A New Space Era | Diplomatic Courier | September 2019 Edition

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A Global Affairs Media Network VO L UME 13 I ISSUE 4 I SEPTEM BER 2019

A NEW SPACE ERA?

Perhaps. But Not a New Space Race.

EDUCATION

HEALTHCARE

CLIMATE

SOCIETY

DIPLOMACY

THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY WE WILL NEED TO ACHIEVE THE SDGs

BIG DATA: THE HERE AND NOW OF AFRICAN HEALTHCARE

MAPPING OUR WAY OUT OF THE CLIMATE CONUNDRUM

YOUTUBE’S MANAGEMENT NEEDS A #METOO MOMENT

HOW WOMEN POLITICAL LEADERS EXCERCISE BEJEWELED DIPLOMACY

p20

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p44

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CHALLENGING CURRENT AND FUTURE LEADERS TO SHAPE A BETTER WORLD SINCE 1947.

www.SalzburgGlobal.org

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Contents VO L UME 13 I ISSUE 4 I SEPTEM BER 2019

10 I Cover Story

A New Space Era? Perhaps,

But Not a New Space Race.

By: Allyson Berri

16 I SDG4 | Quality Education Education for Tomorrow’s

World, Today

By: Manjula Dissanayake & Dominic Regester

20 I SDG4 | Quality Education

WISE Explores the

Educational Policy We Will

Need to Achieve the SDGs

By: Allyson Berri

24 I SDG5 | Gender Equality

Achieving Gender Equality

In the Age of Digital Interdependence

By: Coby Jones

38 I SDG15 | Life on Land 26 I SDG3 | Good Health

Mapping Our Way Out of Big Data: The Here And

the Climate Conundrum

Now of African Healthcare

By: George Jilani

30 I SDG16 | Peace & Justice Cities, Networks, and a

New Cold War

By: Ian Klaus

34 I SDG15 | Life on Land

The Environment, Not

Economics, Is At Stake in the

Vital Mekong River Region

By: Allyson Berri

36 I SDG13 | Climate Action We Don’t Need All the

Answers to Make Climate

Policy Decisions

By: Sonia Seneviratne

By: Thomas Crowther

40 I SDG2 | Zero Hunger

Investing in Sustainable

Food Systems

By: Martin Sonnevelt

44 I Editorial

YouTube’s Management

Needs a #MeToo Moment

By: Marc Ginsberg

48 I Diplomatic Life

Weaponizing Wardrobe

Criticism: How Women

Political Leaders Exercise

Bejeweled Diplomacy

By: Allyson Berri

Masthead Publishing house Medauras Global

COVER Story Allyson Berri

publisher & ceo Ana C. Rold

Creative Contributors Michelle Guillermin Emma Hall Amy Purifoy Sebastian Rich

Creative Director Christian Gilliham director of social media Winona Roylance Contributing EDITORS Duncan Cox Michael Kofman Molly McCluskey Paul Nash Chris Purifoy Winona Roylance Jacksón Smith Shane Szarkowski Shalini Trefzer

CONTRIBUTORS Allyson Berri Manjula Dissanayake Jakob Cordes Charles Crawford Thomas Crowther Marc Ginsberg Justin Goldman Caroline Holmund Joshua Huminski George Jilani Coby Jones Sarah Jones Ian Klaus Arun S. Nair Uju Okoye Dominic Regester Sonia Seneviratne Martijn Sonnevelt

Editorial Advisors Andrew Beato Fumbi Chima Sir Ian Forbes Lisa Gable Anders Hedberg Greg Lebedev Anita McBride DC CORRESPONDENTS Allyson Berri Jakob Cordes

PUBLISHING. Diplomatic Courier magazine is produced by Medauras Global LLC, an independent private publishing firm. The magazine is printed six times a year and publishes a blog and online commentary weekly at www.diplomaticourier.com.

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ISSN. The Library of Congress has assigned: ISSN 2161-7260 (Print); ISSN 2161-7287 (Online).

ISBN: 978-1-942772-01-9 (Print); 978-1-942772-02 (Online).

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ART/PHOTOGRAPHY/ILLUSTRATIONS. In order of appearance: cover by Amy Purifoy; page 6, logomark by Issuu; page 8, photo by Joyce Boghosian; page 48-49, photos by Wikimedia Commons CC, public domain. All other images and photos by Bigstockphotos.com, Unsplash. com and Pixabay.com. All advertising images supplied by the respective individuals, organizations, or companies advertising.

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SEPTEMBER 2019 06

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Welcome VO L UME 13 I ISSUE 4 I SEPTEM BER 2019

Ana C. Rold Publisher & CEO

Becoming an Interplanetary Species Space is the next great frontier for our civilization and becoming a multi-planetary species is one of the most important future forward achievements we can strive for. Humanity’s long-term survival is tied to this achievement.

This summer we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. It was a time to reflect on what has been achieved since the infamous space race in the 1960s and 1970s. Critics will be quick to point out that we have yet to get to the next level of achievement, even though, the players and initiatives have multiplied exponentially the past five decades.

The truth is the new space era is more inclusive and diverse than it’s ever been. Despite obvious hurdles, more women are joining the ranks and traveling off world. The private sector initiatives rival national initiatives, and together they have formed uncommon collaborations that may get us to our goals faster. This is why, says our cover story author, Allyson Berri, this is not exactly a race—at least not in the sense of what we witnessed 50 years ago with the moonshot.

