Some good advice on GIK

From Japan 

"If you can, please put such items in different boxes and write the contents clearly on the outside. It will save us a lot of work sorting items," said Kazutoshi Matsuura, director of the Guidance and Inspection Division of the metropolitan government's Social Welfare and Public Health Bureau.

Some people have sent items the Tokyo metropolitan government is not seeking at this time, such as secondhand clothes and food.
"Even in disaster-hit areas, most people don't want clothes worn out by someone else," Matsuura said. "It's absurd for people to send items they don't want anymore. They should put themselves in other people's position and carefully, compassionately consider what they need."

The Chiba prefectural government began accepting relief goods from individuals on Tuesday. However, the prefecture is only accepting items brought directly to a special counter at its main office building in Chiba. Otherwise, it would take a very long time to sort them, officials said.

Until Friday, Yamanashi Prefecture accepted donations of bottled water, powdered milk and disposable diapers, but they had to be brand-new, boxed by item and brought directly to the prefectural office.

"We must save time and effort to deliver relief materials quickly to disaster areas," a prefectural official said.

"People who want to send relief goods to disaster areas should check such information frequently and try to cooperate with local governments so necessary items can be delivered when needed," said Norio Takeuchi, deputy director of the Tokyo Voluntary Action Center in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo.

"Please remember that not sending relief goods is also a wise option, if you think they would be a burden for disaster victims," Takeuchi said

HT - Saundra, for everything SWEDOW/GIK 

Bhagwati on Grameen and SEWA

Jagdish Bhagwati questions the basic development premise of microfinance through comparing Grameen and SEWA - comparing the alternate models for providing financial services for the poor:

...Throughout its existence, SEWA has been regulated by India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, staying strictly within the law and seeking no special dispensations. Unlike the Grameen Bank, it has received no foreign money (such as the grant of $100 million from Norway, the handling of which led to the initial charges of malfeasance against Yunus), and it has distributed dividends of 9-12% annually each year since its founding...

...Ela Bhatt’s SEWA adds to the huge benefits to the poor and underprivileged that a reformed macroeconomic policy framework has brought to India. By contrast, Yunus’s Grameen Bank puts at best a microeconomic finger in the leaky dyke of Bangladesh’s largely unreformed macroeconomic policies. Can we hope that the Grameen affair will be a prelude to the fight for the liberal reforms that will transform the Bangladeshi economy? 

Bhagwati makes other points as well - but its the last, that seems to be the dominant thread. He of course thinks microfinance is not a viable engine for economic development; but more importantly, highlights the need for broader macro-economic change that only governments can bring. While the jury is out on whether microfinance benefits the poor or not, the general point of government-led reform is an important one. I don't necessarily agree with his displeasure with Yunus for keeping Grameen outside the system through a mixture of foreign aid and political neutrality. And I definitely do not agree with the suggestion that Bangladesh can grow only through 'liberal reforms' - but that's Bhagwati for you!

Buffett for sale

Not beyond the much feted investor to put himself on sale...well, his time and wisdom, at least. All it costs is the price of a new motor insurance policy. 

Berkshire Hathaway is now in India, and Warren Buffett will welcome all policyholders^* of BerkshireInsurance.com at an event specially hosted for them.

Just a clever investor, this one - not sure what all the nonsensical fanfare is about. Oh yes, he is there is encourage Indian philanthropists to 'give'; and also to sell some motor insurance while he still can...nice!


A quick sound-byte from someone on the ground

“He’s doing a wrong thing,” said S.K. Sethi, an insurance broker in New Delhi. Next thing you know, Mr. Sethi says companies could try selling insurance by saying “you’ll have an opportunity to see the dance of Katrina Kaif.”

