Chris Blattman's Blog

Sheeple

2009-07-15T14:42:00.004-04:00

I'm reminded of something my grandmother used to tell me:

"The whole world is crazy except you and me."
"And sometimes I worry about you."

What would you do with 8 days in China?

2009-07-15T09:28:00.002-04:00

I head to Shanghai for a conference in August and have 8 days ahead of time to travel with my wife. I've never been before, but figure I'll be back in some of the big cities again in future, say for a conference in Beijing. Reader recommendations on what I should do this visit? I generally like getting off the beaten path, although my complete lack of language skills could make that challenging...

You say potato, I say...

2009-07-14T07:01:00.005-04:00

From 1000 to 1900 the world's population grew from 300 million to 1.6 billion. Urbanization more than quadrupled.

The culprit? According to a new paper by Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian: the potato.

...Old World regions that were suitable for potato cultivation experienced disproportionately faster population and urbanization growth after the introduction of potatoes.
...our baseline estimates suggest that the potato accounts for 12% of the increase in population, 22% of the increase in population growth, 47% of the increase in urbanization, and 50% of the increase in urbanization growth.

The more traditional view credits modern medicine and public sanitation in the late 19th century for the population boom. Nunn and Qian argue the population boom came much earlier. As the potato spread from the NewWorld to the Old World, it carried a huge increase in calories and nutrients.

Something I didn't know:

Humans can subsist healthily on a diet of potatoes, supplemented with only milk or butter, which contain the two vitamins not provided for by potatoes, vitamins A and D. ...This, in fact, was the typical Irish diet, which although monotonous, was able to provide sufficient amounts of all vitamins and nutrients.

Seems my grandmother had it right all along...

Just in case you really want to do some good today

2009-07-13T19:05:00.005-04:00

Each place I work, I come across an incredible person doing breathtaking public service. Last year I started raising funds for Ketty Opoka, a woman in northern Uganda trying to rebuild her AIDS hospice after devastating floods. Ketty is a walking inspiration, and the fundraising continues today.

There's another woman in northern Uganda doing important and incredible work. Her name is Alice Acan, and several years ago she started a school for young mothers affected by the war, The Pader Girls Academy.

Many of her students were forcibly married to a rebel leader, bore him a child, and later escaped. When they came home, they had few options to return to school. I know. Colleagues and I ran a study of women in Uganda and found that not one single woman who returned from the LRA with a child resumed their education.

Alice has helped fix that. Each term, 300 women attend her school. They have a daycare for kids, breaks for feeding, and (in addition to the standard curriculum) are teaching the women to become bakers, cooks and hoteliers (quite successfully so far--they have the best rstaurant and hotel in Pader).

Now Alice needs some help. Take a look at this page. If you have a few dollars (or a lot of dollars) I urge you to donate. I've known Alice for four years; my wife has been her dear friend for ten. You will not find more worthy causes than Alice's and Ketty's.

Grading Obama's Africa speech

2009-07-13T07:53:00.009-04:00

Obama spoke to Africa Saturday. Text here. Commentary galore. Bill Easterly grades the speech. I quite like that idea. So here are my thoughts.

"We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans."

A+. This is the perfect theme. Now, my first reaction was actually, "No duh." Can you imagine a foreign leader visiting the UK and saying "Britain's future is up to Britons"? No way. But I suspect Africans were the message's secondary target. The first target: us. Africa ain't ours to save.

"But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants."

B-. Charles Taylor and Robert Mugabe may have written the script, but we set the stage. We put in power the thugs they overthrew. We bought their conflict timber and diamonds. We stood in the way of political reforms that could lessen the risk conflict. Meddling, especially by France, lasted long after native flags replaced the Union Jack and Tricolore. It continues today. Let's not forget this inconvenient truth.

"The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with repeated peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. And by the way, can I say that for that the minority deserves as much credit as the majority."

A-. Ghana's 2008 election gives me the warm fuzzies. Opposition leader Atta-Mills beat the ruling party candidate, Akufo-Addo, by a margin under one percent, with irregularities. Things got steamy, and I worried we'd repeat the Kenya election violence we'd seen a year before. That's when Akufo's party elders, notably outgoing President Kufuor, appealed to Akufo to concede. Akufo pulled an Al Gore: putting the country's institutions ahead of his own ideas and ambitions. Like I said: warm fuzzies.

