Owen abroad

Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

G and I had the privilege of joining great athletes and olympians including Haile Gebreselassie, Paula Radcliffe, Richard Nerurkar, Millon Wolde, Hugh Jones, and sponsors of tomorrow’s Great Ethiopian Run, for dinner at Castellis Restaurant in Addis Ababa.

Here is a picture of G chatting with Paula.

The Great Ethiopian Run is Africa’s largest road race – 33 thousand official entrants (plus a couple of thousand more!) will be taking part in a this 10km race at 2,500 metres above sea level. G and I ran it in 2002 and again in 2008.

Great remark (h/t @Michael_Keizer on Twitter) – a British athlete was asked after the 2004 Great Ethiopian Run how he had found the atmosphere.  His reply: “it’s thin”.

The sweetness of the apricots offsets the spiciness of the curry in this dish which I am sure has no connection with India at all.   It is a very quick and easy vegan dish.   I usually serve it with brown rice mixed with fried onions and green peas.  I saw this recipe once about 20 years ago, and I’ve been making it from memory ever since. I have no idea if the way I make it now has any connection with the original recipe. But I thought I should write it down while I can remember it.  (If you don’t want to do the spices you can buy a jar of curry paste.  But they don’t sell those here in Addis Ababa.)

Serves 4.

200g dried apricots
100ml orange juice
400g soaked and cooked (or tinned) chick peas
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic
3cm ginger
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)
1 tsp garam masala

Slice the dried apricots and soak them for an hour in the orange juice.

Dice the onions, and fry them until they go soft. Add the garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric and cayenne. Fry for 2-3 more minutes.  Add the onion and spice mix to the cooked chick peas.

Pour any surplus juice off the apricots (it is delicious to drink, by the way).  Add the apricots to the chickpeas and onions. Add some water if needed and stir.

Cook on a medium ring for 30 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent the mixture from burning.

As well as rice, consider serving with a fresh raita (yoghurt and diced cucumber).

I was touched to receive the following message through my website yesterday:

i am one of the proud person in the world when in heard that you are going to man utd but please i am applealing to you that gambia are in need of your support because we need a very good accademy in the country

For much of my life my first name has been short but difficult to spell. In England I used to help people to understand it by saying  “as in David Owen”, and many people remembered me as David. But with a much more famous Owen known around the world, now almost everybody understands my name.

Fortunately for them, Manchester United called up a different Owen.

Manchester United and Arsenal are hugely popular here in Addis Ababa, so this should mean that there are no further problems here understanding my name.

My father was a diplomat.  When he left his last post in Africa (as High Commissioner to Nigeria) to become High Commissioner to Australia, he sent a message to the then Foreign Secretary reflecting on a career spent mainly in Africa. (These messages from Ambassadors are known in Foreign-Office-speak as a despatch).

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, he has been able to obtain a copy of this despatch, and he has published it online. At the time, it was regarded as controversial and radical.  Circulation within the Foreign Office was limited.

Perhaps my judgement is clouded by filial loyalty, but today it strikes me as forward-looking and far sighted.  He wrote:

Such grotesque disparities in the human condition are an inevitable source of conflict and instability. It is a century since British people ceased to be willing to tolerate massive inequality of wealth and income within their own society.  The time has surely come when we should tackle an even more offensive situation in the global village.

My father made a compelling case in 1991 for doing more to ensure that Africa shares in the benefits of globalisation and rising prosperity. As he predicted, the need has become greater the longer we have neglected the challenge.

I’m proud to follow in his footsteps in demanding change; but dismayed that I have to do so. If only they had listened then we might not have to be making the same case today.

We went to see Teza last night, a newish film by Haile Gerima which won Best Screenplay and the  Special jury prize at the Venice film festival last year.  The film is in Amharic with English sub-titles.

The film is about Anberber (played by Aaron Arefe – shown left) who returns to his village in Gondar after years spent studying medicine in Germany.  But he returns at the time of the Derg, led by Haile Mariam Mengistu, and in Anberber’s village, young men have to hide in the hills to avoid being conscripted.

Much of the film is in flashback as Anberber looks back on his experiences.

We thought this was an entertaining and moving account of Ethiopia’s history, and especially the time of the Derg.  It was well scripted and acted, and beautifully filmed.  For those of us who love the Ethiopian countryside, people and culture, there was much to revel in.