Class wars in charitable giving

Anand Mahindra explains why he doesn't quite agree with the Gates-Buffet philanthropy encouragement drive targeted at billionnaires in developing countries. His article also referred to this amusing incident

...While some of China’s wealthiest people were converging on a faux renaissance castle in northern Beijing Wednesday night for a philanthropy-themed banquet hosted by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, a group of regular residents decided to hold their own charity chow-down at a less ostentatious venue elsewhere in the city—and the glitterati weren’t invited...

...The Buffet-Gates affair drips with China-style exclusivity. Hosted at the Chateau Beijing Laffittee, a gilded and karaoke-equipped rococo castle in suburban Beijing, it boasts a secretive guest list of only the country’s wealthiest people.

The “People’s Banquet,” by contrast, was being held at a Holiday Inn Express near the Bird’s Nest stadium. According to organizers, the cost to eat was 38 yuan, or about six dollars, per person and the guest list was exclusive in only one sense: no rich people or celebrities allowed.

Earlier in the day, organizer Wang Yifei, a self-employed web designer, was reported (in Chinese) to have driven to the site of the Buffet-Gates dinner in a van hung with a banner that read: “The Common People’s Banquet vs. the Barbie Banquet”...

Prefects, Welfare Officers and Chaplains

just another training 'in the field'

India sitting on $23 billion of unused aid

Reports The Hindu, from the government auditor, CAG

“As on March 31, 2010, unutilised committed external assistance was of the order of Rs.1,05,339 crore,” the CAG said in its report tabled in Parliament on Friday.

The sectors include urban development (23,883 crore), roads (Rs. 11,617 crore), agriculture and rural development (Rs. 9,557 crore), water supply and sanitation (Rs. 8,995 crore) and power (Rs. 7,959 crore).

We've apparently paid $18 million as penalty for un-utilised aid in 2009-10! 

Debating the results agenda: Three asides

Three asides to my last post

a) I hate the logframe. Working in an NGO, I often despaired about the blind love that donors showered on it. In my masters degree at IRMA, we had a course that taught and tested us in creating hypothetical logframes. At work, my general experience was that people complied by putting into numbers and measures, all that did and did not make sense. I am sure donors knew it - there was the mandatory back and forth with proposals, especially the logframe pages. Consultants who held forth on the difference between goals, objectives, strategies, outputs and outcomes prospered. In the end, logframes would end up as products the implementing NGO didn't really own - it was more a reporting tool than a planning tool. But nobody cared that much once it was signed off on - just another check-box ticked off, I guess.

b) In the RCT world here, we will all agree whole-heartedly when Ros says - 

End-of-project evaluations are no substitute for continuous learning and adaptation of approach

- although we may differ on what our preferred method is to foster 'continuous learning and adaptation' for particular projects. Since both pieces are being idealistic, I am going to be idealistic as well in hoping that this is a difference that can be bridged and implementers and researchers will agree to be question-driven rather than method-driven and will find ways to cooperate more often than compete.

c) Many years back, Robert Chambers and colleagues led the 'participation revolution'. There was later, a push-back and a book, "Participation: the new tyranny?", edited by Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari, followed by a book "Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development", Hickey, Samuel and Giles Mohan (eds.). In a review of the latter, Chambers concludes -

From Tyranny to Transformation does not explore the full span of potentials and applications on that frontier, but does a service in summarising much recent experience, and doing this in a manner which is variously provocative, critical and balanced. It deserves to be widely read and reflected on by those who are engaged in and concerned with participation

A different subject, but see parallels to where this debate might be headed?

Debating the results agenda

Duncan Green is kindly hosting a debate on the results agenda in UK aid, between Ros Eyben from IDS and Claire Melamed from ODI. After having led the 'big push back' against a mindless results agenda, in this post, Ros explains further and makes a strike against the bounded-problem approach

...I am in charge of redecorating our bathroom while my partner is away. The paint is peeling and there is mildew on the ceiling above the shower. To demonstrate I got value for our money I will get two quotations for the redecoration. Many donor governments are treating the complex problems of poverty like my bathroom...