So, what does it mean for international relations? We have covered space diplomacy quite a bit the past several years. In May this year I wrote for the B20 Summit publication about how private sector initiatives and renewed funding for national initiatives will expedite our ability to commercialize outer space.

But outer space remains a diplomatic ambiguity. In fact, the question of where airspace ends and outer space begins is a very important one. International treaties define space as free for exploration and use by all. However, as the airspace above countries remains sovereign, in the event that nations have a different definition of where the boundary between these two spaces is, a conflict of interest could arise between countries and private companies as the space tourism industry and other commercial space ventures continue to develop. No universally accepted formal definition has been adopted, an issue that will undoubtedly cause many problems for the private space tourism industry as it continues to develop. This is but one of several cases where progress and exploration are ahead of legislation and regulation.

While space exploration has not quite made it to this year’s UNGA agenda—or other global leadership forums, for that matter—the accelerated way with which the industry is moving forward demands a multilateral approach. Sooner or later, nations will have to come to an agreement on the formal definition of boundaries between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. We will look forward to convening the first such interdisciplinary forum on the “Future Off World Civilization” together with our partners at our World in 2050 initiative next year. We hope you will join us and share your own vision for what the future of space travel will be. ●

SEPTEMBER 2019 08

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COVER STORY OFF WORLD

A new space era?

Perhaps, But Not a New Space Race.

By Allyson Berri

SEPTEMBER 2019 10

CROEV FE RU G S TEOERSY OFF WORLD

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COVER STORY OFF WORLD

S

he was the first Pakistani to visit the North and South poles and the first Asian to skydive over Mount Everest. At Prince Albert II’s behest, she became the first Honorary Consul of Pakistan to the Principality of Monaco. She was once the president of the largest studentrun NGO in the world and founded a non-profit in 2015. Clearly, on earth, she has many accomplishments to be proud of. But Namira Salim has always reached for the stars.

Salim first dreamt of traveling to space as a little girl stargazing in Pakistan. A $250,000 ticket on a Virgin Galactic suborbital flight means that Salim might finally make her dream of space travel a reality. Though she was introduced as one of Virgin Galactic’s earliest founders in 2006, according to Bloomberg, the company is finally set to begin its first commercial spaceflights later this year. If Salim makes it into space, she will do so as the first Pakistani woman.

Salim’s astronomical aspirations arise in time for a new era in space that is nothing like the American/ Soviet clashes of yesteryear. During the Cold War Era American and Soviet nationalism flourished through tit-for-tat achievements in space.

The U.S. launched its first artificial satellite in early 1958, just months after the USSR had launched its first Sputnik satellite. In April 1961, the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin became the first man sent into space. A little over a month later, American President John F. Kennedy announced to Congress that the United States would be the first country to send a man to the moon.

1963 saw Soviet Valentina Tereshkova become the first woman in space.

And 1969 saw American footsteps on the moon.

Today, private space companies, not governments, are leading the way towards many modern space achievements. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has ambitions to establish a city on Mars as early as 2050. Virgin Galactic remains concentrated on establishing suborbital tourism as an affordable industry. Experts argue that 75% of the space industry is already commercialized. In a new age of space commercialization, it’s no surprise that the woman named as the First Pakistani Astronaut will make it into space on a private company’s flight.

The nationalist space programs that dominated our galaxy over fifty years ago could seem out of place as space becomes increasingly dominated by private companies. However, recent reporting from India, which launched a lunar mission in July, paints a different picture. In July 2019, a New York Times reporter visited a school in New Delhi where space class is a favorite subject for many students.

A teacher peppered her students with questions about rocket mechanics in addition to rhetorical questions about India’s recent astronomical accomplishments. The teacher claimed she couldn’t hear her students when she asked if they were proud Indians; she was met with a roaring “YES MA’AM!” in return.

India’s brand of space-bolstered classroom nationalism is hardly a new international concept. American students who lived through their country’s space race with the Soviet Union remember that science education in the United States intensified during the 1950s. And in

Today, private space companies, not governments, are leading the way. SpaceX has ambitions to establish a city on Mars as early as 2050. Virgin Galactic remains concentrated on establishing suborbital tourism as an affordable industry.

SEPTEMBER 2019 12

other countries, space programs are marked with other forms of national pride reminiscent of the space race era. China’s space program gained global attention at the beginning of 2019 when it became the first to send a spacecraft to the dark side of the moon. China’s space program pride— much like India’s—is steeped in old-fashioned nationalism. Last year, the head of China’s moon program, Ye Peijian, said, “If we don’t go there now, even though we’re capable of doing so, we’ll be blamed by our descendants.” And as Politico reports, China has described its program using lofty phrases like “spirit of aerospace” and “space dream”— nationalist sentiments reminiscent of space race language in which John F. Kennedy described his country’s “moonshot” as ending a battle between “freedom and tyranny.”

Politico described recent national moon missions as “the biggest flurry of human activity in history.” With India, Pakistan, Japan, Israel, and Russia all planning moonshots in one form or another, it would seem short-sighted to discount the importance of national space missions in today’s space era, even in light of the slew of private companies that have their sights set on the stars.

However, just because nationalism has been invigorated by space missions in India and China does not mean that the modern space race is a simple contest of national pride.

Behind space class in Indian schools, for example, is a for-profit education company known as Space India.

Space India offers workshops, field trips, and classes to both public and private schools in a country where the government science education has been described as “written for a rickshaw puller’s son.”