The trouble is, it didn't have to play out that way. Stability trumped violence because of the integrity of a few men. Of course the institutions and society's norms drive these men and the decisions they make. But had a different butterfly flapped its wings I wonder if Kenya could have gone the stable way, and Ghana the violent path. So let's not read too much into a single election.

"But what America will do is increase assistance for responsible individuals and responsible institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance -- on parliaments, which check abuses of power and ensure that opposition voices are heard ... on the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice; on civic participation, so that young people get involved; and on concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting and automating services ... strengthening hot lines, protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability.
And we provide this support. I have directed my administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human rights reports. People everywhere should have the right to start a business or get an education without paying a bribe."

D. My first reaction was "Yes! Balance of power!" My second reaction was: "Human rights reports? Are you kidding me?"

America's framers of the Constitution did not write in an anti-corruption commission. They thought about power and just how bad things get when it's captured. They thought big: legislators need to watch the President; judges watch the legislators; the press watch all; and to be extra sure, everybody else is standing by with a gun.

At African Independence, nearly every nation's system was parliamentary. Within a few years, all but four had concentrated tyrannical power in a President. Corruption is a symptom of a that disease. The cure: balance that power. Anything less will fail.

The puritanical quest to fight corruption is not a terrible one. It is merely insufficient. I hate corruption. It makes my blood boil. I want to punch someone if the nose if they ask me for a bribe. And that is why we should mistrust our instincts to make corruption the #1 fight; it is an emotional crusade, not a rational policy.

And anyone who thinks corruption blocks development should study their 19th century US history. Politics in New York, Washington, and Chicago make the Nigerians look like June Cleaver.

"From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people and in their infrastructure ... when they promote multiple export industries, develop a skilled work force and create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs.
As Africans reach for this promise, America will be more responsible in extending our hand. By cutting costs that go to Western consultants and administration, we want to put more resources in the hands of those who need it, while training people to do more for themselves."

A-. I'm happy. This is a call for an export-oriented industrial policy. I think Dani Rodrik will be pleased.

But I would have liked Obama to be clearer. If "extending a hand" is code for, "giving Africa stable, predictable, and maybe even preferential access to US markets," then I am ecstatic. Renewing the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act fifteen minutes before it expires (as has been done countless times) is not the answer.

Also, speaking as a Western consultant, I say: "Yes, please put me out of a job."

"Yet because of incentives -- often provided by donor nations -- many African doctors and nurses go overseas, or work for programs that focus on a single disease."

Half an A, half a C. At the end, Obama nails it: the zeal of a few Western donors has led to hyper-spending on a single scourge (HIV/AIDS) to the exclusion of 4,000 other diseases.

And then he pulled the doctors and nurses stunt.

I would like better health systems in Africa. But as Kenya's Wycliffe Muga recently pointed out: a third of nurses in Kenya are unemployed; there's just one Kenyan nurse living abroad for every two unemployed ones at home; and the last time Kenya's nurses asked for a raise the government sacked and replaced all of them. The West's 'incentives' are not necessarily the problem.

In fact, Western incentives to recruit health workers might actually be increasing the number of smart Africans who enter med school. Most won't get a visa, and will (in many cases) practice medicine at home. See Michael Clemens for more on this.

"Let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at perpetual war. But if we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun.
...And that's why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy and technical assistance and logistical support, and we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. And let me be clear: Our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa and the world."

B+. I may be biased by my choice of research, but I think conflict is easily the biggest barrier to development in Africa. So kudos to Obama for making war and violence his fourth and final theme.

Also, though I share some of Easterly's fears on foreign aid gone military, I generally feel like peacekeeping does more good than harm. I've just come back from Liberia, and a well-financed, well-timed UN mission is a thing of wonder.

But not all conflict is ended at the barrel of a gun. Where Bush was supremely successful was pushing African leaders to end war. In Liberia, South Sudan, Uganda, Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone (the list goes on) leaders got a simple message: stop the fighting, now. Most often, the threat wasn't one of force, it was an economic and diplomatic one. I would like to think Obama will keep this up, but he didn't say so in his speech. Rather, he pointed to the barrels of America's guns.

Overall grade: A-. I liked the speech a lot (it's just easier to blog the parts where I disagree).

Obama's term can be a bright one for Africa. His roots and position give him moral authority approaching that of Neson Mandela and Kofi Annan, both of whom have steered African leaders to humane and sensible policies.

But Obama can do one thing these elder statesmen cannot: open our markets. That statement was conspicuously absent from the speech. I hope it won't be absent from his term.