...Eventual outcomes are often very different from what the logical framework required. Stuff happens. Power, history and culture shape the multiplicity of relationships and actors influencing any aid intervention... 

In her piece, Ros cites SPARC, an Indian NGO and laments the decline of the 'sense of trust' that bonded donors and implementers in the past. She thinks instruments such as the logframe just reveal the lack of trust in the system

The origins of the results agenda lies in a mistrust that eats like a cancer into aid agencies’ capacity to make a difference. I am not convinced the emphasis on results will solve the problem of trust

In Claire's response, she points to the potential benefits of valuing results

...A results agenda, as long as the right results are being pursued, can help to rebalance inequalities of power and make the actions and decisions of the powerful more transparent. It helps people to know what the objectives of decision makers are – and so to argue that they should be different, if that’s the case; and also to hold people to account for their success or failure to meet those objectives. Without measurement, there can be no accountability. 

The real question is what results we are looking for, and how to measure them. Of course if donors want to do the wrong things, and measure the wrong things, they won’t get good results.... 

This is little to disagree with in either piece, really. Where one upholds the importance of trust in building relationships and engaging with systems, the other calls for a focus on identifying that right results and the right measures. Claire's response is built on the assumption that pursuing the results agenda will yield a better understanding of what the poor actually want and their feedback to projects that attempt to improve their quality of life. 


From what I understand, Ros is not dismissing the importance of results either. She is opposed to the manifestation of the so-called results agenda. The manifestation, according to her is that complex problems risk being ignored, donors/implementers will tend to focus on projects, rather than systems and a general break-down of trust between the different actors. The response to this cannot be an argument highlighting the importance of results. It should be by demonstrating ways in which the results agenda can positively influence development work and focusing on the mechanisms by which the multiple actors in development can come together in making this happen. Importantly, this would have to start with better education of donors and other policymakers in development  on how to handle the results agenda, as Claire seems to suggest in her piece as well. Is that possible? I don't know!  


Such debates mirror what development itself is usually about. We can't always win by proving someone right and the other wrong. Confrontation is easy, cooperation is not. The answer definitely lies somewhere in between and demands that the two sides work together to figure out the way ahead. Just as we sometimes build social capital in communities by accommodating opposing view-points and evolving a consensus, so too in this world of opinions.

The politics around labour unions

I rarely (almost never) write about US' internal politics because I don't feel like I know enough about the country to comment on its internal affairs, having never been there and also just because I am so hesitant to characterise anything as "American" - just seems like an unfair stereotype. 


Anyway - I have been following the recent tussle over public sector unions (and in particular, teachers' unions). Again, not knowing enough about their history in the US and their role (positive or negative), its hard for me to say anything very intelligent about the issue, except to recognise first up, that this is an issue developing countries grapple with all the time. I do think that paying teachers better (while holding them accountable) and giving them recognition is key to motivating teachers in developing countries. 

Coming back to the issue at hand, I recently came across this article that criticises the recent attacks on public sector unions. Excerpts - 

A popular item is going around in emails and Facebook pages among the people who are in solidarity with the workers protesting against anti-labour legislation in Wisconsin: A CEO, a union worker and a Tea Partier (a member of the emerging right-wing political movement) are at a table with 12 cookies. The CEO takes 11 and says to the Tea Partier: "Keep an eye on that union guy, he wants your cookie"...

...A public-relations campaign bankrolled by business groups and billionaires like the arch-conservative Koch brothers is aimed nationwide at not only pinning the blame for state budget deficits on its hard-working employees and their union leaders, but to tap into the envy many private sector workers and the unemployed have toward civil servants who have decent benefits...

