What are the objectives of your community project and what is the story behind its creation?

My projects revolve around advocacy for sound governance and youth development. I have been very instrumental with my outfit in ensuring that public resources are adequately utilized. In this case, I have engaged young people in Uasin Gishu County, Trans Nzoia and Mt. Elgon on the need to further put our governments in check. I was motivated to join advocacy after realizing that very many individuals are uninformed about public resources including the manner in which the same resources are supposed to be utilized and for that reason public officers have always taken advantage of that. I approach the initiative both online and offline. Using advocacy tool kids, I train youth and women on how to engage respective governments, how to monitor budgets and how to see projects implementation to fruition. With the introduction of devolved functions, more corrupt officials were even decentralized making the need for advocacy around devolved governance more necessary. If people are to reap appropriately from their hard earned tax, then it is important that we engage these local governments.

At the moment, my focus is in Mt. Elgon where school enrollment is on the lower side but also cases of early child pregnancy and school drop-out is wanting. I am working around the clock with local leaders (village elders, chiefs and other county administrators) to see to it that the following objectives are realized;

·         Ensure higher enrolment and retention of about 1,000 – 5,000 girls and boys students in the areas of Kopsiro, Kapsokwony, Cheptais and Kaptama.

·         Enhanced involvement of the stakeholders such as teachers and parents for promoting quality education.

·         strengthen e-learning program in 5 secondary schools in Mt. Elgon by fixing computer labs and modern desks in about 10 primary schools across Mt. Elgon

·         Follow-up and scaling-up of the proposed school model in other rural areas with a demand driven approach.

I am also developing an online learning platform from where young people out of school from Mt. Elgon can share local resources with other young people from around the world through an online engagement. I am looking forward to a time when I can develop a fully-fledged Youth Resource center from where young people can gain access opportunities and skills that will better their lives.

In Uasin Gishu County, I am engaging youth in learning institutions through debates and essays with the objective of broadening their world overview. Through this, we are able to get to know the gaps and how best o intervene with other programs like team building among others. This is my voluntary venture as there is no funding to support a programme that is scalable in the larger region.

In which sector and with which groups do you work with?

I work well in governance, advocacy and youth development. My work entails working with young people in learning institutions, young people out of school, young women and school going children. But more importantly, I mentor young people through an online platform, share resources and skills that can make them more realistic in their communities.

 What obstacles do you face?

There are many challenges that I face, from government opposition, lack of sufficient human resources to further develop youth development and advocacy work to the level required and in some instances also the lack of sufficient funding to sustain programmes is a challenge. Further, I lack strong global network to support my work locally.

 What type of partner are you looking for to overcome challenges in your initiative? 

I am looking for a partner that can support my advocacy and good governance work. But also, I am interested in a partner that can help in resource and information sharing. A partner that we can develop and implement projects jointly. A partner that can enhance my network to like minded organizations and institutions, but also a partner passionate about youth development, women empowerment and Advocacy on Health and education is key.

What are the objectives of your community project and what is the story behind its creation?

The idea to be the change we want to see and been proactive in working with the community to change their story was developed from discussion on different experiences which we have gone through as young people in a Maasai community. The community has been marginalized for many years and in most cases viewed as defiant to change.  With a unique/peculiar culture, the Maasai are often left out by successive governments in approaches to service delivery thinking that they (the Maasai) will equally pick up plans and policies as advanced by government.  The approaches have failed to initiate development among the Maasai. While the government is well meaning in its intentions, it has not tailored its strategies and methods in the most effective way to have an impact in Maasailand.  The government’s approach has mainly been top – bottom hence the need for homegrown interventions by Maasai themselves and more so the civil society.

The objective is to initiate home grown solutions to challenges by build community capacity to respond to their concerns through education and building the economic power of women to be able to participate in governance.

In which sector and with which groups do you work with?

The project works with Maasai women and youth to improve their livelihood through economic empowerment, promotion of education and their rights to participate in democracy and governance.With economic empowerment we are training women on basic savings and investment and how to use the available resources like beads to earn. Women work in groups which create a social support system as well as pull resources together through savings for specific needs.

Education promotion- main focus is on access to quality education and girl child education. In this we are working in partnership with OLE (open Learning exchange) from US on a pilot project in one of the villages using technology to create access to reading materials. During meetings conversations are created among women on their rights to property, health and governance.

What obstacles do you face?

Some of the challenges faced in implementation include: Funds- as most of the is voluntary and through partnerships with organizations like FPFK (where I  was employed) and Mara Discovery Center which helps in mobilizing and organizing women into groups. Funds for training and space for women to meet and work on their beads craft as well as sell there craft is a challenge.

Market links for the crafts and linking them to international markets or local designers using African Jewelry is a challenge.

What type of partner are you looking for to overcome challenges in your initiative?

We are looking for partners who will support in marketing the products or link to markets. In additional partners who will support in the economic training of women  and education promotion among the Maasai. We also need partner that can help in constructing meeting shades for women that will act as shops for selling the products as well as create safe space for conversation on, women rights, democracy and governance.