Edward Barder is a not-very-distant relative who makes fishing rods.

According to a quote from the Independent, quoted on the The Edward Barder Rod Company Website

“Barder is unquestionably Britain’s finest rod-maker”

Personally, I’m for banning fishing, though I wish Edward well. 

Bill Sonnenschein, educator, civil rights activist, roadie, and friend, died on 29 December 2008.

Bill had been  a special advisor to President Marc Ravalomananat of Madagascar for the last few months.  He taught leadership at Berkeley, which is where I first met him, and helped to run the Environmental Leadership Program there.

Grethe, who was one of Bill’s graduate student instructors, writes here about the impact that Bill had on her life.

Cal obituary here.

He was an inspiration to many to make the world a better place.

I know this is all very immature, but I thought this was a funny idea (via):

when you make a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonor

You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
1st Floor
Arlington , VA 22202

PS make sure you use that link above or choose the pulldown of Donate–Honorary or Memorial Donations, not the regular “Donate Online”

I am sitting at Heathrow airport, on my way to Ethiopia.

It is a big change to move away from home for 3 years.  I am excited, as I love Ethiopia; but I am also a bit apprehensive about how much our lives will change.

If we want to reduce carbon emissions, should we cap the total and then allow trading, or should we impose a tax on all carbon emissions? Organizations and Markets looks at the economics. Here is the conclusion:

So the final score is: Permits get a moderate edge on political economy/public choice issues; taxes have a big advantage on institutional/governance issues; and taxes deliver a big can of whipass on traditional economic efficiency concerns. So conditional on accepting the weak case for CO2 emissions control, the Pigou people have a strong case against the cap-and-trade brigade. Maybe they should start making it.

One issue that is not covered here is the distribution between countries. From the point of view of developing countries, cap-and-trade (with equal per-capita emissions targets) presumably has a large advantage over taxing emissions, in the absence of a mechanism to redistribute the revenues from rich countries (which will collect the taxes) to poor countries (who bear most of the costs of adjustment to climate change).

Hat tip: Economist blog. Also Greg Mankiw

Chris McGreal has a piece in the Guardian today about DFID's work in Africa. (Disclosure: I work for DFID).  Chris McGreal says:

The result, say DFID officials in Africa, is that they are able to direct large amounts of money to areas of greatest need, including putting millions of pounds directly into government budgets. Speaking on a visit to Malawi, Mr Benn added that routing aid through African governments makes them more accountable to those it is supposed to benefit.

Tim Worstall agrees in part.  He likes the direct payment to the poor, but dislikes paymens through government budgets:

Given my views on governments, this doesn't strike me as all that good an idea. Most especially given my view that most poor countires are in fact poor because they have grasping, venal and incompetent governments, this really doesn't strike me as a good idea. But I'm aware that there are those who hold different opinions on this matter. 

There are indeed those who hold a different opinion on this.   The main reasons that we give money in the form of Budget support are:

• all countries, rich and poor, need governments that are accountable, capable and responsive to their people.  If services such as education and health are provided directly by other agencies – such as international donors – then there is no accountability of the providers to the intended beneficiaries; the results will be weak and marginalized governments, and unresponsive services;
• though there are short-term needs to get essential services to people, the only long run, sustainable solution for these countries is to run the services themselves; if we set up parallel systems that hire the trained people away from government, we delay, rather than accelerate, the day when these countries can build sufficiently strong and effective systems for themselves;
• the services can only be delivered cost-effectively as part of a joined-up system; you don't want an AIDS clinic separate from a vaccination centre in the same town: you want a single health centre; if you are building schools then you need to train teachers or procure text books.  So a bunch of separate initiatives to provide specific services in particular places will be very inefficient compared to building an effective, joined up service.
• in the past, we have ignored and bypassed poor financial management (or even corruption) in governments in poor countries because we can work around them; we cannot do that if we are going to put British taxpayers' money into those systems, so giving budget support forces us – and everyone else – to tackle one of the long-term causes of poor government.