Luxury in economy

2009-07-11T02:51:00.004-04:00

After eight weeks of frantic field work, I am headed home. My diatribe against business class in development seems to have generated good travel karma: I had a whole coach row to myself from Abidjan to Brussels, with six glorious feet of space to spread out. Too bad the fish dinner tasted like an expired can of tinned tuna.

My one treat to myself: a membership in Priority Pass, which gives economy travellers like me access to the business class lounge for about fifteen bucks a visit. I have now consumed two capuccinos, OJ, some weird Belgian version of Cocoa Puffs, a fairly fresh croissant, a shower, two newspapers, and hours of free Internet (it is a long layover). That would have cost me about $4000 out in the regular airport area, so my Priority Pass feels like money well spent.

The one downside is that the Belgians appear to have rearranged their computer keyboard, which I suspect is a plot against the Commonwealth. The switching of the A and Q is particularly devious.

In a few hours I land in my new (half time) home: New York. Jeannie just started as Research Director for International Rescue Committee (I am a proud husband!) so I will split my time between the East Village and New Haven. That means double the number of good pizza options. My good travel karma continues...

Rules of the road

2009-07-09T14:01:00.004-04:00

UNHCR lent our project three Land Cruisers, prompting me to finally overcome my irrational aversion to driving in developing countries. I had no idea what I was missing.

While my 60-year old father teaches performance race driving, I am barely able to change a tire. Driving is not my strong suit, and so I'd avoided cruising the crowded, chaotic streets of Uganda and Liberia till now. It helped that my wife was a pro with a Land Cruiser, and naturally took the wheel. But Jeannie has a new position at IRC in New York, and so I found myself at my field work alone. It was time to become self-sufficient.

My main trouble has been figuring out the rules of the road. There is precisely one stop light in the city and it hasn't worked for ten years. Stop signs are unknown, with nary a roundabout in sight. Pedestrians, motorbikes, insane taxis, noxious trucks, and more than a few farm animals fill the road. My Liberian friends proceed on instinct, and haven't been able to articulate the conventions (should they exist).

As far as I can tell, two maxims rule the road: every man for himself, and might is right. Basically, the big vehicle goes where it wants. Bikes beware, and pedestrians must scramble out of the way or suffer the consequences.

In my monstrous white Land Cruiser--the modern day pith helmet--this means I am only outclassed by trucks and the shocking number of Hummers in town.

What frightens me most is the ease with which I've adapted to the Liberian norm: blasting through groups of pedestrians with horn blaring. Initially I held back, which only confused everyone and led to a number of near misses. One man cannot break the tyrannical equilibrium. I am now a part of the problem.

Good news for conflict researchers...

2009-07-09T13:37:00.000-04:00

The World Bank's 2011 World Development Report, it's been announced, will focus on conflict and fragile states. The WDR choice of topic is no small matter: it is a big driver of policy and programs in one of the biggest donors in the world. Sarah Cliffe and Nigel Roberts, operations folks both, will lead the team.

Uyghurs in the news

2009-07-08T15:03:00.004-04:00

Anthromuse has been doing her dissertation in the Uyghur region of China, where violent clashes with the government persist.

She writes:

Right after the first protests, a close friend in Urumqi called me via Skype, knowing that access would be cut off any minute. He just had enough time to assure me that he's okay. Cell phone service is erratic. A foreign journalist told me that landlines are still working, but I haven't been able to get through. Just a whole lot of busy signals.

My friend Nicole suggested following melissakchan's twitter. Melissa, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera, tweets:

The city is now under martial law.

A Han Chinese man with a stick just tore open our car door to beat our producer. Averted just in time.

There is no right or wrong anymore. Just vigilantes, Han and Uighur. Mostly men but some women and even children.

As with any conflict, the situation is complex. I won't go through all of the aspects - cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious, social, economic...You get the idea. And, as with any majority/minority issue, there are stereotypes and misunderstanding on both sides. (If you are interested in the fuller story, I am still looking for volunteers to read my dissertation draft.) In my view, the most unfortunate blind spot is historical. A mark of modernity seems to be that our gaze is so fixed on the future that we don't have time to look systematically at the past. More on how this distorts views after I get some sleep.

Democracy in dangerous places

2009-07-08T15:01:00.004-04:00

The Boston Review features a superb debate on Paul Collier's latest book, including the likes of Ted Miguel, Stephen Krasner, Nancy Birdsall, Mike McGovern, and Larry Diamond (plus Collier, of course). The debate continues on Bill Easterly's blog.