Thomas Kruiper: Impact investment and utilitarianism – A debate worth keeping alive

Polis Perspectives are weekly perspectives of our team on Polis-related topics. We also share our favorite articles and tweets. This week’s perspective is written by Thomas Kruiper on the article:  Adam Rein, ’Impact Investing and a 200 year old debate, SSIR, 29/05/2015

Last week Stanford Social Innovation Review discussed a debate within the 100% IMPACT Network about utilitarianism and impact investing, weighing the importance of intentions (echoing Immanuel Kant) against the importance of actual outcomes (echoing John Stuart Mill). Ideally impact funds do both, intentionally impacting society for good while also achieving a healthy return on investment. The reality is more complicated; finding assets that intentionally deliver true social impact and financial return are hard to find. In order to sieve out fake Samaritans and to promote utilitarian instruments, all sorts of standards and certifications have popped up.

At the Polis we also believe that a focus on outcomes over intentions can help shift the balance in favor of the true do-gooders. But those who take utilitarianism seriously also know that impact is always in the eye of the beholder; it depends on who you ask . As soon as impact cannot be measured in monetary terms, which is typically the case with social impact, claiming utility becomes a moral minefield. Social impact standards  seem to help by putting investors at easy, but they also kill the debate; they allow investors to engage in investments without actualy engaging themselves with local realities and asking themselves some fundamental questions: What is utility? How does one create the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers? And who gets to decide on what the correct answers are? Although standards are useful, These debates are essential and worth keeping alive.

 Articles of the Week

Sam Harris & Noam Chomsky: ‘The limits of discourse’, Sam Harris Blog, 1/5/2015

Aidleap: ‘Why don´t international NGOs follow the hippocratic oath?’, Aidleap, 17/5/2015

Rachel Kleinfeld: ‘Improving development aid design and evaluation: Plan for sailboats, not trains’, Carnegie , 02/03/2015

Our Favourite Tweets @polisproject

@martaforesti: Great new @ODIdev online resource centre with interactive map + everything you ever wanted to know on #differentdev http://www.odi.org/doing-development-differently-0 …

@WhyDev: What do people outside the sector think about #aid? @Dani_Barrington keeps hearing some common misperceptions. http://www.whydev.org/development-work-the-myth-of-the-warm-fuzzies/ …

@estherclimate: Can Africa Make SDGs work for Africans? #NewVision #Post2015ng

 

For more in-depth articles and research, visit our Polis Publications page.

Having worked for several NGOs in different sub-Saharan countries in the 1970s, Ernesto Sirolli knows all too well what the relationships between donors, NGOs, and local recipients of development aid look like. In his view, many development actors from industrialised countries believe wholeheartedly that they know precisely how to help and that they have all the right solutions for their aid-recipients. “They believe that if it wasn´t for the attitudes of local aid-recipients and the corruption of African policy makers, they would have already turned Africa into a Garden of Eden”. According to Sirolli, this misconstrued relationship between North and South has done a lot of harm in creating dependency and distorting local incentives for participating in development cooperation projects.

How different is Sirolli´s own philosophy? The Enterprise Facilitation method that he pioneered in 1985 is based on the idea that people that do not want to be helped should be left alone. His Enterprise Facilitators work with community-based boards to provide free, confidential business management and networking advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and existing businesses. Sirolli: “The only way in which you can truly help people is if they come to you to. And entrepreneurs will only come if you can guarantee confidentiality and if you take their initiatives seriously. The key is simply to shut up and listen.” Enterprise Facilitators thus focus on working only with people that have the intrinsic motivation to learn.

The Enterprise Facilitation method is the result of many years of experience and many mistakes that Sirolli made developing the method as a young man in Esperance, Western Australia. “The first time I made a connection, it turned out that my client never paid the supplier and that he had bankrupted twice before in the past, so I blew my contacts and my credibility. So we are incredibly careful before putting our clients in touch.” Now Enterprise Facilitators in over 300 communities worldwide make sure that the entrepreneurs they coach have the product, the marketing skills, and the financial skills before jumping into the deep. “And since no-one has ever been able to master all three skills by him or herself, we focus on forming teams of people with different skills. So rather than teaching entrepreneurs a skill they don´t like and will never do well, we connect them with people that can make their business stronger, because nobody can do it alone.”

Currently, most Enterprise Facilitators are based in rural and disconnected communities in industrialised countries, but Sirolli sees huge potential for his method and similar methods in the developing world too. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, an Enterprise Facilitator is working with entrepreneurs who belong to a local Methodist church in Katanga. Before agreeing to install the Enterprise Facilitator- who is also a local- Sirolli told the bishop leading the community that he would not do it unless the people in the community invited them,“…because otherwise we would yet again be missionaries”. So the bishop went back to the church and said: “If you want an Enterprise Facilitator in this community, you have to write Sirolli first”. He received 89 letters, and over the past two years, 187 new businesses were started, employing more than 750 people.

In the development sector, fortunately there is a growing amount of actors who recognise that NGOs should listen more and talk less. Local voices are increasingly included and local partners nowadays tend to get a slice of the pie when it comes to project implementation. But that does not mean that they are willing to give up their centre-stage position, because development workers also tend to have mixed incentives. “Many NGOs are so interested in raising money that they become great at telling beautiful stories about how they represent local communities and about how they will spend the money on fancy projects. But the fact is that they don´t represent these communities; they were never invited in the first place.”

