Contagion. Future Challenges Reader Volume 4

Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.)

Contagion Future Challenges Reader Volume 4

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FutureChallenges

Cover photo: Dominoes by flickr-user JasonLangheine CC by SA 2.0. www.flickr.com/photos/yorkjason/162041457/

Contagion

Future Challenges Reader Volume 4

Contents Foreword

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Introduction

5

Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia

6

The Darker Face of EU Solidarity

10

Nepali Migrant Workers—Life Gets Even Harder

13

Uganda’s Remittance Blues

16

Thriving Together in the Economic Storm

20

The Other Reasons Egyptian Youths Seek Education and Employment Abroad

23

Finding a Job, Changing a Market

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Contagion: Or How Alan Greenspan Affected My Paycheck

30

Future Challenges team

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Foreword

Foreword

Future Challenges is a project of the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Gütersloh, Germany and the Bertelsmann Foundation in Washington, DC, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. We are a global network of young authors, activists, academics and observers who work to illustrate how complex our modern world really is.

Creating a sustainable future for as many of the world’s inhabitants as possible is an admirable goal, but this goal will slip ever farther out of reach if we do not learn to embrace the complexity of the challenges ahead. We must ask ourselves not simply: What is the best way to ensure our safety? Instead, we must begin to ask: What is the best way to ensure our safety while managing changing population trends, providing high-quality education to as many people as possible, and ensuring that the benefits of economic globalization reach deep into our societies? We must demand that our political leadership takes the same approach. If we attempt to tackle our most difficult challenges alone, independent of one another, any solution that we devise will be unsustainable, sabotaged in the long term by unintended consequences that spill over from other issue areas.

On the other hand, if we learn to think about our greatest challenges as part of a connected web of issues, all of which have meaningful impact on one another, we may begin to identify solutions that are robust and long-lasting.

This fourth Future Challenges Reader examines the costs and benefits of our growing economic bonds with one another. While ever-greater trade and financial flows between countries bring countless benefits, they also create the danger that a catastrophe in one economy will “infect” economic partners around the world. The subject requires us to think about issues of globalization and governance, and how the two interact. How can we build an economic network that makes all of its nodes stronger and more resilient? Who is responsible for guiding the global economy in that direction? These are no easy questions; leaders of the public and private sectors have busied themselves with such concerns for years. This Reader is Future Challenges’ own contribution to the discussion, with writings from Brazil (Luis Felipe Morgado), India (Anuja Upadhyay and Ajinkya Pawar), Bosnia & Herzegovina (Velma Saric), Egypt (Sara Elkamel), Mexico (Daniel Kapellmann), Hungary (Daniel Vekony) and Uganda (Mubatsi Asinja Habati).

We hope you will enjoy this and the other volumes in the Future Challenges Reader series. To get involved with the program or to give feedback on what’s written here, please visit our website (futurechallenges.org) or contact us directly.

Enjoy!

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Introduction

Introduction

The benefits of a globalized world are, in many circles, an article of faith. Connecting with one another helps our economies grow, helps individuals to seek opportunities that were unavailable to them before, and broadens our knowledge of the world around us. But along with these advantages comes a distinct risk; if our economies are not just interlinked but dependent on one another, then what happens when one economy stumbles? Must its economic partners collapse with it? How does the current economic crisis in many of the world’s developed countries affect less-developed nations? Are there changes in remittances, changes in migration, or other important effects? How can we ensure that the economic network that we are building brings more benefit than risk to its members, making us more resistant to – rather than more susceptible to – crises?

Our authors from the Future Challenges network are scattered across 65 countries worldwide.

More than 30 of them contributed their perspectives, ideas and stories on this topic, and we have collected the best of the best to print here. More are available at futurechallenges.org.

This question was developed by the Future Challenges staff and bloggers working in conjunction.

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Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia

Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Kapell

Contact Information: danielkapellmann12@gmail.com Dan Kapellmann studies international relations at ITAM University in Mexico City. At the moment, he is working for Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Companies Janssen, directing the Magazine “Urbi et Orbi”, and writing for Future Challenges. His two passions are music and journalism.

In early 2008, preceding the American economic crisis, former Mexican Treasury Secretary Agustín Carstens stated that the effects of such a recession on the Mexican economy would be “a simple flu rather than a pneumonia.” It only took a few months to prove how wrong he was.

