Wikiprogress ProgBlog

Social media for anticorruption: lessons from the trenches

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:09:00 +0000

By Francesco Checchi from the United Nations Development Programme in Europe and CIS.

This post first appeared on the UNDP Voices from Eurasia blog.

Real time map of trends on Twitter

As anticipated in a previous post (Social media for anticorruption? Exploring experiences in the former Soviet block), we have been putting quite a lot of thought into the use of social media for anticorruption in our region.

How can we use social media to capitalize on existing efforts by ordinary citizens and NGOs to enhance accountability of public institutions? How can we harness the amount of information concerning corruption scandals and maladministration shared on the Internet by the independent websites, media and bloggers? How can we move beyond the hype of well publicized cases to get into the mechanics of what works and doesn’t work?

We quickly came to the conclusion that the most useful contribution we could make to the debate was to provide some in-depth case studies focusing on the experiences of those who are working “in the trenches” – from the Georgian version of FixMyStreet to Moldova’s crowdsourcing platform Alerte.md, from an in-depth look at the work of celebrated Russian blogger Alexey Navalny to the use of Ushahidi to monitor elections in Kyrgystan.

We therefore commissioned a report on The role of social media for enhancing public transparency and accountability in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States: emerging models, opportunities and challenges.

In addition to case studies, the report contains a review of the growing literature on the topic of social media for transparency and identifies three emerging models of implementation (information sharing, crowdsourcing and crowd-to-community).

Perhaps more importantly, the report focuses the attention on some criteria than can be identified as a predictor of success for social media for anticorruption efforts, based on the experience of the practitioners interviewed. These include, for instance, a well established reputation in the field, the use of cross-media promotion (going beyond online), and, importantly, citizen reporting – including NGO verification and the involvement of public authorities.

The report is meant to be a live document, to be updated as we come across new experiences in the region (See: Social media for anticorruption: from “why” to “how to” and Ushahidi comes to Kyrgyzstan) and, equally importantly, to test our own findings through projects on the ground. So watch this space for updates.

We warmly welcome comments, critics and contributions to make this study as useful as possible to practitioners and organizations working in the area of anticorruption and public transparency.

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:04:00 +0000

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review -- a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On the MDGs
Who's going to pay for the MDGs? (Guardian Blog 23.01.2012)
OECD Development Centre publication 'Revisiting MDG Cost Estimates' estimates achieving the first six MDGs globally will require $120bn more to be spent every year on health, education and poverty reduction.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Millennium Development Goals

On gender equality
UN web portal launched: Girls in ICT (UN 24.01.2012)
The UN launched a web portal this week aimed at helping women access jobs, training and career advice in the information communication technology (ICT) sector. The Girls In ICT Portal aims to not only inspire young women to pursue careers in ICT but to develop a network of women working in a male-dominated industry.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on gender equality and ICTs

On WEF
Davos 2012 starts with worries about the Eurozone crisis (25.01.2012)
The Eurozone crisis is set to dominate the 42^nd World Economic Forum, with over 40 heads of government and 19 of the world’s 20 most influential central bankers. Other issues on the agenda include the rise of China, the Arab Spring aftermath and financial regulation
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on economic growth

In the Spotlight:

Egypt, one year on
The uprising on January 25^th 2011 in Cairo’s Tahrir Square began a wave of protest that spread throughout Egypt and lead to the fall of the Mubarak regime. In honour of the one year anniversary, the Thomson Reuters Foundation has released a documentary on the Egyptian revolution.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress and the Arab Spring in Egypt

We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page

Yours in Progress,

Philippa Lysaght

January Editor's Choice from Wellbeing Wales

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:28:00 +0000

By Danielle Klentzeris from Wikiprogress Correspondent, Lles Cymru Wellbeing Wales.

It is often said that childhood is the best time of our lives. However, according to new figures released by the Children’s Society, almost ‘one in ten children over the age of eight are unhappy’. Issues surrounding family life were found to have the greatest impact on children’s wellbeing and happiness, with relationships ‘within a household rather than the family "structure"’ being the main cause for children’s low sense of wellbeing. Speaking to The Guardian, Elaine Hindell, director of the Campaign for Childhood at the Children's Society, said ‘we want our country to be the best place for our children to grow up. Yet unless we act now we risk becoming one of the worst and creating a lost future generation’.

In light of the report, Cameron’s call to concentrate ‘not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing’ has great resonance not just for adults, but for the wellbeing of modern children also.

From the state of children’s wellbeing to the state of the planet. The Guardian’s Dean Baker argues for the need to prevent cuts in areas concerning environmental preservation. Defending the need to ensure progress in the technological, environmental and educational fields, Barker argues that spending cuts that ‘that affect our progress in these areas… will be making our children worse-off, not better-off’. The crux of Barker’s argument appears to situate around the simple fact that financial debt will eventually decrease and drop off whereas environmental debt may not be so easily repayable. Quick fixes may appear a tempting option to already struggling governments but if we lose sight of the long-term goals of environmental sustainability then efforts to protect future generations become fruitless given there may well be no planet left to protect.

Unhappy children, planetary decay- there certainly doesn’t feel like there’s much to smile about these days. However, according to The Independent, laughter may hold the key to lifting societies' woes. From a social tool to a means of curing illness, laughter allows human’s to ‘convey meaning more effectively than words and is a language in itself’. But far from being a sacred tool of human communication it appears that laughter has the power to transcended species. Whilst observing rats, Dr Jaak Panksepp, found that our rodent friends ‘produce ultrasonic chirps, particularly when they appeared to be playfully interacting with each other’. A marvel in itself but even more extraordinary when he later found that, upon tickling the rat’s stomach, these noises became ‘louder and more consistent with [the] familiar, dynamic rhythm’ of laughter.

As tempting as it is to try this experiment for myself, I don’t think the rats of Wales are quite ready for a quick rib tickle but the findings do raise an interesting point. Perhaps we are not so distanced from the creatures we share our planet with and recognising these supposedly ‘human’ traits in other animals may make us realise the importance of preserving the planet for the benefit of all future generations. Now that’s got to be something worth smiling about. :)

Week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:15:00 +0000

The Internet goes on strike

The Sopa blackout protest makes history (Guardian 18.01.2012)

This Wednesday marked the largest online protest in the history of the Internet. Already nicknamed by some ‘Occupy the Internet’, websites from around the world “went dark” in protest against two bills, Pipa and Sopa, directed at stopping piracy of copyrighted material. Internet giants such as Google, Wikipedia, Tublr, Facebook and Twitter have all given their support to the protest to varying degrees.

Are you participating in the Sopa Strike? Tweet us your thoughts @Wikiprogress

On gender equality

The evil of flowers: women’s work and domestic violence in Ethiopia (World Bank Blogs 17.01.2012)

This blog post by the World Bank explores the linkage between women who are employed in Ethiopia’s flower industry, increased rates of household income and the subsequent increase in domestic violence suffered by these women. Women who work in the flower industry are 13% more likely to experience physical abuse and 34% more likely to experience emotional abuse.

See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on domestic violence

On Rio +20

Scientists scrutinize first draft of Rio+20 agreement (Reuters 16.01.2012)

The draft document released last week in preparation for Rio+20 attempts to form the basis for negotiations between governments; the section on science and technology highlights the role innovation plays in promoting sustainable development and calls for greater international cooperation in investment and development of technologies. See a range of responses from scientists in this article.

See more and add information to the Wikiprogress Rio+20 event page

On child well-being

Schools strive for pupils’ happiness (Guardian 16.01.2012)

While governments and international institutions have made significant progress in developing measures of well-being, a little school in Norfolk has also been busy ensuring the happiness of the students is the number one priority and leading a new approach to child well-being and happiness.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on child well-being measurement

On money and happiness

Does more money make us happier? Of course it does‎ (The Independent 17.01.2012)

We have included several articles in The Week in Review on the importance of measuring subjective well-being and the correlation between money and happiness. Dominic Lawson gives a critical analysis of David Cameron’s happiness agenda and the correlation is between income and happiness.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on happiness

In the Spotlight: Hightlights from the World Future Energy Summit

We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Yours in Progress,

Philippa Lysaght

The pros and cons of the Canadian Superindex

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:07:00 +0000

This post by Donato Speroni originally appeared in Italian in the Numerus section Corriere Della Sera and was also published on the Istat BES blog.