And when describing her own future voyage to space, astronaut Namira Salim, First Pakistani Astronaut, will also attribute her accomplishment to Monaco, where she has lived since 1997. True to an era where space competition can no longer be defined by cut-and-dry nationalism, Salim notes that though she wants to inspire women and

CROEV FE RU G S TEOERSY OFF WORLD

youth as a Pakistani, everything she does “has to do with Monaco,” her home for the last 22 years—and the place where she signed her Virgin Galactic contract.

But it would also be wrong to dismiss the new space age as one to be dominated exclusively by private companies. Two of the best-known private space companies—Blue Origin and SpaceX—are American-owned.

And a slew of smaller American companies are helping NASA colonize space. In June 2019, the American space organization named three private companies, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Orbit Beyond, to help it carry payloads under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) for the Artemis program. That same month, NASA opened up the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial business with the hopes of allowing American industry to flourish. Just as

The nationalist space programs that dominated our galaxy over fifty years ago could seem out of place as space Becomes increasingly dominated by private companies. the new space cannot be defined as a competition between national interests reminiscent of its Cold War-era predecessor, it is also not a race between competing private companies.

And with the lines between competing interests so crossed and blurred, perhaps the new space era cannot be defined as a race at all.

In 2015, Namira Salim founded her non-profit, Space Trust. The organization’s goal is set on making space a tool for creating peace on earth. Through Space Trust, Salim

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hopes to host a summit (the “0G Summit”) on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly every year.

By 2030, Salim wants to take the peace summit to space.

Whether the organization manages to host its first peace summit in space remains to be seen in another decade. One important element of Space Trust’s mission, however, remains clear. Through its 0G Summit, the organization hopes to engage world leaders as well as the global space industry. In an era where space cannot be defined by competition between private companies nor competing national governments, Space Trust’s mission offers an ambitious goal for our next age above the atmosphere. Perhaps our future in space will truly be devoted to such peaceful purposes. If anything, it seems like our next space era will be nothing like our last. ●

7 #MEGATRENDS FUTURE OF SOCIETY There is no question we will soon live longer, work less, and know more than ever before. But what will we do in this post-employment world? How will it function? How will society relate to knowledge, information and new social classes (those who have or create the knowledge and those who consume it)? Advancements are allowing us to re-imagine and re-engineer our world. But what will it mean for the Future Society?

FUTURE OF HUMANITY We know Artificial Intelligence (AI) will reign supreme in our imaginations but the World in 2050 will not be a battleground between AIs and humans.

Augmented humans will test the limits of humanity and they already walk among us now. Biotechnology and gene editing are allowing us to engineer a new kind of human.

FUTURE OF ENERGY Humans’ impact on the planet is so irreversibly profound that exploring alternative forms of energy will be paramount to humanity’s survival in the long term. Innovations and cutting-edge research is already in the works but the goal of our generation will be to become less and less dependent (and eventually completely independent) from fossil fuels.

OFF WORLD CIVILIZATIONS Space is the next great frontier for our civilization and becoming a multiplanetary species is one of the most important future forward achievements we can strive for. Advancements in space flight and moonshots by both the private sector (i.e. SpaceX and Virgin Galactic) and governments (i.e. UAE’s Mars 2117 initiative) will make ours the first Mars Generation.

FUTURE OF TRAVEL Flying cars, the Hyperloop, intergalactic travel? These are not Sci-Fi visions of the future but the world now. At the famous World’s Fair in New York in 1939, GM envisioned a futuristic society where highways connected the rural to the urban. With 70% of the world’s population moving to cities in the coming decades, innovating in the transportation realm will be paramount.

FUTURE OF HEALTH Humanity is struggling against bacteria and disease as well as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Today our focus is on primary or secondary prevention. In the near future, we will be solving for “primordial prevention”, looking at prevention of the risk factors in the first place, and we will treat age as a disease that not only can be “cured” but can be prevented.

ARTISTIC VISIONS OF THE FUTURE What about art, poetry, or inventions for things and issues that have not even been imagined yet? What is the role of pop culture or film in solving for the future? This category is for the dreamers who will marry the practical to the whimsical.

LET’S CO-CREATE THE FUTURE TOGETHER.

Apply today for the annual list: www.2050challenge.com Each of these 7 megatrends represent fields of worldwide pivot points for change. How can your contribution direct us toward a better world in 2050?

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sponsored report

Education for Tomorrow’s World, Today Report by Manjula Dissanayake & Dominic Regester

“C

ountries worldwide strive for education systems that prepare young people for life, work and happy lives, and inspire them to contribute actively to their communities. However, change is not happening fast or widely enough to meet these aims or to help societies rise to the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals.”

The opening quote is from a Statement published by Salzburg Global Seminar on 20 March 2019 to coincide with the International Day of Happiness. The Statement was an output from one of an ongoing series of programs organized by Salzburg Global Seminar focused on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) as the essential reform topic of our

time and one which is relevant to all education systems.

Social and emotional skills or life skills are key human capabilities that allow individuals to manage their emotions, work with others, and achieve their goals. For example, these include skills around empathy, critical thinking, resilience, communication, and teamworking. There is no universal SEL skills framework as various cultures attribute different levels of importance to different skills. What is increasingly widely accepted though is that these skills are crucial for the well-being and success of every child and for the future of our societies and economies.

There is a compelling and multi-faceted demand side argument for social and emotional learning programs, which extends across economic development, health and well-being, community cohesion, social justice and improved education attainment for all young people. To cite a handful of examples: •

There is a close correlation between the kinds of skills and competencies that SEL programs help young people develop and those that are needed for rapidly evolving economies and the digital revolution, skills for jobs that won’t be automated in the near future.

