Showing posts by Sean Peoples.
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University Podcasts Opening Up the Classroom
›August 2, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesI started taking courses at Berkeley last night—sort of. From the comfort of my own home (and comfy couch), I listened to Professor Nathan Sayre’s “Natural Resources and Population” course lectures on my iPod. I can take the course at my own pace, following along with the online course syllabus and listening in whenever I want. The only foreseeable drawback is that Professor Sayre will not call on me when my brain is teeming with questions.
Berkeley isn’t the only university opening its classrooms to eager dilettantes. Stanford University, Texas A&M;, Duke University, Penn State, and many more universities and colleges are offering free, downloadable podcasts of myriad elective and core courses. -
PODCAST – Trade, Aid, and Security
›July 26, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesCurrent approaches to trade and aid often fail to stem poverty, promote stability, or prevent conflict in the developing world. According to Trade, Aid and Security: An agenda for peace and development, existing policies are poorly designed and benefit rich countries, denying developing nations access to vital financial markets. Lifting people out of poverty requires a secure environment and effective trade and aid policies can promote the preconditions for peace and stability. Oli Brown, a project manager and policy researcher at the International Institute for Sustainable Development and one of the editors of Trade, Aid and Security, discusses current development strategies and the conditions for wider political and economic stability.
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PODCAST – Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth
›July 10, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesNext year, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population will live in cities. This urban growth is inevitable, says a new United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report. Although cities are sometimes thought of as synonymous with poverty and large ecological footprints, the report, entitled State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth, describes the unprecedented urbanization as an opportunity. Lead author George Martine discusses the misconceptions surrounding urbanization and the ways in which policymakers can maximize the benefits of urban growth.
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PODCAST – The Role of Gender in Population, Health, and Environment Programs
›June 21, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesGender is an oft-debated topic in the development community, usually focusing on ways to build equity and equality for women. So what are the appropriate roles of women and men? Who should take on responsibilities such as environmental management? What about family planning and reproductive health?
In the following podcast, experts Karen Hardee, senior adviser in reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and monitoring and evaluation at John Snow, Inc.; and Elin Torell, coastal resources specialist at the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center, address these questions, and specifically discuss the role of gender in field-based projects that incorporate population, health, and environment components. -
Persian Gulf to the “New Gulf”: New Book Takes New Approach to U.S. Energy Relationships
›May 29, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesAs Americans grow increasingly uneasy with our reliance on oil imports from the Middle East, a new region in Africa—the Gulf of Guinea—is emerging as a pivotal oil exporter. An ambitious new book, Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf, written by James J. F. Forest and Matthew V. Sousa, focuses on this region of Africa and highlights the U.S. strategic interest in its oil-producing countries: Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and the island nations of Príncipe and São Tomé. This “New Gulf” not only provides the U.S. with a new oil supply, but also affords a chance to reframe our energy relationships.
Oil consumption is on the rise, with the United States leading the pack at nearly 25 percent of aggregate global oil use. Meanwhile, rapid industrialization and economic growth in India and China continues to push demand even higher. The Gulf of Guinea region is vying to meet the demand.
This book asks a critical question: how will the New Gulf cope with growing demand for oil in the face of pervasive poverty, weak governance, and corruption? The crux of the problem: stability in this region is an obstacle. According to the authors, stability is contingent on a calculated foreign policy framework, and the United States’ ability to learn from its mistakes in its quest for Middle East oil:Our continued support for undemocratic regimes, coupled with our willingness to do virtually anything to maintain open and reliable access to the oil resources of the Middle East, has produced increasing animosity throughout the region that will take years of hard work to reverse.
The authors advocate building energy relationships that avoid the Middle East model—a model beset by “shortsighted U.S. interests rather than long-term, fundamental U.S. values.” Instead, they say, America’s energy relationship with the New Gulf should be stable and cooperative, and built off a clear framework that promotes three, integrated priorities:- 1. Human security
- Economic development
- Democratization
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Halfway Gone: Tracking Progress on the MDGs
›May 15, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesRemember the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? We are approaching the halfway point marking the 15-year effort toward eradicating poverty, and improving livelihoods and sustainability. Taking stock of progress in reaching these targets could not come at a better time.
