The biggest news at the end of the Brisbane G-20 on Sunday will be to confirm for the first time in an official G-20 communique that China will indeed chair the G-20 Summit in 2016. 

Coming on the heals of a momentous week of great power realignments and breakthroughs at the APEC Summit in Beijing and other one-on-one meetings of heads of state, the timing of China’s presidency of the G-20 Summit in 2016 could not be a better follow-up to this week’s accomplishments. It puts China in play as a global leader at a critical moment in geopolitical relations and in terms of several global agendas that will culminate in the next two years. It also provides an unusual opportunity for the U.S. and China to collaborate on a broader set of societal issues affecting everyone everywhere building on their agreements this week.

One of the reasons why the G-20 Summits have yet to realize their full potential is that the leaders-level summits have been captured by the finance ministers’ agendas and discourse. Leaders at G-20 Summits have individually and collectively failed to connect with their publics; ordinary citizens do not see their urgent issues being dealt with. Exchange rates, current account balances, reserve ratios for banks, and the role of the IMF do not resonate with public anxieties over their lives and livelihoods.

Three streams of global issues will culminate in 2015:  the forging of a “post-2015 agenda” on sustainable development with a new set of global goals to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); the agreement on  “financing for development” (FFD) arrangements and mechanisms to support the new post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be realized in 2030; and the achievement of a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the end of 2015, which looks more promising now than it did a week ago.

What has been learned from previous global goal setting processes is that building on the momentum for the goal-setting process in 2015 and carrying it directly into the mobilization of national political commitment, resources and policies for implementation is vital. China as a member of the G-20 troika in 2015 through 2017 will be in crucial position of bridging the goal-setting and implementation phases of the new SDGs for 2030 to be adopted at the United Nations in September of next year.

China, as one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, will be in a pivotal position to create complementarities between the G-20 forum for the major economies and the U.N. as a forum for all countries for this critical period of setting the global sustainability agenda for the next fifteen years.  

The post-2015 agenda for social, economic and environmental sustainability is of high interest to the United States, and the new China-U.S. climate change agreement in Beijing this week augurs well for collaboration between the two countries on the broader agenda. White House Chief of Staff John Podesta was on the high-level panel for the post-2015 development agenda last year, which signals high U.S. policy involvement. The Shanghai Institute for International Studies has argued in a recent paper for the U.N. Development Program that “the G-20 and the U.N. could have certain complementary roles. The development issue could become the one linking the major work of both the U.N. and the G-20.”  

The world should welcome the unique role that China can now play in bringing the international community and the global system of international institutions together in charting a common path forward building on the progress made in the various summits this week. 

      

The G-20 Summit begins in Brisbane, Australia this Saturday, November 15. Leaders are descending on the city to tackle the biggest economic challenges facing the planet. A major theme of the discussions will likely be convergence—the rapid approach of average incomes in low- and middle-income countries towards those in advanced economies—and its sustainability. In a recent brief in the Brookings Global Think Tank 20 series, I explore this issue in the sub-Saharan African context, examining what has been holding the region back, how Africa might reach the rapid convergence seen by other emerging economies, and if and how convergence might be sustained. For my full brief, see here.

As most know, despite the “growth miracles” happening on the continent, sub-Saharan Africa still has a long way to go. Africa’s economic growth started much later and has gone much slower than the rest of the developing world; thus its per capita income gap against advanced economies still remains quite large. In fact, Africa hasn’t even converged with other emerging economies (see Figure 1). 

In addition to slow growth, Africa faces many, many challenges: Conflict-ridden countries still face a declining income per capita, and inequality is rampant. While Africa’s poverty rate is dropping, its share in global poverty is not: In 1990, 56 percent of Africans lived on under $1.25 a day, meaning that they represented 15 percent of those in poverty worldwide. Over the next 20 years, the region’s poverty rate dropped to 48 percent, but its share of global poverty doubled. At this rate, many predict that by 2030 Africa’s poverty rate will fall to 24 percent, but represent 82 percent of the world’s poor (Chandy et al., 2013). 

Of the utmost importance for convergence, though, is the issue of structural transformation in the region. If sub-Saharan Africa can reduce its reliance on unproductive and volatile sectors, it will build a foundation on which economic growth—and convergence—can be sustained.

Current African Economies: Agriculture, Natural Resources and Services

Currently, African economies are characterized by a reliance on natural resources, agriculture and a budding services sector. Natural resources are, and will likely continue to be, major drivers of Africa’s economic growth: About 20 African countries derived more than 25 percent of their total merchandise exports in 2000-2011 from them. Unfortunately, this dependence on natural resources comes hand-in-hand with challenges such as financial volatility, rent-seeking behavior, and a loss of competitiveness, among many others—making a turn away from them necessary for long-term, sustainable growth. Similarly, most African economies depend heavily on the low-yield agriculture sector—its least productive sector and with the lowest income and consumption levels.

While labor has been moving out of the agriculture sector, it is moving into the services sector. From 2000-2010, the agriculture labor force share fell by about 10 percent while services grew by 8 percent (McMillan and Harttgen, 2014). While much of the movement into the services industry has been into productive areas such as telecommunications and banking, most service sector jobs in sub-Saharan Africa are informal.  Although informal activities offer earning opportunities to many people, they are often unstable and it is far from clear that they can be an engine of sustainable and inclusive high economic growth. In addition, growth in the services sector overall has historically not shown the economic returns that industry has.

If policymakers can enhance productivity in the services sector, then growth could take off even more rapidly, but until then, the highly productive manufacturing sector will be the key to Africa’s convergence. (For more on this, see the attached PowerPoint presentation.)

The Missing Piece: African Industry

Industrialization in Africa is low: Manufacturing–the driver of growth in Asia—employs less than 8 percent of the workforce and makes up only 10 percent of GDP on the continent (Rodrik, 2014). In comparison to the 8 percent growth in the services sector from 2000-2010, manufacturing saw only 2 percent growth (McMillan and Harttgen, 2014). In addition, the region’s manufacturing sector is dominated mostly by small and informal (and thus less productive) firms. Since the research has shown that industry was key to the explosive and continued growth in Asia and Europe, without concentration on or support of the manufacturing sector, African economies are not likely to replicate those convergence dynamics (Rodrik, 2014). Thus, Africa’s slow pace of industrialization means that, in addition to its late start time and its past sluggish growth, the region has another obstacle towards convergence.

There is hope, however; there are already hints that structural transformation might be happening. The recent rebasing of Nigeria’s economy revealed some important new trends. There, the contribution from oil and gas to GDP fell from 32 to 14 percent, and agriculture from 35 to 22 percent. At the same time, the telecommunication’s contribution sector rose from 0.9 to 9 percent, and manufacturing from 2 to 7 percent.

Achieving a successful economic transformation will help capitalize on improved growth fundamentals and achieve high and sustained per capita growth rates. However, for such a process to yield lasting benefits, it is crucial to better understand the ongoing structural changes taking place in Africa. This is an important task for economists studying Africa and, in addition to achieving a “data revolution,” both meta-analysis and case study methods can be useful complements to the current body of research on the continent.