Enterprise Facilitators thus only enter communities when invited, and only respond when they are asked for help. Their salaries reflect local standards and are typically paid for by local governments or external sponsors. “How different is that from your typical development cooperation project? Just try to get an NGO that is used to getting millions of dollars per year to implement their projects to switch to a system in which a local representative costs maximally 5000 USD per year.”

The Sirolli Institute is currently based in over 300 communities worldwide and aims to mainstream the Enterprise Facilitation method, both in developed and developing countries. His TED-talk “Want to Help Someone? Shut up and Listen!” has been shared over 2 million times.

Doing Good Sells…

Corporate perspectives on CSR have changed from a necessary evil to a marketing opportunity. At the turn of the millennium, much in line with Friedman´s critique on corporate citizenship in the 1970s, commentators argued that business should focus on making profits and sticking to the law. CSR departments existed, but often only as reactions to appease activists; companies could not afford not to have them.

In 2015 companies still cannot afford not to do CSR, but rather than a necessary cost, businesses see CSR as a brand building opportunity. In a world where people define themselves through consumption, doing good is the ultimate brand strategy, whether it concerns being green, going fair trade, or supporting charity. Corporate citizenship, by many regarded as a synonym of CSR,  has a future too; consumers from generation Y (21-34) are much more conscious as consumers than baby-boomers (46-65), and consumers in growing markets in the global south are substantially more sensitive to CSR and sustainability than their peers in the US and Europe.

… But doing better does not sell more

Unfortunately, it does not seem to matter much whether companies actually do good or whether they just claim to do so. Studies tend to measure consumers´ perceptions of CSR claims; not their actual impact. An increasing amount of businesses publishes annual reports on CSR performance, but there is no comprehensive framework that allows for true comparison. The notion that the creation of social value and the creation of corporate value can go hand in hand is one that has not received sufficient attention.

Experts on CSR recognise that one of the main obstacles  for executives is the lack of data to prove the return on investment on activities.  The prevailing approaches to CSR are too fragmented and disconnected from business and strategy to reach any real conclusions. As a result, giving to random (but well-known) charities is still a much favored strategy; it´s easy for consumers to identify with such causes. As long as consumers cannot objectively compare impact, the relation between CSR performance and sales-records is likely to stay inelastic.

Creating Shared Value – Having Your Cake and Eating it Too

Those that can truly deliver on CSR still have a lot of unconquered ground to win though; a 2013 report  by the Reputation Institute showed that 73% percent of consumers across the 15 largest markets in the world are willing to recommend companies that are perceived to be delivering on Corporate Social Responsibility. The problem is that only 5% of companies are seen as actually delivering on their promises.

It is therefore strange that still relatively few businesses have integrated the concept of creating shared value. Introduced in 2006 by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, the concept explains that if “corporations were to analyse their prospects for social responsibility using the same frameworks that guide their core business choices, they would discover that CSR can be much more than a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed—it can be a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage.”

The essence of CSV lies in creating business value through the creation of social value. It means understanding the core needs and interests of not only consumers, but also those of employees, retailers, local communities, and society in general. Companies that understand their relationship with all of these actors truly understand the market, rather than just the consumer at the end of the chain. Motivated employees, capable retailers, and happy local communities make business more productive, more committed, and safer to shocks.

Unfortunately, many businesses continue to view value creation narrowly, optimising short-term financial performance in a bubble, while missing the most important customer needs and ignoring the broader influences that determine their longer-term success. The banking sector, for example, has long lost its boring but reputable status in society as an institution that caters the needs of households and businesses needing credit. The disconnection from society has hurt society as well as the banks themselves. Meanwhile, those banks that incorporate concepts such as impact investing are thriving. In the long run, those businesses that are able to create business value through creating social value survive. Those who make profits at the expense of society can do so temporarily, but in the end they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Examples show that CSV has  many advantages; companies can create business value, marketing value, and social value all at the same time.  For example, Coca-Cola´s Colectivo initiative in Brazil, in an ingenious attempt to improve the business performance of Coca-Cola retailers, connected retailers with unemployed business graduates who served as consultants. In doing so, the program increased the performance of its retailers, helped unemployed Brazilian graduates in getting their first job and work experience, and boosted brand connection all at the same time. CSV strategies have also helped companies like Intel, Nestlé, and Novo Nordisk in improving business performance and social performance at the same time. The results are seen in terms of higher quality products, more satisfied and better educated employees in developing countries, better safety standards, and happier customers.

Not unimportantly, the rate of return can often be predicted and monitored too. For a long time the traditional ´triple bottom line´, conjured up by CSR consultancies to promote a mix of economic, environmental, and social activities, did not convince executives very much. At the end of the day, shareholders and investors only look at one bottom line. Integrated CSV strategies actually help businesses turn their corporate citizenship into real business plans, including projections for cost-reduction, product quality, productivity, and more stable supply chains. Projects that proove to investors they have their cake, eat it too, and then still give a slice to society are by all means possible.