The Global Monitoring Report 2007 annually reviews progress on the MDG targets and highlights emerging priorities on achieving them. This year’s report focuses on gender equity and fragile states. According to the report, progress is evident, but it is clear there is much more work to be done, specifically in harmonizing aid and “translating good intent into viable outcomes on the ground.” It also says that promoting gender equity and empowerment of women can be a conduit to achieve targets for universal primary education, improved child mortality rates and maternal health, and reduced HIV/AIDS transmission—each an MDG in its own right. Similar themes are voiced—albeit with an emphasis on health disparities—in Save the Children’s latest report State of the World’s Mothers: Saving the Lives of Children Under 5.
One of the most interesting resources in tracking progress is The World Bank Group’s Online Atlas of the Millennium Development Goals, which maps each of the eight MDGs by country. The atlas is an easily digestible interface with visually stimulating functions that complement narrative progress reports.
Together, these reports provide a sobering snapshot of what still needs to be done. Indeed, others sources point to the lack of quality data for indicators within the MDGs, which makes tracking progress and assessing success extremely difficult. The Global Monitoring Report doesn’t mince words when it says that “[s]even years after the Millennium Summit at which the MDGs were adopted, there is yet to be a single country case where aid is being scaled up to support achieving the MDG agenda.” Continuing with the MDG development framework is important, but failing to scale up support and harmonize donor effort could further stall progress and “jeopardize the credibility of the program itself.” -
Princeton Project Outlines New National Security Strategy
›March 29, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesAcademics and policymakers alike appreciate the complexity of new threats to national security like non-state actors and global terror networks. But a report released in September 2006 by the Princeton Project on National Security (PPNS) warns that ignoring unfashionable, but long-established geopolitical threats can endanger U.S. foreign policy. Billed as a bipartisan initiative, PPNS is ultimately an academic affair, with members of its group including such luminaries as Francis Fukuyama, G. John Ikenberry, Laurie Garrett, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Tod Lindberg, and Walter Russell Mead, among many others. The initiative engaged these experts to develop a basic framework of principle threats to U.S. national security and potential responses.
The old and new geopolitical dynamics are worth elucidating, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, gives us something to consider:“Old geopolitics has not gone away. China and Asia are rising rapidly, industrially, and economically. However, we are now just as threatened by the inability of governments to address terrorists within their country, prevent spread of disease and take care of the environment.”
The report cites energy independence and increased consumption as the dominant new challenges, particularly as U.S. consumption of oil increases, and in turn increases our dependence on foreign nations (featuring a who’s-who along the continuum of unpredictability). Rightly, the report supports incentives for energy alternatives. It also supports a gasoline tax and stricter fuel efficiency standards as ways to promote smarter approaches to increasing climatic changes.
Promoting these changes is a good start, but convincing policymakers to adopt them may be a greater challenge. -
Reforestation in Niger: Is It a Model for Success?
›February 13, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesYears of drought, irregular rainfall, and environmental degradation ravaged Africa’s Sahel region in the 1970s and ‘80s, exacerbating economic, social, and environmental conditions in one of the world’s poorest regions. Coupled with an exploding population, these events provoked a collective re-think on development and conservation policy—shifting toward regional schemes to boost local capacities, establish effective land use policies, and improve community resilience to unpredictable climate conditions. Farmers in southern Niger provide a success story, reports The New York Times:“Better conservation and improved rainfall have led to at least 7.4 million newly tree-covered acres in Niger, researchers have found, achieved largely without relying on the large-scale planting of trees or other expensive methods often advocated by African politicians and aid groups for halting desertification, the process by which soil loses its fertility.”
Nevertheless, drought is only one of many forces dictating life in the Sahel. Add to the mix unknown impacts of climate change on the region’s drought cycles, shifting political and military power as well as variable financial flows from volatile markets like oil and it remains to be seen if this model can be replicated and sustained throughout the region.
For additional resources on the Sahel, see University of Nigeria Professor Anthony Nyong‘s presentation at the Wilson Center.