The deep interconnection between Mexico and the United States of America led to a process of contagion, which serves as an early warning for what we may continue to experience during the coming years: unregulated casino capitalism and irresponsible economic management in developed countries dragging less-developed ones into the abyss. Unless structural changes are made, the economic future looks grim.

To prevent from economic crises such as the one that hit it in 1995, Mexico implemented a strategy that consists—according to Ángel Gurría, Secretary General of the OECD—of the following four pillars: a solid fiscal position, a floating exchange rate, a considerable amount of foreign exchange reserves, and a well-capitalized financial sector. Despite all of these macroeconomic preventive actions, the enormous interdependency in the region led to a domino effect that threw Mexican chips to the floor along with America’s plummeting economy.

In 2009, Mexico’s GDP shrunk by approximately 6.5% in GDP largely because of falling foreign demand for Mexican-manufactured goods, a reduction in national private consumption, and lack of foreign investment. Remittances from the United States—Mexico’s second largest source of income—dropped 15.7%, and in the labor market, the growth rate of labor productivity decreased by 4.09% while the unemployment rate increased from 3.2% during 2006–2007 to 5.2%.

Surprisingly, the effect of the crisis on migratory flows wasn’t so significant. Migration from Mexico to the United States fell, but the expected massive return of immigrants to Mexico never happened. As many studies have proven—for example, the case of Tlacuitapa, documented in Recession Without Borders by David Scott Fitzgerald, Rafael Alarcón and Leah Muse-Orlinoff—most of the Mexican workers residing in the United States still considered their situations to be better than they had been in Mexico.

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Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia

International Currency Money for Forex Trading Photo by flickr-user “epSos.de” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ epsos/8453271596/ CC BY 2.0

Mexico City 149 Photo by flickr-user „Pulpolux“ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ pulpolux/34137138/ CC BY-NC 2.0

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Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia

Global Player Photo by flickr-user “alles-schlumpf” http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487767@ N02/3574392846/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia

“You can’t survive on a Mexican salary. I would rather collect cans in the United States than work in Tlacuitapa,” mentioned a 68-year-old Mexican migrant in the book. Perhaps the idea of moving from one crisis only to get into another isn’t a fully attractive choice.

But knowing that a crisis in the United States would directly slow the Mexican economy isn’t really rocket science. In fact, the spread of an economic disease between slowing, interconnected economies is the logical effect of a recession in any part of the world; and actually, it seems there may be no possible vaccine against crises apart from responsibility and development.

If the constant failure of the financial system is ever to be defied, developed countries must avoid the continuation of irresponsible economic policies and the generation of enormous debts and be open to deepening cooperation in order to be prepared to act in concert. At the same time, developing countries must struggle to maintain healthy finances and use growth and development as an engine for competitiveness.

For instance, in the case of Mexico, lowering the degree of interdependence with the United States would require diversifying its economy and pushing hard for missing structural reforms. Today, the most urgent issues are: the inclusion of private capital in the energy sector; renewed fiscal regulations; fostering innovation; and strengthening the rule of law through mechanisms of transparency, law enforcement, controlling corruption, and creating a culture based on legality. Solving domestic problems is a prerequisite for acting effectively as part of a whole on the international stage.

It is time for the international community to remember that when it comes to finances, there is no such thing as a lonely member. No one is immune; thus, each of them has to cooperate both internally and externally. Otherwise, we will keep on experimenting with outstandingly negative economic cycles under the responsibility of a financial system that has gotten out of control.

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The Darker Face of EU Solidarity

The Darker Face of EU Solidarity Thursday, 6 December 2012

Daniel Vekony

Contact Information: danielvekony@gmail.com Daniel Vekony completed his undergraduate studies in hospitality 2005, and followed with a further degree in international relations and economics in 2008. Daniel was an analyst at the Hungarian office of Morgan Stanley from 2008 until 2010. Upon leaving Morgan Stanley, he began a PhD program in international relations at Corvinus University in Budapest. His field of research is Islam and Muslims in Western Europe.

As Europe struggles on with the effects of the economic crisis, the debate on the upcoming EU budget is raising renewed concerns about solidarity. With calls for cuts to the Union’s budget becoming ever louder, we need to think about what effects fewer subsidies for poorer member states would have on the very countries proposing such measures.

As far as the economic crisis is concerned, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel yet for Europe.

Most countries have been forced to cut back on spending in order to put their budgets back on a sustainable track. Indeed, the era of cheap credit, when economic growth could outstrip sovereign debt, seems to be well and truly over for the countries of the Old Continent.