Canadians are the only ones, along with the small and far away country of Bhutan, to have developed an all-encompassing "happiness index" to be compared with GDP (gross domestic product). This work took several years and finally came to a tentative conclusion: Roy Romanow, Chair of the advisory board of the University of Waterloo who created the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), has announced that from 1994 to 2008, GDP in Canada has increased in real terms by 31%, while well-being has grown only 11%.

"There are some very, very troubling signs," Romanow said in an interview.

"I think if we continue on this trajectory we're going to have bigger and bigger disparities. You can never build a solid political, social and economic community with wide disparities."

The final report of the first conclusions of the CIW was released on October 20, 2011 and had a lot of attention in the local press, including the Huffington Post Canada. The methodology has been described previously on Numerus, and in fuller detail on Wikiprogress.

At a time when Italy is developing its BES (Benessere equo e sostenibile: fair and sustainable new measures of well-being), one wonders if the road to a single encompassing index which brings together the different sectors (in the Canadian case eight indicators, each based on eight different data, for a total of 64 series) is a useful and viable way. Without presuming to give a definitive answer, we can see the pros and cons.

Going against the Superindex is the fact that it is snubbed by many methodologists because its construction is clearly questionable. We have already seen how difficult it is to determine the weights of the different domains of well-being: is health more important, for example, or are social relations? The Canadians have solved the problem by giving all of the domains the same weight, while the OECD has instead allowed users to attach the weights they prefer. But it is clear that it does not arrive at a unique indicator.

In favour of Superindex is that it obviously has the most media impact, i.e. the possibility of building a truly alternative number or at least one that’s complementary to GDP. Proponents point out that construction of a composite index for each sector, encompassing for example all aspects of health or safety, is equally questionable, so you might as well go one step further and get to a single number.

A composite superindex undoubtedly involves a great loss of information compared to the so-called "dashboards" that present several important data simultaneously. But, as has been done in Canada, having the indices for each sector presented to the public as they become available, concentrating for example on the environment one month, then the relationship between citizens and institutions or education the month after, can attract continuous attention from the media about the different components of human well-being. At that point the Superindex would be a synthesis of all this work: an additional information, to complement the GDP, without hiding the wealth of information which was used to build it.

We repeat, however, that the path to get to Superindex is very questionable. It is no coincidence that in Canada this process has been developed by an independent university and not by Statistics Canada. The CIW data come largely from official statistics, but the production was left to a private body. On the other hand, (on this controversial topic, there is always a pro and a con) can we imagine building consensus on a Superindex in Italy without the blessing of official statistics?

Week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:02:00 +0000

The Week in Review 13.01.2012
Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review -- a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On information and the Internet
In a networked world, why is the geography of information uneven? (Guardian Poverty Matters 09.01.2012)
The rise of user-generated content on the Internet has had a phenomenal impact on the way information and knowledge is developed and understood. While optimists like Jimmy Wales believe that the Internet will become ‘the sum of all human knowledge’ it is ever more important that the uneven geographies of online information are addressed by rebalancing digital labour and focusing on the South.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on wikis

On progress in Haiti
Haiti: two years after quake tangible signs of progress (World Bank Blog 10.01.2012)
This week saw the second anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake that killed 220,000 people; currently, it is estimated that 520,000 people live in tents and almost 1 million Haitians are displaced. But there has been significant progress made. Since the earthquake in 2010, Education for All has provided free schooling to 405,000 children, with numbers growing.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Haiti

Gender Equality – report release on gender equality in the Pacific
Human Development Report on Pacific: Gender, Culture and the Pacific (UNDP 11.01.2012)
A UNDP report released this week provides a deep understanding into how the culture in the Pacific impacts gender equality and human development. The paper analyses two key issues in the region: that gender is biologically determined and that culture is sacred and should not be adapted.
See a selection of article in the Wikigender Society and Culture category

On child well-being
UNESCO chief stresses the need for innovation to ensure equitable education (UN News 10.01.2012)
With 67 million children out of primary school and an estimated 793 million adults around the world illiterate, the United Nations has called for new and innovative approaches to education. While technology plays an important role in education, it must be integrated into learning and teaching styles.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on education

On data and prediction
The future of prediction (The Boston Globe 01.12.2012)
On Friday the 13^th it seems inappropriate to say that tarot cards and tea-leaf readings are dubious in predicting future events; but this article says that the systematic use of data in prediction isn’t much better!
Do you know of any interesting projects to predict the future using data? Share them with us on Twitter @Wikiprogress

In the Spotlight: 2011 Democracy Index
We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Yours in progress,

Philippa Lysaght.

Women’s legal rights – progress and backlashes

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:46:00 +0000

This post first appeared on Gender Debate.

In every region of the world, there has been a significant progress on legal reform to expand the scope of women’s rights. Law implementation and enforcement improves women’s access to justice and therefore can advance gender equality. However, a lot of work remains to be done for all women and girls to experience justice, physical integrity and equality in their homes and working places.

UN Women, the newly established United Nations Entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women recently released its biannual flagship report, ‘Progress for the World’s Women in Pursuit of Justice 2011-2012.’

The report highlights the ways in which governments and civil societies should work together to reform laws and create new models for justice service delivery that meets women’s needs. The report also sheds light on the challenge of ensuring that women can access justice in the most challenging situations, including after conflict and in the context of legal pluralism. Women themselves play a central role as agents for change, as legislators, judges, lawyers, campaigners and community activists.

The report focuses on women’s pursuit of justice and it recognizes the positive progress made all over the world, for instance about 139 countries and territories, now guarantee gender equality in their constitutions.

A remarkable advance has been made over the past century in the quest for gender equality and women’s empowerment, particularly in terms of legal rights. Today, 139 countries and territories, now guarantee gender equality in their constitutions. 125 countries have outlawed domestic violence, 115 guarantee equal property rights and women’s voice in decision-making is stronger than ever before. In many countries, legal reforms to expand women’s rights and access to justice have been followed by an increase in women’s representation in parliaments.

Share of women in parliament 1997

Share of women in parliament 2011

Image Source: http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/human-rights-maps-70-gender-equality-in-government/

However, despite widespread legal guarantees of equality, the reality for many millions of women is that justice remains out of reach. This often also goes for women’s economic participation:

Therefore, it is important to continue changing national laws, demanding enforcements of existing laws, striking down discriminatory customary laws and revolutionizing the scope of international law. Making the justice system work for women, for example by catalyzing legal reforms, supporting legal aid and training for judges, requires investment.

Most international organizations recognize the importance of strengthening the rule of, but targeted funding for promoting gender equality in the area of legal and judicial development and human rights has remained low.

In 2009, the OECD allocated $4.2 billion to justice, with US and European Union accounting for 70 per cent of the total. Out of this amount, only 5% were allocated to programs focusing on gender equality as primary aim. 15 per cent were allocated to programs for which gender equality was a secondary aim.

The World Bank has also allocated only a very small fraction of its funding to gender equality focused rule of law projects over the past decade. The Bank’s funding for grants, credits and loans for the years 2000-2010 adds up to 261 billion USD (2946 projects). 6% are allocated to rule of law projects (16 billion USD). The total amount allocated to rule of law and gender equality projects adds up to 61 million USD (0.02%).The total amount allocated to the gender equality components of these projects is only 9.6 million USD (0.004%).

By Angela Luci.