References

Chandy, Laurence, Natasha Ledlie, and Veronika Penciakova. 2013. “Africa’s Challenge to End Extreme Poverty by 2030: Too Slow or Too Far Behind?” The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. April 2013, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/05/29-africachallenge-end-extreme-poverty-2030-chandy

McMillan, Margaret and Ken Harttgen. 2014. “What is Driving the Africa Growth Miracle?” NBER Working Paper No. 20077, April. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20077

Rodrik, Dani. 2014. “An African Growth Miracle?” NBER Working Paper No. 20188, June. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20188

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The world’s top economies had much to discuss at the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia last month, including reinvigorating global growth, the reduction of trade barriers, financial regulation reforms, and global infrastructure. The G-20 meeting took place at a key time for U.S. international economic policy, as it came on the heels of President Obama’s prior stops at the APEC summit and the ASEAN summit. As the U.S. joins its G-20 colleagues in aiming to boost G-20 GDP by an additional 2 percent by 2018, there remain many questions about how G-20 countries will follow through with the goals set in Brisbane.

On December 3, the Global Economy and Development program and the Economic Studies program at Brookings welcomed U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs Nathan Sheets in his first public address since being confirmed in September. Following the recent G-20 meeting, Sheets discussed his perspectives on priorities for international economic policy in the years ahead across key areas including trade, the international financial architecture, and the United States’ evolving economic relationships.

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Editor's Note: The paper is part of a book entitled, “The G8-G20 Relationship in Global Governance.”

Future global growth faces many challenges. The first is securing economic recovery from the global financial crisis and reviving strong growth. The euro area has experienced a double-dip recession. Growth remains subdued in other advanced economies. Emerging economies (including the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as other major emerging economies) had been the driver of global growth, accounting for almost two thirds of global growth since 2008, but in 2013 they too were experiencing slowing growth. The second challenge is sustaining growth. Many countries have large and rising public debt, and face unsustainable debt dynamics (International Monetary Fund [IMF] 2012). Environmental stresses put the longer-term sustainability of growth at risk. The third challenge is promoting balanced growth. Large external imbalances between countries — China's surplus and the U.S. deficit being the most notable — put global economic stability at risk and give rise to protectionist pressures. Unemployment has reached high levels in many countries, and there are concerns about a jobless recovery. And economic inequality within countries has been rising. More than two thirds of the world's people live in countries where income inequality has risen in the past few decades.

Thus, promoting strong, sustainable, and balanced growth is central objective of the Group of 20 (G20). A core component of the G20 is the Working Group on the Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth. Yet G20 policy actions since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 have focused mainly on short-term crisis response. Economic stabilization is necessary and risks to stability in the global economy, especially those in the euro area, call for firm actions to restore confidence. However, short-term stabilization only buys time and will not produce robust growth unless accompanied by structural reforms and investments that boost productivity and open new sources of growth. To be sure, several G20 members have announced or are implementing structural reforms. But the approach to strengthening the foundations for growth, meeting the jobs challenge, and assuring the longer-term sustainability of growth remains partial and piecemeal. Some elements of an approach are present, but the unrealized potential for a coherent and coordinated strategy and effort is significant. The G20 needs to move beyond a predominately short-term crisis management role to focus more on the longer-term agenda for strong, sustainable, and balanced growth. 

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2015 is a pivotal year for global development; this fall is a pivotal moment. Meetings this fall will determine the global vision for sustainable development for 2030.

Three papers being released today—“Action implications focusing now on implementation of the post-2015 agenda,” “Systemic sustainability as the strategic imperative for the post-2015 agenda,” and “Political decisions and institutional innovations required for systemic transformations envisioned in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda”—set out some foundational ideas and specific proposals for political decisions and institutional innovations, which focus now on the implementation of the new global vision for 2030. This blog summarizes the key points in the three papers listed below.

Fundamentals for guiding actions, reforms and decisions

1) Managing systemic risks needs to be the foundational idea for implementing the post-2015 agenda.

The key political idea latent but not yet fully visible in the post-2015 agenda is that it is not a developing country poverty agenda for global development in the traditional North-South axis but a universal agenda based on the perception of urgent challenges that constitute systemic threats.

The term “sustainable development” by itself as the headline for the P-2015 agenda creates the danger of inheriting terminology from the past to guide the future.

2) Goal-setting and implementation must be effectively linked.

The international community learned from the previous two sets of goal-setting experiences that linking implementation to goal-setting is critical to goal achievement.  G-20 leader engagement in the post-2015 agenda and linking the success of the G-20 presidencies of Turkey (2015), China (2016), and Germany (2017) would provide global leadership for continuity of global awareness and commitment.

3) Focus on the Sustainable Development Goals must be clear.

Criticism of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as being too defuse and too detailed is ill-founded and reveals a lack of political imagination. It is a simple task to group the 17 goals into a few clusters that clearly communicate their focus on poverty, access, sustainability, partnership, growth, and institutions and their linkages to the social, economic, and environmental systemic threats that are the real and present dangers.

4) There must be a single set of goals for the global system.

The Bretton Woods era is over. It was over before China initiated the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). Never has it been clearer than now that maintaining a single global system of international institutions is essential for geopolitical reasons. For the implementation of the post-2015 agenda, all the major international institutions need to commit to them.

Proposals for political action and institutional innovations

In a joint paper with Zhang Haibing from the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies (SIIS), we make five specific governance proposals for decision-makers: 

1) Integrating the SDGs into national commitments will be critical.

The implementation of the post-2015 agenda requires that nations internalize the SDGs by debating, adapting and adopting them in terms of their own domestic cultural, institutional, and political circumstances. It will be important for the U.N. declarations in September to urge all countries to undertake domestic decision-making processes toward this end.

2) Presidential coordination committees should be established.

To adequately address systemic risks and to implement the P-2015 agenda requires comprehensive, integrated, cross-sectoral, whole-of-government approaches.  South Korea’s experience with presidential committees composed of ministers with diverse portfolios, private sector and civil society leaders provides an example of how governments could break the “silos” and meet the holistic nature of systemic threats.

3) There needs to be a single global system of international institutions.

China’s Premier Li Keqiang stated at the World Economic Forum in early 2015 that “the world order established after World War II must be maintained, not overturned.” Together with a speech Li gave at the OECD on July 1st after signing an expanded work program agreement with the OECD and becoming a member of the OECD Development Center, clearly signals of China’s intention to cooperate within the current institutional system. The West needs to reciprocate with clear signals of respect for the increasing roles and influence of China and other emerging market economies in global affairs.

4) We must move toward a single global monitoring system for development targets.

The monitoring and evaluation system that accompanies the post-2015 SDGs will be crucial to guiding the implementation of them. The U.N., the OECD, the World Bank, and the IMF have all participated in joint data gathering efforts under the International Development Goals  (IDGs) in the 1990s and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the 2000s. Each of these institutions has a crucial role to play now, but they need to be brought together under one umbrella to orchestrate their contributions to a comprehensive global data system.

5) Global leadership roles must be strengthened.

