Read this piece that I recently wrote for WellDone, an organization of young individuals, working to raise awareness on the global water crisis and provide clean water to communities in need.
Examining Priorities: Kenyatta’s Laptop Plan
In recent years, Nairobi has been branded as Africa’s “Silicon Savannah.” As one of the most stable nations in the turbulent East African region, Kenya has become a hub of technology and innovation. From numerous media accounts and the growing narrative of “Africa rising”, Kenya appears to be on track to replace South Africa as the center of investment on the continent.
The most recent World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA)report rated Kenya and Cape Verde highest on a list ranking the African nations according to their policies and institutions to support economic growth. However, despite this rosy picture of development and a thriving middle class, over 45% of the country continues to live at the national poverty line with high levels of unemployment across the country.
Notwithstanding this pervasive inequality, President Uhuru Kenyatta recently announced a plan to give away 400,000 free laptops to Kenyan first-graders in 6,000 primary schools. After phase one, the program will be expanded to other schools across the country. The project is partially sponsored by the Microsoft Corporation.
While praised by some as a key step towards reducing the digital divide between Kenya and the Western world, the Jubilee government’s $665 million initiative has been widely criticized by many Kenyans, particularly in the educational community.
Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich claims that “when fully implemented the policy will reduce the cost of buying and replacing textbooks, and improve access to information, communication, and technology in schools and households.” However, widespread skepticism persists as the government has not made efforts to ensure quality provision of electricity and basic upkeep for school facilities. Moreover, the ongoing National Union of Teachers strike is highlighting the lack of funding for teachers’ training and salary.
Pictures like the one above (via Al-Jazeera Stream), from a strike last year, highlight the insufficient allowances that Kenya’s teachers currently receive. Not only are teachers underfunded, but schools are understaffed. The country is facing a shortage of 30,000 teachers at the primary and secondary school level.
Laptops won’t solve these problems. If students do not have teachers, they cannot gain a sufficient mastery of material that will allow them to engage in the globalizing world. Although technology may help people off the grid connect to networks elsewhere, the tool cannot surmount the need for human connections to start the learning process. Furthermore, many teachers not possess the computer literacy skills to help their students in the first place.
For the parents of students receiving laptops, security concerns will also be a source of stress. According to The Standard, in the event of theft, parents will be responsible for replacement costs - more than a month’s wages in some parts of the country. There is some fear the gangs may target children with laptops.
Despite the fact that he may want to establish an education legacy similar to that of predecessors Moi, who created a program to provide free milk to primary schoolchildren, and Kibaki, who introduced free primary school education, Kenyatta’s plan requires further evaluation prior to implementation. While the laptop project is no doubt a good idea, could resources have been allocated more efficiently and effectively?
Tackling Tax Havens (Center for American Progress)
Wholesale tax evasion, particularly in the developing world, can have devastating effects. Read this piece that I recently wrote for the Center for American Progress’ National Security & International Policy department.
Promoting Inclusive Growth In the Sustainable Development Framework
The International Labour Organization estimates that across the world, over 202 million people are unemployed. Although the developed world has witnessed a recent rise in unemployment in the wake of the global financial crisis, the vast majority of the unemployed are in Southeast Asia and Africa. Not only are young people disproportionately affected by high levels of global employment, but over64% of working age people are working or looking for work.
Those that have jobs might not be that much better off. As income inequality grows across the world, the working poor population also continues to grow.
In the last few years, the United States, one of the most unequal advanced economies, has engaged in a public dialogue among policymakers and the media regarding the widening wealth gap between the rich and poor. As millions across the country struggle to make ends meet, the richest 1% continue to grow richer. While this has sparked bitter commentary about the unfair advantages of privilege from one side and the need to end hand-outs from others, it is clear that across the world, we need to institute mechanisms to promote inclusive growth. This is not a phenomenon solely limited to the developing world.
Nowhere is this more clear right now than in Brazil, a BRIC nation and one of the most rapidly growing economies, but a place where the newfound wealth is largely concentrated in the hands of the country’s elite, which is primarily of European descent. Right now, in 25+ cities, people are protesting against excessive FIFA World Cup spending.