Sources: Angela Luci; The Citizen; UN Women Report

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:40:00 +0000

Happy New Year to all our Prog Blog readers! We have an exciting year of blogging planned for you in 2012, and as always, your weekly update of highlights will be posted every Friday. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On growth in 2012

Growth in 2012 (The Economist 04.01.2012)

The Economist Intelligence Unit are forecasting that Libya’s economy will grow the fastest in 2012 as a result of national reconstructing following the fall Qaddafi’s regime. By contrast, Sudan’s economy will shrink the most in 2012 after losing three quarters of its oil reserves to South Sudan.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Libya and Sudan

On happiness

UK Economy: bleak forecast but are we really unhappy? (Huffington Post 02.01.2012)

In the UK, 2.6 million people are unemployed, 1 million of them between the ages of 16 and 25; with the threat of the Eurozone collapsing the Huffington Post explores whether or not this dim economic outlook to the year ahead will effect people’s happiness.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on happiness in the UK

On the crisis in Europe

GDP Needs Help: Let's Build a Second Measure of Economic Strength (The Atlantic 03.01.2012)

If the greatest economic achievement of the 20^th century was constructing a national income statement then this Atlantic article calls for the 21-century’s greatest achievement to be the creation of national balance sheets.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on GDP

On development

Rethinking the Growth Imperative (Project Syndicate 02.01.2012)

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, goes beyond the beyond GDP argument for more comprehensive indicators of human development and questions the modern growth theory’s emphasis on humans as fundamentally social creatures.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on development

On gender equality

Women set to make their mark in politics (IPS Gender Wire 04.01.2012)

The 2012 Kenyan presidential elections will open doors to political participation from women for the first time ever. A new constitution that took effect in August last year contains a provision that not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender."

See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on gender equality in Kenya

In the Spotlight: 2011- The Year in Data

That's all from us this week, we hope you tune in the same time next week for another week in review. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page

The OECD Inights Quiz: The year from AAA to ZZZ

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:02:00 +0000

This post first appeared on the OECD Insights Blog

We’re glad you read the Insights blog, but if you’re a true follower you learn it off by heart, so this is your chance to win a blogtastic prize in our 2011 annual quiz⁽¹⁾

1^st prize: A year’s supply of punctuation marks. Imagine how much more interesting your prose will be!!! Want to add a note of incredulity to your questions??? Or prepare your reader to die… laughing???!!!

2^nd prize: Paid internship⁽²⁾

Here goes!!! Good… luck!!!

A is for A. Triple A is to debt what the triple Axel is to ice-skating. Who was worried about the euro area falling on it’s A (Add your own Anatomical Allegory) due to sovereign default?

A. China’s finance minister.

B. Former Lehman’s boss Richard S. Fuld.

C. The OECD’s Chief Economist.

D. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.

B is for Bullets. Magic ones or silver ones, we’re obsessed by them at the OECD and are afraid people think they really exist. This can give a plaintively murderous tone to our teachings, for instance, when we say there’s no magic bullet to solve unemployment, it sounds like we wish governments would shoot the jobless. But we’re not the only ones in denial. Who else says there’s no magic (or silver) bullet?

A. The Lone Ranger

B. The Economist

C. The IMF

D. The National Rifle Association

C is for conflict. No conflict-affected fragile state has achieved any of the UN’s Millennium Development goals, nor is any of them likely to do so by the 2015 target date. What should their priorities be instead according to the g7+ group of developing countries and their partners?

A. Roadbuilding and telecommunications.

B. Trade and foreign investment.

C. Peacebuilding and statebuilding.

D. Fair elections and a free press.

D is for Diarrhoea. Outbreaks are usually due to various well-known causes, but certain practices can make the problem worse, including:

A. Skinning snakes.

B. Killing leopards

C. Riding elephants.

D. Photographing monkeys.

E is for Epistemology. Knowledge is power, as Francis Bacon never actually said, although Thomas Hobbes did. Whoever said it, becoming an epistemic influence is obviously a smart move, but who managed this recently?

A. The KGB.

B. The BBC.

C. The OECD.

D. Wikipedia.

F is for Forecasts. “With the underlying conditions sound, we believe that the recession in general business will be checked shortly and that improvement will set in during the spring.” This forecast in the Harvard Economic Society’s January 18 weekly letter was referring to:

A. The 1930s Depression.

B. The subprime crisis.

C. The 1997 Asian financial crisis

D. The end of the dot.com boom.

G is for Twenty. The OECD is closely involved in shaping the G20 agenda and in carrying out its work. One of our lesser-known proposals to tackle a global challenge (as we call problems) is AMIS, or to give it its full name:

A. Agreement on Multilateral Investment Statistics.

B. Agricultural Market Information System.

C. Analogue Mobile Information Sequencing.

D. Ammunition Mainly Including Silver.

H is for Happiness. Some people claim that childhood was the happiest time of their life, making you wonder what the rest of it was like if potty training and going to school was as good as it got. The happiest time is happier in some places than others though, and a report on 21 developed countries suggested that the most miserable kids are to be found in:

A. Japan.

B. France.

C. The UK.

D. The US.

I is for Investment. It’s also for indoors and inefficient. Indoor air pollution from inefficient biofuel-burning stoves will soon cause more premature deaths in developing countries than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. What percentage of global energy investments would eradicate the problem?

A. 9%

B. 1%

C. 3%

D. 13%

J is for Joybubbles. Joe Engressia, who later changed his name to Joybubbles for obvious reasons, was the world’s first:

A. Blind photographer.

B. Hacker.

C. Radar operator.

D. Professional baseball umpire.

K is for kissing. Most of us have tried it, and many people enjoy it, but according to one best-selling guide, unless it can’t be avoided, you should never kiss:

A. Your boss.

B. Your cat.

C. Your children.

D. Yourself.

L is for Luddites. The machine-wrecking Luddites were not the ignorant technophobes the name has come to be associated with, and they even aroused the sympathy of one the 19^th century’s best-known authors. Who? (Bonus point for giving the name of the book)

A. Emile Zola.

B. Herman Melville.

C. Charlotte Brontë.

D. Charles Dickens.

M is for Melancholy. According to our data, one in five workers in OECD countries suffers from depression or another mental illness, possibly linked to work-related stress. According to an earlier study, which of these does not provoke melancholy?

A. Exercise.

B. Study.

C. Poverty.

D. Cabbage.

N is for Nobel. Did you know that Winston Churchill got the Nobel Prize for literature and that they gave the 2011 prize for medicine to a dead man? OK smartypants, what did economist Elinor Ostrom get it for?

A. Her work on resources management.

B. Her work on financial market volatility.

C. Her work on game theory.

D. Her work on asymmetric information.

O is for the OECD. Of course. We are famous for many things (aren’t we?) but some of our greatest contributions to human progress are unknown to the general public. Which of these do we set standards for?

A. Tax treaties.

B. Cucumbers.

C. Nuclear safety.

D. Testing cosmetics.

P is for Protection. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone wasn’t protected by a Swedish patent, so Ericsson reverse engineered it and started the phone business we know today. Philips did something similar with the incandescent light bulb in the Netherlands before going on to invent and invest in cassette tapes and CDs. Examples like this fuel the debate about much intellectual property protection there should be, but quality is just as important as quantity when it comes to patents. Over the past 20 years, patent quality has:

A. Declined by 20%.

B. Increased by 20%.

C. Remained stable.

D. Stopped being measured.

Q is for Quality. The OECD has developed a Better Life Index to allow citizens to create their own definition of quality of life. It combines a number of different topics, but does not include:

A. Safety.

B. Mobility.

C. Health.

D Housing.

R is for Ricardo. The 19^th century economist David Ricardo was responsible for developing the theory of comparative advantage. This has been described as a concept that is:

A. Calculable and counterintuitive.

B. True and non-trivial.

C. False but practical.

D. Objective though indefinable.

S is for Sex. We share our 50^th anniversary with Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The jury in the court case for obscenity against the book decided that it was, all things considered:

A. A fair representation of social relations at the time of writing.

B. A useful if unorthodox introduction to gardening.

C. Suitable reading for your wife and servants.

D. Written by a man with a soul so black he would obscure even the darkness of hell.

T is for Titles. Thanks to sophisticated spying software we got cheap when the News of the World closed, we can track how you actually use this site and adjust content to meet your (pleasingly low) expectations. That’s why we’re thinking of just writing titles next year. Do you know which of these ones we didn’t use in 2011?

A. Rats rejoice as India goes mad.

B. More power to your grannies.

C. Dracula, Prince of shopping.

D. Bugs, drugs and death.

U is for Unfair. The drive for alternative energies is accelerating, but not everybody is pleased. A prominent economist publicised the case of one group complaining about unfair competition from solar energy. Which group?