As budgetary austerity becomes the order of the day for EU member states, calls for spending cuts on the EU level are coming to the forefront in negotiations for a new seven-year EU budget. Some Western European countries argue that if fiscal discipline is to be taken seriously, there should be visible cuts to the federal budget as well. It is not difficult to see why the British and Dutch prime ministers support such initiatives, as they want to appease electorates tired of high unemployment and cuts in social spending.

Cuts mainly concern cohesion funds—that is, those “fiscal transfers” aimed at ensuring that new EU member states catch up fast with their older peers. What these politicians don’t talk about are the possible repercussions this collapse of solidarity could have on their own societies.

Traveling across Central Europe, you can see a lot of development projects, and if you look again at these construction sites, most of the time there is a small EU flag on the information posts signaling the EU’s financial contribution. As far as Hungary is concerned, GDP has increased by 9% since the country first joined the Union in 2004, thanks to the cohesion funds coming from Brussels. The impact of such development is twofold: firstly, it creates jobs; secondly, it has built up the infrastructure badly needed for further investment by the private sector.

If Western European leaders choose to cut funding for these development projects, they risk further economic troubles in Central and Eastern European countries whose economies are already stagnating or in recession. A decrease in the number of such projects in Central and Eastern Europe would impact the ailing job markets of these countries as well, forcing a number of young peo-

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The Darker Face of EU Solidarity

Budapest Szabadsag Square Photo by flickr-user “TopBudapestOrg” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ topbudapest/8287249314/ CC BY 2.0

District 9 High Quality EU Funded Redesign_Budapest_Sept2011_MK Photo by flickr-user “itdp” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ itdp/7562973368/ CC BY 2.0

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The Darker Face of EU Solidarity

Photo by Marco Moog, Hamburg

ple to try their luck elsewhere. Where would they go? The answer is obvious: mostly to Western European cities—cities in some of the very countries proposing cuts in EU subsidies in the first place.

The UK government has firsthand experience with the effects of mass migration of young people from new member states on society. With constantly high domestic unemployment, especially among the youth of the country, governments like the UK’s face a dilemma: cutting its contribution to the development of poorer countries may please the electorate in the short term, but it is more than likely to trigger a new mass influx of young professionals from Central and Eastern Europe willing to work for wages lower than those sought by local young people, who are themselves already struggling to find jobs.

This is the other face of solidarity in the EU: if you fail to lift up the poor today, they might just come knocking on your door tomorrow.

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Nepali Migrant Workers—Life Gets Even Harder

Nepali Migrant Workers—Life Gets Even Harder Wednesday, 26 December 2012

Anuja Upadhyay

Contact Information: anujaupadhay@gmail.com Anuja Upadhyay is a Nepali, blogger and writer. Presently she is involved with Future Challenges as the Regional Editor for Asia. She has several years of experience in community development work and print media in India and Nepal.

I was slightly flustered when returning to New Delhi from Kathmandu this November. I was questioned by Nepal Police at Tribhuvan International Airport for carrying my Nepali passport to travel to India when a simple ID card was all that was needed. Little did I realize at the time that random checks like these are quite common these days as there are thousands of migrant workers trying to go abroad via India for employment through illegal channels.

A ban imposed in 1998 on Nepali women working in Gulf states was lifted in 2010 by the government of Nepal, but the same government has recently imposed yet another ban on women migrant workers under the age of thirty going to the Gulf. The intent is to protect these women, but it has not really solved the problem. Actually, their numbers have increased compared to the previous fiscal year. The Department of Foreign Employment in Nepal estimates that thirty to forty women head to the Gulf illegally via New Delhi and Mumbai each day. On top of that, the female migrant workers lost in transit (trafficked to India and abroad on the pretext of work) are another saga of woe.

Standing for hours in the snaking queues for immigration, followed by an even longer one for security, I struck up a conversation with one of those migrant workers, a man called Hari Sapkota, who was heading to work in a factory in Qatar. There were hundreds of migrant workers, and you could clearly identify them by their attire, their body language, the documents they were carrying, and their discussions with one other. Hari complained about being sent back from Malaysia a year ago as the company he was working for had laid off numerous workers due to the global economic recession.

Many Nepali workers like Hari go abroad for employment. An average of 600 Nepali migrant workers leave the country each day. However, this number has decreased by 50% over the past few years.