The 2013 Global Peace Index analyzed the political climates of societies across the world and concluded that conflict and violence are on the rise. Fearon and Laitin (2003) hypothesize that economic inequality and poverty are drivers of conflict. If we want a safer and more peaceful world, inclusive growth must figure as a priority in the national agendas of all economies.
As the United Nations Development Programme states, “inclusive growth is both an outcome and a process.” It is the product of participation that fosters productivity and a system that allows people to share in society’s benefits. Societies in which there is participation without benefit-sharing create inequitable and unjust growth. Sharing benefits without participation creates an undesirable welfare state, the antithesis of productivity.
Creating inclusive growth is also imperative in order to avoid financial crises like 2008. To ensure lasting prosperity and economic security, we must utilize and cultivate all of society’s social and economic resources to create competitive economies. This approach requires governments to keep an eye on long-term development solutions instead of the common focus on short-term panaceas that do not address root structural problems.
We cannot only create economic growth; we must also create sustainable growth. This goal can only be realized if the potential sources of growth are expanding. In many developing countries, an over-reliance on lucrative extractive industries leads to a focus on sectors like mining at the expense of others sectors like manufacturing and agriculture. Diversification is a key step in expanding employment opportunities.
Growing unemployment trends worldwide compel necessitate the creation of more mechanisms to increase the pace of growth and the range of opportunities. One of the first steps towards accomplishing such a lofty task is establish a competitive marketplace. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index framework suggests 12 factors that might encourage such an environment like institutions, infrastructure, health and primary education, higher education and training, technological readiness, business sophistication and innovation.
From these criteria, it is also clear that addressing traditional preoccupations of the development field - governance and social services - are a prerequisite for any growth.
That being said, transforming governments and creating prosperity is obviously easier said than done, but as we pursue a better world, mechanisms to produce inclusive growth need to be a greater factor in discussion.
Sparking Innovation in Refugee Camps
Yesterday was World Refugee Day. In recognition of the day, I have written the following post on the potential for innovation to spur resiliency and self-sufficiency in refugee communities.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are over 45.2 million displaced people in the world. Global displacement is at an 18-year high. These figures are unsurprising considering that the 2013 Global Peace Index found that peace across the world is deteriorating and violence is taking its place.
1 in every 170 people has been uprooted by conflict. One-third of these people are refugees, people fleeing from war in country’s outside their own, while two-thirds are internally displaced persons.
While refugee camps are typically meant to be short-term solutions, a large number of conflicts today have resulted in protracted refugee situations, cases in which refugees have lived outside of their country for five years or longer. These protected refugee situations are sadly becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Humanitarian agencies provide food, shelter, medical care as well as educational services, however not all of the needs of these refugees are met. What about the cultivation of creativity - a quality necessary to spur entrepreneurship? Without these traits, refugees are unable to attain the economic and social resiliency that help avoid a renewal of conflict upon their return to their home countries.
In protracted refugee camps, the average stay is 17 years. For Afghans in Iran and Pakistan, Sudanese in Chad, Somalis in Kenya and the Burmese in Thailand, this means that camps must evolve beyond their typical preoccupation with emergency needs. In order to avoid a culture of dependency, new strategies must be develop to moves refugees towards self-sufficiency and renew their sense of dignity in the midst of hardship. This shift in perspective would complement the recent United Nation’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda’s focus on sustainable development.
There are well-documented cases of the thriving entrepreneurial spirit common in many refugee camps. Dadaab, Kenya, the world’s largest refugee camp, is home to “ more than 5,000 businesses… includ[ing] Internet cafes, butcher shops, hotels, barbershops, telephone bureaus, clinics, electricity suppliers and even second-hand motor vehicle dealer.”
As a 2012 Oxford Conference posited, refugees are “natural entrepreneurs” whose need to survive drives innovation, thus meriting access to opportunities that can facilitate a return to simulacrum of normalcy.
In 2006, Uganda took an innovative stance in refugee policy by adopting legislation that allows refugees to move freely within the country and work rather than living in camps. While Uganda’s refugee population is not as large as the refugee populations of other regions, the nation’s approach enables refugees to be self-reliant. Other nations should consider a model along similar lines.
