Owen abroad

Archive for June, 2006

The US Congress is currently discussing an issue which sounds rather technical and dull but which could have profound implications for the future of the internet.  If you care about whether the internet remains innovative, vibrant and open you should pay attention to the obscure-sounding question of net neutrality.

The issue is simple: should internet service providers be under an obligation to carry all network traffic without discrimination? Those in favour of net neutrality say that such a requirement is needed to protect the open, innovative nature of the net. Those against net neutrality say that market forces will ensure continued innovation and that legislating this requirement will stifle investment in new broadband services.

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You have probably read everything you want to about Warren Buffett's decision to donate about $37 billion (£20 billion) to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (If not, go read what my colleague Ruth Levine has written on our global development policy blog, Views from the Center.)

I offer two additional thoughts.

• First, it is very refreshing to see somebody decide to support an existing, effective institution rather than start a new one.  The world does not need more development institutions and more donors.   Very rich men are often filled with a combination of irrepressible self-belief and large egos, and as a result want to establish their own foundations, in their own name. By backing the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett has shown rare and commendable humility.

• Second, Greg Mankiw picked up in his blog yesterday that even this massive individual donation is small by comparison with what governments can do to reduce poverty by making changes in the international trading system:
  
  

  In other words, success in the Doha round of international trade talks would give the world more every year than what Buffett can give once after a lifetime of being the world's most successful investor.

(Full disclosure: my employer, the Center for Global Development, receives grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).

G and I saw Radiohead on Friday evening.  The Greek Theater in Berkeley is a very intimate setting – the audience is close to the stage, and you can sit on concrete seats or on the grass.  I felt a bit old as I tucked my earplugs into my bag (in case it was a little too intimate) but felt years younger when G also insisted on taking seat cushions to sit on.  We were joined by Dave and Nathan.

It was a good set – lots of new material as well as old songs (including "Exit Music", "National Anthem" , "Whose Army" and "Idioteque" as a grand finale).  I didn't hear anything from Pablo Honey – certainly not "Creep"  but perhaps they don't play that any more. The new material – presumably destined for an album later this year – continues in the same vein as Amnesic – a kind of alternative Pink Floyd from the Syd Barrett years. There is nothing as simple (or as memorable) as a chorus in any of the new tracks; but lots of psychodelic build-up to a neruotic crescendo, which can be just as powerful.

Thom Yorke seems to get more whiny as he takes himself more (too?) seriously, but he writes good songs. Jonny Greenwood is better on the sound-board than his caricatured thrashing of lead guitar  – he is obviously very talented, and seemed to be doing much of the mixing live. There was only a skeletal support crew for a band of this stature.

I was struck how little chemistry there was between the band members during the set – I would not be surprised  if the rumours of a break up turn out to be true.  Even the Greenwood brothers scarcely acknowledged each other on stage. I have not seen Radiohead live before, so perhaps they have always behaved like this.

I have got a blog post up at the Center for Global Development blog, Views from the Center, saying that we have got a long way to go.

Out now.  My Dad is in again.

The war in Uganda has displaced millions of people, including thousands of youths kidnapped by rebel forces. Many of these amazing young men and women have terrible
stories and are striving for a better life.

If you want to help them fulfil their potential, please make a small donation by clicking here.

Chris Blattman and Jeannie Annan, who are raising money for these young people, lead an amazing program of research on war-affected youth.  This provides the first and only systematic information about how the war in northern Uganda has affected young people and the most effective programs to help them return to a normal life.

A joint project linking the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for Global Development presented recommendations for transforming U.S. foreign assistance this morning.  The recommendation is for a new government department for global development, based on the British model for development policy.

(Full disclosure: I am the author of the chapter of the report which describes the British model which the group recommends.)

The book, Security by Other Means, will be published shortly. The near final version is online here.  This from the website for the project:

In a world transformed by globalization and challenged by terrorism, foreign aid has assumed renewed importance as a foreign policy tool. While the results of more than forty years of development assistance show some successes, foreign aid is currently dispersed between many agencies and branches of government in a manner that inhibits formulation and implementation of a coherent, effective strategy.

The current political climate is receptive to a transition toward greater accountability and effectiveness in development aid. Because this transition is clearly an imperative but has not yet been comprehensively addressed, the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies have conducted a joint study that both assesses the current structures of foreign assistance and makes recommendations for efficient coordination.

Drawing on expertise from the full range of agencies whose policies affect foreign aid, Security by Other Means examines foreign assistance across four categories reflecting the interests that aid furthers: security, economic, humanitarian, and political.

It is irritating to see opponents of abortion seeking to restrict abortion by opportunistically using arguments which they think are superficially persuasive but which bear no relationship to their real views and which they know to be irrelevant.

There are people who believe that a human foetus is a human life with full moral rights and that all abortion is therefore wrong.  That is a coherent point of view, though it is not one that I agree with.  There are those who believe that – at least during the early stages of pregnancy – a foetus does not have characteristics which would confer moral worth sufficient to outweigh the rights of the mother.  That alternative view is also coherent.