The economic crisis has hit developed economies hard, decreasing their purchasing power, while low demand means that export-driven countries like Malaysia and the Gulf states have had to cut back on production. One consequence is that migrant workers are no longer needed and are sent packing back to their home countries. The repercussions on Nepal’s economy are considerable as remittances account for as much as 20% of the country’s GDP. According to the World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011, in 2010, Nepal was among the top five remittance recipients in South Asia with $ 3.5 billion.

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Nepali Migrant Workers—Life Gets Even Harder

Women migrant workers from Nepal.

Photo by Sachitra Chitrakar (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Bishnu Maya, Nepali farmer Photo by CIMMYT http://www.flickr.com/photos/ cimmyt/6195484170/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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Nepali Migrant Workers—Life Gets Even Harder

Nepali migrant workers. Photo by Sachitra Chitrakar (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Nepali migrant workers have also suffered considerably in their host countries where they are under dire physical and mental stress from the deplorable conditions they work under. Yet the trauma for returnee migrants is even worse: they go abroad with the hopes of securing a better life for themselves and their families but are forced to return because of layoffs. With no earnings in hand, they are mired in debt as they have to pay back the loans they took out for travel and recruitment.

Can’t the government do something more for these returnee migrants? In such times of crisis, it should use the basket fund generated from the Rs 500 charged to every departing migrant worker to compensate returnee workers. Compensation should be in line with the length of the period of employment abroad: the shorter the time they spend abroad, the more compensation they should receive. Moreover, there should also be some form of assistance from the government and recruitment agencies to assist in sending workers to countries where they can make use of their particular skills.

The migrant workers’ contribution to the country’s economy is significant. Yet is this the only important aspect? Shouldn’t we also be concerned about their well-being? But with so much political instability and the country’s leaders squabbling for power, who is going to bell the cat? Do they think that these workers really care who is in power? They worry more about where their daily bread and butter is coming from!

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Uganda’s Remittance Blues

Uganda’s Remittance Blues Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Mubatsi

Contact Information: hasinjam@gmail.com Mubatsi is a young Ugandan journalist and environmental blogger who reported for The Independent, Uganda’s premier weekly news magazine for 4 years. He currently works with Minibuzz, a daily current affairs TV show, which airs on Uganda’s most viewed television station, NTV.

Migrant workers’ remittances are receiving special attention across the world due to the increase in movement of people resulting from globalization. The money sent home by migrant workers is another engine for development, especially in developing countries. This is because remittances directly directly affect consumption, savings, and investment.

As of 2007, Uganda was among the top ten African remittance recipient countries in terms of total inflows, according to a survey by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Over the years, the money that Ugandans in the diaspora sent back home grew dramatically. It was estimated at $849 million in 2007, equaling 30% of the country’s gross domestic product according to the UN Human Development Report 2009.

But due to the economic crises hitting major world economies, remittances are declining. With increased job cuts in the retail, manufacturing, and service sectors of most developed countries, many migrant workers are barely surviving, and remittances to their families have been cut to only the most necessary expenditures.

A Ugandan friend working in one Middle Eastern country told me that life is getting hard for him economically, as he has had to cut the money he usually sends to his family in Uganda in half. In fact, he said most migrant workers in low-skilled jobs are living on handouts, and the brave ones have opted to return home to take care of the investments they made before the economic crisis.

The global economic crisis has led to a reduction in remittances for Uganda. Since the recession of 2008, remittances to Uganda have stagnated below the 2007 mark of $849 million. According to the governor of the Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Mutebile, the country recorded about $760 million in 2011, a decline from $778 million in 2010. This decline has been blamed on the economic crisis.

This year’s predictions paint a worse picture than in 2011. For the last three months, the Ugandan shilling has been greatly weakening against major foreign currencies, which experts are blaming partly on the reduced inflow of foreign currency from remittances.

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Uganda’s Remittance Blues

Back From Africa Photo by flickr-user “MightyBoyBrian” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ mightyboybrian/6324873971/ CC BY-NC 2.0

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Uganda’s Remittance Blues

Easy access to savings Photo by Gates Foundation http://www.flickr.com/photos/ gatesfoundation/5344549272/in/photostream CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Uganda gets most of its remittance inflows from Kenya ($326 million), the United Kingdom ($176 million) and the United States ($87.4 million). Those three countries provide 76% of Uganda’s total earnings from remittances, according to the recent UN Conference on Trade and Development report.

Remittances sustain the livelihoods of hundreds of families, pay for the education of thousands, and keep many small enterprises and individual entrepreneurs in business. The money from Ugandans working abroad makes a significant contribution to the country’s national income.