A reform that can address many concerns simultaneously

•

Social and emotional skills are also a key part of the response to the

SEPTEMBER 2019 16

Sponsored report

growing mental health crisis affecting young people worldwide.

By 2030, the World Health Organization has said that depression will be the leading cause of the global burden of disease. Depressive disorders often begin at a young age and there is a growing evidence base that shows SEL as an important tool for mental health promotion in young people.

•

Social and emotional skills are essential for meeting the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals. Astronauts talk about the Overview Effect that occurs when they see the earth from above and come back with a sense of a planetary society.

Empathy, which almost all SEL programs help young people develop, is key to realizing something similar on the earth.

•

SEL interventions have been used for several years as a core component of programs designed to build social cohesion before, during and after conflict. As societies around the world become more fluid and fragmented, there is a real need for a much wider application of SEL in helping young people feel confident in their own identities and vested in their communities.

•

Programs focused on SEL have shown to help reduce the achievement gap within school groups and improve academic attainment for all young people, especially for those who are growing up in adverse circumstances or living in crises and emergencies.

The role of Social and Emotional Learning in bridging the learning gap globally As the world is rapidly moving from capitalism to talentism, education systems globally are under pressure to prepare young people to fulfill the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the needs of our more

“While the previous industrial era demanded that nations provide one-size-fits-all mass education, the current digital revolution demands personalized, holistic education that will prepare humans to identify and develop their own talent, competencies and emotions to thrive in a world driven by machines and technology.” complex societies. While the previous industrial era demanded that nations provide one-size-fits-all mass education, the current digital revolution demands personalized, holistic education that will prepare humans to identify and develop their own talent, competencies and emotions to thrive in a world driven by machines and technology.

Some national or regional education systems including those in Mexico, Delhi and Finland have recognized this need and commenced to introduce systemwide SEL reforms. One of the encouraging aspects of SEL as a global education reform movement is witnessing as much innovation from majority of the world or the global south such as the reforms in Delhi as from the global north such as CASEL in the United States or the pioneering methods of Finland. However, when considering the global landscape, only a handful of systems have taken the initiative, and there’s a strong urgency for others to follow their lead. As the 2018 World Development Report stresses, education today is no longer transforming into learning, and the world is primed for reimagining education to make learning more accessible and relevant for everyone.

SEL fosters critical emotional intelligence and offers a foundation

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for young people to develop essential competencies such as empathy, creative problem solving, self and social awareness, effective management of emotions, and purposeful decision making - some of the most sought-after and relevant skills for future workforce and society. Given that SEL can also be deployed across many learning ecosystems, both by integrating into existing school curriculums and through outside-classroom environments, it becomes a powerful tool to help leapfrog inequality for the millions of young people who have been left behind by current education systems.

Educate Lanka: a practical example from Sri Lanka Educate Lanka - a non-profit social enterprise - was founded to help address the critical gaps of Sri Lanka’s education system. While Sri Lanka has benefited from its universal access to education by achieving an adult literacy rate of nearly 92% and almost 100% primary and secondary student enrollment in schooling, the country continues to face the challenge of meeting the demands of the changing global economy; thus, falling well short of prosperity and development potential. These gaps have resulted

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in nearly 50% of students completing their education without employable skills. The country has also experienced a decades-long armed conflict and a number of communal tensions during the 70 years since independence.

Evidently, holding one of the highest literacy rates in the world has not been effective in tackling these challenges.

In addressing these learning gaps, Educate Lanka has created a blended approach that uniquely integrates technology and social-private partnerships to offer children and youth, especially those who are from socioeconomically marginalized contexts, a parallel pathway of learning that equips them with the competencies overlooked by formal education. For far too long, social and emotional learning and life skills have been considered optional and perceived peripheral to the main academic curriculum. Through its pathway of outside the classroom learning, Educate Lanka works to shift this balance so that SEL and other 21st century learning is considered the foundation of education upon which students are able to build their theoretical knowledge and expertise so that they are better prepared to excel not just academically, but more holistically in work and life as well.

By democratizing access to these relevant learning opportunities, Sri Lanka’s young generation would be equipped with the tools needed to take the country toward sustainable social and economic development, peace, and stability. Having successfully implemented its SEL interventions across all demographics throughout the country, Educate Lanka is positioned to scale its model with the support and collaboration of policymakers and the global community.

A new global movement With a view to further advancing the SEL agenda and helping to build a global community of committed policymakers, researchers and practitioners, we are both proud to have helped initiate a new Global

“At its heart, Karanga’s core vision is to help create ‘a thriving world where all learners are enabled with the skills to succeed in school, work, and life.’”

Alliance for Social Emotional Learning and Life Skills called Karanga. Karanga means a call out in welcome in the Maori language of New Zealand, and although this alliance is still in its infancy, we already have some major players involved, including ETS, Microsoft, Qatar Foundation International, Learning Economy, CASEL, Harvard, World Innovation Summit for Education, the European Network for Social Emotional Competency, The Learner First as well as Salzburg Global Seminar and Educate Lanka.

At its heart, Karanga’s core vision is to help create “a thriving world where all learners are enabled with the skills to succeed in school, work, and life.”

New insights and breakthroughs around the measurement, assessment, evaluation and recognition of social and emotional skills will be crucial in realizing this vision, so we would

SEPTEMBER 2019 18

like to invite you to join the global movement and register your interest at www.karanga.org.