One of the problems with organised unions is their representativeness. The US ranks 5th from the bottom among all OECD countries in terms of labour union density - with only 12% of American workers being part of labour unions. Does this feed the perception that labour unions are always self-serving and extractive? Could people be politically motivated to think that way? The current attack on unions seem more political than issue-based and one that the author is hopeful will eventually fail

As a result of this stand-off being one of the top domestic news stories in the country, Americans are beginning to see that unions are not the enemy of the economy like conservative pundits and business titans argue, but instead a force for one of the most patriotic things of all: A decent living for the average family.

In India, only 7% of the labour force is in the organised sector in the first place. I would guess its similar in many other developing countries. The remaining workforce in the unorganised sector would have to be organised only by political trade unions not directly affiliated to an industry or sector - which does seem more like a mass mobilisation strategy than one for protecting the rights of the workers. In India, public sector unions are often demonised where labour strikes have, in the past, crippled entire industrial hubs. 


There is, of course, some evidence that public sector unions can be progressive and instrumental in policy implementation. Really interesting, but grossly under-researched... 

The 'new bottom billion' trumps the old?

The technical report of recent DFID Bilateral Aid Review concludes with the following -  

As a result of the Review, we have refocused:

• Our efforts where the need is greatest. Our priority countries account for three quarters of global maternal mortality and nearly three quarters of global malaria deaths;

• Our impact on fragile or conflict affected states, ensuring that upstream conflict prevention and efforts to tackle poverty are built into our programmes in a coherent and mutually reinforcing way;

• On the poor wherever they live. We will continue to work in both middle income and lower income countries to target those with the greatest need.

Looks like a clear victory for Andy Sumner's new bottom billion 

Dhoni's quotes in the WC 2011: weird or what?

On Chawla and Ashwin -

Piyush Chawla stays. Compared to Ashwin, Chawla needs more practice so we decided to play him today. Ashwin is mentally stronger, and it doesn't matter against whom he comes in, he will do well.

...basically you have to see which was the player that needed this game most, rather than the team needing the player. I felt it was Piyush, who needed this game much more than Ashwin

On the side's stupendous fielding efforts -

Our exceptional fielders can get better but our slow fielders will remain the same

Health insurance premiums in Ghana

In a recent report, Oxfam claims that enrollment figures reported by the National Health Insurance Agency (NHIA) in Ghana are exaggerated - that the figure is not 65% (apparently, the enrollment data is a cumulative one, which is clearly a wrong estimate for the numbers enrolled at a given time - refer pages 58 - 61 of this report) as reported by NHIA, but more closer to the 18%, as found by the researchers in this study. This difference looks quite extreme and the truth may be somewhere in between. But the authors are confident enough about their numbers to spar with other donors (mostly, the World Bank), accusing them of misrepresenting the programme as a great success and recommending them to other developing countries without really having a fair basis to make such claims.

The report claims that the insurance premium required for registration is a major barrier for the poor. The insurance premium varies from region to region and according to socio-economic status. They also point out that the access to insurance has been inequitable, since 64% of the richest quintile and just 29% of the poorest quintile are registered with the scheme - again, based on a 2008 government survey, which is likely to be dated. Its another story though, that almost all my Ghanaian colleagues say they would not use NHIS even if they were enrolled because the service is shoddy and they are made to wait in long queues if they wanted to avail of the insurance.

The scheme itself, as it started, was an attempt to move away from prohibitive user-fees towards a cost-sharing model, where citizens have to enroll by paying an annual premium. One can draw lessons from the research/literature on free distribution v/s cost-sharing. Research findings from field experiments by JPAL/IPA suggests that the benefits of cost-sharing on usage are at best unclear, while they do often tend to result in the a significant drop in demand for these products, leading to the exclusion of those who probably need the product/service the most. This is relevant especially for public health products that have proven positive externalities. Some of these products succeed only if they protect the entire population in a community and in that situation, a cost-sharing model which dampens demand may be an ineffective strategy (even if it increases appropriate usage among those who take-up the product). 