Today, world economies are interconnected by trade and employment resulting from increased migration. So in this global world, what affects one country will definitely spread to others. It is a contagion of sorts.

Jobs have been slashed in many developed countries, and where jobs have been maintained, cost cutting is taking its toll. Bonuses have been eliminated and markets have slumped, especially in real estate and automobiles. This means less money will be sent home.

In spite of this, the UN Conference on Trade and Development recently issued a report arguing that remittances to Africa are increasing. According to the report, Africa currently receives $27 billion every year from remittances, which is more than double the $10 billion the continent raked in in remittances a decade ago. It is said that remittances now surpass the continent’s foreign direct investment. This makes remittances a major source of foreign exchange for the continent and calls for expanding them to aid in the development of the continent.

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Uganda’s Remittance Blues

Kampala, Uganda Photo by flickr-user “weesam2010” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ weesam/5758662612/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

But with the Eurozone economic crisis, where many are losing jobs and economic opportunities are becoming slimmer, Africa has to brace itself to avoid future economic turmoil. Given that the world’s economies are interlinked by trade and international jobs, events happening in one directly and indirectly affect others.

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Thriving Together in the Economic Storm

Thriving Together in the Economic Storm Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Velma Saric

Contact Information: velma@p-crc.org Velma Saric is founder and executive director of the Sarajevo-based Post-Conflict Research Center.

She has worked as a journalist, researcher, program coordinator and documentary film producer in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her work focuses on the themes of genocide, justice, peace-building and reconciliation.

The current economic crisis has no doubt affected every country in one way or another. I can only speak of my own experience. As I described in a previous blog previous blog, many citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina are dependent upon remittances from their relatives living in more developed parts of the world. The 1992–1995 war displaced nearly half the population, and scores of people fled the country as political or economic refugees. Others were internally displaced and lost their jobs and homes. That was more than a decade and half ago, and while the situation has of course improved, I know countless families who eagerly await the arrival of a monthly supplement to their pension or income (if they are lucky enough to have one). Remittances often help secure basic needs, such as food, electricity, heating, and medical care. In other cases, they help fund a child’s education or buy clothes, shoes, or perhaps a down payment on a car or an apartment.

Since the global financial crisis began, remittances have steadily dried up as Bosnians abroad have had their hours cut or been laid off from their already unstable jobs. This leaves both them and their families in a vulnerable position. With no economic growth to speak of within the country (despite the ironic increase in the number of shopping malls), families are forced to find alternatives. The problem is that alternatives are few and far between.

Another casualty of the global economic crisis is civil society, a sector I am directly involved with.

The infrastructure of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s civil society is largely constituted by NGOs, which depend on foreign funding, in many cases from Europe and the United States. The global financial crisis has severely impacted the flow of funding. This has meant that important initiatives that help ensure political accountability, post-war justice, and cultural development either can no longer afford to function or must make deep cuts in their programs. Apart from these real consequences, it also drives home the point that a civil society dependent on external funding is indeed in a precarious condition.

Moreover, Bosnia-Herzegovina is experiencing a double crisis in the sense that it has been in a state of permanent crisis (of varying sorts) since the early 1990s, if not earlier. It has only been yet further impacted by the global economic crisis. Unfortunately, there is little we can do as individuals to battle these larger economic forces that structure our lives.

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Thriving Together in the Economic Storm

Photo by Mirko Pincelli, Post-Conflict Research Center

Mostar Photo by flickr-user “jafsegal” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ jafsegal/2204573405/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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Thriving Together in the Economic Storm

Remittance services in London Photo by futureatlas.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@ N00/557933631/ CC BY 2.0

However, we shouldn’t give up all hope. One thing that a crisis can do is highlight that we are all in fact connected and interdependent. Becoming stronger and more resilient to crisis may be as simple as recognizing that we are all neighbors and in this together. That recognition can turn into social action in the form of increased care for one another. This cannot solve the global economic crisis, but it can help us survive it in better spirits and perhaps even find alternative ways of thriving within it.

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The Other Reasons Egyptian Youths Seek Education and Employment Abroad

The Other Reasons Egyptian Youths Seek Education and Employment Abroad Thursday, 3 January 2013

Sara Elkamel

Contact Information: Sara.Farag@gmail.com Sara Elkamel is a Cairo-based journalist who has contributed to Egyptian papers including Daily News Egypt, Egypt Independent, and to foreign publications such as The Guardian, GlobalPost, & Future Challenges. She currently writes for Ahram Online and is pursuing a Master’s in Journalism at the American University in Cairo.