By better connecting the growing movement of educators, schools, districts, and policymakers working deliberately to teach and embed social and emotional learning into all learning environments, we can create and accelerate our collective impact.

And these skills will enable us all to deliver on education’s promise for every child. ●

ABOUT THE AUTHORs Manjula Dissanayake is Founding Executive Director at Educate Lanka and Steering Committee Member, Karanga - the global alliance for social emotional learning and life skills. Dominic Regester is Program Director at Salzburg Global Seminar and Executive Committee Member, Karanga.

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Home to change-makers since 1947.

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special report

WISE Explores the Educational Policy We Will Need to Achieve the SDGs Special Report by Allyson Berri

T

he United Nation’s fourth sustainable development goal of ensuring quality education had a big moment at last year’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Ministers from Kenya, Jordan, and Niger met with leaders from Canada, France, and the United Kingdom and discussed ways to improve girls’ access to education. Several new educational partnerships rose out of 2018’s UNGA meeting, including one designed to provide all young people aged 10-24 with some form of schooling, learning, training, or employment by 2030. And Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands

pledged increased educational funding for children living in crisis areas.

Though education gained a lot of attention at last year’s meeting of the UNGA, in 2019, there is still much work to be done to ensure global access to quality education.

This is what drives the work of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a global organization that brings together decision makers, teachers, and education experts from around the world to discuss education policy considering global issues. Ahead of this fall’s UNGA meeting, WISE has published three reports detailing

SEPTEMBER 2019 20

innovative advancements in education policy. Global leaders would be wise to heed the organization’s recommendations when discussing ways to achieve goal four.

A Need for Educational Leadership Globally, the share of primary school teachers who are trained for their positions amounts to 85%, and the proportion drops to 64% in subSaharan Africa. According to WISE, educational leadership is just one way that schools can improve teaching efforts and school organization. After all, educational

Special report

“WISE has published three reports detailing innovative advancements in education policy. Global leaders would be wise to heed the organization’s recommendations when discussing ways to achieve goal four.” leadership is the key component behind many of the most effective schools, and educational leadership must be rooted in teaching if is to be effective. One way schools can lead effective teaching, as the recent WISE report notes, is by designing educational curriculum that utilizes the cultural knowledge of its students. For example, some teachers might be more effective if they realize the students struggling with formal math had already developed rudimentary math skills helping their parents count goods at market.

policies can take a cue from Jordan’s Ministry of Education, which has developed a comprehensive plan to improve the quality of education for all youth in the country, which features a large Syrian refugee population. Notably, the program includes several measures to promote student wellbeing, including subsidized school meals for lower income families, antibullying measures, and extracurricular activities.

Creative Routes to Secondary Education

Linking Education and Wellbeing Recent data from 72 countries indicate that only 70% of children aged 3-4 are on track in at least three of the following areas: literacynumeracy, physical development, social-emotional development, and learning. Such data indicate a growing need for states to initiate educational policy that promotes both educational and health needs.

States hoping to implement similar

Ensuring quality access to education means ensuring access to education that goes beyond primary school.

From 2000 to 2015, the number of lower secondary school age children left out of the classroom shrank from 97 million to 62 million. However, challenges to achieving secondary school education are greatest in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Senegal is just one country in sub-Saharan African pursuing unique solutions

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to building a better education system.

The African nation has already made athletics an integral part of its education, hoping that an emphasis on sports and physical education will contribute positively to its social and economic development. But the country also hosts several private football academies which provide educational opportunities to gifted young athletes in a country where only 37.1% of secondary-school aged children attend school.

Education is sure to receive some of the spotlight at this year’s UNGA. As member states work to better ensure quality access to education the world over, they can look towards many of their peers for policy inspiration. From designing curriculum based on cultural knowledge to promoting student well-being, several states are ahead of the curve when it comes to promoting effective education policy.

It remains to be seen whether such innovative policy helps states work toward providing access to quality education in the future. ●

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D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m GENDER EQUALITY

ACHIEVING “M GENDER EQUALITY IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL INTERDEPENDENCE By: Coby Jones

oments of change present new opportunities to solve old problems.”

So say Melinda Gates and Jack Ma, Co-Chairs of the UN SecretaryGeneral’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. In the report, The Age of Digital Interdependence, published in June 2019, Gates and Ma seek to share with the world the opportunities and challenges presented by digital technology and hope to shape a more inclusive and sustainable future. The report suggests four priority action areas and one recommendation of facilitated Global Digital Cooperation.

The first priority action area, An Inclusive Digital Economy and Society, focuses on gender equality, the oldest problem in the book.

Recommendation 1C emphasizes the need to “strengthen research and promote action on barriers women and marginalized groups face to digital inclusion and digital equality.” The report does make specific mention of women and other traditionally marginalized groups and the need to address barriers in order to create a more inclusive digital society throughout.

However, inequality for women and girls, not just in the digital economy SEPTEMBER 2019 24

Women are more likely to live in extreme poverty, more likely to report food insecurity, and are more likely to live under the threat of violence from an intimate partner. but on a global epidemic level, is pervasive and unchanged. Women are more likely to live in extreme poverty, more likely to report food insecurity, and are more likely to live under the threat of violence from an intimate partner. The discrimination lived by women and girls globally literally ends lives. In protest, women are standing up and demanding their equal rights, and yet, gender inequality is deeply entrenched in our global culture, perpetuating the barriers that exist to full inclusion, digital or otherwise.