]]> http://resetweb.org/csr-the-missed-opportunities-of-choosing-cosmetics-over-impact/feed/ 0 http://resetweb.org/development-and-the-knowledge-problem-towards-an-open-source-development-sector/ http://resetweb.org/development-and-the-knowledge-problem-towards-an-open-source-development-sector/#comments Mon, 13 Oct 2014 18:13:05 +0000 Thomas Kruiper http://resetweb.org/?p=748 Knowledge about development is temporary, diffuse, and not locally owned. Apart from a few large International organisations, the almost infinite amount of data gathered by (International) non-governmental organisations (NGO) is completely inaccessible. This configuration, in which the interests of individuals and organisations are not aligned with the sector´s general purpose, is detrimental for effective development. In a world where knowledge means employment, such a configuration is hard to break through. But if the sector started sharing development knowledge openly, would it make itself redundant?

Over the past decades, mountains of valuable information have been gathered about pretty much every development issue imaginable. From crop yields per acre to training manuals for civil society groups, and from exploratory research on seasonal migration to impact studies of literacy campaigns; there exists a whole universe of baseline studies, impact studies, manuals, databases, and evaluations.

Some of this information is freely accessible at the online platforms of large international organisations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, and Transparency International. Access to such data is great for comparative research. However, the bulk of the existing data about development is gathered by INGOs and small-scale NGOs that work from international to local scales and that keep their research to themselves. The number of INGOs can still be counted (around 40.000 worldwide), while the number of NGOs can only be guessed. India was estimated to be home to 2 million NGOs in 2009, one for every 600 citizens. Considering that each of these organisations collects a variety of data each and every year, the combined knowledge is almost infinite.

So data published by big international organisations is just the tip of the iceberg. The specific and local knowledge is completely intransparent and inaccessible. Many people in the sector seem to acknowledge this problem, but only few point out or do something about it.

Knowledge about development is temporary, diffuse, and not locally owned

Knowledge is temporary because the people that own it come and go. Very few foreigners are committed to one issue in one region for a lifetime. Most world-changers come for a few years, make a contribution, up their street credit, and move on. After all, that is what is best for one´s career and that´s what counts. The interests of the sector as a whole and those who depend on it thus fail to align. In the meantime, the beneficiaries who should benefit from the knowledge accumulated in the sector stay empty handed.

The temporary nature of knowledge has been exemplified during the past months by the ebola crisis in West Africa. Besides the obvious and horrendous public health disaster, the food shortages, the security threats, and the virtual economic standstill, Guineans, Sierra Leoneans, and Liberians have also been forced to say goodbye to most of their NGO workers. Contrary to a few brave health workers and volunteers that poured into the region, most traditional NGO workers have gone the other direction, waiting for the storm to blow over. As months go by, it becomes clear that many of those who intended to leave temporarily feel compelled (or are forced) to look for other career options, taking with them lots of built up experience and expertise. From the individual´s perspective this makes complete sense, but it is disastrous for those who stay behind.

Knowledge is diffuse because it is either stored with temporary experts or with the internal documents of NGOs and International organisations. The true origin of the knowledge problem lies here. The competitive nature of the sector, in which access to donor money seems to be a zero-sum game, causes organisations to keep knowledge internally rather than sharing it freely. On top of that, organisations are also afraid to publish on failed projects. After all, those NGOs that fail to deliver might miss out at the next round of proposals.

Data from ´competitors´ cannot be accessed, meaning that newbies have to invent the wheel over and over again. Consultants that monitor and evaluate projects suffer from – and contribute to – the same problem. The lack of centralised information leads them to – unknowingly – replicate studies that were already done by ´competitors´. On top of that, the quality of their work cannot be controlled because there is no possibility of peer review. So it´s not only about good knowledge being inaccessible, but also about bad knowledge being undetected! Nobody seems to really care though, because on an individual level everyone on the donors’ side seems to benefit. Newbies get more time to settle in, consultants keep on creating work for themselves, and everybody lives to work another day.

Finally, knowledge is not locally owned. One would perhaps expect local populations to know all about their development; they should by now be experts about methodologies, interventions, and the impacts of the NGO projects in their region. After all, for many aid recipients, development is their daily bread. They are the only ones who will be around in the long term and they have an obvious interest in what´s going on.

In reality, local populations are largely outside of the information flow. They don´t have a subscription to the newsletter. NGO´s and International organisations study them, and consultants ask them thousands of questions about the impacts or projects, but the results are mostly taken home and the only ones that really learn anything are those who do the studies.

The uncomfortable truth is that a world in which locals lead their own development knowledge is a world in which many expats, experts, and consultant become redundant. In the information age, information is power. For many people in the development sector, this means that information is employment. Giving that away for free is shooting oneself in the foot.

The development sector is thus not much different from normal business sectors, where information is sensitive and where owning information gives one a competitive advantage. And yet, the sector claims to be different, to work for the greater good. Its members tend to work for not-for-profit or public actors, and as such cannot solely focus on profit margins or competitive advantage. For them to be effective and outcome focused, considering sharing their knowledge with other sector members should be on the table: sharing knowledge among peers in order to mutually strengthen the sectors outcomes would distinguish it from other sectors, and be consistent with claims about their charitable nature.