I would have liked to see more practitioners in the mix, but the articles are required reading for development folks.

Speak softly and carry a small stick

2009-07-07T17:10:00.001-04:00

I think that Obama as president of the biggest democracy in the world has to speak about that and he did in his speech today. I think it was absolutely clear for everbody. I don't think that Putin will be very excited after his speech...[When he discussed] rule of law, free speech and free elections, it is absolutely clear to Putin and Medvedev and everyone in Moscow what he is talking about.

Yes, it was quite cautious, I agree. But I think this is the good way. If you come to another country like a boss, like a teacher: "Guys, you did terrible here, now I explain to you how to do, how to run the country, how to move forward because I am a great American president and I know how to proceed," I think that such a strategy is not good.

But if you say very frankly and friendly: "Guys, remember, the authoritarian style is the wrong way. Not just for the state but for you," it looks more promising.

That is Boris Nemtsov, former deputy PM of Russian turned anti-Putin campaigner, interviewed by Josh Keating at FP.

The appropriation of African activism?

2009-07-07T07:27:00.000-04:00

Mahmood obliges us to focus on the activists and specifically the danger of activism becoming an end in itself. Rather than acting in solidarity with a domestic political agenda, activism on Darfur become entranced with its own image and is ending up spinning on itself.
Mahmood, myself and a generation of Africans are all activists, coming from a background of political struggle for liberation and democracy. Activism as practiced today, in America especially and focused on Africa, has a completely different character. We feel dismayed and let down that the word “activist”, which we once owned and which was a badge we proudly wore, has been appropriated by others with such different worldviews.

Western activists are now empowered with unprecedented resources, not for purposes of the traditional NGO work of advocacy in solidarity with domestic political forces, but advocacy that is focused on overwhelming domestic political actors and defining a solution to the problem that forces the international players to buy into it.

That is Abdul Mohammed in SSRC's Making Sense of Darfur blog, reviewing Mahmood Mamdani's latest volume on Darfur. The blog has collected almost two dozen reflections on Mamdani's provacative book. The write-ups and comments are all excellent, and are required reading for Darfur specialists, aid workers, and international activists in general.

What aid workers can learn from missionaries

2009-07-06T06:54:00.001-04:00

They come into a country with a long-term commitment. They don’t just want immediate results; they want souls. Missionaries bring their families and children with them, and those children go to local schools. They live in houses that are nice by local standards, but not in the expat palaces your average foreigner lives in. They bring their stuff with them in suitcases, not container ships.

Missionaries don’t try to do any soul-saving at first, spending a minimum of six months learning local language and culture. Mormons are renowned for their language skills. And once they have learned it, they stick around, spending years or even decades in country. They devote themselves to work in one particular place.

Compare that to your average expatriate working in development, for a donor or implementing a project. The expat lives in a little bubble of fake-home, cushioned by consumable shipments, huge shipping allowances, and hardship pay. With air conditioning and heating to ensure they’re even in a different climate. And they stay in once place for approximately 35 seconds.

Good people don’t have time to get great, and average people don’t even have time to get good. Complicated programs suffer as a result, and funding is biased toward things that are easy to implement and understand. No one has time to learn local context.

Read the full post by Alanna at Blood and Milk. I'm inclined to agree.

It's worth saying, however, what aid work ought not to share with missionaries: the saving mission. Development ain't religion, and there are no souls and bodies to be saved. Unfortunately, that actually needs to be said. I think Alanna would agree.

Development blog clusters

2009-07-05T07:04:00.002-04:00

Two of my four collaborators in Uganda have blogs. Two colleagues on my Liberia projects are twittering. Now this:

I am eating lunch on the patio of the Green Forest guesthouse in Weasua, Liberia, a dusty town in the north of the country. Mitch, Green Forest's caretaker, has just returned from his morning of manual labor. He holds out his empty hands and shrugs. Handsome, well-dressed, and congenitally optimistic, he smiles even as he delivers disappointing news. "No diamond today."

That is Rob Blair writing for HuffPo on our latest venture to the diamond region where we are researching ex-combatants. The full post is worth reading.

News flash: there are no angels and demons in politics

2009-07-03T12:56:00.007-04:00

Liberia's lady President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has been banned from public office. Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its report yesterday, concluding that Sirleaf be barred from politics.

Sirleaf is the latest darling of the aid community (Museveni and Zenawi: remember when?). Said aid community is, for the most part, stunned. Even Kristof is at a rare loss for words.

