Digital Archive.... : 10/21/2012

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Ethiopia: a tale of two development models from the valley where we began – By Richard Dowden

African Arguments

Amentu, Ethiopia
The Rift Valley in Eastern Africa is our hole in the ground, where we all come from. Not far from here our earliest ancestors stopped hanging out in the trees and started to use their rear limbs to get around on. From here we began to migrate and multiply all over the world.
Today a line of worn tarmac runs along the valley floor, fed by earth tracks through fields of stubble lying brown and empty after the harvest. Wriggling lines of green mark streams which lead to the Awash River. The east and west horizons are bordered with crazy grey mountains jagging into a light blue sky. Flashing like mirrors in the sun are the valley's huge blue lakes and, in recent years, vast rigid squares of plastic sheeting have sprung up.
Two models of development sit cheek by jowl where mankind began to emerge some 3.6 million years ago. One model is struggling to grow out of subsistence farming. It is a step-by-step approach, communal, dependent on rain, prayers and a little aid and expertise from outside.
The other model is flower farms, believed to be the largest in the world, they are driven by 21^st century global capitalism, dependent on complex chains of production and transport, sophisticated financial systems and Europe's demand for pretty summer blooms in winter. Turnover in 2008 was estimated at more than $100 million. One Dutch flower farm is an 800 hectare estate which employs 13,000 people locally.
More than ten years ago the Ethiopian government begged western horticultural companies operating in Kenya to come and invest in Ethiopia. They gave them land and a free hand. Now the farms provide more than 50 percent of export earnings, more than $300 million, and employ thousands of people. Seven years ago Ethiopia was exporting $12 million worth of flowers.
But it is not as easy as it sounds. Flowers, fruit and vegetables are very vulnerable to delays of a few hours, so the process from picking, packing, driving to an airport, flying and delivery to European outlets has to be perfect. Having induced them to invest, the Ethiopian government is trying to force the flower farms to employ only Ethiopian firms to provide the packing and transport services the farms need. That, the flower farm owners argue, will take time.
Nearby is a local cooperative of 94 farmers growing vegetables for consumption locally and for the towns. The people in the cooperative are Oromo – formerly transhumance cattle keepers who wandered with their herds on seasonal routes in search of grazing. This lifestyle, strongly disapproved of by successive Ethiopian governments, has changed to settled farming but the soil here is light and sandy – easily eroded by seasonal flooding.

China-Africa Oil Ties: How Different from the US?

China in Africa: The Real Story

An updated report from the Council on Foreign Relations on China-Africa Oil Ties makes several statements that made it past reviewers (and that reflect conventional wisdom):

Quoting journalist Howard French, the report says that "unlike the West, China 'has declined to tell African governments how they should run their countries, or to make its investments contingent on government reform'." And quoting Fanie Herman and Tsai Ming-Yen, the report says: "The U.S. focuses on humanitarianism, good governance, and democratization of petroleum-producing states in their oil diplomacy approach," unlike China.

I would have expected better than this in a report coming from the Council on Foreign Relations. Is the US oil diplomacy approach really focused on good governance and democratization in Equatorial Guinea, Angola, or Saudi Arabia? I don't think so. Have Western companies like ExxonMobil, Freeport McMoRan, American Tobacco, etc., made their natural resource investments in Nigeria, Chad, the DRC, or Zimbabwe contingent on governance reform? Again, I don't think so.

We're more likely to have a solid basis for understanding Chinese engagement in Africa if we in the West stop assuming that we're the good guys, that our oil diplomacy is pure, that our companies wouldn't think of investing in a non-democratic country ... "unlike China".

When we (rigorously) measure effectiveness, what do we find? Initial results from an Oxfam experiment.

From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green

Guest post from ace evaluator Dr Karl Hughes (right, in the field. Literally.)

Just over a year ago now, I wrote a blog featured on FP2P – Can we demonstrate effectiveness without bankrupting our NGO and/or becoming a randomista? – about Oxfam's attempt to up its game in understanding and demonstrating its effectiveness. Here, I outlined our ambitious plan of 'randomly selecting and then evaluating, using relatively rigorous methods by NGO standards, 40-ish mature interventions in various thematic areas'. We have dubbed these 'effectiveness reviews'. Given that most NGOs are currently grappling with how to credibly demonstrate their effectiveness, our 'global experiment' has grabbed the attention of some eminent bloggers (see William Savedoff's post for a recent example). Now I'm back with an update.
The first thing to say is that the effectiveness reviews are now up on the web. Here you will find introductory material, a summary of the results for 2011/12, and some glossy (and hopefully easy to read) two-page summaries of each effectiveness review, as well the full reports. (You may not want to download and print off the full technical reports for the quantitative effectiveness reviews unless you know what a p-value is. With the statistically challenged in mind, we have kindly created summary reports for these reviews, complete with traffic lights….). Eventually, all the effectiveness reviews we carry out/commission will be available from this site, unless there are good reasons why they cannot be publicly shared, e.g. security issues.
Plug over, I can now give you the inside scoop. In the first year (2011/12) we aimed to do 30 effectiveness reviews, and we managed to pull off 26. Not bad, but our experience in the first year made us realise that our post-first-year target of 40-ish reviews per year was perhaps a bit overly ambitious. We have now scaled down our ambitions to 30-ish, to both avoid overburdening the organisation and enable better quality control.