By engaging in the post-2015 agenda, the G-20 leaders’ summits would be strengthened by involving G-20 leaders in the people-centered post-2015 agenda. Systemically important countries would be seen as leading on systemically important issues. The G-20 finance ministers can play an appropriate role by serving as the coordinating mechanism for the global system of international institutions for the post-2015 agenda. A G-20 Global Sustainable Development Council, composed of the heads of the presidential committees for sustainable development from G20 countries, could become an effective focal point for assessing systemic sustainability.

These governance innovations could re-energize the G-20 and provide the international community with the leadership, the coordination, and the monitoring capabilities that it needs to implement the post-2015 agenda.

       

We will likely look back on 2015 as a consequential year in China’s evolving global strategy. The September crash of the stock market in Shanghai marks the first contemporary occasion when China’s internal difficulties have had global consequences. In November, China will take over the leadership of the G-20 and have an opportunity to put its stamp on the evolving tools of global governance. And on September 28, President Xi Jinping will address the world during the 70th anniversary of the only global body in which China already has full powers—the United Nations.

A rising power, cut from different cloth

But with greater consequence comes greater responsibility. President Xi’s job at the U.N. in 2015 will be harder than in recent years. For the past several years the international community has been transfixed by the narrative of the rising powers, and of American, or at least Western, decline. Now, America’s economic recovery, its energy revolution, its leadership on Ebola, and its re-engagement around the Islamic State (or ISIS)—however partial—has gutted the “American decline” narrative. 

And Xi’s putative allies in the forging of a post-American order—Russia, Brazil, and India—won’t be nearly the help to China they have often been presumed to be. President Vladimir Putin will speak against the backdrop of Russia’s aggressive strategy in Ukraine and now Syria; Brazil’s President Dilma Roussef against the backdrop of a deep recession and a huge corruption scandal; and while President Narendra Modi is still riding relatively high internationally, he’s hardly riding in a pro-China direction. 

China is more consequential than any of these other three, of course. But it faces its own challenge to its narrative as it doubles down on its assertive posture in the South China Sea and as its handling of the stock market collapse shows serious cracks in the narrative of the “Beijing model.” As Chinese growth has slowed, especially in the manufacturing sector, so has its consumption of global commodities—and the knock-on effect has been slower growth in dozens of developing countries that had ridden China’s boom. China isn’t quite the alternative “pole” to the West it has been hyped to be. 

Still, China is now clearly the number two economy in the world; the number two defense spender; the dominant force in politics and economic integration in East Asia; and an increasingly important voice on global issues. So hype and narrative aside, the world will be listening closely to what President Xi has to say at the U.N.—as they will when he takes the reigns of the G-20. 

In what direction is Chinese leadership heading?

At a 700-person-strong gala dinner in Seattle on Tuesday, President Xi rehearsed the arguments. China is committed to a peaceful rise. China has learned the lesson of the Second World War, and recognizes that military hegemony is not an option. China is committed to the multilateral order, and the U.N. Charter. He even teased the international relations scholarly community: “There is no Thucydides trap,” he said, referring to the idea that the growth of Chinese power will cause fear in the United States and lead to war. He stressed his theme about forging a “new kind of great power relations” that eschewed military competition for more creative approaches to cooperation on win/win issues. 

All these would be welcome messages at the U.N., and if he means it, they are profoundly important messages. But if Xi wants these messages to be believed, if he wants to gain credibility at the global level, he’s going to have to do more than just talk a good game. 

First, China is going to have to start acknowledging that leadership is less about abusing the privileges of power and more about absorbing costs. The world may be hungry for leadership, but it’s not hungry for leadership of the abusive kind. It’s hungry for actors capable and willing to set a direction and bear the lion’s share of the costs of action—because that’s the only thing that’s ever overcome the collective action challenges that otherwise bedevil cooperation at the international level. 

China is going to have to start acknowledging that leadership is less about abusing the privileges of power and more about absorbing costs.

Second, he has to put his strategy where his principles are. He could start with the U.N. Charter. It’s an essential document of the international order, but only if the great powers abide by its essential principles (not by every detail.) The most essential of these are the prohibition against the acquisition of territory by force and the assertion of non-interference in sovereign affairs (except with the backing of the Security Council). The United States has violated these principles, notably in Iraq—its violation was of a temporary nature, of course, but had huge consequences. Russia has violated these principles—its violation in Crimea is modest in scale but notionally permanent and a fundamental violation of the foundational principles of the U.N.

China’s actions in the South China Sea have been more subtle than these, but no less invidious or injurious to the notion of a stable international order. If China wants others to believe that it still intends for its rise to be peaceful, it needs urgently to shift strategy in the South China Sea—and it would be in a strong position, then, to call on the other great powers to recommit themselves to the principle of the non-use of force and respect for sovereignty. 

[Xi] has to put his strategy where his principles are. He could start with the U.N. Charter.

I’m reasonably optimistic about the first idea. China was among the most neuralgic of countries when it came to the global response to SARS a decade ago; it’s learned its lesson and was far more forward leaning on Ebola. It chipped in, albeit not to scale, on the eurocrisis. It’s made financial contributions to the counter-ISIS campaign. And it’s made commitments that, if kept, will make a vital difference on the climate. These efforts represent a serious start, and if President Xi expands China’s role in this kind of leadership it could position him well on global issues—especially during his G-20 presidency. 

I’m not so optimistic about the second. China shows every sign of being locked in an assertive-tilting-to-aggressive strategy in the South China Sea, consequences be damned. And with Russia also seemingly locked into a “wrong-foot the West” strategy, the United States and its allies will increasingly be pulled into an escalatory response—creating exactly the kind of Thucydidean trap President Xi ostensibly wants to avoid. (The United States bears responsibility here too, and it can also take steps to lower tensions in Asia.) 

The problem is, the further out we go along the pathway of security tensions in Asia, the more we undermine the prospects for win-win cooperation on global challenges like terrorism and climate. For now, these twin strands of strategy are in roughly equal balance—both rivalry and restraint are leitmotifs of Xi’s worldview, and of America’s. But 2015 is going to be an important testing time for the viability of this dual-strand approach. If Xi wants to start tilting the balance to win/win approaches, his speech at the U.N. is a good place to start. But even that would only be a beginning.

       

The flight of humans from Syria has been rapid, massive and dynamic. The number of refugees has grown from 26,000 in the first year of the war to almost 4.2 million now, four years later. It is time for bold action from the world to support Turkey and the other countries of the region hosting the vast majority of refugees.

None of Syria’s neighbors – the primary hosts of refugees – expected the displacement to reach such a scale, nor for the crisis to last this long. Many believed in the early days of the Arab Spring that the oppressive regime of Bashar al-Assad would be replaced by a reformist-minded, popularly-elected government - mirroring the transition that had just taken place in Tunisia and Egypt. Instead, Syria became mired in a civil war between an ever-growing number of opposition groups and the regime, whose repression of civilians, regardless of any involvement in the crisis, has forced millions to flee in terror on either side of the country’s borders.

Until recently, the overwhelming majority of the refugees were fleeing the indiscriminate attacks of the Syrian government. More recently, ISIS has been a significant source of terror, while even more recently Russia’s entry into the conflict has triggered another wave of flight.

