The Vicious Circle
John Norris writes in Foreign Policy on April 13 about a Pentagon report on budget priorities, apparently written by two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report says, in part:
By investing energy, talent, and dollars now in the education and training of young Americans -- the scientists, statesmen, industrialists, farmers, inventors, educators, clergy, artists, service members, and parents, of tomorrow -- we are truly investing in our ability to successfully compete in, and influence, the strategic environment of the future. Our first investment priority, then, is intellectual capital and a sustainable infrastructure of education, health and social services to provide for the continuing development and growth of America's youth.
“If we fix our minds upon the fact that the capacity to produce is the nation's wealth, and upon the dislocation of that capacity as the supreme evil to be avoided, we shall, I believe, have hold of the saving truth.”
USAID Global Broadband Innovations Initiative launches ICT4D portal
Facebook and Twitter may not have caused the great awakening in North Africa and the Middle East, but they certainly facilitated it. Information and communications technologies can also help to build resilient communities. Tools that combine social capital with information can facilitate knowledge generation - a key ingredient for economic growth and environmental protection.
It is great to see USAID getting behind technology transfer in a big way through the Global Broadband Innovations Initiative. The GBI portal is at http://gbiportal.net; the environment portal (which I edit) is at http://enviro.gbiportal.net. This portal will serve as a knowledge-base for the development and information/communications technology community. I've experienced the transformation that can be brought by ICT personally in observing the way that mobile phones are helping communities in Liberia to participate in national life in ways that were previously virtually impossible. 25 years ago, when I first visited Liberia, rural communities were often completely isolated from the capital. Now it is difficult, if not impossible, for the oligarchies that have long dominated resource allocation to control the flow of information. And this has been a key development in post-conflict recovery. It doesn't solve problems, but it promotes transparency and access to information, giving important leverage to communities. Let's hear of more examples of how technology can free (or hinder) the resilience of communities.Amplify’d from us2.campaign-archive1.com
The portal brings together news, commentary, and updates from the field on cutting edge technologies and their applications to social and economic development. It also incorporates an extensive (and groing) library of documents and project discriptions related to ICT4D, connectivity and innovations in development.
Peace Corps: past its sell-by date?
The idea that bright young things fresh out of college would beat down the demons of poverty and ignorance never really did hold water. But the critics miss the point - it isn't the world that needs the Peace Corps, its America.
Americans are astonishingly insular to this day, which is simply wrong given America's global reach and influence. Walking a mile in someone else's shoes does wonders for one's ability to engage with a strange and incomprehensible world. Where America misses the boat is making effective use of the pool of talent it has created by this post-graduate training in the school of hard knocks. Peace Corps volunteers, at least the ones who stick it out, typically know a thing or two about resilience. (Disclaimer - RPCV Sierra Leone '85-'88)Amplify’d from www.foreignpolicy.com
The Peace Corps turns 50 this year, and its friends will tell you that the U.S. government-run program is as spry as it ever was: It retains a strong reputation, considerable bipartisan popularity, and the vocal appreciation of generations of returned volunteers. But a less friendly observer might point out that the agency also exhibits the signature fault of its Baby Boomer peers: It can't seem to move on from the 1960s.
When it started, the Peace Corps had this playing field all to itself. In 1961, the agency was the only American volunteer organization operating internationally. But times have changed. For one thing, the corps no longer enjoys a monopoly on service abroad: In 2008, more than 1 million Americans reported volunteering in another country, according to Benjamin Lough at Washington University in St Louis. Alongside a number of other government-backed programs, organizations ranging from church groups to private companies to Doctors Without Borders send people overseas to provide everything from manual labor to advanced technical expertise.
The Peace Corps was designed to benefit its host countries by placing well-educated (if usually inexperienced) young Americans in undereducated developing economies. But in recent decades, those countries have stepped up their game in producing college and university graduates. Only 3 percent of the college-age population of Guatemala, a reliable favorite Peace Corps destination, actually attended college in 1970. That figure is 18 percent today.