A. Candlemakers.

B. Shale gas operators.

C. Windfarmers.

D. Biofuel crop growers.

V is for Violence. Over 100 million people died in wars during the 20^th century. In the 21^st century, even more could be killed by something else according to the WHO. What is it?

A. Famine.

B. Road traffic.

C. HIV/AIDS.

D. Antibiotic resistance.

W is for the Weekend. According to scientists (as they say in the papers) analysis of 500 million tweets shows that people are happier at the weekend. The study also claims that people:

A. Tend to get up later at the weekend.

B. Often stay out late on Friday night.

C. Go shopping more at the weekend.

D. Wish the weekend was longer.

X is for the Higgs boson field, better known by its nickname, h(x). Makes a change from the xylophone, doesn’t it? But that’s not the question. The question is: the photo of a simulated Higgs event that illustrates the article about the Higgs boson has a caption quoting James Joyce’s Finnegans Wakebecause:

A. Joyce invented the word “quark”.

B. The Finnegan-Joyce manifold describes the topology of the Higgs boson.

C. We didn’t know it was Joyce and just liked the sound of it.

D. Joyce’s literary executor worked at the OECD.

Y is for Youth. Globally, things are getting better for children across a whole range of indicators according to Unicef but once they get a bit older, the benefits may be wiped out. In Brazil for instance, various programmes saved the lives of 26,000 babies aged 1 year or less. Over the same period, 81,000 15-19 year-olds:

A. Died of drug overdoses.

B. Were murdered.

C. Were kidnapped.

D. Suffered fatal injuries at work.

Z is for ZZZ. We’re trying to avoid zebras as well as xylophones, so this one’s about sleep. Or sleep-deprivation to be more exact. Who complains about this, as well as being “isolated” and “troubled”?

A. European central bankers.

B. Chinese exchange students.

C. African peacekeepers.

D. American truckers.

Tiebreaker In case more than one person enters the competition we may need a tiebreaker, so here it is: Which of the above questions does not refer to a post published in 2011?

A. A

B. B

C. C.

D. D

E. Etc

Click here and to calculate your score here to see the answer

(1) You love phone contracts, don’t you?

(2) You pay.

Week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:48:00 +0000

On North Korea

10 Facts about North Korea (Guardian 20.12.2011)

With the death of Kim Jong-il, leader of one of the world’s most secretive states, the Guardian has gathered information about life in North Korea. Figures detailed in the blog are on population, corruption, capital punishment, military strength, nuclear capacity, poverty, peace, emissions and football.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on North Korea

On Twitternomics

From Twitter, UVM scientists measure mood, happiness is down (VTD 19.12.2011)

A team of Scientists from the University of Vermont have spent the last three years gathering over 46 billion words from more than 63million Tweeters in an attempt to map happiness.

Like the article? Tweet about it and let us know what you think @Wikiprogress #Twitternomics

On the Big Mac Index

Country comparisons, to go (The Economist 22.12.2011)

The Economist is showcasing a beefed-up version of their Big Mac Index as part of their Daily Chart Advent Calendar. The index finds that based on market exchange rates, a burger is 44% cheaper in China than in America.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on purchasing-power parity

On gender equality and globalisation

Globalisation: has it helped or hurt women (Huffington Post 16.12.2011)

Marcelo Giugale, the World Bank’s Director of Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction Programs for Africa, looks back over the last thirty years and questions whether the free movement of people, money goods and ideas has helped or hindered gender equality.

Wikigender needs an article on gender equality and globalisation – please login and start the article

In the Spotlight: Season’s Greetings

Wishing you all the very best for the festive season and we look forward to another year of progress with you in 2012 – Wikiprogress Team

The next Week in Review will be posted in 2012; until then stay up to date via our twitter @Wikiprogress and our Facebook page

Wikigender and Wikipedia have success in their University programs.

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Hariche) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:11:00 +0000

I just spotted this article on the Wikimedia Blog. It is all about students in cooperation with their teachers and Universities, writing their final term papers on Wikipedia. We think this is fabulous. So fabulous that Wikigender and Wikiprogress also have this program. This year we teamed up with Sciences Po in Paris, students at the American University in Paris and the CIDE in Mexico to encourage students to volunteer to write on gender equality. Next year we look forward to working with Universities in Thailand and India. See the Wikigender University Portal here.

Wikimedia University student Karl says in the Wikimedia blog, "“I still maintain that this Wikipedia project made a world of difference in being able to write well, and unlike a term paper, which is thrown away at the end of the semester, all the work that goes into a Wikipedia article continues to help people even after the class ends".

Wikigender took this one step further and made a selection of articles and published it via Pedia Press. This book contains articles on gender equality and education, migration and peace and security. You can buy the book here (who wouldn't want that in their stocking??) or download a printed copy. For more information see the Wikigender University Portal.

Please let us know if you, your class or University would like to join this project at contact@wikigender.org.

Happy holidays!

Angela

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal .

On progress in Australia
Australia's national statistician prefers a "dashboard" approach to well-being (15.12.2011)
Imogen Wall from the Measures of Australia’s Progress team at the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses a dashboard metaphor to describe the importance of using a range of indicators for measuring well-being, “It is important, when driving, to have information not only about speed and distance travelled, but also about engine temperature and remaining petrol.”
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Measures of Australia’s Progress

On gender equality
An African Gender Statistics Group in the offing (13.12.2011)
In an address to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Ghana Statistical Service, Dr Grace Bediako announced plans for an African Gender Statistics Group that aims to mainstream gender into national and international statistics programmes.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on Gender Statistics

On the environment
Time for a Green Index (13.12.2011)
Professor of Environmental Science Chuluun Togtokh argues that the UNDP Human Development Index ‘idolises’ some of the most environmentally damaging societies and suggests replacing the index with one that considers green technologies. He has found that per capita carbon emissions are a simple and quantifiable indicator, which is both strongly and positively, correlated with income.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on green growth

On employment
Jobs, or more precisely, the lack of jobs is now a global issue (World Bank 26.09.2011)
The World Bank blogs on a pressing global issue: unemployment. It is more than the 205 million people worldwide who are unemployed, it is that in today’s post-crisis world policy makers and practitioners do not know how to create jobs, let alone good jobs.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on unemployment rates

In the spotlight
TIME 2011 Person of the Year: The Protester: Why I Protest: Ahmed Harara of Egypt (TIME 14.12.2011)

In announcing the 2011 person of the year as The Protester, TIME has profiled a series of protesters involved the the various uprisings of 2011. Ahmed Harara was protesting in Tahrir Square in January when he lost his eye to a rubber bullet; ten months later he returned to Tahrir Square only to lose the other eye in the same way.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Arab Spring

In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page .

Yours in progress,

Philippa Lysaght

7 billion human beings: Why gender equality matters more than ever!

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:15:00 +0000

This post by Angela Luci first appeared on Gender Debate.

The United Nations Population Division estimates that the world's population reached 7 billion around October 31, 2011. This milestone has an important impact on the worldwide economic and social equilibrium. Gender equality represents a major factor allowing countries to bear the challenges and to benefit from the opportunities of demographic dynamics.

The recent birth of the 7^th billion human being has been registered with mixed feelings all over the world. The exponential population growth that could have been observed over the last 50 years as well as the UN projections for the future global population size are perceived as quite frightening in most countries. Indeed, the actual population size and the future population growth represent enormous challenges for countries of all development stages.

Image: genderdebate.com

In developing countries, and particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, a first important challenge is to provide an adequate agricultural organization to avoid famine, to provide clean water and to protect the environment. Improving the access to health and education is another major challenge. This is where gender equality comes into play. Especially for girls and young women, access to family planning, to contraception, to education and to the formal labour market is crucial not only for improving their own living conditions, but also in terms of demographic dynamics. Fertility and child mortality can be significantly reduced by fostering women’s economic empowerment and by containing patriarchal social norms (inheritance laws, genital mutilation, limited freedom of movement etc…). In addition, an improved access to education for girls and boys allows developing countries to exploit their enormous growth potential that comes along with the high proportion of young people at working age (demographic bonus).