Today, the refugee populations registered in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey total more than 4 million souls. Managing the presence of such large numbers of refugees has been costly on host countries economically, socially and politically. What was expected to be a temporary refugee influx has become a protracted crisis. With no signs of a resolution of the conflict in the foreseeable future, the refugees’ hope to return is diminishing.

The massive influx of refugees into Europe, often via extremely costly and life-threatening channels, reflects the despair and harsh living conditions that many refugees feel. Syrians constitute the majority of the 800,000 migrants that have crossed into Europe this year. As the crisis spills beyond Syria’s immediate neighbors, the EU is experiencing major challenges in managing a response. It is clear that attending to refugees is not only a concern of the immediate neighborhood – but that of a much wider region.

In looking at the challenges to Europe, it is important to underscore that neighboring countries have shouldered most of the burden of caring for the refugees, with inadequate assistance from the international community. Resettlement has been extremely limited, and roughly only a third of the pledges to U.N. response plans have been met.

Now is the time to adopt a comprehensive approach that will offer a better future for refugees and their hosts. Attention must be paid to two areas in particular: Education and access to employment. In this regard, it will be critical to move beyond a strategy focused on humanitarian relief to one explicitly structured around sustainable development and empowerment of refugees.

We need a globally-funded Recovery Program for the Middle East that brings about immediate action to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the economies and services of Syria’s neighbors. As part of that, we need to recognize the skills and income that refugees could contribute to the Turkish economy, if they were only allowed to do so. This program could not be carried out by the Turks alone, but would need the engagement of a range of actors – from the U.N. to the World Bank to the private sector and other donors.

Turkey and its neighbors have generously cared for more than 4 million refugees: But as the displacement crisis enters its fifth year, this burden needs to be shared out much more fairly and effectively.

Sadly, despite the desperate need for peace in Syria, we need to respond to the reality that Syrian refugees will not be able to return home for a while yet. As simultaneously the host of the world’s largest Syrian refugee population as well as host to the G-20 Summit, Turkey is in an ideal position to bring this reality to the attention of G-20 member-states – and leverage more resources to assist it and its neighbors to cope with the crisis.

G-20 leaders must commit to sharing Turkey’s burden and place increased emphasis on empowering refugees to shape their own destinies and become productive members of their host societies.

And it must be remembered: The majority of Syrians want to go home. Eventually they want to be able to contribute to rebuilding a stable and democratic nation for themselves and their families. But peace cannot be served while al-Assad drops barrel bombs on his people and ISIS beheads journalists on the steps of Palmyra. Our leaders must focus on a sustainable political solution to this conflict as the end goal of any plan for the region.

This piece was originally published by Hurriyet Daily News.

       

The tragic and deadly attacks in Paris, the day before leaders were set to arrive in Antalya, Turkey, for the G-20 summit, underlined the divisions that Syria, its fleeing population, and the terrorists of ISIS have created, as fear and short-term political calculations seem to shove aside policies aimed at sustainable solutions to the unprecedented refugee challenge.

It had started on a more hopeful note. Turkey, which chairs the G-20 this year, had placed the refugee issue on the agenda, hoping for a substantive global dialogue while looking for broad-based solutions to the crisis in Syria and the terrorism challenge. No doubt the 2 million refugees in Turkey played a big role, as President Erdogan and other officials tried to rally support for this unusual situation in a variety of G-20 and other venues.

Turkey was supported by another full member of the G-20, the EU, the only non-nation state member of the group, which shrugged off its complacency when hundreds of thousands turned up on its shores in 2015. European Council President Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, echoed the Turkish President in calling for a global response: “Meeting in Turkey in the midst of a refugee crisis in Syria and elsewhere, the G-20 must rise to the challenge and lead a coordinated and innovative response… recognizing its global nature and economic consequences and promote greater international solidarity in protecting refugees.”

The G-20 is an imposing group, consisting of the world’s 20 largest economies, accounting for 85 percent of its GDP, 76 percent of its trade, and two-thirds of its population. Established in 1999 and growing in reach since the 2008 financial crisis, it should be a body that carries weight beyond the economic, with effective mechanisms to have impact on the global agenda. Yet, while Syria and the refugee crisis was the first time the G-20 stepped outside its usual narrower economic mandate, the agenda was quickly overtaken.     

The tragedy in Paris highlighted deep divisions over the refugees. Poland’s new government was the first to announce that it would stop participating in the EU resettlement plan whereby it would have accepted 5,000 refugees. Politicians from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia as well as those with a nativist message from the Nordic countries, France, Germany, and others saw an opening for tighter border controls and a much less welcoming approach to the more than 800,000 refugees that have already made their way into Europe, not to mention the many more on the way. Such views linking refugees to terrorism are not restricted to Europe but can be seen on the other side of the Atlantic, as U.S. presidential candidates and some 27 State Governors declared that Syrian refugees were not welcome.

At this early date, except for a single Syria passport “holder”—a document easily acquired these days, and found near one of the suicide bombing sites in Paris—all those who died or are being sought as suspects are citizens of either France or Belgium. Clearly, there could be some who get into Europe by using the refugees as a cover but with literally thousands of Europeans fighting in Syria, the real threat emanates from the small number of home-grown extremists in Europe who have easy access to the West and a cultural and linguistic familiarity that will elude newcomers for years. This was the same scenario one saw in the Madrid, London, Copenhagen, and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris earlier this year. 

Fear is winning out over policy

The EU also appears in disarray on aiding the 4 million refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. This is significant since it is reduced funding and aid that is leading to the worsening of conditions in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and driving many to Europe. Turkey too is reaching its limits and may potentially face a million or more new refugees if Aleppo falls. Yet funds pledged to these countries remain largely unfulfilled—of the 2.3 billion euros pledged by EU governments, only 486 million are firm government offers. The discussions between the EU and Turkey for additional aid to refugees of 3 billion euros also remain less-than-certain since such aid requires that EU countries agree to receiving and distributing asylum-seekers from Turkey. It also underlines the lack of funding for Jordan and Lebanon.    

In the end, the G-20 yielded little by way of concrete actions on refugees, though additional border controls, enhanced airport security, and intelligence sharing were promised. There was a call for broader burden sharing and greater funding of humanitarian efforts, as well as a search for political solutions. The G-20 also added little to the broad outlines of a potential settlement on Syria discussed in Vienna, Austria, on November 14, 2015, a day before the start of the G-20 summit.

Unfortunately, these are the very things that separate G-20 members among and within themselves. The growing danger is that fear and political opportunism rather than well-thought-out polices will guide the global response to the greatest human displacement tragedy since World War II. It is precisely this fearful and exclusive reaction that ISIS seeks. Indeed, that legacy may live long after ISIS is gone.                           

       

For the past several years, international affairs have been analyzed through two lenses. One lens has focused on geopolitics: in particular, the question of how great power relations are evolving at a time of redistribution in the world’s economic and now also political power. The second lens considers the framework of global governance, especially the question of whether or not the existing formal and informal institutions have the tools and the ability to manage complex global challenges.

China's presidency of the G-20 bridges the issues of global governance and great power relations. At a basic level, the G-20 will set a tone for how major powers attempt to tackle the challenges that confront us all.