For action to be taken on reducing the barriers women face in digital inclusion, a deeper analysis is needed.

The Gates Foundation offers a model for such analysis. The Foundation believes that investing in the empowerment of women and girls can lead to change and equality.

F E AT U R E

In the digital age, digital tools and technologies might be the missing ingredient to solving the gender equality problem. The Gates model offers three components of empowerment that lead to change: agency, institutional structures, and resources.

Resources, or the lack thereof, is the biggest barrier facing women in digital inclusion and equality. Half of the world is still off-line. Billions of people around the globe do not have access to electricity on a regular basis let alone access to the internet or mobile technology. This gap in resources around the world affects women more. Women, globally, earn less and are less likely to be able to afford technology like mobile phones and computers. And there isn’t a private sector interest in solving this issue.

“The market itself cannot address the problem of women’s exclusion from the digital economy. We need action from governments to incentivise companies to produce more affordable technologies. But even more critically we need national and international leadership on tackling the structural inequalities that prevent women from accessing mobiles or computers due to cost and social norms, and working in the tech companies that are shaping the evolution of digital societies and industries,” says Becky Faith, Research Fellow and Co-Leader of the Digital and Technology cluster at the Institute of Development Studies. The private sector, civil society, national governments, multilateral organizations and the general public will be responsible for changing the norms around access to technology.

The very first step in creating an inclusive digital economy and society must be access to resources. The private and public sectors must invest in the structures that will bring affordable and accessible internet access, mobile phone networks, and digital devices to the billions of women who currently do not participate.

Another critical step to increasing women’s participation in the digital economy and society is changing cultural gender norms. Discriminatory gender norms are at the heart of gender inequality across all segments of society and even influence the way data is collected. “With good data, better decisions can be made,” says

change in resources and institutional structures alone will not create an inclusive digital economy or society. Women must have the power to freely choose to participate in the digital space.

Nina Rabinovitch Blecker of Data2X, an organization working to improve the quality, availability and use of gender data in order to make a difference in the lives of women and girls worldwide. She continues, “Data systems have been built with inherent biases, not because of ill intent, but because of who helped build the systems and what types of topics and activities were considered valuable to collect data on. Now, systems have evolved, and we have the opportunity to rectify these issues.”

The Inclusive Data Charter is another initiative that is helping to break down the discriminatory norms that affect data collection. The Inclusive Data Charter was developed by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) and partners to mobilize political commitments and meaningful actions to deepen data disaggregation. “An inclusive digital society is a society that can actually support a digital economy.

Having disaggregated data makes that possible,” says Amber Kiwan of GPSDD. Biased gender norms affect the way that women are allowed or not allowed to interact with the world.

The implications of these biases also exist in the way that data is collected.

To whom survey questions are being asked, what kind of questions are asked or not asked are just a few of the ways in which data can be affected. Data helps us all make better decisions, but first, biased norms against women and girls must stop.

Ultimately, change in resources and institutional structures alone will not create an inclusive digital economy or society. Women must have the power to freely choose to participate in the digital space. Agency is the linchpin of the Gates empowerment model and is the linchpin here when creating an inclusive digital economy and society.

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In the development sector, there are countless programs intended to improve people’s lives. Increase household incomes, reduce malnutrition rates, and increase literacy and numeracy rates. More and more, digital technology is being used to increase the efficacy of these development programs or to deliver government services. As with every development program, however, there can be unintended negative outcomes.

With digital, unintended consequences can be harder to spot, particularly for women and girls, who are often underrepresented in both the data and the systems that govern them. “Our responsibility is to do the right thing and monitor what happens as a result of our actions,” says Laura Walker McDonald, Senior Director for Insights and Impact at the Digital Impact Alliance. “Digital development has more potential to disproportionally, but unintentionally, harm women and girls because we’re not tracking the impacts of our work accurately.”

When women are left out of the ecosystems that are created with the intention of creating a more equal world for us all, their agency is left behind as well. It is imperative that as digital technology is increasingly used in the development sector, women and girls are consulted and able to inform the design of these programs. Digital development spaces must ensure that their programs are accurately accounting for the discriminatory gender norms that govern our society, and therefore, a digital economy and society as well.

Creating an inclusive digital economy and society will take work.

The Age of Digital Interdependence report fully acknowledges that and details a list of action items needed to be taken moving forward. But the barriers faced by women are much deeper and more complex than the report can give space to address.

In using The Gates Foundation empowerment model to think through the key elements required for an inclusive digital economy and society for women, it’s evident that there are serious barriers that women face in participating fully in the digital space.

Working through the issues regarding resources, institutional structures, and agency will help promote economic opportunity and environmental stability for us all. ●

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m B I G D ATA & H E A LT H C A R E

BIG DATA: W THE HERE AND NOW OF AFRICAN HEALTHCARE By: George Jilani

hen we discuss health matters about Africa, the fabled ‘narratives’ hold true: weak healthcare systems, limited infrastructure, understaffed health facilities, and scarcely digitized methods of collection and storage of health data. A majority of the health data recording in public hospitals is still done on paper and stored in file cabinets for manual analysis, leaving the system open to the danger of important health findings going largely unnoticed and unconsidered; a deeply unsettling possibility for a growing region of 1.2 billion people with a huge health service demand.

This loss of healthcare insights is especially tragic in light of the fact that the primary cause of deaths in Africa remains communicable diseases, which are preventable.