What does not make any sense is to say that the moral worth of the foetus depends on whether it is "viable" – that is, whether it could survive outside the womb.  Yet time and again, the abortion debate is argued on this territory.

According to the BBC a Catholic Cardinal has called upon the government to revise the abortion laws on just this basis:

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor argues that technological advances mean the abortion laws are outdated. Modern medicine can now ensure the survival of some foetuses born before 24 weeks gestation.

This does not make any sense.  If we should attach moral worth to a foetus, it is because of the characteristics it has (e.g because it feels pain or because God has infused it with a soul) or because we attach value to what it has the potential to become.  Whether or not a foetus has moral worth cannot possibly depend on whether scientists have yet developed an effective artificial incubator.   Whether or not a foetus is a bearer of rights does not change over time with scientific progress, nor does it vary between countries according to the state of the health care system.  (Whether or not those rights will in practice be recognized may well depend on these factors.)

Linking the rights of the foetuses to viability is not only sloppy thinking, it is cynical opportunism on the part of the anti-abortionists.  They know that one day in the not too distant future it will be possible for a human egg to be fertilized in vitro and incubated entirely in an artificial womb.  That means that all embryos will be "viable" from the moment of fertilization (it also means that a freezer full of egg and sperm will be "viable" but we will leave that aside).   By linking the moral value of the foetus to viability, they are hoping to make it easier to criminalize all abortions one day. 

We are being asked to abdicate the important moral judgement (what characteristics are sufficient for a living object to have rights that would compete with the rights of the mother?) by asking a different, empirical question (how likely is it that a foetus will survive outside the womb?).  For example, on the BBC's Any Questions this week, Sir Mark Tully (a journalist who is a Christian) said:

I also think that of course it is very important that we do consider the scientific evidence of this as to what actually we are doing when we abort a child, when we reach the stage when really that is that child is beyond any doubt a living being …

I think this is something which has to be left to science very much. I think if people like us or indeed religious leaders or anyone who is an amateur starts actually speculating about that question it's very dangerous indeed.  [my emphasis]

This is clearly nonsense.  Scientists can tell us the probability that a particular foetus might survive outside the womb, or at what stage a foetus is likely to be able to feel pain.  But they are in no better position than anyone else ("amateurs") to form a view about which of these characteristics ought to be regarded as determining the moral worth of the foetus.

Those who oppose abortion should stand their ground on a meaningful claim about the characteristics of the foetus.  If you take the religious view that a foetus has rights because it has been unobservably infused by a transcendental soul at the moment of conception, then say so.   If you believe that the foetus has some other characteristic that give it a moral claim – such as the ability to feel pain, or consciousness – then let's hear what these characteristics are and we can consider together whether we find it persuasive that having those characteristics is a sufficient basis to trump the rights of the mother. 

The religious fundamentalists know that they won't win the argument by saying that a foetus has moral rights because God has entered its soul at conception.   So they try to sidestep the question about what characteristics are significant in determining moral worth by pretending that it matters whether a foetus could survive outside the womb.  That is not the point, and they know it.

Five hundred economists have signed an open letter on immigration.  These include five Nobel Laureates—Thomas C. Schelling, Robert Lucas, Daniel McFadden, Vernon Smith and James Heckman.  And, for what it is worth, me.  The letter says:

We must not forget that the gains to immigrants coming to the United States are immense. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty programever devised. The American dream is a reality for many immigrants whonot only increase their own living standards but who also send billions of dollars of their money back to their families in their homecountries—a form of truly effective foreign aid.

Of course, we may not be right.  But the breadth of the consensus is striking.

The letter is framed in a mainly the context of the American debate, which is a little different from Europe.   America makes it relatively easy for immigrants to work, but hard for immigrants to claim welfare benefits.  Europeans tend to make it hard for immigrants to work, but relatively easy to claim welfare.  Thus in America the debate focuses mainly on the impact on jobs and wages, while in Europe there is more discussion about fiscal costs.

Whales. The whale-hunters might or might not start hunting a species that is not endangered.  

Tim being away, this week’s round-up has been ably compiled by the Devil.

The Millennium Technology Prize has been awarded to Shui Nakamura.

Professor Nakamura has developed a new, revolutionary source of light – bright-blue, green and white LEDs and a blue laser. The technology is used in several applications which improve the quality of human life. The world’s largest technology prize, now being awarded by Finland’s Millennium Prize Foundation for the second time, has a value of one million euros. …

One of the most significant future applications for Shuji Nakamura’s invention is the sterilisation of drinking water, since the use of ultraviolet LEDs makes the water purification process both cheaper and more efficient. Systems based on this technology are expected to improve the lives and health of tens of millions of people.

This is just the sort of technological advance the world needs.