My view is not just speculation or ideology.   Here is an independent, international review of Budget Support.  There is a lot of evidence gathered there.  The summary says:

when a developing country’s government has the political will to reduce poverty, budget support can be an effective way for donors to deliver aid. Overall, it has helped to strengthen the relationship between donors and developing country governments, and encouraged better coordination between different donors. It has helped to strengthen planning and budget systems, making them more transparent and therefore accountable. It has also helped to prioritise areas of expenditure that target the poor like health and education.The team of evaluators found no clear evidence that budget support funds were, in practice, more affected by corruption than other forms of aid.

Rogue development aid by Moisés Naím:

States like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have the cash and the will to reshape the world into a place very unlike the one where we want to live. By pushing their alternative development model, such states effectively price responsible aid programs out of the market exactly where they are needed most. In place of those programs, rogue donors offer to underwrite a world that is more corrupt, chaotic and authoritarian. That sort of aid is in no one’s interest, except the rogues.

This probably overstates the difference between China and the behaviour of western countries in Africa.  I don’t recall all the newspapers complaining about our oil companies and mining companies pumping money into governments in Africa over the last forty years to buy licences to extract mineral resources.  And all that money was just as chaotic and corrupt, and just as free of strings, as the money that China is now spending to get access to Africa’s mineral wealth.  Why would we expect China to behave any differently from what we have been doing for decades?

I received today (February 7th) the “Government IT Profession Update (January 2007)”. (I am, strangely, a member of the Government IT profession, as well as being a member of the Government Economic Service.)

This month’s update begins as follows:

Here is the belated January edition of Government IT Profession Update. It was held up because we had server problems and were unable to access our database to send out bulk emails.

Not exactly the best way to inspire confidence in the Government IT profession, is it?

Delivering the State of the Economy report on Wednesday, George Bush made the most effective case for the global trade talks that I can remember him making:

…  And the question for America is whether we treat the changes in our economy as opportunity to help improve people's lives, or as an excuse to retreat into protectionism.

… we can make our economy more flexible and dynamic by expanding trade. America has about 5 percent of the world's population. That means 95 percent of our potential customers are abroad. Every time we break down barriers to trade and investment, we open up new markets for our businesses and our farmers. As we improve free trade, consumers get lower prices. There are better American jobs. You see increased productivity. Jobs supported by exports of goods pay wages that are 13 to 18 percent higher than the average. So one of our top priorities has been to remove obstacles to trade everywhere we can.

When I took office, America had free trade agreements with three countries. We have free trade agreements in force now with 13 countries — and we have more on the way. These agreements are leading to direct benefits for America's businesses and, equally importantly, America's workers. Yesterday, I went to the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Illinois — that's where they make big bulldozers. The folks there told me that Caterpillar now exports more than one-half of the products they make. They see immediate results when we have broken down barriers to trade. Within two years of implementing our free trade agreement with Chile, Caterpillar's exports to that country have nearly doubled. The opening of this and other export markets has led Cat to add thousands of new jobs here in America.

Manufacturers, farmers, and service providers all across our country have similar stories. So we need to continue to level the playing field for our goods and services. I strongly believe this: When people around the world have a choice, they choose goods that say "Made in the USA."

…At this moment, the most promising opportunity to expand free and fair trade is by concluding the Doha Round at the World Trade Organization. Global trade talks like Doha have the potential to lower trade barriers all around the world. They come around only once every decade or so. Successful trade talks will have an enormous impact on people around the world. Since World War II, the opening of global trade and investment has resulted in income gains of about $9,000 a year for the average American household.

The Doha Round is a chance to level the playing field for our goods and services — in other words, so we can be treated fairly in foreign markets — but it also is a great opportunity to lift millions of people out of poverty around the world. And so we're going to work hard to complete it. We are dedicated to making sure we have a successful Doha Round.

The only way America can complete Doha and make headway on other trade agreements is to extent Trade Promotion Authority. This authority allows the President to negotiate complicated trade deals for our country, and then send them to Congress for an up or down vote on the whole agreement. Presidents of both parties have considered this authority essential to completing good trade agreements. Our trading partners consider it essential for our success at the negotiating table. The authority is set to expire on July 1st — and I ask Congress to renew it. I know there's going to be a vigorous debate on trade, and bashing trade can make for good sound bites on the evening news. But walling off America from world trade would be a disaster for our economy. Congress needs to reject protectionism, and to keep this economy open to the tremendous opportunities that the world has to offer.

Amen to all that.  Completing the Doha round with a good result for developing countries is absolutely essential to enable the world's poor to benefit from economic growth that will lift them out of poverty.