This report on the NHIS seems to strengthen these findings in general. If premiums are restricting coverage and are also not substantial enough to as a source of revenue, why bother? In this report, the authors recommend that these fees should be abolished in order to make the NHIS truly universal. In any case, the cost recovered from premiums collected does not make a substantial difference to the health expenditure in the country. The report also rightly calls out to the government to increase investment in health infrastructure - which is a necessary complement to any health insurance scheme, especially when  governments aim for universal coverage. 


********
Post-script - 


The World Bank responds here

Ishac Diwan, the World Bank's country director for Ghana, says that Oxfam's 18% coverage figure "is extremely surprising". All the figures he has seen put it at around 40% to 60%. "If it was 18%, it would be terrible," he says.

He also denies that the Bank is touting Ghana as an example for the whole of the developing world to follow. In Sierra Leone, for instance, "where some UN people have called for an insurance system, we have been against it". But, he says, "the health system is something that is extremely defined by globalisation. When nurses and doctors are attracted abroad, adding private sector solutions is really important." Essentially, insurance schemes which allow the private sector as well as public sector to flourish are good for middle and high income countries, he believes.

Democracy in the Middle East

Are the masses rallying for democracy in the Arab world natural allies of the US? Lamis Andoni, at Al Jazeera explains why any such expectations are likely to be misplaced, not just in this situation, but in general -  

In the prevailing US political culture, supporting Washington’s policies is considered synonymous with democratic thinking and behaviour, while opposing the American outlook and Israel is judged to derive from the backwardness of 'captive minds'. According to this perspective, a mentality of imagined victimhood feeds ‘hatred’ of and resistance towards Israel.

But, it is, in fact, this thinking that is utterly undemocratic. If we assume that democratic values are universal values and move away from a Western ethno-centric interpretation, we will find that the rejection of occupation is totally consistent with ideas of freedom and human dignity – two supposedly integral components of democratic thought.

Just as rejecting racial discrimination asserts a belief in freedom, so does the refusal to simply accept the Israeli and American occupations of Arab lands and subordination of Arab people.

Nitish Kumar continues battle against corruption

Three months back, Nitish Kumar had announced his plans for dealing with corrupt officials in Bihar. He had first declared his own assets after setting a deadline for all his ministers and government officials in the state to do so - with plans to post all the information on a public website. Later in January 2011, these officials were warned that if they did not declare assets, they would have to go without salary. The latest on that front, is the news that nearly 85% of the 450,000 government officials had declared their assets - the remaining 70,000-odd were at risk of losing their salaries for the month. Deccan Herald reports

"The salary of only those employees will be disbursed within a couple of days for February 2011 who adhered to the directive of the state government to furnish the assets declaration forms by February 28, mandated by the government," Principal Secretary of the General Administration Department Dipak Kumar said...

...Senior officials of the Department said that all those employees, who failed to submit their details, would be given an opportunity to clarify their stand and the district magistrates have been asked to seek explanation from all such employees...

...Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi had earlier announced that the state government could withhold the salary for the month of February of such employees who failed to submit their asset declaration forms by February 28...

...Several employees' associations had written letters opposing the government's move to make employees' assets public as it would amount to "invasion into one's privacy and can pose security problems," but the state government refused to accept such suggestions and stuck to its stand on weeding out corruption...

SMS Unhappy Service

A new customer grievance redressal mechanism to be introduced by State Bank of India through its Local Head Offices (LHOs)

Under this system, LHO's have so-called “Happy Rooms” that deal with the customer grievances. Any customer who wants to lodge a complaint sends the message “Unhappy” to a specified number (8008202020 ). The Happy Room then calls the customer and records the details of the complaint. The complaint is then forwarded to the branch in question

LSE's Libya mess: implications for academia?

