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.

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 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.

CommGAP held a 3-day training program for senior government official undertaking reform programs on the role communication and participation can play in their reforms. Thirty government officials from 15 countries in Africa and Asia participated.  The value of a group like this is that they offer real world experiences in having undertaken reforms that have been successful or have failed and can offer lessons on what needs to be done to make reforms happen.

To me the training pointed out and the comments reinforced the perspective that the role communication plays in the reforms is equal to or greater than the policy work, yet the funding and support for governments in the area of communication or to make sure that the reforms get implemented is virtually nonexistent.

I was surfing the web, looking for some material on “leadership”, when I came across this music video-clip which I found striking and wanted to share with you. And not because it is my favorite type of music… 

As usual on Fridays, from  Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 
Engendering Macroeconomic Models

Ça?atay (1998) identified three ways in which models can be useful for integrating gender into macroeconomic models. First, models that encourage theoretical precision are instrumental in organizing knowledge and giving direction to research by focusing on the types of data that need to be collected. Second, models foster communication with the mainstream economics profession and may influence and/or change prejudices. Third, models inform policy-making and have practical implications.  Against these three premises, Ça?atay offers four approaches to gender-aware macroeconomic modeling, discussed below.  

Thailand made financial news on March 3 by lifting capital controls on the Thai Baht that were imposed 14 months ago.  The Bank of Thailand (BOT), the central bank, had imposed the measures to limit the rapid appreciation of the Baht against the US Dollar, which was reportedly hurting exports, and to prevent speculative investment in the capital markets.  Thailand’s capital controls imposed in December 2006 did not stem the appreciation of the currency (the Baht appreciated by about 14% since that time) and in spite of this appreciation, exports rose by over 30% in 2007.  This leaves open two key questions: (1) if the controls did not ultimately prevent the currency from appreciating, what impact did they have on financial market development? and (2) what can the rest of Asia learn from this incident, if anything? 

Thailand’s original capital control required that 30% of ¬all foreign capital inflows be deposited with the central bank for a year without interest.  This triggered a 15% one-day sell-off in the stock market – the biggest one day drop in its history – which wiped out US$ 22 billion in market value and caused other emerging markets to also suddenly drop.  This forced the BOT to immediately exempt foreign equity inflows from the capital controls. 

Mr. Xaypanya signals on the map where we went that day while Tony and Arlyne, on the left, and Jim and I, on the right, watch.

Feb. 7, 2007* - Although this was my first transect ever, and our first transect here, it was the team’s second day. We woke up at 5:30 am, had breakfast, and left for the transect just before 7 am. Arlyne and I joined one group, while Tony and Jim joined another. In each group there are generally three people (usually men in this case): the leader and another “observer” (looking out for species) and a guard (just in case).

The idea of the transect is to cover about two kilometers of territory, in a straight line (which is set up on the first day following GPS location and compass bearing), slowly and quietly, listening and looking out for the species. Why five types in our case? According to Arlyne, they chose these five because they generally are relatively easy to either hear or see in this forest but are also some of the most threatened by hunting – a big concern in the NT2 Watershed.

The aim of the survey is, then, to measure the abundance of these five species over each transect, repeating it every four years, for 30-years (the period financed by the Nam Theun 2 Power Company), which will allow the WMPA to track whether wildlife levels have been maintained, increased or decreased (and thereby assess whether protection efforts are working).

Public opinion is a critical force in politics, including all aspects of governance. To provoke hostile or negative public opinion is to invite a gigantic hammer or a wrecking ball. And I am saying that not because I want to be dramatic but to capture some of the scale of what is happening in the current global financial crisis. For, financial markets are also affected by the power of public opinion. In fact, what market analysts and pundits often describe as public sentiment or market confidence is really the working of public opinion. The point is that whether the market trades in electoral votes or financial securities public opinion is a critical force. It is always better to have public opinion on your side.

I recently attended an event hosted by the New America Foundation. Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli Foreign Minister and Minister of Public Security , spoke about the shortcomings of the Annapolis Middle East Peace Process, how to address them, and the broader regional picture. In his discussion about the requirements for brokering peace in the region, Ben-Ami stressed the importance of including powerful non-state actors in the process. He underlined that, in order to get the “buy-in” of the general Palestinian population any agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians needed, in addition to President’s Abbas’ democratic legitimacy, to be legitimized by the support of popular leaders among the militia leaders and prisoners. The former Minister pointed out that in the Palestinian society, as well as in the region at large, powerful socio-cultural-political forces had emerged that needed to be included in the negotiation process if it was meant to succeed. He sternly warned that any furthering of the current policy of exclusion would mean an end to the Annapolis process and preclude progress towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict and the two-state solution. His assessment is being shared by Henry Siegmann, Director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ United States/Middle East Project.