It seems churlish to quibble with what is essentially a welcome and reasoned defence of trade liberalization and the need for a multilateral trade round.  But I can't help noticing that President Bush seems to believe the right thing for the wrong reasons.  He focuses his argument on the possible benefits for American exporters of lower trade barriers elsewhere, though he does at least mention the bigger benefit for America of cheaper imports.  The only reason that this matters is that if politicians believe that the main benefit of a trade deal is improving the opportunities for their exporters, they will tend to hold out for a trade deal in which other countries agree to make reductions in tariffs and quotas.  When they realize that the main benefit is cheaper imports, they will be more inclined to recommend market opening to other countries, but not make a trade deal conditional on it. 

The ODI blog uses the debate about BAE in Tanzania as a hook for the broader issue known in Whitehall as "Policy Coherence for Development" – that is, the extent to which our policies on issues other than aid – such as trade, arms exports, financial stability, corruption, climate change, migration, intellectual property  – either support, or perhaps undermine, the prospects for developing countries.

In my view, getting these issues right is at least as important as aid for providing the circumstance in which poor countries can lift themselves out of poverty.

DFID will be publishing its first annual report to Parliament on policy coherence, following Tom Watson's Tom Clarke's Private Members Bill (International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill).  This should help to build awareness across Government of the importance of these issues for promoting international development, which is in all our interests in the long run.

[Thanks to Richard for spotting that I had the wrong Tom] 

Governments sometimes struggle to take a firm line on corruption overseas.  On the one hand governments recognize the damage that corruption does, particularly in developing countries where the proceeds from corrupt payments can sustain unaccountable governments and divert resources that are desperately needed for public services.  On the other hand, governments do not want to penalize British businesses who are responding to the business environment that they sometimes find, especially if that means sacrificing large export orders and jobs.

The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions forbids signatories (of which the UK is one) from putting commercial interests ahead of the need to fight corruption.  Even so, governments inevitably face pressure not to put jobs and export orders at risk.  For example, on Any Questions in December, both Charles Moore and Edward Leigh appear to say that it is not worth putting jobs at risk to fight corruption.

So this letter sent just before Christmas from Hermes Pension Fund, one of the UK's largest investors, makes interesting reading.  It says, in effect, that the market distortions and uncertainty caused by corruption cost British business more than the short-term costs to business of taking a tough position against corrupt payments.

In other words, according to Hermes, there is no trade-off between the interests of business and the desire to be tough on corruption.  According to Hermes, Governments that want to be business friendly should stand firm in the fight against corruption.

There has been a lot going on.  We've moved back from California to London, and we have moved back to G's old flat in London.  This took some time, as we waited for the tenants to move out, and then had some repairs done.  We've been combining our luggage from Berkeley with our old stuff from storage – effectively combining three households into one.  Oxfam came to collect boxes of books, redundant hi-fi equipment, duplicate crockery and other treasured posessions.

I have started back at DFID, as Director of Global Development Effectiveness.  G has made an even tougher transition – from successful investment banker, via an MBA in the States, to starting work a couple of weeks ago at Marie Stopes International.

I've been doing a lot of traveling – getting to know my opposite numbers in Berlin and Tokyo (Germany and Japan hold the G8 Presidencies in 2007 and 2008 respectively), an aid effectiveness conference in Manila, and a meeting of the Donors Assistance Committee in Paris on improving the coordination of health programmes. I've spoken at conferences on the importance of good governance for development, on the need for better donor coordination as aid increases, on the need for global programmes to be more integrated into country systems, on the role of NGOs in the international process, and on the need for a stronger results culture in development.  I've been getting to know my colleagues in No.10, the FCO, Treasury, DTI and elsewhere in Whitehall.  And I'm involved in policy development from improving our efforts to tackle international corruption, planning the scale up of Government aid, raising the game of the international community in the fight against AIDS, resuscitating the trade talks, and understanding how DFID's "country-led approach" applies in countries with governments that are less than fully committed to improving the lives of their own citizens.