While implementation of micro-finance to spur business in camps can be difficult in refugee settings, it is concept also well-worth further exploration in order to facilitate self-sufficiency. In some nations, however, such development is impeded by restrictions on the participation of refugees in the private sector. Despite legal roadblocks in some regions, research has shown that refugees are often self-employed which creates employment opportunities for local communities as well as potential new markets for the nation.
Creating opportunities for refugees to develop businesses not only builds resiliency, but can help local communities.
For further reading on this topic, please see:
“Kenya can turn the Dadaab refugee camps into an asset”, The Guardian, April 2012
“IT entrepreneurs find surprise success in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps”, The Guardian, June 2013
DRC-TANZANIA: Business as usual for Congolese entrepreneurs in refugee camps,IRIN Africa, April 2003
Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship in Refugee Camps, Unite for Sight
“Resiliency Admist the Fragmented Lives of Afghan Refugee Women”
Why Mali Matters Now
In recent weeks, Mali has been a constant fixture in the headlines. Given the West African nation’s poor standing in the Human Development Index and low governmental capacity, Mali’s relevance to the politics of the G-20 might come as a surprise. However, in the foreign policy debate of the 2012 election, Mali figured as one of the most important factors related to efforts at world peace, particularly in the Middle East.
How does a poor West African country, unknown to most Americans, figure into the security concerns of the developed world?
In that October 22 debate, Mitt Romney (surprisingly, considering his “Russia=geopolitical foe” thing) hit the nail on the head by referencing al-Qaeda’s growing presence in Mali.
Today, Mali is the largest al-Qaeda stronghold in the world. Northern Mali, a vast swath of land nearly the size of France, is currently under the control of Islamist rebels and Jihadists that have been linked to Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Libya’s Ansar al-Sharia — a group linked to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last September — and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
How did all this happen? Part of the current chaos in Mali can be traced to its colonial history. As was the case in many other African nations, the construction of Mali was a piecemeal endeavor that did not take into consideration that ethnic distribution of its inhabitants. Southern Mali tends to be populated by black-skinned Malians; northern Mali is populated by the nomadic Tuareg people, who identify more with North African populations due to their skin color and other cultural practices. At various times in Mali’s history, the Tuaregs have attempted to rise up and take control, most recently last year. Since a 2012 coup in which the former Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown, the country has been divided into the government-held South and the Islamist north.
While human rights advocates have expressed concern about the strict version of Sharia law that the Islamists have implemented, including flogging, stoning and more brutal practices like amputations, security remains the most pressing issue for international bodies. Mali’s instability threatens to not only bring extremist elements into Western Africa, but also destabilize the Western African sub-region and serve as a training ground for terrorists plotting attacks on the West. Additionally, the nation’s wealth of historic sites such as Timbuktu, a major West African trading center in the 14th to 16th centuries that was renowned for its scholars, provides those seeking to make a statement through violence with many prime targets.
In the last two weeks, France has launched an offensive against the rebels in the hope of aiding the Malian government. France’s actions have come after months of debate over how to implement the December 20 U.N. Security Council Resolution that established a “Mali Support Mission.” While France operates in Mali, Nigerian troops are preparing to aid in the stabilization efforts within the next month. A UN coalition of African troops is also currently undergoing training and may deploy as soon as this summer.
Although France has shown signs of success thus far, through the capture of Kidal, the last major militant-held town in Mali, the well-equipped rebels are showing signs of resiliency. It is likely that the conflict may be more protracted than expected due to an underestimation of the opponent. Despite the fact that France has pledged to stay in the country as long as necessary, with the stalled deployment of ECOWAS and UN troops, it remains to be seen whether or not other global powers, like the United States and the United Kingdom, will provide more than mere support services. Presently, the United States Air Force is flying in French troops and providing equipment, but it is unclear whether the American government will more directly engage with the Malian conflict. Last week, several American hostages were killed in a startling attack on a refinery in Algeria. The attack was apparently a retaliation for Algeria’s allowing France to use its airspace for strikes in Mali. Given Tuesday’s announcement of the establishment of a base for U.S. reconnaissance drones and troops in neighboring Niger, it looks clear that American investments in intelligence and military resources are to expand in West Africa. There’s a new frontier to consider in the war on terror.