What do DFID wonks think of Oxfam’s attempt to measure its effectiveness?

What do DFID wonks think of Oxfam's attempt to measure its effectiveness?

From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green

More DFIDistas on the blog: this time Nick York, DFID's top evaluator and Caroline Hoy, who covers NGO evaluation, comment on Oxfam's publication of a set of 26 warts-and-all programme effectiveness reviews.
Having seen Karl Hughes's 3ie working paper on process tracing and talked to the team in Oxfam about evaluation approaches, Caroline Hoy (our lead on evaluation for NGOs) and I have been reading with considerable interest the set of papers that Jennie Richmond has shared with us on 'Tackling the evaluation challenge – how do we know we are effective?'.
From DFID's perspective, and now 2 years into the challenges of 'embedding evaluation' in a serious way into our own work, we know how difficult it often is to find reliable methods to identify what works and measure impact for complex development interventions. Although it is relatively well understood how to apply standard techniques in some areas – such as health, social protection, water and sanitation and microfinance – there are whole swathes of development where we need to be quite innovative and creative in finding approaches to evaluation that can deal with the complexity of the issues and the nature of the programmes. Many of these areas are where NGOs such as Oxfam do their best work.
So we would really like to welcome and applaud Oxfam's new Effectiveness Reviews, which adopt a clear and practical framework for assessing what difference it is making, through its partners, in the development process. It is a big step forward for them – and it would be great if it also inspires other organisations to develop new and interesting approaches to measuring results and undertake rigorous analysis of what works. Clearly this needs to be done in a way which each organisation can afford and resource – things need to be done in a proportionate way – but the Oxfam initiative shows some of what is possible.
They have chosen quite a practical strategy – picking out a random sample and then probing more deeply and using different techniques

to measure impact or use well-tried monitoring of performance indicators.

NGO warns DfID is forgetting disabled children

Global development news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk

Global Campaign for Education welcomes progress on girls but warns DfID is forgetting disabled children and other minorities

The UK government needs to rethink its education programmes to better support marginalised children and young people in accessing education in poorer countries, according to a report published by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) UK on Wednesday.

The report, Equity and inclusion for all in education (pdf), analysed 14 of the Department for International Development's (DfID) operational plans. It found that, while the department has a clear mandate to ensure girls attend school, there is little evidence that it is addressing barriers to education faced by young people with disabilities, or those from particular religious minorities or ethnic groups. The needs of children living in vulnerable situations or locations, such as on the streets or in informal settlements, are likewise receiving too little attention, according to the study.

Getting more girls into school has been a priority for donors to achieve the second and third millennium development goals, on universal primary education and gender equality respectively. The UN girls' education initiative was established in 2000 to accelerate progress in these areas.

But the report noted that, while "some of DfID's education work appears to tackle some aspects of marginalisation beyond concerns around gender", this was "not the same as ensuring that all education initiatives prioritise addressing the rights of all marginalised groups in a comprehensive and co-ordinated way".

The GCE is calling on the department to develop a clear strategy to ensure equity and the inclusion of all marginalised groups across all the countries in which it works; invest in research and programmes that promote inclusion; support civil society groups in their work with marginalised young people; and ensure that support for private sector initiatives does not undermine young peoples' right to education.

The report examined DfID in Bangladesh, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, although researchers noted that some information about the programmes could not be downloaded on the DfID website. This, they said, "raises concerns in regard to the transparency of DfID's project implementation and dissemination of results".

The GCE found that in some countries, including Zambia, Tanzania and Vietnam, DfID programmes that had improved attainment for girls had also improved outcomes for other vulnerable groups. But the absence of a comprehensive strategic approach meant outcomes were fragmented.

The report questioned DfID's support for private-sector involvement in education, querying how this approach promoted inclusion. The researchers found no direct evidence from the operational plans that support for private-sector involvement in education had a positive or negative impact on marginalisation. But they questioned how DfID regulated the private sector, and asked what evidence the department had to justify this approach.