China’s assumption of the G-20 chairmanship in 2016 marks an important symbolic threshold. It is the first time a major non-Western power will chair the world’s premier body for international economic cooperation—not to mention one of the world’s most important geopolitical bodies, as well. China’s presidency comes at an important time in the substance of the G-20’s agenda, too, as a slowing Chinese economy is integral to the dynamics of an overall slowing global economy. As such, this event offers an opportunity to reflect on geopolitics and global governance—and the way forward. In short, what is the state of international order? 

Heading down a bumpy road?

There is little doubt that we are at an important inflection point in international order. For the past 25 years, the international system—with its win-win economic structures—has been relatively stable. But this order is under challenge and threat, and it is eroding. We risk the rise of a lose-lose international system, encompassing a deterioration of the security relations between great powers, and a breakdown of the basic structures of international cooperation. 

That may be the worst-case scenario, but it is a plausible one. Countries must be vigilant about preventing this outcome. Even though the established powers and the so-called emerging powers (clearly China is an emerged power) may not hold the same views about the content of international order, all sides have a stake in pursuing intense negotiations and engaging in debate and dialogue. It is imperative that parties find a middle ground that preserves key elements of the existing order while introducing some degree of adaptation, such that this order does not collapse.

For the past 25 years, the international system—with its win-win economic structures—has been relatively stable. But this order is under challenge and threat, and it is eroding.

A version of this kind of negotiation may occur later this year. Japan’s presidency of the G-7 will begin just ahead of China's presidency of the G-20, putting important issues into sharp relief. As the older, Western-oriented tool for managing global issues, the G-7 still focuses on global economics but increasingly tackles cross-cutting and security issues. The G-20 is the newer, multipolar tool through which both emerged and emerging powers collaborate—but, so far, members have limited their deliberations to economic issues. The two processes together will reveal the tensions and opportunities for improvement in great power relations and in geopolitics. 

Of particular note is where political and security issues fall on the dockets of these two bodies. Although the G-20 did tackle the Syria crisis at its St. Petersburg meeting in 2013, political and security issues have otherwise not been part of the group’s agenda. But these topics form an important part of the landscape of great power politics and global governance, and they are issues for which we find ourselves in very difficult waters. Tensions between the West—particularly Europe—and Russia are running high, just as disputes are mounting in Northeast Asia. The question of America’s naval role in the Western Pacific and China’s claims of a nine-dash line are serious flash points in the U.S.-China relationship, and we should not pretend that they are not increasingly difficult to manage, because they clearly are.

I believe it is shortsighted for the G-20 not to take up some of these tense security issues.

These are not part of the formal agenda of the G-20, but they should be. Although many economists may disagree with me, I believe it is shortsighted for the G-20 not to take up some of these tense security issues. The group’s argument has been to focus on economic issues, for which there are shared interests and progress can be made, which is a fair point. But history tells us that having difficult, tense issues involving a number of stakeholders leads to one of two scenarios: either these issues are managed in a credible forum, or tensions escalate and grow into conflict. There is no third option. Moreover, these are not issues that can be resolved bilaterally. They have to be settled in a multilateral forum.

In 2016, Japan will take up the issue of the South China Sea in the G-7—a scenario that is far from ideal, since key stakeholders will not be present. Even so, the G-20 refuses to take up security issues, leaving countries without an inclusive forum to deal with these tense security concerns. Of course, they could be raised in the U.N. Security Council, but that is a crisis management tool. We should be building political relations and involving leaders in preventing great power conflict, all of which, by and large, does not happen at the U.N. But it could happen at the G-20. 

With great power comes great responsibility

A better dynamic is at work with respect to the issues of climate change and global energy policy. The Paris climate accords are counted as a major breakthrough in global governance. To understand how the outcome in Paris was achieved, we have to look again at great power relations. What really broke the logjam of stale and unproductive negotiations was the agreement struck between President Xi and President Obama. Their compact on short-lived climate pollutants transformed the global diplomacy around climate change, yielding the broader agreement in Paris.

[G]reat power status primarily entails a responsibility to act first in resolving tough global challenges and absorbing costs.

Why did the U.S.-China agreement on climate change facilitate the Paris climate accords? The United States and China did not impose a framework, nor did they insist on a particular process or stipulate a set of rules. What they did was lead. They acted first and they absorbed costs. This is the essence of the relationship between great power politics and global governance.

Great power status confers a certain set of privileges, not least of which is a certain degree of autonomy. To that end, the United States has avoided multilateral rules more than other countries, and other countries may aspire to that status. But the larger point is that great power status primarily entails a responsibility to act first in resolving tough global challenges and absorbing costs. That is how great powers lead through a framework of global governance. In today’s world, where global governance will necessarily be more multipolar than in the past, we have to find new approaches to sharing the burdens of moving first and absorbing costs. That is, far and away, the most likely way to maintain a relatively stable but continuously adapting international order—one that is empowered to tackle global challenges and soothe geopolitical tensions.

       

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In an era of fluid geopolitics and geoeconomics, challenges to the global order abound: from ever-changing terrorism, to massive refugee flows, a stubbornly sluggish world economy, and the specter of global pandemics. Against this backdrop, the question of whether leader summitry—either the G-7 or G-20 incarnations—can supply needed international governance is all the more relevant. This question is particularly significant for East Asia this year as Japan and China, two economic giants that are sometimes perceived as political rivals, respectively host the G-7 and G-20 summits. 

On April 18, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies and the Project on International Order and Strategy co-hosted a discussion on the continued relevancy and efficacy of the leader summit framework, Japan’s and China’s priorities as summit hosts, and whether these East Asian neighbors will hold parallel but completely separate summits or utilize these summits as an opportunity to cooperate on issues of mutual, and global, interest.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #G7G20Asia

Audio

• Japan’s G-7 and China’s G-20 chairmanships: Bridges or stovepipes in leader summitry?

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• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

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• 20160418_g7g20_transcript

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

     

     

       

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From a bureaucratic backwater in the waning days of the Cold War, the fight against global poverty has become one of the hottest tickets on the global agenda. The cozy, all-of-a-kind club of rich country officials who for decades dominated the development agenda has given way to a profusion of mega philanthropists, new bilaterals such as China, "celanthropists" and super-charged advocacy networks vying to solve the world's toughest problems. While philanthropic foundations and celebrity goodwill ambassadors have been part of the charitable landscape for many years, the explosion in the givers' wealth, the messaging leverage associated with new media and social networking, and the new flows of assistance from developing country donors and diasporas together herald a new era of global action on poverty. The new scale and dynamism of these entrants offer hopeful prospects for this continuing fight, even as the new entrants confront some of the same conundrums that official aid donors have grappled with in the past.

On August 1-3, 2007, the Brookings Blum Roundtable gathered representatives reflective of this dynamic landscape to discuss these trends. Through robust discussion and continuing cross-sector partnerships, the conference hopes to foster lasting and widespread improvements in this new field of development.

