measure it?  What impact does governance have on growth?  Even if good governance predicts positive outcomes over the long term, what effect does it have in the short term?  Dani Rodrik, well-known development economist and head of Harvard’s graduate program in public administration and international development, raises as many questions as he answers in this blog post; a recent article in The Economist addresses similar issues.  There’s a lot of interest these days in the question of how to best define and measure governance -- we’ll write more about this in the coming weeks.

The Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI) is the brainchild of the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).  Launched in 2004, the GBI supports innovative social enterprises – dubbed Grassroots Business Organizations (GBOs) – that directly engage the poor as entrepreneurs, consumers, employees and suppliers, offering financing and capacity building know-how to GBOs.

With some 30 projects throughout the world, the GBI is increasingly active in Asia.  In Cambodia and Indonesia the GBI works with CraftNetwork, a design and export promotion center that links international buyers with producers of high-quality handicrafts.  CraftNetwork recently launched a new e-commerce site, and also has an eBay store.  Digital Divide Data, another GBI-supported Cambodian social enterprise, trains poor and disabled people in computer and English skills, answering a global business need for basic data services.  DDD has already passed the $275,000 mark providing information and communications technology (ICT) services to clients such as Harvard University’s Crimson newspaper. 

The World Bank Institute (WBI) has created WBI alumni, a web page for alumni from our courses (face to face, via video conference or E-learning). You can sign up to receive their quarterly newsletter, to stay informed about WBI initiatives, events, publications, and other resources.

Stay tuned for the announcement here of an Internet "Export Development and Diversification" course. Coming soon.

Literature on Web 2.0 technologies applied to developmental problems is rapidly growing, and with it, two camps are beginning to emerge. On the one hand, there are those who see Web 2.0 tools as an enhancement of traditional collaboration and outreach capabilities. On the other hand – and to my mind more intriguing – there are those who believe that Web 2.0 is heralding a new business paradigm.

To the former, the failure to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon is a missed opportunity to tap into new audiences and fundraising possibilities. To the latter, it represents the risk to development organizations of becoming obsolete, bypassed by new players who are more adept to exploiting the innovative potential of "radical collaboration". A recent online dialogue titled "NGO 2.0 – the end of the organization?" sheds some light on this issue.

Arrived at Ban Navang! Arlyne and Tony with some of the villagers who were working on the wildlife monitoring.

Feb. 9, 2007* - This morning we, sadly, had to make our way out of the forest. We had our breakfast and left around 6:30 am as the transect teams were leaving to do their last day (day four) of their surveying in this area (tomorrow they’ll move to a new location).

The walk on the trail back was absolutely stunning. It is such a beautiful forest, it’s hard to describe and no adjective would probably ever do it justice. On the walk back we got lucky again and saw some Douc Langurs! They really are amazing creatures. And they sure make some giant leaps as they make their way from tree to tree.

We stopped midway to have lunch, and reached Ban Navang shortly after 3 pm (about a 16-kilometer walk from Camp 6, towards the opposite direction than Tha Phai Ban). Ban Navang is a very nice, but very poor, village of about 310 people. With support from the WMPA they have been able to build water wells, a school, and the typical “toilet houses” you see in Lao villages: small, little houses made up of wood and palm leaves with a squat toilet. They also have some water wells where Arlyne and I bathed today.

Development 2.0: on which camp are you?

As the literature on the applications of web 2.0 technologies to tackle
developmental problems is rapidly growing, two camps are beginning to emerge. On
the one hand, there are those that see web 2.0 tools fundamentally as a
(sometimes radical) enhancement on traditional collaboration and outreach
capabilities (see, for instance, BusinessWeek?s recent article on Activism 2.0
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2008/tc20080213_617723...
). On the other ? to my mind, more intriguing - end of the spectrum, there are
those who believe that web 2.0 is heralding a whole new business paradigm that
challenges the very premises on which the development sector has been operating
to date. To the former, the failure to jump on the web 2.0 bandwagon is
essentially a missed opportunity to tap into new audiences ? and fundraising
venues. To the latter, it represents the risk for development organisations of
becoming obsolete and irrelevant, bypassed by new players who are more adept at
exploiting the innovative potential of ?radical collaboration?. A recent online
dialogue was significantly entitled ?NGo 2.0- the end of the organisation??
(http://www.crisscrossed.net/2008/03/19/ngo20-the-end-of-the-organization-1).

The latest voice to be added to the choir of the advocates of a disruptive new
paradigm is, quite fittingly, Anthony Williams of Wikinomics
(http://www.wikinomics.com) fame. His vision for NGOs 2.0 (
http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/16/ngo-20-wikinomics-an...
) is remarkably similar to some of the ideas presented in this blog: see for
instance the proposal to use Second Life for collaboration between donors and
recipients (http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2007/02/development_20.html),
or to lunch an Innocentive-like development market to tap into the wisdom of the
crowds (http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2007/07/more-developmen.html).

The distinction between the two camps is not purely academic. It is when you
start looking at Development 2.0 as a new business model that the most promising
insights for collaboration between development organisations and the private
sector are generated (
http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2008/02/development-20.html). The whole
area of managing innovation ? traditionally a strenght of the private sector ?
is an obvious starting point.

Jennifer Conlin of The New York Times reported recently on a global trend already sweeping through Asia and the Pacific -- the green hotel.   It was just a matter of time before environmentally-friendly practices and the business “bottom line” struck up what looks to be a promising long-term relationship.  Add growing consumer interest, combined with the cost savings realized through energy-saving and conservation strategies, and we have the makings of an eco-boom in tourism.  Case in point:  the eight-room Old Bangkok Inn, which uses solar energy to heat the hot water for the entire hotel, room sensors to shut down lights and appliances when a guest leaves the room, and features locally produced furnishings for the rooms, as well as local food specialties for every breakfast.

Feb. 8, 2007* - Second day of transect for us and third for the team. Arlyne and I joined a different group today, while Tony and Jim joined our group from yesterday. Our most interesting viewings today were Brown Hornbills – big birds about 70 centimeters tall, with a tucan-like beak, and sitting very high up in the trees – and a Giant Black Squirrel, just sitting there, with its large, bushy tail that made it look kinda like a skunk from where I was sitting (with my binoculars about 200 meters away.) The animals were so beautiful! I never imagined getting this excited about seeing a bird, squirrel or monkey, particularly when they are hundreds of meters away! But it’s exciting stuff! Like Tony says… the “WOW” factor: that moment when you first say “wow” and your perspective changes forever….

Perhaps almost as amazing as seeing the wildlife is noting the talent of these men in spotting things that are hundreds of meters away (granted they used to hunt for a living). While they have binoculars as well, they mainly spot the animals with their bare eyes, it’s incredible! I could barely see the hornbill at first, and they could just tell from hundreds of meters away, that high up on a tree, was a silhouette next to some leaves (which was a hornbill). I guess Arlyne and Tony are right; these are just the skills that they develop on a daily basis.
Lao Jungle Diary 5