Towards open source development

Data about development is plentiful in virtually every imaginable region and sector. If it were available as open source data, the accumulated knowledge would probably be bigger than that stored at academic storages. One can only begin to imagine the research possibilities, ranging from big data to local anthropological studies.

If knowledge were permanent, centralised, and locally owned, the development sector would benefit greatly. Donors and NGO´s would not have to waste thousands of dollars on duplications of studies. Independent consultants would truly be independent. Failing NGOs would be easier to identify, and knowledge would be owned by those who it´s all for: local populations.

For the moment, development as an open source is only day dreaming. Data is not widely available and is stored with self-interested individual experts and competitive organisations. As long as knowledge about development is not locally owned and publicly shared and stored, it cannot be used optimally to deal with urgent issues in the sector. Donors will lack comprehensive insight, projects and evaluators will be unaccountable, and locals will stay in the dark. For knowledge to be permanent and widely accessible, those who own it will need to share it.

In April 2012, eleven military leaders involved in the coup d´état in Guinea-Bissau were subjected to a UN travel ban. Although neatly in line with United Nations (UN) sanctions policy regarding sovereignty, in reality the sanctions were a painstakingly late reaction to the uprising of Guinea-Bissau as Africa´s first “narco-state”, which had been corroding politics and society for almost a decade. While institutions kept the Sanctions Committee hostage, the kingpins in Guinea-Bissau had plenty of time to ruin its governance structures. This analysis suggests that Guinea-Bissau only became a target of UN sanctions when it had made its way on the map as the first African “narco-state”. Unfortunately, the coup that justified UN agency to do something about it came almost a decade too late.

On the first of April 2012, just a few days before the second round of a presidential election, a military coup led by Admiral Bubo Na Chuto and Deputy Chief of Staff or the army Antonio Indjai triggered the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to impose travel sanctions on 11 military leaders involved in the coup.

If reversing the coup were the most important objective, the sanctions could probably be called a success. In May 2014, albeit after several delays, a new president (Jose Mario Vaz) was indeed elected in Guinea-Bissau. Also the committee recognised only one violation of the travel ban (the army chief of staff travelled to Cote d´Ivoire and Senegal on one occasion). For the moment the country enjoys relative political stability, although it still suffers from a range of structural threats such as extreme poverty and high corruption levels.

In any way, the coup d´état is largely irrelevant to the story, as the case of sanctions on Guinea-Bissau can hardly be explained as a genuine reaction to it. Guinea-Bissau has been the stage of many coups over the past decades (as have several other African states), and no one ever really bothered.

The coups of Bissau and the Rise of Africa´s first “Narco-State”

Since its Independence from Portugal in 1974, Guinea-Bissau has been the stage of four coup d´état´s and at least 6 other attempts. However, being an insignificant West African country home to less than 2 million inhabitants and with no strategic interest to the rest of the world, it was never important enough to make international headlines.

In 1980 Joao Bernardo Vieira staged the first coup, ousting the country´s first president Luis Cabral and allowing him to rule for the next 19 years. In 1998 another coup attempt split the government forces (supported by neighbouring countries) and coup leaders, who controlled large parts of the army. After 11 months of civil conflict and thousands of deaths, president Vieira was toppled and replaced. The next president, Kumba Yala, lasted for three years before he too was overthrown in 2003 in a military coup. After some tumultuous years, ex-president Vieira made a comeback from being exiled in Portugal and manages to win the 2005 elections. In 2009 he was assassinated by renegade soldiers. None of these events however ignited the urge to install a sanctions regime.

So for the last decades the coups in Guinea-Bissau went largely unnoticed, just as in many other countries that have lived through coup d´états without being targeted by UN sanctions. As long as coup d´états do not turn into bloody civil wars those who stage them tend to stay out of trouble.

So what made the international community change its mind? Since the mid-2000s media coverage on Guinea-Bissau, although still meagre, has become dominated by the issue of drug trafficking. As a small state with weak political infrastructure, high levels of poverty and corruption, and a favourable geography, Guinea-Bissau has turned out to be a perfect place for trafficking drugs from Latin America destined for the European market. The country´s Atlantic coastline is dotted with two dozen little islands that have proven comfortable smuggling havens for Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Brazilian and Venezuelan drug cartels that smuggle cocaine into Europe.

In 2008 a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recognised Guinea-Bissau as a new hub for cocaine trafficking in West Africa. Between 2005 and 2007 a total of 33 tons of cocaine were intercepted in West Africa on route to Europe, compared to a mere 1 ton prior to 2005. With the drug trafficking increasingly penetrating into Guinean society and politics, the peace building and democratisation efforts of the UN peace-building mission in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS) were largely undermined. The trafficking business negatively affected public security, respect for the rule of law, and public health (because of increased local consumption). Politics became increasingly corrupted, with politicians and military leaders being involved.