2007 Brookings Blum Roundtable: Related Materials
	Read the roundtable report - Making Poverty History? How Activists, Philanthropists, and the Public Are Changing Global Development »  Download the participant list » (PDF)  Download the scene setter » (PDF)

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2007 Brookings Blum Roundtable Agenda:

1. Fighting Global Poverty: Who'll Be Relevant In 2020?
   • Matthew Bishop, The Economist, "Fighting Global Poverty: Who'll Be Relevant In 2020?"
   • Homi Kharas, The Brookings Institution, "The New Reality Of Aid"
   • Jane Nelson, Harvard University, "New Development Players And Models"
2. Angelina, Bono, And Me: New Vehicles To Engage The Public
   • Darrell M. West, Brown University, "Angelina, Mia, And Bono: Celebrities And International Development"
   • Joshua Busby, University of Texas, Austin, "Is There A Constituency For Global Poverty? Jubilee 2000 And The Future Of Development Advocacy"
   • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, The Brookings Institution, "Nigeria's Fight For Debt Relief: Tracing The Path"
3. Leveraging Knowledge For Development
   • Ashok Khosla, Development Alternatives Group, "Leveraging Knowledge To End Poverty"
   • Eric Brewer, University of California, Berkeley, "Development And Engineering"
4. Social Enterprise And Private Enterprise
   Chaired by: Mary Robinson, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative
   • J. Gregory Dees, Duke University, "Philanthropy And Enterprise: Harnessing The Power Of Business And Entrepreneurship For Social Change"
5. Africa's Economic Successes: What's Worked And What's Next
   Moderated by: Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada
   Panelists
   • Donald Kaberuka, African Development Bank
   • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, The Brookings Institution
6. Effecting Change Through Accountable Channels
   • Jane Nelson, Harvard University, "Effecting Change Through Accountable Channels"
   • Simon Zadek, AccountAbility, "Accountability Compacts: Collaborative Governance For The 21^stCentury"
7. Global Impact: Philanthropy Changing Development
   • Mark R. Kramer, FSG Social Impact Advisors, "Philanthropy, Aid, And Investment: Creating A Common Language"
   • Joseph O'Keefe, The Brookings Institution, "Aid - From Consensus To Competition?"
8. Keynote Address
   • Former Vice President Al Gore, Generation Investment Management

       

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Global poverty and climate change are two of the most pressing challenges for global policymakers today, and require policy prescriptions that address their interrelated issues. Effective climate solutions must empower development by improving livelihoods, health and economic prospects while poverty alleviation must become a central strategy for both mitigating emissions and reducing the poor’s vulnerability to climate change.

2008 Brookings Blum Roundtable: Related Materials
	Read the roundtable report - Double Jeopardy: What the Climate Crisis Means for the Poor? »  Read the related book »  Download the participant list » (PDF) Download the scene setter » (PDF) Download the full roundtable agenda » (PDF)

In its fifth annual gathering, led by Lael Brainard and co-chaired by Strobe Talbott and Richard C. Blum, the Brookings Blum Roundtable addressed the challenges of climate change and development and convened leaders from both the development and climate change communities from August 1-3, 2008, to discuss and debate policy ideas that could benefit both fronts. By examining common challenges—accountability, effective deployment of resources, agenda-setting, mobilizing the public and financial resources, and achieving scale and sustainability—the Roundtable established a solid foundation for collaboration among the climate change and development communities and fostered ideas for policy action.

Keynote Sessions

Keynote Panel: “Noble Nobels: Solutions to Save the Planet”

• Steven Chu, University of California, Berkeley
• Al Gore, Generation Investment Management; 45^th Vice President of the United States

Keynote Panel: Legal Empowerment of the Poor

• Mary Robinson, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative
• Madeline Albright, The Albright Group; Former U.S. Secretary of State

Keynote Panel: “How Do We Achieve Climate Justice?”

• Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty
• Mary Robinson, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative
  
  

       

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Lifting an estimated 1.2 billion people from extreme poverty over the next generation will require robust and broadly-shared economic growth throughout the developing world that is sufficient to generate decent jobs for an ever-expanding global labor force. Innovative but affordable solutions must also be found to meet people’s demand for basic needs like food, housing, a quality education and access to energy resources. And major investments will still be required to effectively address global development challenges, such as climate change and child and maternal health.  On all these fronts, the private sector, from small- and medium-sized enterprises to major global corporations, must play a significant and expanded role.

On August 4-6, 2013, Brookings Global Economy and Development is hosting the tenth annual Brookings Blum Roundtable on Global Poverty in Aspen, Colorado. This year’s roundtable theme, “The Private Sector in the New Global Development Agenda,” brings together global leaders, entrepreneurs, practitioners and public intellectuals to discuss how the contribution of the private sector be enhanced in the push to end poverty over the next generation and how government work more effectively with the private sector to leverage its investments in developing countries. 

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Roundtable Agenda

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Welcome: 8:40AM - 9:00AM MST
Brookings Welcome
• Strobe Talbott, Brookings

Opening Remarks
• Richard C. Blum, Blum Capital Partners, LP and Founder of 
the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley
• Julie Sunderland, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• Kemal Derviş, Global Economy and Development, Brookings

Session I: 9:00AM - 10:30AM MST
Framing Session: Reimagining the Role of the Private Sector
In this opening discussion, participants will explore the overarching questions for the roundtable: How can the contribution of the private sector be enhanced in the push to end poverty over the next generation? What are the most effective mechanisms for strengthening private sector accountability? How can business practices and norms be encouraged that support sustainable development and job creation? How can business build trust in its contributions to sustainable development?

Moderator
• Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development

Introductory Remarks
• Homi Kharas, Brookings Institution
• Viswanathan Shankar, Standard Chartered Bank
• Shannon May, Bridge International Academies


Session II: 10:50AM - 12:20PM MST
Private Equity
Participants will explore the following questions for the roundtable: What are the constraints to higher levels of private equity in the developing world, including in non-traditional sectors? How can early-stage investments be promoted to improve deal flow? How can transaction costs and technical assistance costs be lowered?

Moderator
• Laura Tyson, University of California, Berkeley

Introductory Remarks
• Robert van Zwieten, Emerging Markets Private Equity Association
• Runa Alam, Development Partners International
• Vineet Rai, Aavishkaar

Dinner Program: 6:45PM - 9:15PM MST
Aspen Institute Madeleine K. Albright Global Development Lecture

Featuring
• Dr. Paul Farmer, Chief Strategist and Co-Founder, Partners in Health

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Monday, August 5, 2013

Session III: 9:00AM - 10:30AM MST
Goods, Services and Jobs for the Poor
Participants will explore the following questions for the roundtable: In what areas are the most promising emerging business models that serve the poor arising? What are the major obstacles in creating and selling profitable, quality, and beneficial products to the poor and how can they be overcome? What common features distinguish successful and replicable solutions?

Moderator
• Mary Robinson, Mary Robinson Foundation

Introductory Remarks
• Ashish Karamchandani, Monitor Deloitte
• Chris Locke, GSMA
• Ajaita Shah, Frontier Markets
• Hubertus van der Vaart, SEAF

Session IV: 10:50AM - 12:20PM MST
Blended Finance
Participants will explore the following questions for the roundtable: Can standard models of blended finance deliver projects at a large enough scale? How can leverage be measured and incorporated into aid effectiveness measures? Should governments have explicit leverage targets to force change more rapidly and systematically?