In emerging countries, rapid industrialization and urbanization represent a major development challenge as these phenomena risk coming along with environmental damage, slum formation, unemployment, loose family networks, drug abuse and youth criminality. In this context, improving women’s access to the formal labour market as well as to health care and education is particularly important, as investments in these areas are likely to lead to later marriages, less teenage pregnancies and more stable family structures. This helps accelerating the trend to smaller families and boosts investments in the education and health of children. Providing economic and educational opportunities for women thus leads to a win-win situation for all of society.

In developed countries, low fertility and high life expectancy represent the major demographic challenges. Population ageing certainly is a worldwide phenomenon, but implies a particular problem for developed countries, as the current low fertility rates make it difficult to finance pay-as-you go pension systems in the next future. Providing women with possibilities to combine work and family life has been identified as an important factor to enable parents to realize their fertility intentions. Moreover, providing women with an independent income, which allows them to make adequate social security contributions and private savings, can be seen as the best instrument to battle old-age poverty in developed countries (which concerns mainly women).

Hence, women's access to decent jobs with income and career perspectives emerges as a key factor to tackle the challenges of demographic dynamics. This holds for developed countries as much as for emerging and developing countries.

This article was inspired by the symposium “The Seven Billionth Human: What Does This Birth Mean” on October 14, 2011, organized by the Hopkins Population Center and the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health.

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:08:00 +0000

Week in review 09.12.2011
Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal.

On measuring progress
Government drafts 'happiness indicators' to supplement economic data (The Japan Times 06.12.2011)
At the Asia-Pacific Conference on Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies, Japan’s Cabinet Office announced a set of indicators designed to gauge well-being based on three major factors — socioeconomic conditions, physical and mental health, and relationships.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on The Asia-Pacific Conference on Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies

On inequality
OECD inequality report: how do different countries compare? (Guardian Data Blog 05.12.2011)
The OECD report on inequality: Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising, released this week shows a rise in the share of top-income recipients in total gross income over the last 30 years in all countries.
Read more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on inequality

On UK happiness
Richard Layard: And so begins the strange era of feel-good politics... (The Independent 07.12.2011)
Leading progress thinker, Richard Layard, writes about the future of basing policy on how it affects the well-being of the people. He argues that the value lies not in finding the average happiness of the nation, but in what causes people to be happy or unhappy.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on measuring happiness in the UK

On gender equality

Women and Work – This house believes that a woman’s place is at work (Economist Debate)
Defending the motion in this week’s Economist debate is Linda Basch (President of National Council for Research on Women), who argues work is right for families, communities, the economy and women. Against this motion is Christina Hoff Summers (American Enterprise Institute), who believes women should not have an assigned place and questions what is wrong with the 5 million American women who are full-time mothers.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on women and work.

On growth in India
Putting Growth in its Place (Outlook, November)
Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze co-author this essay on growth and development in India stressing that growth should be a means to development but not an end in itself. India is a unique case, even after 20 years of growth it is still among the world’s poorest nations.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress in India

In the Spotlight: Global Corruption Perception Index reflects Arab Spring unrest
That’s all from us this week. We hope you tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Yours in progress,

Philippa Lysaght

Covering the “missing middle” in social protection

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

by Juan R. de Laiglesia from the OECD Development Centre

Providing social protection to the informal middle classes will foster social cohesion, and doesn’t cost the earth.

As citizens across the globe demand new economic models, the OECD’s newly released Perspectives on Global Development 2012 puts social cohesion on the table as a broader social development objective. Social cohesion compounds inclusiveness, equal opportunity and a sense of belonging to society, of shared destinies. Strong growth in a large part of the developing world has transformed the ways development challenges can be addressed.

The final declaration of the 4^th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan last week reminds us that poverty and inequality remain a central challenge in global development. The OECD’s Perspectives on Global Development 2012 find that 83 countries more than doubled OECD per capita growth rates over the past decade. You would be right to think that faster than 1.8% growth is hardly impressive; but in fact 49 countries grew at more than 3.75%. In the 1990s, only 12 countries managed that.

How growth has changed the picture

First, the poor no longer live mostly in poor countries. Research by Andy Sumner, at the Institute for Development Studies , finds that 70% of the world’s poor live in middle income countries. Two decades ago, 93% of the poor lived in Low Income Countries. This means that most of the poor live in countries where per capita incomes are above USD 2.75 a day, and more in purchasing parity terms. In other words, more countries can use redistributive instruments – from taxes to transfers to health provision – to eradicate poverty. Indeed, countries such as India or China have up-scaled social protection interventions in recent years.

Second, millions have been lifted out of poverty as average incomes have increased and emerged as a new – but vulnerable – middle class. As a result, half of the 2bn-strong global middle class live in emerging economies. But make no mistake, this middle class is unlike Western stereotypes of a couple with two children, a dog and one or two cars. The emerging middle classes are vulnerable: many remain only just above the poverty line and do not have a stock of capital that would allow them to buffer major shocks such as illness nor to whether the changes in fortunes which come with old age. In Latin America, less than 10% of households have mortgage loans, and less than half of them are middle-class. Many in the emerging middle classes work informally. And yet, not being poor, they have the capacity to save and contribute to social insurance. Social protection plays a key role in buttressing their middle class status and preventing them from slipping back into poverty.

Social protection redux

Is this a job for social protection? In the past few years, the discourse around the role of social protection in development has changed dramatically. Through the work of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, the donor community has clearly stated the role of social protection in making growth pro-poor. Last month, the Social Protection Floor Advisory Group, chaired by Michelle Bachelet released its report entitled Social Protection Floor for a Fair and Inclusive Globalization. Social protection has moved from being viewed as merely a “safety net” built of targeted assistance to the poor to a key instrument in building fairer societies.

The past ten years have seen a true “quiet revolution” in social protection in the developing world. The rapid introduction of means-tested cash benefits has greatly increased the scale of social protection. South Africa’s Child Support Grant, introduced in 1998 covered 7.7 million children by 2008, China’s Minimum Living Subsidy Scheme (DiBao) was introduced in 1997 and reached 57 million households by 2007. The very popular conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes in Mexico (Oportunidades) and Brazil (Bolsa Família) reach respectively 5 and 12.5 million households or about a quarter of the population in each country. The beauty of this quantum leap is that it has been made using home-grown instruments, tried and tested across developing countries. Often these new programmes coexist with contribution-based social security systems that cover formal employees.

The “missing middle”: a challenge for social cohesion

Put together, contribution-based social security and means-tested social protection for the poor leave a “missing middle” in social protection coverage. Indeed, research at the OECD Development Centre shows that the majority of middle-class workers in emerging economies such as Brazil or Mexico are not formal employees. Contributory pensions are open to independent workers and informal employees – those without contracts – but in practice only a minority participate in them. In the case of Brazil only 15% of the self-employed and 9% of informal employees in the middle income quintiles contribute to pensions systems.

Providing adequate instruments for the informal middle classes to insure or manage risk matters for social cohesion. First because today’s vulnerable middle class can become tomorrow’s poor. Many in the emerging middle classes lie close to the poverty line and can fall back in downturns. Second, it is a matter of horizontal equity. Social protection is a form of institutionalized solidarity: excluding certain categories from social protection deprives them of risk management instruments which are usually not available in the private market. Moreover, it runs the risk of alienating that segment of society. Finally, the middle classes have an important role to play in shaping the politics of poverty reduction. How likely are the informal middle classes to side with the poor on redistribution issues if they do not partake in the system that protects the poor?

Extending protection: more than one way forward

Social protection can be extended to cover the informal middle classes in several ways. Unbundling health, pensions and the other functions of social security helps, because they can be priced and provided separately. Contributory pensions and Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts as implemented in Chile are examples of such unbundling. Certain instruments, like UISAs (compulsory savings accounts from which withdrawals are made during unemployment spells) can be extended to informal workers. Since they pool little risk across workers, they do not entail cross-subsidies or generate incentives to stay out of formal work. Subsidising contributions to the social security system is also possible – for example by governments’ matching deposits into retirement accounts. Matching-defined contribution pensions following that model are being implemented in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. Universal entitlements are also used today across the developing world, especially for basic healthcare and pension income. In all cases, the key is to break the dichotomy between a social protection system for formal workers and one – or none – for informal workers. Such duality reinforces the segmentation between labour markets and contributes to deepen the fault line between formal and informal workers.