As the situation worsened in 2010 and 2011, donors retrieved and the European Union (EU) decided to stop training Guinean security forces and suspends part of its aid. The United States froze the assets of two drug-traffickers, and the UNODC and Interpol helped Guinea-Bissau set up a Transnational Crimes Unit. In the meantime the two alleged drug kingpins subjected to US asset freezes were promoted to Army Chief (Antonio Indjai) and head of the Navy (Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto). Tchuto was arrested by the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in international waters on 4 April 2012 (8 days before the coup) and is currently on trial. Indjai has also been indicted by the United States but still walks free in Bissau. On 12 April 2012, when the military toppled the interim government, Indjai was placed on the UN travel ban list along with 10 other military officials.

How institutions strangle effective sanctions policy

Guinea-Bissau´s timeline shows a variety of coup d´états and attempted coups, none of which seemed important enough to arouse real attention. When the country increasingly turned into a cocaine transfer-port and a weak state, it became clear something had to be done in order to protect the interests of those suffering from this trade. However, imposing UN sanctions on a sovereign state in reaction to smuggling activities was not a policy option. So the only option was to wait for a ´legitimate´ excuse, such as a civil war, a terrorist attack, or indeed a military coup.

Coup d´états have been an accepted imperative for UN sanctions since the early 1990s and the sanctions regime on Haiti to reinstall President Aristide, who was ousted in a military coup in 1991. In the late 1990s the UN Sanctions Committee also increased the technical and legal capacity to impose targeted sanctions on individuals. Since 1999 the UN has imposed and implemented asset freezes and travel sanctions on individuals and groups in over a dozen conflicts, with mixed success. However, when it comes to reversing coup d´états, the case of Guinea-Bissau is the first one since that of Haiti in the early 1990s.

During the coups of 1999 and 2003 and the assassination of Vieira in 2009, the UN Security Council and the Sanctions Committee had all the technical capacity and institutional consensus to interfere with the internal politics of Guinea-Bissau. However, apparently the coup d´états in an insignificant country such as Guinea-Bissau were not important enough to arouse sufficient attention in the UNSC. With the 2012 coup the UNSC finally had a legal excuse to impose sanctions on the individuals implicated in the drug trafficking. However, by then Guinea-Bissau had already become fully integrated in the drug-cartel; the damage had already been done.

The case of Guinea-Bissau shows that the reality of UN sanctions as an institution is one of restrictions and obstacles rather than one about values and norms. The sanctions were clearly a reaction to the drug trafficking that had been undermining Bissau-Guinean politics and society since 2005 or longer. However, in order to impose sanctions they first needed a coup d´état to take place. Unfortunately that coup didn´t come until 2012, when Guinea-Bissau´s transformation to “narco-state” had already been completed and had thoroughly disrupted and corrupted governance.

Would things have turned out different if the UN had imposed sanctions earlier? Perhaps not; UN travel bans are not almighty tools of political coercion. However, the case of Guinea-Bissau does show how institutionalised rules regarding sanctions policy can delay and distort effective decision-making. If those actors interested in pursuing drug-kingpins (US, EU) just transparently put forward their interests and security concerns, rather than waiting for a coup d´état to take place to justify their actions, it would be much easier for analysts to keep oversight and for actors to take timely action.

In Kenya, Having worked as a day labourer for years on end, mr. Omondi one day woke up to receive an sms-text saying he had been given $500 US, no strings attached! He had been one of the recipients selected in a programme where poor families in poor rural villages were given free cash-transfers to help them out of poverty. No conditions, no pay-backs, just free money. Local villagers suspected that the government was somehow behind it, trying to buy votes. People in the development industry were mostly afraid that recipients wouldn’t be able to handle the money wisely, spending it on alcohol and cigarettes. However, none of this happened. Many people in the programme used the money to replace their thatched roofs with metal roofs, which costs a few hundred dollars, but saves money in the long term. The results? People also invested in livestock and small businesses, showing a 48% increase in revenues from animal husbandry, for example. Mr. Omondi bought a motor-cycle to drive people from town to town, making $6 to $9 a day, more than doubling his daily salary, and enabling him to buy a second bike to expand his business.

Most cash-transfers programmes are not one-time lottery tickets however. More and more developing countries, most notably Brazil, Mexico, South-Africa, but also Indonesia, Namibia, Bolivia, Armenia and many others, are setting up long-term programmes that target a substantial but selected portion of the population and gives them a monthly cash transfer between 3$ and 100$ a month. Cash-transfer programmes differ greatly from each other, but are similar in the sense that (1) they benefit a selected group of poor families, (2) that the transfers are monthly and on a long-term basis, and (3) that there are no or few conditions as to how the money is spent. The basic results: It pushes the poorest families out of absolute poverty; it leads to more capital investments, local economic growth, better health, more children going to school, and lower birth rates; all without outside interference. For example, children that benefit from the Oportunidades programme in Mexico (which gives an average of 38$ a month to poor households) are 23% more likely to finish grade 9 than those outside of the programme. The same programme also meant that people eat 8% more calories and a more balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, and meat, leading to fewer illnesses among children and fewer sick-days for adults. In Brazil, the Bolsa Familia (family grant) and Bolsa Escola (school grant) programmes helped in bringing down poverty from 28% in 2001 to 17% in 2008.