According to UNICEF, there are 5,500 child deaths in the under-five age group every day in Southern and Eastern Africa due to conditions that could be prevented or treated with access to simple, affordable interventions.

Grace is 28-year old woman in Kenya who has had an intensely personal brush with the statistics.

After a dear cousin succumbed to it, she is terrified that her two beautiful SEPTEMBER 2019 26

According to UNICEF, there are 5,500 child deaths in the under-five age group every day in Southern and Eastern Africa due to conditions that could be prevented or treated with access to simple, affordable interventions. daughters could be the next victims of the spike in infectious bacterial pneumonia in her village. Like her neighbors, she too goes to bed with this dread in her heart every night. Is anyone doing anything about it? Yes. Is it helping? Not much. Governments and private stakeholders in the region have provided billions-worth of at-cost treatment in attempts to improve health outcomes, with little beneficial results for the general population. There seems to be a discord between the current systemized interventions for general health and the demands of the population. The voice of the people remains largely unheard and it is high time the key stakeholders in healthcare take a moment to scrutinize the data for clues.

F E AT U R E

In the past few years, Africa has seen a rise in interest from private stakeholders in the region’s ‘big data’ opportunities. Big data refers to both, structured and unstructured data, so massive that it requires special database and software techniques to process. Apart from the big five Internet players (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook), plenty of others are taking advantage of the big data spoils to create products best suited to the current African market demands. IBM Research Africa has already invested up to $70 million to launch a Watsonpowered platform for 25 million African youth offering free skills development programs, including in big data and cloud computing and analytics. While some of these private investments take advantage of the market naivete for business gains, there are generally very positive outcomes from the application of big data, predictive analytics and IoT (Internet of Things) in this region.

Data-intensive paradigms, if also applied to the health care sector, could transform health service delivery tremendously.

For Africa, there needs to be a general migration from traditional paper record ‘bureaucracies’ to safe

IBM Research Africa has already invested up to $70 million to launch a Watson-powered platform for 25 million African youth offering free skills development programs, including in big data and cloud computing & analytics. online and personalized patientcentric methods of data collection.

This will inform the formation of new health strategies and influence better decision making and resource allocation for governments and private stakeholders alike.

Should global healthcare institutions invest in big data in Africa? How difficult would it be?

Experts agree that the complications for stakeholders and policymakers for big data investments are not limited to any technological scarcity in the region. There is plenty of data which has already been collected from various sources and which can be harvested before we need to introduce new technologies for

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further data tailored needs. According to a 2018 GSM association (Global Systems for Mobile communications) Infographics report, the overall mobile phone subscriber penetration in Africa reached 44% by 2017, up from just 25% at the start of the decade.

This means nearly half of the entire 1.2 billion people may have access to a working mobile broadband connection. Global healthcare stakeholders may thus find it easier to capitalize on this opportunity by thinking along the lines of mobilephone-based health service applications and programs—a step in the right direction towards harnessing the computational power of big data analytics. Big data analytics in the confines of mobile-phone-based surveillance technologies have already been put to test in Africa and have worked remarkably well.

In Kenya, GAVI—a public-private partnership and vaccine alliance committed to increasing access to immunization in developing countries—funded a pilot program to map pneumococcal vaccine administration while monitoring the incidence of same disease occurrence using big data analytics. The results were impressive. There was a staggering drop of 70% in

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m B I G D ATA & H E A LT H C A R E

pneumococcal disease-related hospital admission rates only after a few months. Grace too is a beneficiary of the GAVI surveillance program. She is finally relieved of the constant worry for the lives of her daughters and feels reassured of their safety. She, like many other residents in her village, was recruited in the study to help map the reach of the vaccination program.

Similar techniques were applied in West Africa to control the spread of the Ebola outbreak. Data scientists from CDC replaced traditional paper forms with a mobile surveillance network using the text messaging functionality of simple mobile phones. The reporting was quicker, monitoring steady and streamlined and they observed general success in containing the threat using a method that was both secure and cost-effective. So, what can governments in the region do?

Beyond digitizing the entire health information system, data science should be introduced in health personnel training curricula. This will ensure that healthcare professionals are equipped to read trends and understand patterns as they inform

For Africa, there needs to be a general migration from traditional paper record ‘bureaucracies’ to safe online and personalized patientcentric methods of data collection. This will inform the formation of new health strategies and influence better decision making and resource allocation for governments and private stakeholders alike. themselves on efficient and effective healthcare strategy designs.

While the general African population would be positively receptive of the new interventions that disrupt age-old chaos, there is no shying away from the urgency and need to address data privacy in a rapidly shifting digital economy with relatively thin lines between regulation and governance. We do need to re-design the whole

SEPTEMBER 2019 28

approach and welcome the participation of the general public so that we can win their confidence and trust. The intentions of the study, project, or venture need to remain transparent. Cultural conflicts can be eased by inviting local expert participation in programs with frequent human to human interactions. The general global standards, needless to say, have to remain the same on data privacy and user anonymity. Also, a good understanding of the history and motivations of the population in context helps a lot in designing products that make sense to them.

The future looks promising for Africa. And the narratives are about to change. For good. â—?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR George Jilani is a computer scientist with a medical background from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. His current focus is on rethinking healthcare delivery paradigms for the developing world through meaningful application of technology and AI.

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D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m CITY DIPLOMACY

CITIES, T NETWORKS, AND A NEW COLD WAR

he seeming disarray of this particular moment in foreign affairs results not only from the potential unwinding of long-standing alliances and relationships, but also the intertwining of seemingly discrete geopolitical shifts and megatrends.