At stake is building a social protection system that not only alleviates poverty, but empowers citizens to build up and protect human capital and to participate in networks of organised solidarity. The past decade saw the emergence of a number of innovative instruments in social protection, born and bred in the South. Making inclusive systems out of these and other innovations remains work in progress.

On the Practical Politics of Well-being

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:51:00 +0000

By Dr Sorcha Mahoney of the new economics foundation Centre for Well-being.

Last month the Centre for Well-being at nef (the new economics foundation) launched its latest pamphlet: The Practical Politics of Well-being. At the heart of this pamphlet is the idea that the well-being agenda has the potential to resonate across the political spectrum and appeal to those on the left, right and centre ground of politics in the UK. This is important; we believe that no matter which political party is in power, having high well-being for all as a basic orienting principle for policy making and political decision making can help to deliver improved well-being for UK citizens.

In this vein, The Practical Politics of Well-being presents personal contributions from a Labour (left wing), Liberal Democrat (centre) and Conservative (right wing) perspective on the well-being agenda and how this relates to particular party political principles. In his paper, Michael Jacobs argues that well-being provides a new justification and a new language for goals that Labour already espouses, whilst noting the difficulty of creating public support for the provision of public goods – a necessary pre-cursor for high well-being – and the major challenge that well-being science poses to decisions around economic and employment policy. In her paper, Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson argues that liberals and Liberal Democrats have also long appreciated well-being as an important goal of policy, whilst noting that findings from well-being science may bolster certain liberal principles and pose a challenge to others, which implies a need to consider how well-being sits alongside other key liberal values. In his paper, conservative commentator Jonty Olliff-Cooper notes that whilst Conservative backing of the well-being agenda may at first seem strange, conservatives – whichever strand of conservatism they represent – are interested in how the individual’s well-being can be maximised. He argues that well-being offers one possible route to turning conservative thinking into a practical guide for action.

Acknowledging and harnessing cross-party support for the well-being agenda is an important part of ensuring its practical application. In the UK, moves are now well underway to measure well-being at the national level. Last week the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its first round of test statistics on well-being from its Opinions Survey, and since April 2011 it has included four subjective questions in its annual Integrated Household Survey, which probes the well-being and circumstances of some 200,000 people in the UK. These questions are about how satisfied people are with their lives, how happy they were yesterday, how anxious they were yesterday, and how worthwhile they think the things they do are. The survey also asks a large number of questions about objective circumstances that are influenced by policy, for example health behaviours, housing, education, household income, employment patterns and benefit entitlements. With such information the way is paved for policy makers and political decision makers – of whichever political persuasion – to ask about the likely impacts of particular policies on well-being, and to make policies and decisions in a way designed to maximise well-being. This in turn implies potential changes to policy, some of which might be painful and resisted, whilst others will be less controversial.

Equally as important, however, is our contention – explicit in the pamphlet – that there is a need to change the central dynamic of our society. The current dynamic is inherently flawed. Without doing this, the danger is that despite small, incremental changes to policy and political decision making, the central dynamic will remain unchanged, and that in this the well-being agenda will be no more than a band aid for patching up the cracks in a fundamentally flawed system.

Whilst the well-being agenda appeals to people across the political spectrum, if we are to take it seriously this will mean not only ensuring that policy-making and political decision making at the margins are driven by well-being evidence, but designing core economic policies with well-being in mind.

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:04:00 +0000

On data

Global corruption index reflects Arab Spring Unrest (Reuters 30.12.2011)

The 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index released this week found that levels of awareness of corruption have risen significantly for Arab nations involved in the uprisings. One of the leading nations involved in the Arab Spring, Tunisia, fell to 73^rd place from 59^th last year.

See more and download the 2011 CPI

On happiness

Happiness Index: how happy are you - and David Cameron? (Guardian data blog 01.12.2011)

The Office of National Statistics in the UK has released findings of a national consultation established as part of David Cameron’s Happiness Index. The findings show 76% of adults in Great Britain rated their own life satisfaction, with a score of 7 or more out of 10.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Happiness

On gender equality

Busan skirts gender equality (IPS 01.12.2011)

The 4^th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan this week has been criticised by gender champions from around the world for the lack of inclusion of key gender equality issues in the Forum’s outcomes document. Although a Joint Busan Action Plan on Gender Equality and Development is one of the outcomes of the conference, it is considered to be limited.

See more highlights from the Busan conference in the Wikigender Community Portal

On progress in Australia

Measuring well-being is still in the too hard basket (Sydney Morning Herald 30.11.2011)

Over the past few years the global progress movement has gathered momentum as broader indicators of well-being has become an increasingly popular topic. In Australia, Measures of Australia’s Progress (MAP) is at the forefront of this movement with their work on measuring national well-being and determining whether or not life in Australia is getting better.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Measures of Australia’s Progress

In the Spotlight: 4^th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness

That’s all from us this week. We hope you tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Yours in Progress,

Publish Post

Philippa Lysaght

Busan: Yes we could

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:55:00 +0000

Today’s post originally appeared on the OECD Insights Blog

We’ll start with a close-up of a woman on her knees. She seems to be scrubbing some tiles. We track back and see that in fact she’s scrubbing the tyre tracks off a forecourt. Back a bit more and we see that she and her colleagues are in front of a huge conference centre. It’s covered with banners in Korean and English announcing the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, HLF4. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, and it’s called Busan, the host city and the world’s fifth largest port.

Busan is like a life-sized lesson for participants in this conference. As the Korean president Lee Myung-bak reminded delegates in his speech to the conference, when he was a child, this was one of the poorest countries in the world, and Busan was used to import food to stop people starving after the civil war. In From Poverty to Power, Oxfam’s Duncan Green makes this point too, recalling that 50 years ago Korea’s main export was wigs made from human hair.

Aid played a part in this, and it’s worth looking at why Korea succeed in moving from being a recipient to a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the donor group that oversees Official Development Assistance (ODA).

The first lesson is that ODA has to be stable and reflect a long-term commitment. Korea could count on the US and Japan, and knew from one year to the next what funding to expect. Volatility makes programme management harder, or even impossible. I’ve heard stories from the field of health, education, and other projects that were started, were going well and then had to be stopped because promised funding suddenly dried up. The OECD says that the value of aid is reduced by 15% to 20% when it is unpredictable and volatile.

For the outsider, one of the more opaque terms of the “aid community’s” particularly opaque jargon is “ownership”. What it means is that countries receiving aid take charge of the process. Korea didn’t always agree with its partners, but the results show that it knew best what strategy corresponded to its needs and resources. It wanted non-military aid rather than the guns, tanks and planes it was being offered, and it insisted on focusing on large enterprises rather than the small and medium-sized businesses foreign development experts told it were the key to success. Samsung and Sons would no doubt have been a great little shop for the latest Japanese and American gadgets.

However, to “own” the development process a country needs to develop a whole range of skills and institutions. For instance, if it’s going to export, it needs lawyers who understand international trade rules and port managers who can get the goods onto the ships on time. This is what’s meant by “capacity building”. Countries can’t be expected to acquire all these capacities on their own, but they shouldn’t depend on outsiders either. While over 1500 foreign experts were sent to Korea between 1962 and 1971, over 5 times as many Koreans received training abroad.

Another thing about aid programmes is that the best ones become useless because they’re no longer needed. In the 1950s and 1960s, practically all of Korea’s foreign funding came from grants, but by the mid-70s, grants only represented 11% of funds, the rest being loans. The fact that Korea respected repayment conditions reassured private finance and encouraged foreign direct investment in the country.

Korea also proves that it’s possible to recover from even the most desperate situation. At the end of the 1950s this was a mainly agricultural country still suffering from a war that had killed or injured over 2.5 million civilians. If conference delegates want to see a success story, they just have to look around them. And if they want a reminder that the fruits of economic success aren’t always shared equally, they can look at those women scrubbing the ground they walk on.