Moderator
• Henrietta Fore, Holsman International

Introductory Remarks
• Elizabeth Littlefield, OPIC
• Ewen McDonald, AusAID
• Laurie Spengler, ShoreBank International 

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 

Session V: 9:00AM - 10:30AM MST
Unlocking Female Entrepreneurship
Participants will explore the following questions for the roundtable: How is the global landscape for female entrepreneurship changing? What types of interventions have the greatest ability to overturn barriers to female entrepreneurship in the developing world? Who, or what institutions, should lead efforts to advance this agenda? Can progress be made without a broader effort to end economic discrimination against women?

Moderator
• Smita Singh, Independent

Introductory Remarks
• Dina Powell, Goldman Sachs
• Carmen Niethammer, IFC
• Randall Kempner, ANDE

Session VI: 10:50AM - 12:20PM MST
U.S. Leadership and Resources to Engage The Private Sector
Participants will explore the following questions for the roundtable: How can U.S. foreign assistance be strengthened to more effectively promote the role of the private sector? How can U.S. diplomacy support private sector development in the emerging economies and multinational enterprises investing in the developing world? What can the US do to promote open innovation platforms?

Moderator
• George Ingram, Brookings

Introductory Remarks
• Sam Worthington, InterAction
• John Podesta, Center for American Progress
• Rajiv Shah, USAID

Closing Remarks
• Richard C. Blum, Blum Capital Partners, LP and Founder of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at Berkeley
• Kemal Derviş, Global Economy and Development, Brookings

Public Event: 4:30PM - 6:00PM MST
Brookings and the Aspen Institute Present: "America's Fiscal Health and its Implications for International Engagement"
Global Economy and Development at Brookings and the Aspen Institute will host the 66th U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Rajiv Shah for a discussion on the current state of the U.S.'s fiscal health and its impact on American diplomatic and development priorities. Moderated by Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Director, Aspen Strategy Group.

Moderator
• Nicholas Burns, Director, Aspen Strategy Group

Panelists
• Condoleezza Rice, 66th United States Secretary of State
• Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development

 

Event Materials

• BBR Participant List 2013_FINAL

       

       

During the height of the Ebola crisis in September 2014 there were 21 confirmed cases of the virus and 8 deaths in Nigeria. The African nation has the continent’s largest population, a high poverty rate, and the government spends relatively little on health care. At the time many were worried about a scenario where the virus spread throughout Nigeria. But, the Nigerian Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu disagreed with that assessment. He commented to Forbes, “Nigeria will be as clean as any other country as far as Ebola virus disease is concerned.” His comments were proven to be accurate in the coming months. There were a variety of factors that contributed to Nigeria’s success at combating the disease. One important factor was the use of mobile electronic health records programs.

How mobile fights disease

1. Training Healthcare Workers

Training health care providers was a priority at the beginning of the Ebola outbreak. A survey found that 85 percent of health care workers in the country believed you could avoid Ebola by abstaining from handshakes or touching. Correcting these myths about the disease was a critical part of the response effort, especially for health care workers.

2. Rapid Deployment

One of the virtues of mHealth is its speed and flexibility. Mobile allows officials to quickly disseminate the latest information to front line health care workers. Increasing the speed of communication is a general boon to any large public health response.

3. Virtual Records

Ebola Treatment Units (ETU) greatly benefitted from using digital rather than paper records. Paper records cannot be removed from an ETU. Deborah Theobald co-founder of Vecna Technologies that created the mHealth platform in Nigeria has pointed out that, “If the patient is isolated, so is their paperwork”. Electronic records are easy to share and also lower the risk of infection for health care workers.

Mobile health policy challenges

Despite the potential benefits of mHealth, barriers in some countries prevent the full positive impact of these technologies from coming into effect. Many developing nations lack the electrical infrastructure that is necessary to power mobile devices. Health care regulations are often too overly bureaucratic and burdensome. This makes it difficult for innovators to develop and equip workers with mobile tools and applications. It often takes an emergency situation like the Ebola crisis to make substantive changes. Success in the long term is only possible if leaders create an environment that is more hospitable to mHealth.

Mobile interventions have also demonstrated potential to address important public health issues. Recently experts gathered at the Brookings Institution to discuss how mHealth can improve health outcomes. Apps like Mobile Midwife and Text4Baby can encourage healthy pregnancies by providing valuable tips to expecting mothers. Mobile health platforms are successful because they directly inform caregivers. The proliferation of mobile phones through the developing world presents a health opportunity to communicate with the people who need help.

      

Last month, we experienced yet another breakthrough in the epic battle of man against machine. Google’s AlphaGo won against the reigning Go champion Lee Sedol. This success, however, was different than that of IBM’s Deep Blue against Gary Kasparov in 1987. While Deep Blue still applied “brute force” to calculate all possible options ahead, AlphaGo was learning as the game progressed. And through this computing breakthrough that we can learn how to better leverage the data revolution.

In the game of Go, brute-force strategies don’t help because the total number of possible combinations exceeds the number of atoms in the universe. Some games, including some we played since childhood, were immune to computing “firepower” for a long time. For example, Connect Four wasn’t solved until 1995 with the conclusion being the first player can force a win. And checkers wasn’t until 2007, when Jonathan Schaeffer determined that in a perfect game, both sides could force a draw. For chess, a safe strategy has yet to be developed, meaning that we don’t know yet if white could force a win or, like in checkers, black could manage to hold on to a draw.

But most real-life situations are more complicated than chess, precisely because the universe of options is unlimited and solving them requires learning. If computers are to help, beyond their use as glorified calculators, they need to be able to learn. This is the starting point of the artificial intelligence movement.  In a world where perfection is impossible, you need well-informed intuition in order to advance. The first breakthrough in this space occurred when IBM’s Watson beat America’s Jeopardy! champions in 2011. These new intelligent machines operate in probabilities, not in certainty.

That being said, perfection remains important, especially when it comes to matters of life and death such as flying airplanes, constructing houses, or conducting heart surgery, as these areas require as much attention to detail as possible. At the same time, in many realms of life and policymaking we fall into a perfection trap. We often generate obsolete knowledge by attempting to explain things perfectly, when effective problem solving would have been better served by real-time estimates. We strive for exactitude when rough results, more often than not, are good enough.

By contrast, some of today’s breakthroughs are based on approximation. Think of Google Translate and Google’s search engine itself. The results are typically quite bad, but compared to the alternative of not having them at all, or spending hours leafing through an encyclopedia, they are wonderful. Moreover, once these imperfect breakthroughs are available, one can improve them iteratively. Only once the first IBM and Apple PCs were put on the market in the 1980s did the cycle of upgrading start, which still continues today.

In the realm of social and economic data, we have yet to reach this stage of “managed imperfection” and continuous upgrading. We are producing social and economic forecasts with solid 20th century methods. With extreme care we conduct poverty assessments and maps, usually taking at least a year to produce as they involve hundreds of enumerators, lengthy interviews and laborious data entry. Through these methods we are able to perfectly explain past events, but we fail to estimate current trends—even imperfectly.