Should they be so surprised?

Sirleaf openly supported at least two rebel movements -- Charles Taylor's attempt to overthrow President Doe in 1989, and LURD's invasion to oust Charles Taylor a decade later. The TRC is condemning these actions--not something you'd expect human rights advocates to disbelieve, let alone protest.

Of course, it's not clear that there is a Liberian over the age of six who hasn't supported one rebel group or another the past twenty years. If they were all banned from politics, there wouldn't be a local left to run the place.

Not that it matters. The TRC has no teeth. I don't know the legal details, but the idea that the Commission can bar the President from politics seems laughable. Oh, did I mention that the TRC judges (a) laughably bad at their job, and (b) have political interests themselves?

But was dear Ellen unjustly maligned? Please. The outside world paints Sirleaf as an angel and Charles Taylor as a demon. Black and white politics are easy to digest. But there are no angels or demons in politics anywhere, least of all Liberia. Ellen is not the noble cherub you think. Taylor is not the black devil you fear. The truth of the matter, as always, is more subtle.

The real pity? The TRC recommended prosecution of some of the more devilish-leaning Liberians (of which Ellen is not one). It's hard to believe her government can push these prosecutions while denouncing and dodging the ban against Ellen (as I am sure they will). Whether political or idealistic, the TRC's decision is dangerous and naive.

The fallout is hard to predict. Her reelection in 2011 just became more challenging. And that is scary.

All the things that Ellen promised to do, all the things that would prevent another dictator from assuming power and ethnic groups clashing again in war--from ending the imperial Presidency, to empowering the anti-corruption commission, to pushing land reform--remain undone. The country is fragile as ever, and no more safe from an autocrat or warlord than it was five or fifteen or fifty years ago.

Having failed to groom a successor or build her party beyond her own personality, she sees herself as the only hope for the country. She is correct, but only because of her own broken promises.

Shout out to all my... gas companies

2009-07-03T08:48:00.000-04:00

It probably seemed a good idea at the time. But Russia's attempt to create a joint gas venture with Nigeria is set to become one of the classic branding disasters of all time -- after the new company was named Nigaz.

See The Guardian for the full, hapless, story.

Little big man

2009-07-03T05:57:00.000-04:00

Omar Bongo, longtime President of Gabon, died last month. I've been meaning to blog this article from The East African for some weeks.

It takes a certain genius to stay in office 42 years in Africa. Early signs suggested he had the gift.

One day Bongo, who had got a temporary job in a telegraph office in Brazzaville, noticed a telegram from a French general with instructions about which leader was going to be made to win which election.
Bongo was shocked, and leaked the information to local newspapers in Brazzaville, which feasted on the story. He was arrested and charged with revealing professional secrets, but he was acquitted because, as a temporary worker, he had not signed any secrecy clauses.
After that, Bongo used his contacts in Freemasonry to get a job in army intelligence. Once in, he donned his uniform and went to police headquarters and asked for the files on all the subversives. He found his own, slipped it under his clothes, and walked out.
“They tried to find my file,” he said with amusement, “and they never did!”

The article is cut from Nicholas Shaxson's Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil. I liked the excerpt enough to order the book. It offers one of my favorite Bongo quotes: “Africa without France is a car without a driver,” he said. “France without Africa is a car without petrol.”

Beyond Bongo, Shaxson throws light on the the dark shadow of French and American oil interests in Africa:

Elf would become de Gaulle’s strong arm in Africa — a vast offshore slush fund for channelling money secretly around the world, helping bend foreign leaders to his will, and an effective weapon against American and British companies competing with the French industrial giants.
“De Gaulle wanted a company under full state control, his secular arm in the oil world, to affirm his African policies,” a subsequent head of Elf later explained.
“Elf is not just an oil company but a parallel diplomacy to control certain African states, above all at the key moment of decolonisation. Alongside exploration and production, opaque operations were organised, to keep certain countries stable.”

Critics of China's (dodgy) Africa resources ventures need not look long into the West's own past to see deeds much worse.

The one that got away

2009-07-02T07:43:00.002-04:00

In honor of the anniversary of Congolese independence (June 30, 1960), I bring you along on a journey into my inner monologue, provisionally titled "Argh! Why is coverage of the Congo always so f***ed up? (Part XVIII)."

My Google news alert for the DRC spat this out for me the other day: "DR Congo: UN calls for urgent reform after women raped during attempted prison-break." Of course I clicked through, because nothing compliments a breakfast of ibuprofen and coffee like tales of sexual assault in the Congo.