By Patrick Love

Useful links

OECD work on development cooperation

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 09:14:00 +0000

The week in review 25.11.2011

Looking forward

The World in 2012 (The Economist 22.11.2011)

Next Friday the Economist will be hosting ‘The World in 2012’, a conference that will discuss the trends, issues and ideas that will shape the year ahead. In the lead up to the conference, @The Economist is asking for ideas via twitter on important themes of 2012.

On happiness

Balloons for Bhutan (Jonathan Harris)

Bhutan is internationally recognised for their use of Gross National Happiness as the primary measure for national well-being. In his latest artwork Balloons for Bhutan, artist and statistician Jonathan Harris visualizes 599 accounts of happiness in Bhutan in an effort to capture ‘a portrait of happiness in the last Himalayan Kingdom’

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Gross National Happiness

On inequality

Report urges emerging economies to tackle inequalities (The Guardian 21.11.2011)

The launch of Perspectives on Global Development 2012 has received a lot of media attention this week. This Guardian article highlights the importance of emerging economies such as China, India and South Africa addressing issues of inequality caused by two decades of rapid economic growth.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on social cohesion

On gender equality

16 day of activism against gender violence (UN Women 21.11.2011)

Launched on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, this 16 day campaign aims to trigger action and raise awareness across the word.

See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on violence against women

In the Spotlight: Perspectives on Global Development to 2012 – Social Cohesion in a Shifting World

Social cohesion: making it happen

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:18:00 +0000

Today’s post originally appeared on the OECD Insights Blog and is from Anne-Lise Prigent, editor in charge of development publications at OECD Publishing

A famous Deng Xiaoping quote goes : “Let some people get rich first”. Yet, in Spring 2011, the Beijing city authorities banned all outdoor advertisement of luxury goods on the grounds that they might contribute to a “politically unhealthy environment”.

The trouble with growth is that inequalities tend to rise with it. Growth does not necessarily translate into better life satisfaction – far from it, as the experience of Thailand or Tunisia shows. What happens when the fruits of growth are not shared, when people feel that income inequalities are rising and food prices soaring? Well, that’s when the so-called “politically unhealthy environment” sets in.

Millions voiced their frustration during the Arab Spring. From Tahrir square to the streets of Tunis, a huge emerging middle class showed that it has a tremendous capacity to mobilize people. It demands governments that are open and transparent, as well as more and better services. How can governments answer these demands? How can they go about redistributing the fruits of growth?

A new policy agenda is needed: one that focuses not only on growth but also on openness, fairness and inclusion. Social cohesion needs to be at the centre of policy making. Failing this, we may (re)enter a vicious circle where inequalities create a sense of injustice, which in turn can lead to (mass) protest and sometimes violence. As a result, social peace and stability, as well as long-term growth, may be jeopardized.

How can governments foster social cohesion? Perspectives on Global Development: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World from the OECD Development Centre, answers this. With this latest report, the Development Centre again proves that it is engaged with the world we live in, whether discussing tax revenues or the merits of football as a factor of social cohesion: having a sense of community can make a difference. That, along with equality of opportunities is what social cohesion is all about.

The report first shows how the world has undergone a shift of historical significance over the past decade, with the centre of economic gravity moving towards the East and South. The figures speak for themselves: in 2000, OECD countries represented around 60% of global GDP but by 2010 this was down to 51%, and it will be only 43% by 2030. In fast-growing economies, per capita growth rate was more than double that of high-income OECD countries over the last decade.

It is precisely this shifting wealth that opens a window of opportunity for development and social cohesion. In fast-growing economies, fiscal revenues rose from 20% of GDP on average in 2000 to 27% in 2008. These countries now have the (fiscal) resources to finance social policies that can make the difference – or, can they?

This report argues that public policies can make a difference. OECD countries with initially high income inequalities manage to redistribute income through taxes and transfers. The challenge is to leave no one behind. A cohesive society reduces inequality between groups and ensures that all citizens – the poor, the middle-earners, and the rich – are socially included.

Over the last decade, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. This report argues that the emerging middle class should not be ignored either. Today, nearly 1 billion out of the 2 billion people living on 10 to 100 dollars a day in the world – the global middle class – live in fast-growing countries. This number is projected to exceed 3 billion in 2030.

The emerging middle class is a critical economic and social actor because of its potential as an engine of growth, particularly in the largest developing countries such as China and India. Its contribution to social cohesion can be high, and its expectations are sharply rising. What is needed is a social contract between citizens and the state, which entails more and better services in exchange for paying taxes. This would foster a virtuous circle that boosts social cohesion as well as growth. Citizens are more willing to pay taxes in societies where they feel a sense of belonging. Fiscal policy is thus a good place to start.

As the report highlights, fiscal, social and employment policies should go hand in hand. With recent innovations in social protection, the poorest are covered by social assistance and the wealthy by either contribution-based or private alternatives. Yet, a considerable number of (informal) middle-class workers are stuck in the uncomfortable “missing middle” of coverage. More comprehensive social protection systems should protect all sections of the population.

Stronger labour market institutions are also needed. They should aim to create more “good” jobs and reduce the duality in labour markets – between standard and non-standard contracts or between formal and informal workers. This will be critical in reducing inequalities and fostering social cohesion.

A series of cross-cutting issues have to be addressed coherently as well, including education, gender equality, food policy, the integration of immigrants, and institutions.

As Albert Einstein once said, “Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one”. Ignoring people’s desires and the reality in which they live is perilous. Technocratically good policies that do that just won’t work and giving space to dissenting voices is essential to the creation of a sustainable, socially cohesive society.

Social cohesion is a means for development as well as an end in itself. What if social cohesion were the 21^st century’s holy grail? A holy grail that can only be attained with some long-term vision and commitment – and a smile. Failing that, there might be rough times ahead.

Useful links

Social cohesion on Wikiprogress

OECD Development Centre

2012 年全球发展前景：转变中世界的社会凝聚力

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:46:00 +0000

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On the #occupy movement
The New Progressive Movement (New York Times 12.11.2011)
Development Economist Jeffrey Sachs comments on the Occupy Wall Street movement as a turning point in modern history; according to Sachs the last thirty years or ‘Reaganomics’ have ended with the rise of the new progressive era.
See more on and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress in the US

On philanthropy
New directions in philanthropy- report from the Bellagio Summit (From Poverty to Power 15.11.2011)
Duncan Green blogs on the ‘Future of Philanthropy and Development in the Pursuit of Human Wellbeing’ summit hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation this week. Green gives a brief scorecard of what’s hot and what’s not according to philanthropists working in development.

On gender equality
Mexican Women Demand Climate Justice (IPS 14.11.2011)
In a recent meeting hosted by Mexicans Against Inequality, issues were raised about the displacement of women throughout Mexico due to ecological disasters such as drought, water scarcity and socioenvironmental conflict.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on gender and climate change

On happiness in the UK
The wellbeing agenda isn't navel-gazing, it's innovation and survival (Guardian 13.11.2011)
Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron have both played very significant roles in the development of a well-being agenda; the Stiglitz Commission launched in 2009 and general well-being (or GWB) have been invaluable to the momentum of the global progress movement.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress

On Visualisation of data: Afghanistan
Asia Foundation Unveils Data Site “Visualizing Afghanistan” for 2011 Survey of the Afghan People (PR Web 17.11.2011)
To accompany the broadest and most comprehensive public opinion poll of Afghan citizens, "Afghanistan in 2011: A Survey of the Afghan People," The Asia Foundation has launched an interactive mapping platform and data visualisation site, "Visualizing Afghanistan." Through "Visualizing Afghanistan," the Foundation is making its Afghan survey data available and downloadable to researchers and the public to use and republish, with citation.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Afghanistan.

In the Spotlight: East Asia and Pacific Children Most Vulnerable to Climate Change – UNICEF Report

A quick one on Hungarian Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Hariche) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:14:00 +0000

By Angela Hariche

Just returned from a trip to Budapest. We arrived on what was St. Martin's Day, November 11th. Each year on that day, you must eat goose and drink the new wine to ensure financial growth and well-being for the coming year. St. Martin is indeed the patron saint of well-being.

Lake Balaton, Budapest. Photo: http://www.destination360.com

So, we did what we were told and ate our goose and drank our wine. I will report back this time next year with findings.