The paradox of today’s big data era is that most of that data is poor and messy, even though the possibilities for improving it are unlimited. Almost every report from development institutions starts with a disclaimer highlighting “severe data limitations.” This is because only 0.5 percent of all the available data is actually being curated to be made usable. If data is the oil of the 21st century, we need data refineries to convert the raw product into something that can be consumed by the average person.

Thanks to the prevalence of mobile device and rapid advances in satellite technology, it is possible to produce more data faster, better, and cheaper. High-frequency data also makes it possible to make big data personal, which also increases the likelihood that people act on it. Ultimately, the breakthroughs in big data for development will be driven by managerial cultures, as has been the case with other successful ventures. Risk averse cultures pay great attention to perfection. They nurture the fear of mistakes and losing. Modern management accepts failure, encourages trial and error, and reaches progress through interaction and continuous upgrading.

       

       

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As President Barack Obama and NATO leaders join on April 3 and 4 to celebrate the Alliance’s 60th anniversary, they also must confront the daunting challenges facing NATO today. How should the Alliance proceed in Afghanistan, its largest ever military operation? How can NATO broaden its restored relationship with Russia while continuing to deepen its links with Ukraine and Georgia? As the Alliance begins to devise a new strategic concept, how should it balance its focus between preparing for expeditionary operations and meeting its collective defense obligations? How will France’s full return to NATO’s integrated military structure add to Alliance capabilities?

On March 30, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings held a public event to preview President Obama’s first NATO summit. Daniel Hamilton, professor at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and Brookings experts Steven Pifer, Jeremy Shapiro and Justin Vaisse described the challenges facing the president and NATO. Brookings Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Carlos Pascual gave introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

Video

• Carlos Pascual
• Steven Pifer
• Justin Vaisse
• Jeremy Shapiro
• Daniel Hamilton

Audio

• Tackling NATO's Challenges

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20090330_nato

      

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The government and opposition in Georgia remain locked in political stalemate. The opposition continues to hold rallies and to call for President Saakashvili to step down, and the opposition and government thus far have found no common basis for moving forward. All this plays out against a backdrop of lingering tensions in relations between Georgia and Russia in the aftermath of the August 2008 conflict.

On June 17, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings hosted Irakli Alasania, former Georgian permanent representative to the United Nations and currently the head of the Alliance for Georgia opposition group, for a discussion on the political crisis in Georgia and the prospects for resolution. After a decade of important positions in the Georgian government, Ambassador Alasania resigned from his position at the United Nations in December 2008 and has since been actively involved in the Georgian opposition. Brookings senior fellow Carlos Pascual introduced Ambassador Alasania and moderated the discussion.

Audio

• The Political Crisis in Georgia: Prospects for Resolution

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20090617_georgia

      

Steven Pifer joined Bernard Gwertzman to discuss Vice President Joseph Biden's recent trip to Ukraine and Georgia and how it was meant to balance President Barack Obama's Moscow summit earlier in the month.

Bernard Gwertzman: Vice President Joseph Biden has just completed a trip to Ukraine and Georgia to reassure both of those former Soviet republics that the American desire to "reset" relations--Biden's words in Munich last February--with Russia were not meant at their expense. But he also had what one Biden aide called "tough love" for both of them. Could you elaborate on this trip?

Steven Pifer: That was the first point of the trip: to reassure Kiev and Tbilisi that the United States remains interested in robust relations with Ukraine and Georgia, and that we will work to keep open their pathways to Europe and the North Atlantic community. When I was in Ukraine about five or six weeks ago, what I heard from the Ukrainians was a concern--and I suspect there is a parallel concern in Georgia--that the effort to reset relations with Russia would somehow come at Ukraine's expense. So part of the trip by the vice president was to assure both Ukraine and Georgia that the United States is not going to undercut relations with those two countries as it tries to develop relations with Russia. You've seen points made by this administration, indeed going back to the Munich speech itself, saying the reset of relations would not mean recognition of a Russian "sphere of influence" over the former Soviet states, and then repeated assurances that the United States supports the rights of countries such as Ukraine and Georgia as sovereign states to choose their own foreign policy course.

Gwertzman: What was also interesting to me was that in his speech in Ukraine, Biden was virtually demanding that the Ukrainian leadership get their act together. In Georgia, I don't think he was publicly as tough. Can you elaborate on the "tough love" part of the visits?

Pifer: Let me start with Ukraine. Certainly the primary goal of the visit was to reassure Ukraine, but there was also a tough message there. In Ukraine, it's not only due to the presidential election, but you've had a situation in the past year and a half where the government really hasn't functioned because of infighting between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. It's meant that Ukraine has passed up opportunities to accomplish some important things. A big part of the vice president's message in Kiev was to say, "You need to put aside political differences, come together as mature political leaders, find compromises, and get things done."

He also singled out the importance of Ukraine getting serious about reforming its energy sector. This is a huge national security vulnerability for Ukraine because they have a distorted price structure where people buy natural gas at prices that don't begin to cover the cost of the gas that Ukraine buys from Russia. As a result, Naftogaz, the national gas company, is perpetually in debt to Russia and on the verge of bankruptcy. That creates vulnerabilities for Ukraine.

Part of the vice president's message was, "You need to get serious about this." Part of the problem in Ukraine is if you are a household, you are probably paying a price that amounts to less than 30 percent of the actual cost of the gas bought from Russia. It's no wonder why Naftogaz is always in financial straits. But it's not just an economic problem because of the way it factors into the Ukraine-Russia relationship. It creates a national security issue for Ukraine. So there are two aspects to the tough message: One, the need for political leaders to get together, compromise, and produce good policy; and second, the special importance of tackling this energy security issue.

Read the full interview » (external link)

      

Introduction

Guaranteeing the right to vote and to participate in public and political affairs for all citizens is an important responsibility. Given the precarious position that IDPs can find themselves in and considering the extent to which they may need to rely on national authorities for assistance, IDPs have a legitimate and a heightened interest in influencing the decisions that affect their lives by participating in elections.   

Internally displaced persons often exist on the margins of society and are subject to a number of vulnerabilities because of their displacement. For instance, IDPs face an immediate need for protection and assistance in finding adequate shelter, food, and health care. Over time, they can suffer discrimination in accessing public services and finding employment on account of being an IDP from another region or town. IDPs also face an especially high risk of losing ownership of their housing, property, and land, something which can lead to loss of livelihoods and economic security as well as physical security. Women and children, who often make up the majority of IDP populations, face an acute risk of sexual exploitation and abuse.  

In addition to influencing public policy, elections can also be about reconciliation and addressing divisions and inequities that exist within society. For these reasons and others, IDPs should be afforded an opportunity to fully participate in elections as voters and as candidates.   

As noted in a press release of the Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons following an official mission to Georgia in December 2005, 

“[IDP] participation in public life, including elections, needs promotion and support. Supporting internally displaced persons in their pursuit of a normal life does not exclude, but actually reinforces, the option of eventual return. … Well integrated people are more likely to be productive and contribute to society, which in turn gives them the strength to return once the time is right."[1]

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[1] United Nations Press Release - U.N. Expert Voices Concern for Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia, 27 December 2005, available at http://www.brookings.edu/projects/idp/RSG-Press-Releases/20051227_georgiapr.aspx.

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