Immigration is largely looked at through an economic prism. But that’s not all there is to it.

In a country like Egypt, where competition for employment is fierce and the jobs that are available are generally not financially—and at times not professionally—rewarding, it is no surprise that many well-educated Egyptians head overseas in pursuit of better pay and a more challenging career.

Yet despite being high up on the list, money isn’t the only reason Egyptian youth leave their homes and endeavor to study or work in a foreign country. I’ve spoken to four Egyptians in their twenties who were previously, or are currently, studying or working abroad, and they reveal that the quest for cash isn’t the only factor fueling their immigration.

Here’s more about why Ahmed Adly, Karim El Rabiey, Maged Sami, and Ahmed Abulhassan left, and the reasons they are considering returning to Egypt.

Ahmed Adly, who left after years of working in Egypt to seek employment in New York City, says his choice to go abroad was less about financial gain and more about cross-cultural exposure. He tells me, “I left because I firmly believe that we’re not meant to spend our lives in one place; we can’t live and die without experiencing different cultures, seeing different places.”

From his education in New York to taking up two different jobs in Toronto, Canada, Karim El Rabiey explains that his choice to study and work overseas was all about experimentation and taking risks. “I left Egypt to make mistakes,” says El Rabiey.

“It’s better to make mistakes here and try new things out because, firstly, Egypt is not as open to mistake-making. You’re expected to hit every shot perfectly … A sort of culture gets built where we become afraid to make mistakes, and in turn, only do tried-and-proven methodologies. And secondly, Egypt can’t necessarily afford everyone making mistakes. Egypt is not in as comfortable a state as the US or Canada to allow for mistakes. It can’t afford the risks as much due to income levels, resources, and education,” explains El Rabiey.

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The Other Reasons Egyptian Youths Seek Education and Employment Abroad

Cairo skyline in the morning Photo by flickr-user “StartAgain” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ garyjd/73638843/ CC BY-SA 2.0

Woman with high-heeled shoes Photo by Ed Yourdon http://www.flickr.com/photos/ yourdon/3149209026/ CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Other Reasons Egyptian Youths Seek Education and Employment Abroad

Billboard Study #10 Photo by flickr-user Daveness_98 http://www.flickr.com/photos/31216636@ N00/3253842434/ CC BY 2.0

Meanwhile, Maged Sami’s decision to study in Canada was all about the disparity in education. He says, “I left Egypt primarily to seek well-rounded, quality education, an education that could offer more in personal development than just book learning.” Like Adly and El Rabiey, Sami also sought experimentation and new experiences: “I left Egypt not to ‘leave Egypt’ but to experience different things, meet new people, and challenge myself. I am a strong believer that if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you!”

Unlike the other three young men, Ahmed Abulhassan, who currently resides and works in Dubai, says it wasn’t really his choice to leave Egypt; it was more of a family decision. That’s not to say he doesn’t see the benefits of living in the lavish city.

“I justified it (to feel better) by telling myself the following: salaries are tenfold (almost exactly); I’ve lived away from home for the past five years, and I don’t get to spend that many more years with my parents, who are old and not doing very well health-wise; and that it’s the only way to save up enough to be able to move back home comfortably,” Abulhassan explains.

The four boys are currently toying around with the idea of moving back to Egypt—but again, it wouldn’t be for the money. In fact, it would be in spite of a potentially large slash in their paychecks.

Ahmed Adly has already moved back for the following reasons: “I personally came back to open up my own business, which has been my dream forever; also, I came back because you can’t live without your friends, and you can’t make new friends—that’s a myth.”

For Abulhassan, the decision to return is also emotional. He says he misses home and misses Egyptians. “I’m not happy being away,” he says. “That’s it. I’ve lived in many countries. I’ve never felt

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The Other Reasons Egyptian Youths Seek Education and Employment Abroad

(believe it or not) comfortable or fulfilled unless I was living in Egypt … I keep thinking about the people, things, places, and good moments I’m missing out on.”

Maged Sami always ruled out the possibility of missing out on a life in Cairo. “The plan was to learn what I could about my field and the world at large and bring it back home,” he says. “Egypt is where I can utilize what I have learned to its maximum potential, where I can give back to the place that has given me the most, and where I can make the biggest difference.”