Then, in honour of St. Martin, I got back to the office and did a bit of digging around Wikiprogress and the Hungarian Central Statistics Office for well-being indicators. Here is a sampling of what I found:

Sustainable Development Indicators in Hungary: This publication is in Hungarian but Google translate does help. Also, the table of contents is in English.

There are 10 domains for sustainable development in this publication, these being:

Socio-Economic Development

Sustainable production and consumption

Social inclusion

Demographic changes - migration

Public health

Climate change and energy

Sustainable transport

Natural resources

Global partnership

Governance and public life

I encourage you to have a look at this publication as their indicator breakdown is interesting and very specific. I very much like the "global partnership" and "demographic changes" domains. Nice to see that migration is included.

Establishing Indicators for Measuring Social Progress in Hungary is also an interesting overview of measuring progress in Hungary, with emphasis on the need for indicator sets to better understand progress.

And finally, here is a paper by GPRNet member, Laszlo Pinter, et al.: Developing a System of Sustainability Indicators for the Lake Balaton Region, which looks at measuring progress in a small area in Hungary.

Our concierge in Budapest said that all this week "counts" as St. Martin day, so you still have time to eat that goose and drink that wine...you never know.

Thanks,

Angela

11.11.11 The Week in Review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:37:00 +0000

11.11.11 on such a unique date Wikiprogress has prepared a week in review that we plan on revisiting next year on the 12.12.12 to see how far the world has progressed. The week in review is a collection of news items that caught our attention this week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On technology

Ban urges greater use of data and new technologies to tackle global crises (UN News 08.11.2011)

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has called for an increase in the use of real-time data tools in development strategies and the use of new and emerging technologies in anticipating crises.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Interactive Web Applications

On gender equality

Women, War and Peace (PBS)

Women, War and Peace is a five part television series that looks at the impact the post-Cold War proliferation of small arms has on war and what this means for women who have become the primary targets and suffer unprecedented casualties. The last part of the series aired on Wednesday and is now available to watch online.

See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on Women, Peace and Security

On happiness

Ten signs of Happiness (BBC 01.11.2011)

The UK Office for National Statistics recently published a list of 10 indicators of well-being. The ONS has embarked upon a three-month consultation that will finalize the list as part of David Cameron’s ‘happiness index’.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress in the UK

Stiglitz on Occupy

The Globalisation of Protest (Project Syndicate 04.11.2011)

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, Joseph Stiglitz looks at the wave of protest movements sweeping across the world and analyses the roles that governance and inequality play and how they are interrelated.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress series on the Arab Spring

In the Spotlight: The United Nations Human Development Index 2011

Yours in Progress,

Philippa Lysaght

The week in review

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:37:00 +0000

On progress

Interview on Channel 4 News with Lord Richard Layard (Channel 4 News 02.11.2011)

In an interview with Channel 4 News, Richard Layard, one of the founding members of Action for Happiness and key thinker in the progress movement, talks about why governments need to focus on increasing general well-being, not GDP.

See more and contribute to the article on comprehensive indicators

On the G20

G20 meeting: Key data for each country (Guardian 02.11.2011)

The G20 make up 80% of the world’s GDP. The Guardian Data Blog has created a diagram of world financial power breaking down population, GDP per capita, unemployment rates and human development indicators for each of the G20 economies.

See more and help us update recent news items in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On the global gender gap

UAE leads Arab World in Gender Equality: WEF (Emirates 03.11.2011)

The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2011 shows that the UAE has improved on gender equality performance significantly over the last year and continues to lead the Arab world on the Global Gender Gap Index. However the MENA region is lagging with just 59 per cent of the gender gap closed and the lowest average of all regional score.

See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on the global gender gap

On 7 billion and child well-being

Of Kissing, the less the better (OECD Insights 31.10.2011)

As the world’s population reached 7 billion on Monday, OECD blogger Patrick Love looks at what population growth means for child well-being, as many of the leading international reports show that there has never been a worse time to be a child.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on population growth

On the environment

Amazonas 2030 - Indicators for the Climate Crisis (IPS 02.11.2011)

Sixty per cent of the Colombian Amazon is forested area with varying degrees of protection. Amazonas 2030 Index shows the role that the natural environment and indigenous communities play on economic, social and institutional dimensions of development.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Colombia

In the spotlight: Launch of the 2011 Human Development Report

Yours in progress,

Philippa Lysaght

A Better Future for All

noreply@blogger.com (ProgBlog moderator) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:45:00 +0000

This post first appeared on Wikiprogress partner, UNDP's Let's Talk Human Development

In June 2012 world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro to seek a new consensus on global actions to safeguard the future of the planet and the right of future generations everywhere to live healthy and fulfilling lives. This is the great development challenge of the 21st century.

The 2011 Human Development Report offers important new contributions to the global dialogue on this challenge, showing how sustainability is inextricably linked to basic questions of equity—that is, of fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life. Sustainability is not exclusively or even primarily an environmental issue, as this Report so persuasively argues. It is fundamentally about how we choose to live our lives, with an awareness that everything we do has consequences for the 7 billion of us here today, as well as for the billions more who will follow, for centuries to come.

Understanding the links between environmental sustainability and equity is critical if we are to expand human freedoms for current and future generations. The remarkable progress in human development over recent decades, which the global Human Development Reports have documented, cannot continue without bold global steps to reduce both environmental risks and inequality. This Report identifies pathways for people, local communities, countries and the international community to promote environmental sustainability and equity in mutually reinforcing ways.

In the 176 countries and territories where the United Nations Development Programme is working every day, many disadvantaged people carry a double burden of deprivation. They are more vulnerable to the wider effects of environmental degradation, because of more severe stresses and fewer coping tools. They must also deal with threats to their immediate environment from indoor air pollution, dirty water and unimproved sanitation. Forecasts suggest that continuing failure to reduce the grave environmental risks and deepening social inequalities threatens to slow decades of sustained progress by the world’s poor majority— and even to reverse the global convergence in human development.

Major disparities in power shape these patterns. New analysis shows how power imbalances and gender inequalities at the national level are linked to reduced access to clean water and improved sanitation, land degradation and deaths due to indoor and outdoor air pollution, amplifying the effects associated with income disparities. Gender inequalities also interact with environmental outcomes and make them worse. At the global level governance arrangements often weaken the voices of developing countries and exclude marginalized groups.

Yet there are alternatives to inequality and unsustainability. Growth driven by fossil fuel consumption is not a prerequisite for a better life in broader human development terms. Investments that improve equity—in access, for example, to renewable energy, water and sanitation, and reproductive healthcare—could advance both sustainability and human development. Stronger accountability and democratic processes, in part through support for an active civil society and media, can also improve outcomes. Successful approaches rely on community management, inclusive institutions that pay particular attention to disadvantaged groups, and cross-cutting approaches that coordinate budgets and mechanisms across government agencies and development partners.

Beyond the Millennium Development Goals, the world needs a post-2015 development framework that reflects equity and sustainability; Rio+20 stands out as a key opportunity to reach a shared understanding of how to move forward. This Report shows that approaches that integrate equity into policies and programmes and that empower people to bring about change in the legal and political arenas hold enormous promise. Growing country experiences around the world have demonstrated the potential of these approaches to generate and capture positive synergies.

The financing needed for development—including for environmental and social protection—will have to be many times greater than current official development assistance. Today’s spending on low-carbon energy sources, for example, is only 1.6 percent of even the lowest estimate of need, while spending on climate change adaptation and mitigation is around 11 percent of estimated need. Hope rests on new climate finance. While market mechanisms and private funding will be vital, they must be supported and leveraged by proactive public investment. Closing the financing gap requires innovative thinking, which this Report provides.

Beyond raising new sources of funds to address pressing environmental threats equitably, the Report advocates reforms that promote equity and voice. Financing flows need to be channelled towards the critical challenges of unsustainability and inequity—and not exacerbate existing disparities.

Providing opportunities and choices for all is the central goal of human development. We have a collective responsibility towards the least privileged among us today and in the future around the world—and a moral imperative to ensure that the present is not the enemy of the future. This Report can help us see the way forward.

By Helen Clark

Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)