It is, frankly, a mixed blessing to be back in London and at DFID.  I miss the sunshine of California; the easy lifestyle of working from home; the intellectual freedom of working in a think tank; and good friends that we made on the West Coast.  But it is good to be back among friends and family in London, to be at home in one of the great cities of the world.  Despite the inevitable inconveniences of working in a bureaucracy, I am really enjoying being back in DFID.  I'm working with really great team of people. I really admire the way my colleagues combine professionalism with passion for our mission.

Blogging is still a bit unfamiliar to my fellow civil servants, and I still don't really know what I'm allowed to do. I think I'm going to re-enter the water, a bit cautiously, and see how it goes.

It is good to be back. 

In principle, it should be possible to sustain gravitas while still conveying passion.

I'm here at Wilton Park discussing the scaling up agenda with some world class minds. I find passion easier than gravitas. 

At the Asia Regional Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Manila.

Shocking fact – Afghanistan received 1,657 donor missions last year. That’s more than 4 a day, 365 days a year. How is a government supposed to govern properly if it has its face pointing towards the donors and its rear end facing its own citizens?

I will shortly be returning to life as a senior civil servant, and I am looking forward to it. I'm fortunate that the Department for International Development is a very successful department, recognised as one of the most effective development organisations in the world.  But like every part of the public service, we could do better.

In that context, I have been thinking about how I can be a better leader and manager. At the risk of sounding like Martin Lukes, here is my personal manifesto.  These are my goals as a manger.  I would welcome feedback – both from my own staff (positive and negative feedback welcomed) and from others.

1.  It is amazing what you can achieve if you don't care who gets the credit.  
If something goes right, I'll make sure the credit goes to the people who did the work.  If something goes wrong, then the buck stops with me.  It is my responsibility to ensure that the team has the right resources, leadership and remit to succeed; if they do not, then I have failed to ensure that they have what they need. 

2.  Help others to become stars. 
There are some very smart people in my team. I want them to succeed and become stars, but I know this is very demanding.  This is not entirely selfless: I want more great people to want to join the team to join the talent we already have. We will achieve more together if they have everything they need to succeed. It is my job to see to it that they do.

3.  If everything is a priority, nothing is.
If we want to keep things ticking over as they are and take no risks, then we should do a little bit of everything. But if we want to change the world, we need to identify a small number of important and ahievable tasks and focus our resources on achieving them.  

4.  Build a shared vision, then empower others to deliver it
As a leader, my priority is to build common understanding about what the team can achieve together. With that in place, I will trust the team to get on to deliver it to the best of their ability.  In my view, the managerialist approach – micromanaging staff with rafts of performance targets – is a fall-back for those who cannot lead.  Command and control is both a cause and a consequence of failure.

5 .  Say what you mean, mean what you say
I will never have a hidden agenda: I will always be open, honest and direct.  If my team feels that they have to interpret what I say for hidden meaning then I am not building their trust and not communicating openly enough.   In general, colleagues want more communication rather than less.

6.  We have a responsibility to take risks and face the consequences
One of our responsibilities in DFID is to dream big and to take risks.  We will let down the poor if we care more about protecting our own backs from the risk of failure than we do about seizing every realistic chance we can for change. We should ask ourselves: "what is the worst that can happen?"  This is not a rhetorical question: we have to identify what could go wrong, and then decide how to mitigate those risks.  It is important to realize that the risks are rarely very serious.  We will keep a sense of proportion.

7. Build a diverse team and listen well
One of the most common causes of bad decisions and poor implementation is group-think. Every time we put a bunch of similar people in a room – with the same background, the same training, the same attitudes and the same experiences – they will reinforce each other's faults and prejudices. Instead, I will nurture a diverse team, so that we have a variety of ideas, disciplines and discourses in every conversation.  I will listen well, especially to people who challenge my assumptions. Together we will demonstrate the 'wisdom of the crowd'.  

8.  Be patient. 
Nothing really important happens quickly.  If we can reach out to others, to build understanding and trust, and open ourselves to learning, we can build a long-lasting shared vision for change.  If we try to take short-cuts we will end up with clever language that means different things to different people and which never leads to sustained and serious change.

9. I will not take myself too seriously.
The long term drivers of change are not the actions of individuals, but the collective effect of social trends, of evolution of institutions and incentives, changes in attitudes, incremental changes in technology, and incremental changes in systems.  None of us is indispensible.  I will do my best to contribute positively, but I ultimately I am not that important.

**

I would welcome thoughts (in the comments below) about this agenda for management.