Also driven by a sense of responsibility to contribute the skills he’s amassed abroad to rebuilding post-revolutionary Egypt and committed to bring back the entrepreneurial spirit that he witnessed abroad, Karim El Rabiey is contemplating a move to Cairo. He says, “Egypt as a nation is now relying solely on its citizens to shape it. And it’s missing one of its citizens (hopefully an intelligent citizen) … I’m abroad this whole time, I’ll probably learn a lot of things—but what’s that mean to Egypt?”

Despite the urge or plan to come home, some Egyptians abroad find it hard to return because of fear. Be it fear of not “making it” back home or fear of the transformations currently unfolding in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Yet the determination is there. As Sami puts it, “A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner, and just like I left Egypt in search of new challenges, I am coming back to face those that have arisen at home.”

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Finding a Job, Changing a Market

Finding a Job, Changing a Market Friday, 11 January 2013

Luis Felipe Morgado

Contact Information: lf.gmorgado@gmail.com Luis Felipe Morgado lives in São Paulo, where he works in business intelligence and risk consulting.

He is passionate about the intersection of ethics, business and governance in developing countries.

He is also an avid traveler and writer.

The European sovereign debt crisis has translated into chronic high unemployment high unemployment and little growth. Since its inception in late 2009, and through the still ambiguous measures that have been taken in order to restore confidence in Europe, young people have been among the most affected. Tales of a lost generation abound, both in dry statistics and in the restless frustration venting from Lisbon to Athens. However, some of those undefeated by the shadow of depression have decided to follow their elders who, in generations past, set off to build lives elsewhere. In the 1990s and 2000s, the word “migration” in Europe evoked images of peoples from all over the world trying to settle in Western Europe. Today, the same word casts light on Europeans flying to the so-called emerging countries.

Due to cultural and historical links, as well as economic momentum, Brazil has become a prominent destination for fresh graduates and young professionals unable to earn a living. While the country is used to being a migration destination in modern times, this flux is somehow different from the waves of Europeans, Asians and other Latin Americans who made Brazil their home in the twentieth century. In the past, migrants to Brazil were little educated and sought mostly industrial or agricultural jobs. With undergraduate and often also graduate degrees, the new generation of Europeans in Brazil has its eyes on liberal professions, engineering and management roles.

Europeans soon realize, however, that many of the institutions in place in their home countries— more transparent labor markets and anti-nepotism policies, for instance—cannot be taken for granted in Brazil. A good resume will not suffice; one needs connections. As a former Brazilian student abroad, I have received countless messages regarding job inquiries, resume formats, and networking events. Europeans are ready to bend to the rules of the Brazilian job market with its informality and opaqueness. While academic papers and media articles used to contrast this with a “fairer” job market in developed countries, this issue appears not to be relevant now. On the contrary, networking is unquestionably esteemed as the primary skill in finding a job in Brazil.

It would be naïve to ask Europeans to act otherwise. Far from better choices in their home countries, alone in the quest for a living, they would be fools to stick to job boards or online applications.

However, this new migration movement also represents an opportunity to gain a more critical perspective on employment in Brazil. Building on their job-seeking experiences in Europe and on the increasingly demanding emerging classes in Brazil, we should ask ourselves: where is the border

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Finding a Job, Changing a Market

Copa Photo by flickr-user “laszlo-photo” http://www.flickr.com/photos/laszlophoto/281322085/ CC BY 2.0

Avenida Paulista vista da Gazeta Photo by flickr-user “árticotropical” http://www.flickr.com/photos/ sensechange/6875381808/ CC BY 2.0

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Finding a Job, Changing a Market

En la puerta de una oficina del INEM Photo by Ekinez Sortu http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: En_la_puerta_de_una_oficina_del_INEM_.jpg CC BY-SA 2.0

between networking and social collusion? Why can’t we achieve more transparency in job postings and interviewing decisions? All of this underpins a fundamental question: how can Brazil improve its labor markets to gain productivity and more fully realize its potential?

Historically, migration movements have been associated with social and political changes in the in the recipient contries. The new wave of qualified workers coming to Brazil is a golden opportunity to ponder a change to the status quo. Finding jobs is not only an end in itself for these young, ambitious migrants but also a way to help build a more accessible and fairer market for all those in Brazil.