The International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill will today be voted on for its third reading by the House of Commons.  The bill requires the government to produce an annual report assessing progress toward the 0.7% target, the UN's millennium goals and the effectiveness of aid.

As the second-reading debate showed, there is considerable support for this bill on both sides of the House. 

Update: the Bill passed the House of Commons unanimously. 

A little-known, but rather impressive, feature of the international development system is process of peer review by which each  OECD country submits its development cooperation program to independent scrutiny once every 4 years.  The study, which is led by two other countries, is published.

The United Kingdom has just be subject to such a review, and the Main Findings and Recommendations have now been published

This coherent and well organised approach to development co-operation has permitted the UK to make good progress against the DAC recommendations of the 2001 Peer Review, including substantial movement towards an ODA/GNI target of 0.7%, a sharper focus on poverty, a stronger framework for efforts of government-wide policy coherence, a proactive collaboration with other donors and improved operational guidelines (the Blue Book), headquarters-field relationships, and systems of monitoring and evaluation. DFID has gone through a “golden age” of growth and achievement since 1997, and certainly since the last Peer Review in 2001. It must now consolidate those achievements and prepare for the next growth phase, when performance scrutiny will intensify, both domestically and internationally.

In short, this is a remarkably positive report about the work of DFID and the UK Government's contribution to the fight against global poverty. Of course, criticisms in DAC peer reviews are often embedded in the careful language of international diplomacy and may be hard to spot by the casual reader; but this summary is almost uniformly glowing.   In the 9 years since the Department for International Development was established it has achieved an enviable international reputation as probably the world's best bilateral development agency, and this peer review is a testament to that.

Whatever you think generally about international aid, and whatever your view of the effectiveness of government agencies, DFID has been a remarkable success which reflects well on Britain internationally.  This is something we can be proud of.

(Disclosure: I am on a leave of absence from the UK Department for International Development).

The World Development Movement has a handy tool to help the ethical football supporter decide which team to support.

As I type, Tunisia is beating Saudi Arabia – according to the WDM, this is good news as it means that the 3rd most supportable team is beating the 29th most supportable, on measures such as carbon emmissions, corruption and military spending.

Summary

A national identity register of unique personal identifiers could make a significant contribution to improving government services.  We could introduce such a register without allowing the establishment of a surveillance state. 

The following five conditions would help to protect our liberties:

• government data should be stored in decentralized databases, not in shared data warehouses;
• citizens should have access to all data held about them by government
• citizens should be able to see a log of all government access to their data
• an independent information security ombudsman should police the systems
• there should be no identity cards and no collection of biometric data

If all these protections were put in place, I would welcome a national identity register. If the Government will not implement any of them, I should like to know why not.

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My father writes here about Congressman Pete King, the Europeans and terrorism.

As somebody says in the comments, if a European politician had said this about America, there would have been an uproar.

I was critical of Google's decision to operate a censored search engine in China. As I said here, the effect would be to limit access to Google's main search engine, so that the establishment of google.cn would reduce, not increase, access to information in China.

And so it has come to pass.  According to the BBC, China has now blocked Google's main, uncensored search engine in China:

Google.com, the search engine's uncensored international site, had previously been available to Chinese web users, but problems accessing the site had been reported across the country recently. It was blocked nationwide on 31 May, the statement said.

The blocking was also being extended to Google News and Google Mail, Reporters Without Borders said.

I have just heard Christopher Hitchens tell the BBC Politics UK program that

the job of the intellectual is to confront faith.

I admire Hitchens for his advocacy of secular, scientific and rational thought.  (He calls himself a "anti-theist" rather than an atheist.)

Many people of faith regard it as important to try convince others of their ideas.  (In some faiths, that is an essential activity of a believer.)  The rest of us tend to be passive: after all, we believe in freedom to worship.  But this creates an asymmetry: people of faith try to convert others, but those of us who do not believe do little to try to balance the argument.  I am with Hitchens in thinking that we have to do more to confront faith.  We should explain the origins of the supersitions that underpin religions, and use scientific evidence to challenge the claims.  Unless we take on the argument, we risk losing it by default.  Religion is not harmless, like astrology or Harry Potter books: it is a significant cause of conflict and individual tragedy.  

A the Hay on Wye Festival last year, Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchen discussed the proposed blasphemy laws. You can download an MP3 (lasting 78 minutes) of their discussion here. (Thanks to Dave Hoatson for recommending this.)

There was a fascinating report on today’s BBC World This Weekend (you can hear it here for the rest of the week) about China’s role in Africa.  The charge d’affaires at China’s embassy in South Africa, Zhou Yuxiao, gave an interview in said China was just protecting its own interests, and that Beijing does not believe that economic embargoes and disengagement were necessarily the best way to promote good governance.

I have written previously about China’s growing role in Africa here and here. 

This is a looming foreign policy issue that needs more attention.  We must take steps to ensure that the new scramble for Africa is to the continent’s benefit this time round.