Why cash-transfer programmes make sense and are affordable

Just as in developed western societies, various countries in the global South have recognized that everyone in society deserves a minimum amount of economic security. The cash-transfers are a right, not charity. Obviously, the transfers are only for selected groups of people in need, and they don´t serve as a substitute for salary through labour. Depending on the country and the programme, the transfers vary between USD $3 and USD $100 per month per individual or per family.

There are two important counter arguments to the idea behind cash-transfers in developing countries. One, can states afford such kinds of projects? And two, doesn´t handing out free money kill initiative and entrepreneurship, making people lazy and dependent? The answer is that pessimistic expectations with regard to the latter lead people to over-estimate the importance of the former. In other words; cash-transfers lead to local economic growth in the longer term, helping people out of the poverty trap and making the cash-transfer programmes not just relatively cheap, but actually profitable.

Let´s start with the argument that “charity” takes away initiative and entrepreneurship, a theory that micro-credit guru Muhammad Yunus has been fond of pointing out. Cash-transfer programmes in Mexico, South Africa, and Brazil have however shown that the money transferred to poor families is almost never spoilt. Admittedly, the money is not always invested, but rather spent on keeping children in school, or buying more nutritious food. This might not harvest direct financial profits, but certainly helps in long term development; Children in the Mexican Oportunidades programme, for example, are more likely to finish 9th grade, are healthier, and score higher grades. But cash-transfer programmes, just like micro-credits, can also have a multiplier effect for local businesses, because the extra cash allows people to invest in tools or skills and setting up a small enterprise. Poor people tend to invest and consume locally, creating a double benefit for the local economy. Also, cash-transfers don´t necessarily replace micro-credits. As a matter of fact, they can serve to make micro-credits safer and more attractive. Indeed, studies have shown that beneficiaries of cash-transfer programmes are more receptive to taking financial risks.

The fact that cash-transfer programmes are cost-effective in the long term takes away a big obstacle for governments as to who is going to pay. There are however other comprehensible concerns. Firstly, cash-transfer programmes are not a silver bullet to solving poverty; they can help people out of absolute poverty and intergenerational poverty, and they contribute to strengthening local economies and promoting social mobility, but only few make it to middle class. Also, the bigger the amount of cash per family, the less families you can select, and vice versa. In order to be able to afford a substantial programme, a government needs a solid tax-base or windfalls from resource-exports.

Why the development sector should jump on the bandwagon

But the money could also come directly from the international development sector. If governments in the global South can demonstrate that there is no need for paternalistic nudges, conditionality, or moral guidance, why couldn´t the development sector follow suit? There are many reasons to suggest that it should.

Firstly, cash-transfer programmes simply have a pretty convincing track-record when it comes to helping people out of poverty. In other words, it simply works. Cash-transfers are right-based rather than charity based, they are pragmatic in the sense that by nature they empower beneficiaries, and they are cheaper because each invested dollar has the potential of turning into two dollars. Many countries that currently benefit from ´traditional´ forms of cooperation could hugely benefit from switching to a more direct approach.

The development sector could jump on the bandwagon in two ways. The simplest way is by pitching in directly where governments lack public money to pay for cash-transfer programmes. But the development sector has an at least equally important role to play when it comes to actively stimulating development through the provision training, research, expertise and other services. ONLY giving money helps people in climbing out of the poverty trap, but they do still need a hand to pull themselves up. The development sector has all the necessary qualities to be this hand stretching out. Sadly, the hand that the development sector is currently stretching out is that of NGOs stretching their hands upwards to donors.

If the development sector were to learn from the logic behind cash-transfer programmes, they would fund locally identified needs directly. Donors could allow funds to flow more easily and directly to local communities (through local connectors), empowering those on the ground and connecting local needs to global resources.

This article is part of the Polis Project, a ReSeT programme focused on connecting local needs to global resources.

In the first part of the essay I will show that sanctions have not only become better at undermining targets economically, but that the norms and values that surround sanctions policy have also changed substantially. The power of institutions and ideas has been especially strong in determining when sanctions may be imposed. Throughout history, UN sanctions have been imposed for increasingly ambitious goals with regard to ideas such as racial equality, human security, and liberal democracy. As tools of an ever more precise machine, UN sanctions help to terminate conflicts and to protect human rights, and even to construct a sustainable liberal peace.

In the second part I will explain that the ideas behind UN sanctions policy have become so institutionalized in global governance that one would almost consider them as mere bureaucratic functions, free of power. However, the ideas that are embedded in UN sanctions policy were forwarded by someone and for something. Why did these ideas about sanctions, and not other ideas, become institutionalized? I will show that the norms and values surrounding UN sanctions are not only projections of power, but also reflections of constitutive power. The ideas that dominate contemporary UN sanctions policy were not god-sent or the product of exact science; they were created by people with histories, needs, and beliefs.

To read the whole text in pdf format, please click here.

The efforts to bring Crimea back to the Ukraine are almost certainly in vain, but at least the sanctions send out a strong message of disapproval, and they hit Putin and the Russian political and economical elite where it hurts…or do they? What are the EU and US trying to achieve? Which sanctions have been imposed so far? And will they put their money where their mouth is?