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Contagion: Or How Alan Greenspan Affected My Paycheck

Contagion: Or How Alan Greenspan Affected My Paycheck Thursday, 6 December 2012

Author: Ajinkya Pawar

Contact Information: ajinkyapawar@gmail.com Ajinkya is in the business of ideas, currently working in Publicis’ India headquarters. As a strategy planner, he gets to develop creative solutions informed by an understanding of the changing world around him. He wants to continue learning new things, meeting new people and creating new ideas.

Alan Greenspan is responsible for the 30% pay cut I had to take with my first job in 2009. Well, there are many dots that need connecting between Mr. Greenspan and my first company’s decision to slash my salary even before I joined, but he owes an apology to most of those dots too.

With the news of my pay cut, I learned my second lesson from the corporate world—the importance of being aware of and nimble-footed about happenings around the world. (The first lesson was the importance of insisting on written contracts.) But the realization of how intertwined our lives are with global currents felt more like a slap in the face than a shake of the hand. If Adam Smith was around now, he would have added tentacles to his invisible hand metaphor. The tentacles of economies and cultures are spread across the world and are becoming symbiotically entwined. The ensuing (huge multiplayer) tug of war is shaping and reshaping the world in ways that we cannot completely comprehend.

Globalization is a very new phenomenon—something that we barely understand and can no longer control. And yet, it’s the language of control that dominates its discourse—“containment of the Eurocrisis,” “curtailment of visas for immigrants,” and so on.

Another issue with the current discourse on globalization is its shifting reference points—social globalization (movement of people, exchange of culture, immigration—concerns of the 99%) and financial globalization (movement of investments, ownership—concerns of the 1%). The biased media often uses social globalization to defend the concerns of the 1%. There needs to be focused research on the effects of these two globalizations on each other. And there needs to be a rule requiring the media to qualify words such as “good” and “better” with the revealing context of for whom and in what capacity. For instance, it may be “good” for credit card companies when their consumers rotate their credits, but it’s certainly not good for the consumer’s long-term well-being. Your credit is not “priceless.”

Currently, the Indian parliament has ground to a standstill with heated debates (that usually go nowhere) about allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the Indian retail industry. It’s a contentious issue because it affects around 20 million small retailers who form the backbone of the In-

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Contagion: Or How Alan Greenspan Affected My Paycheck

Photo by the author

Photo by Marco Moog, Hamburg

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Contagion: Or How Alan Greenspan Affected My Paycheck

Photo by Marco Moog, Hamburg

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Contagion: Or How Alan Greenspan Affected My Paycheck

dian unorganized economy, millions of farmers, and the large middle class that will consume from the Walmarts & Carrefours of the world. Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton visited Delhi and made a strong case for allowing FDI in Indian retail. The lobbying machinery has been working overtime to convince Indians that the “reforms” will usher in a more efficient market, create supply-chain infrastructure, and provide higher margins for farmers. However, the global experience is not exactly a cause for optimism as it shows that the margins of producers have fallen while monopolies have obliterated the cultural fabric, marginalized the majority of entrepreneurs, and brought in an underpaid workforce of salesmen.

Though India is a large and varied country, the global players across industries are always only interested in the top metropolitan towns. So essentially globalization is contributing to unsustainable urban congestion while not contributing anything to the welfare of the nation at large. More importantly, it’s driving the East to adopt Western migratory patterns that are skewing demographics in unsightly ways.

The narrative of globalization often presumes the adaptability of labor—upgrading the skills of the labor force. But is labor adaptable? Is upgrading even desirable?

Globalization facilitates efficiencies of scale. And the scale flattens out differences, cultural idiosyncrasies, and independence of consumer choices. (Frito Lay bought out the Indian snack brand Uncle Chipps and then subsequently tried to replace it with “Lays.” Though the market muscle ensured Lays’ leadership, the unique consumer connection that Uncle Chipps enjoyed warranted its revival in some markets.)

And yet for all its dangers and promises, globalization has enabled the creation of some amazing tools. The real question is: how can these tools be employed gainfully for the majority of Indians?

Trickle-down theory has not worked for our country. A direct solution must exist. Hope rests with the Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) efforts now being undertaken by many enthusiasts, organizations, and governments and with the open movement that is making knowledge more accessible.

Even though I had to take a pay cut because of globalization, I am still grateful because I owe my career to it. After all, I am in advertising, and advertising is an act of creating and scaling up an image or idea to reach more and more people. Advertising is the first employee in the service of globalization.

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Future Challenges Germany

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Senior Project Manager, Bertelsmann Stiftung Head of Project @futurechall_org (ow)

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Future Challenges US | External Support

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External Support

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