Tragically, however, the linked UN News Centre article provided little in the way of information beyond "Some rapes occurred during a rape by rapists. Also the Congo has prisons."
A follow-up the next day added that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon was "deeply distressed" by the rapes. Finally, a few days later, I was assured that the UN is totally on top of things and is, even as we speak, in the process of reforming the Congolese prison system so that the events vaguely described in earlier coverage don't happen again. Phew.

Via Kate at Wronging Rights. You can see why I'm disappointed Yale lost her to Columbia...

A development blog you're probably not reading (but should)

2009-07-02T06:16:00.005-04:00

Anti-malarials and TRCs, how to sell coconuts and random graffitti. (These are a few of my favorite things.)

Myles Estey is (I gather) a journalist based in Liberia. His blog, The Esteyonage, is worth a look.

Does political violence affect your sex life?

2009-06-30T15:08:00.006-04:00

Unfortunately, for poor women in western Kenya, the 2007 election crisis had tragic and unexpected impacts:

We find that women who supply transactional sex suffered even greater income downfalls than the general population during the height of the crisis, and were unable to maintain consumption. As a result, they started engaging in significantly more and higher risk sex than prior to the crisis. These effects persisted after the political crisis ended.

That is Pascaline Dupas and Jon Robinson in a new paper that traces the effects of political crisis on incomes, vulnerabilty, and transactional sex in Kenya.

Links I liked

2009-06-27T05:26:00.002-04:00

1. I before E except after C? Not any more.

2. Duncan Green on the latest Paul Collier book.

3. Stiglitz on the crisis

4. Is Twittering a behavioral disorder?

5. Should the poor be tourist attractions? Read the full series on Bill Easterly's blog.

6. And speaking of Twitter and Bill Easterly, the tweet of the week goes to BilalSiddiqi:

Just noticed: Bill Easterly tweets more frequently than allafrica.com. Trying to think of appropriate White Man's Burden joke but no luck

Random field notes

2009-06-26T03:29:00.000-04:00

The only periodicals stocked in the UN guesthouse in central Liberia? The National Enquirer.

Headline: Bush does cocaine, in White House.

There is a picture of him scratching his nose.

NGOs: Please stop training

2009-06-25T17:30:00.001-04:00

NGOs love nothing like a good training. Or better yet: training of trainers. What better way to give services to 20,000 people? So much sexier than serving just 200.

I'm in central Liberia observing peace workshops. Local chiefs and elders are the first and last stop for justice of any kind in post-war Liberia. This NGO is educating leaders and the community on mediation skills and human rights.

The problem (as I've discovered today): 30 percent of the town has received peace training before.

What?!

These people don't have roads. Surely this can't be the best use of scarce aid resources?

I guess we'll find out. It's one of a handful of UN post-conflict interventons I am evaluating.

It's too soon to say, but my guess: the outcome will be a very interesting panel data set and a nail in the coffin of peace education.

The death of the (unorthodox) short story

2009-06-24T04:17:00.001-04:00

Imagine that, sometime about 1950, it had been decided, collectively, informally, a little at a time, but with finality, to proscribe every kind of novel but the nurse romance from the canon of the future.
Not merely from the critical canon, but from the store racks and library shelves as well. Nobody could be paid, published, lionized, or cherished among the gods of literature for writing any kind of fiction other than nurse romances.
Now, because of my faith and pride in the diverse and rigorous brilliance of American writers of the last half century, I do believe that from this bizarre decision, in this theoretical America, a dozen or more authentic masterpieces would have emerged. Thomas Pynchon's Blitz Nurse, for example, and Cynthia Ozick's Ruth Puttermesser, R.N.
... Instead of "the novel" and "the nurse romance," try this little thought experiment with "jazz" and "the bossanova," or with "cinema" and "fish-out-of-water comedies." Now go ahead and try it with "short fiction" and "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revalatory story."
Suddenly you find yourself sitting right back in your very own universe.

That is a favorite fiction writer, Michael Chabon, mourning the death of the horror, science fiction, or mystery short story in his collection of essays, Maps and Legends.

Links I liked

2009-06-22T04:29:00.003-04:00

1. Was there statistical fraud in the Iranian election? See here and here for an answer.

2. My grey hairs may be protecting me from cancer

3. What to do in Darfur. Can it be? Can I agree with Kristof?

4. Tyler Cowen on politics and God