Choose your objectives wisely

Sanctions have been imposed in the past for various reasons. They have been imposed to reverse the policies of targeted countries, be they acts of territorial aggression, coup d´état´s, or human rights abuses. But they can also be imposed simply to signal disapproval and outrage, or to deter other potential wrongdoers from breaking the law, and to deter the target at hand from going further down the road. Russia unlikely to be compelled to give up Crimea, but the US and EU sanctions can at least put the bear back in its cage.

When sanctions were instituted in the League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that comprehensive economic sanctions would bring ´a type of pressure upon targets that no modern nation would be able to resist´. Territorial aggression would be reversed without the use of a single soldier. Of course reality turned out to be much different; sometimes they were poorly implemented and hopelessly ineffective. In cases such as Iraq and Haiti on the other hand, they were disproportionally harsh on innocent civilians, who starved to death as results of food shortages. Since the late 1990s the strategy thus shifted towards targeting individuals and banks, in order to disturb only the interests of those in power.

Reversing the policies of targeted countries through the sole means of individual sanctions is difficult, especially when the target is a superpower like Russia. Putin is unlikely to be sufficiently impressed by asset freezes and travel sanctions to suddenly give up Crimea, even if the sanctions target people in his inner circle like deputy prime minister Dimitry Rogozin and presidential advisors. The Ukraine has lost the peninsula and they will most likely not get it back. It seems like a shut and closed case. But can the sanctions at least serve other purposes?

In the past, sanctions have also been used simply to express disapproval or outrage about certain practices. Sanctions stand between statements and soldiers. The first two sanctions regimes imposed by the United Nations on white minority regimes in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa were hardly impressive economically, but at least they signalled a strong message of disapproval. White Africans certainly felt this pariah-status heavily on their shoulders. The European and American sanctions on Russia are likely to have a similar effect. They also stand between words and wars, to use a different alliteration. They might not change the status of Crimea, but at least Russia will feel that a large part of the (western) world disapproves of their actions.

A third and arguably the most important reason to impose sanctions is to warn other countries that certain actions don´t go unpunished. Punishing one target can deter others from behaving outside of international law or outside of international public opinion. For example, the sanctions on Iran and North Korea might not talk them out of continuing their nuclear programmes, but at least it can scare off other states. In a similar vein, generals plotting a coup d´état might think twice before taking action. In the Crimea crisis, the sanctions also signal that Russia should not try to further destabilize the Ukraine or to embark on other geopolitical adventures. NATO officials are concerned that Putin has also put his eye on Transnistria, a Russian speaking secessionist region of Moldova that borders the south-west of Ukraine.

Will the EU and US put their money where their mouth is?

So far, the European and American lists include highly placed government officials, army-sector figures, and the owners of Russia´s biggest industries. Sanctioned politicians include Russian deputy prime minister Rogozin, presidential advisors Glazyev and Surkov, Duma-chairman Slutsky, Crimean ´prime-minister´ Aksyonov, and Ukrainian ex-president Yanukovych. The asset freezes have also hit Bank Rossiya, assumed to be Putin´s bank, and Arkadi Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko, two of Russia´s most powerful businessmen.

The screws can be drawn even tighter on Russia if it doesn´t back down. So far the measures have included exclusion from the G8 talks that were supposed to be organized in Sochi this summer and a failed resolution at the UN Security Council. A next step would be to isolate Russia economically through the imposition of sanctions on oil and gas from Russia. However, Europe would certainly feel the measures of this double edged sword. Putin is already looking to the East for alternative trading partners, and China seems eager to sign a deal to buy more natural gas from Russia. The warming relationship between Russia and its eastern neighbours could also facilitate military contracts.

In the short run, a gas-embargo would definitely hurt the Russian economy though. Almost all of Russia´s natural gas go to Europe (89%), most notably Eastern Europe (24%) and Germany (24%). A sudden stop would most certainly disrupt the Russian economy, but it would also threaten global economic stability, primarily in Europe itself. Europe is equally dependent on Russia. Denmark, Norway, the UK, and the Netherlands produce some small amounts of natural gas, and they import LNG from countries such as Algeria, Quatar, and Nigeria, but the biggest supplier of gas remains Russia, especially in Eastern Europe and Germany. Would Europe be willing to go that far? It´s not likely. The Spanish have already complained that a Russian travel embargo would hurt the tourism sector. Other ´dove countries´ (Italy, Cyprus) even had trouble with the targeted sanctions on some individuals close to Putin, favouring a diplomatic solution. Hawk countries in the European such as the UK, Poland, and the Baltic states favour a tougher stand, but even they are likely to back down when it comes to economic sanctions.

For now, both the US and the EU can keep on tightening the screws on Russia by freezing the assets of more individuals and by prohibiting European and American citizens from doing business with Russian oligarchs. As long as such actions prove sufficient to keep Russia from further destabilizing the Ukraine, the western sanctions should be regarded a success. Russia chooses its battles carefully, and so should the EU and the US.

You may also be interested in reading the ReSeT Working Paper: Power and UN Sanctions by the same author.