"Arguments against the promotion of low-cost private education note that it is less likely to ensure equity, sustainability and accountability, or offer scaled provision of education," said the report. "Private education is also likely to lead to rural areas becoming increasingly marginalised in a scenario whereby profitability begins to determine the location of schools; poor families are likely to become more marginalised as school fees begin to divert income from other priorities."

Sunit Bagree, Sightsavers policy adviser and co-author of the report, said Britain's policy needed a rethink. "Although DfID's focus on increasing the number of girls in education is welcome, government policy is failing other marginalised groups such as disabled children, ethnic minorities, street children and those living in very remote areas," he said. "For example, being disabled more than doubles the chance of never enrolling in school in some countries, yet we know that education is a fundamental route out of poverty. Unless DfID urgently reviews its policies and starts meeting the needs of marginalised children, progress on reaching the goal of universal primary education by 2015 will stall."

A DfID spokeswoman said the UK government is committed to helping all poor children get a good quality education, including the most marginalised, adding that by 2015, it would be supporting 9 million children to go to primary school, more than half of them girls.

Liz Ford

Sent with Reeder

(verzonden vanaf tablet)

Why academic and implementation debates diverge in development

Open The Echo Chamber

I just witnessed a fascinating twitter exchange that beautifully summarizes the divide I am trying to bridge in my work and career. Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva, the head of research at Oxfam GB, after seeing a post on GDP tweeted by Tim Harford (note: not written by Harford), tweeted the following:

To which Harford tweeted back:

This odd standoff between two intelligent, interesting thinkers is easily explained. Bluntly, Harford's point is academic, and from that perspective mostly true. Contemporary academic thinking on development has more or less moved beyond this question. However, to say that it "never has been" an important question ignores the history of development, where there is little question that in the 50s and 60s there was significant conflation of GDP and well-being.

But at the same time, Harford's response is deeply naive, at least in the context of development policy and implementation. The academic literature has little to do with the policy and practice of development (sadly). After two years working for a donor, I can assure Tim and anyone else reading this that Ricardo's point remains deeply relevant. There are plenty of people who are implicitly or explicitly basing policy decisions and program designs on precisely the assumption that GDP growth improves well-being. To dismiss this point is to miss the entire point of why we spend our time thinking about these issues – we can have all the arguments we want amongst ourselves, and turn up our noses at arguments that are clearly passé in our world…but if we ignore the reality of these arguments in the policy and practice world, our thinking and arguing will be of little consequence.

I suppose it is worth noting, in full disclosure, that I found the post Harford tweeted to be a remarkably facile justification for continuing to focus on GDP growth. But it is Saturday morning, and I would rather play with my kids than beat that horse…

Sent with Reeder

(verzonden vanaf tablet)

Sunday, October 21, 2012

realities of rape in war

Texas in Africa

The Simon Fraser University Human Security Report for 2011/12 is out. This year's edition focuses on sexual violence in war, and the findings are astonishing. Essentially, SFU found that the data shows much of the conventional wisdom on such issues as rape as a weapon of war, who is committing rape in wartime, and negative effects on education is completely wrong. Among the report's findings:

Conflicts in which extreme sexual violence is committed (think DRC) are exceptional outliers, not the norm.
While reporting of sexual violence in wartime has increased, there is no evidence to support the oft-repeated-by-high-level-UN-officials claim that incidences of wartime sexual violence are increasing.
Strategic rape incidences, aka "rape as a weapon of war" are not increasing, either.
Domestic (household & intimate partner) sexual violence is by far the most prevalent form of sexual and gender-based violence in wartime.
Male victims and female perpetrators of rape in wartime may be greater than previously believed.
That statistic that 3 in 4 Liberian women were victims of sexual violence during the country's war? No evidence whatsoever for the claim. The real rate of lifetime sexual violence in Liberia is more like 18% - exactly the same as the rate of SGBV in the United States - which means it's impossible that 75% of women were raped or otherwise sexually assaulted during the wars.
There is no evidence to support the UN claim that sexual violence committed against children in conflict-affected countries is increasing.
Conflict doesn't have a net negative effect on educational outcomes.

These findings are obviously controversial and I have no doubt that they will inspire a lively debate. However, having read over the methodology and evidence presented in the report, it's hard to find grounds on which to dispute most of these claims. The evidence is solid.

Wisely, the SFU researchers use their findings to point to the importance of narrative creation and its role in policy development. As we have seen time and time again in DRC, when the narrative about a conflict and its nature is wrong, policies are often ineffective. In this case, policies based on repeated slogans and incorrect statistics means that too many aid dollars may be directed to victims who don't need that much help, while money is unavailable to assist those who do. All in all, this Human Security Report is a well-argued plea for policy to be evidence-based. We'd all do well to heed those warnings.

Sent with Reeder

(verzonden vanaf tablet)