A messy scandal - This Telegraph article explores the wider implications of the scandal and sheds light on the murky nexus of politics that LSE was probably only a small part of. While LSE has good reasons to be sorry now, there is no reason not to believe Howard Davies when he says

The grant from the foundation was used to support work on civil society in north Africa, which will have value in the future. The training programmes we have run in Libya will also prove valuable in enhancing the practical skills of many people who will be needed under whatever successor regime emerges. I should also say that I have no evidence whatsoever that anyone has behaved improperly in this whole episode. To the best of my current knowledge (though we are currently reviewing the evidence), the degrees to Saif Gaddafi were correctly awarded, and there was no link between the grant and the degrees.

Davies resigned of course, accepting moral responsibility for the loss of face the institution has suffered in recent days - the right thing to do anyway. It is also easy to see that academic institutions have a greater public responsibility, as compared to say financial institutions. What is, say the moral burden on the financial institutions and their highly qualified fund managers that have happily accepted, managed and grown Gaddafi's funds? Are policy think-tanks subject to similar levels of scrutiny? Is the Monitor group taking a similar hit for its role in this mess?


But this also raises a couple of other important questions 

• How closely should universities work with governments - while advising governments on policy, when does one go from being a policy advocate to being an instrument of government policy?
• Should we expect academic institutions to have better foresight? Is that even possible when it comes to politics and power?

They tried...

Yesterday, India's Sports Minister announced plans to target the 2012 Olympics 

He said medal prospects in major disciplines would be funded by the National Sports Development Fund. Maken also announced a time-bound training programme for 16 key disciplines in the Olympics, to be monitored by specially appointed apex and steering committees.

The disciplines are swimming, archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, gymnastics, hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, table-tennis, taekwondo, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.

A schedule of camps for these disciplines was released, most of which would be based in Delhi. Other locations include Patiala, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Gandhinagar. The camps would commence in a couple of days, the minister said.

Yes, this is quite out of character for India, which takes no sport but cricket seriously. This is a pretty good way to inspire some confidence in the sports establishment disgraced by the shamelessness of thugs like Kalmadi. Playing to our strengths seems to be a good starting point. Hopefully, in 2012, the government will also deal with a firm hand in trimming the wasteful administrative expenditures that eat up the sports budget and focus instead, on improving sports infrastructure in the country.


And who knows, we might win a few medals next year...as a Ghanaian might say, they tried... 

Direct subsidies to counter leakage?

"We are working on a scheme under which cash subsidy will be provided to all BPL families if they switch over from using kerosene as fuel to LPG," officials in Food and Civil Supplies department said. They said the government may extend a cash subsidy of Rs. 250 to each BPL family per LPG cylinder against its market price of Rs. 310, besides providing the gas stove free of cost.

The Delhi government's plans to introduce direct subsidies to poor families - mainly with an eye on reducing leakages in the system. The UID will no doubt be critical to the introduction of this scheme. The UID has already been declared an acceptable identity proof for new bank accounts and mobile phone subscriptions. But will the UID alone help to identify the poor? How will it plug leakage on its own in a corrupt system if vendors seek bribes to give-out what customers are entitled to. But at least, by handing money out to the people, it puts the power in their hands. With complementary programmes that promote accountability, the corrupt system could be challenged.


Jayati Ghosh reminds readers that cash transfers cannot stand on their own - to be effective, they require social sector spending by governments in complementary sectors

...In Brazil, for example, Bolsa Familia can be based on minimum school attendance only because there are enough public (and free) schools of reasonable quality that children of poor households can attend, which in turn means prior and continuing public investment in quality schooling and teacher education. Similarly, providing small amounts of cash to allow people to visit local private quacks will hardly compensate for the absence of a reasonably well-funded public health system that provides access to preventive and curative services. Cash transfers are less effective in periods of rising prices of essential goods...

If cash transfers are introduced along with a mass privatisation of goods and services, it might create a market for these goods, but will not protect the poor from price fluctuations. Ghosh points to the deregulated price of fuel as an example - can cash hand-outs are pegged to one or many price indices and revised from time to time to take care of these inequities?...interesting times ahead!