Russia’s increased election interference is enabled by the spread of digital networks. The rise of global middle class inhibits progress on climate change. And so too, now, does the return of heightened geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China threaten to complicate the rise of cities on the global stage.

Recognizing Global Competition

By: Ian Klaus

In a much-noted 2014 essay in Foreign Affairs, the international relations scholar Walter Russell Mead highlighted “the Return of Geopolitics.” A year later, in those same pages, UN Special Envoy for Climate Change and Cities and former mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the arrival of the “Metropolitan Generation.” While seemingly at odds with each other, with Mead’s piece foreseeing a future shaped by heightening tensions between states and Bloomberg’s identifying the power and importance of cities, both SEPTEMBER 2019 30

Diplomats and policymakers encouraged a peaceful rise of China as a regional player and, eventually, a global power within the constraints provided by international organizations and long-standing alliances. essays have worn well since publication.

Heightened geopolitical tensions have demonstrated that the state is here to stay and friction between states is not in recess. Meanwhile, urban areas continue to grow, both in terms of population and land cover, and cities have become increasingly active voices on the world stage.

These parallel tracks threaten to converge, however, with increasing tension in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship.

For decades, U.S. policy sought to integrate China into the existing world order. Diplomats and policymakers encouraged a peaceful rise of China as a regional player and, eventually, a global power within the constraints provided by international

F E AT U R E

A protracted trade war undoubtedly has implications for the economies of many American cities, whether they are structured around information and communications technology, manufacturing, or ports and shipping.

organizations and long-standing alliances. “The U.S. has supported China’s global integration,” wrote Joshua Meltzler and Neena Shenal in a February, 2019, Brookings Institute report, “with the expectation that as China benefited from the international economic system, including WTO membership, it would become a responsible stakeholder—where China would work with the United States.”

This approach led to a strengthening of the economic relationship, and also of links between educational institutions and subnational governments, both state and municipal.

But despite significant cooperation on issues like climate change, the limits of this approach were becoming apparent during the Obama Administration. Bill Burns, the former U.S. deputy secretary of state, recently observed that by Obama’s second term, “China’s ambition to recover its accustomed primacy in Asia had already upended many of our comfortable post-Cold War assumptions about how integration into a U.S.-led order would tame, or at least channel, Chinese aspiration.”

This growing realization among policymakers was codified in the Trump Administration’s National

Security Strategy, released at the end of 2017. Economic, political and military competition, including with Russia and China, the report observed, will “require the United States to rethink the policies of the past two decades—policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners. For the most part, this premise turned out to be false.”

With tensions simmering over territorial disputes in around maritime borders and the South China Sea, and fueled by new trade wars, the relationship’s dynamic moved quickly from one of integration and cooperation to one of outright competition. By summer 2019, a new Cold War seemed to be afoot, supposedly leaving little untouched.

“The United States and China are contesting every domain, from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration,” led a May 2019 cover story for the usually levelheaded Economist.

Among the domains for which the shift in U.S.-China relations is going to be tricky are U.S. cities and the city networks to which they belong.

A protracted trade war undoubtedly has implications for the economies of many American cities, whether they are structured around information and communications technology, manufacturing, or ports and shipping. On a trip to China in 2018, Los Angeles mayor acknowledged as much, observing in the face of heightening trade disputes, “We have closely integrated

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economies, closely integrated cultures and closely integrated geography…

We hope to be the leading Chinese city in America for investment, tourism and students. We already are in terms of make-up of the population.”

The decisions American mayors are forced to take amid the deepening of tensions will in fact reach beyond their obvious economic interests. Over the last decade, mayors have established themselves as policy advocates-cumdiplomats. They petition international organizations, attend United Nations summits, and organize in support of and around international agreements.

Mayor Garcetti, for instance, has elevated Los Angeles as a global leader in the collective efforts of cities to confront global challenges, including around both climate change and cyber issues. And Los Angeles has become a leading voice in international networks and platforms such as C40 Climate Cities and the Urban 20.

Notably, these platforms, and many others, include both American and Chinese cities. C40 Climate Cities, for instance, includes more than twenty American and Chinese cities in one way or another, as does the global network Local Governments for Sustainability. And understandably so.

Any transnational effort focused on climate change and the reduction of carbon emissions in particular would seek impact in the United States and China. The pivotal roles of the United States and China in meeting global challenges also means, however, a more treacherous diplomatic terrain for cooperating cities amid a chillier bilateral relationship.

Remembering Global Cooperation The Cold War comparison, deployed so quickly these days, may well have its limits, but for mayors and city networks facing an increasingly tense international environment, Cold War history may also provide useful guidance. International urban-focused efforts did suffer in the twentieth century for geopolitical competition and ideological divides. The Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (CIAM), led by among others Le Corbusier, Josep Lluís Sert, and Richard Neutra, was perhaps the most influential international urban planning effort of the mid-twentieth century,

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m CITY DIPLOMACY

but by the mid-1930s was banned in both Germany and the Soviet Union.

While CIAM may well have suffered for ideological divides - both before and after the war - international nongovernmental organizations in fact increased during the first years of the Cold War, with the number of such organizations increasing from 477 in 1940 to nearly 800 in 1950.

From 1945 to 1950, a significant number of these organizations focused on development and the environment, policy arenas familiar to city networks today. “Despite the unmistakable signs of geopolitical tensions, individuals and organizations from the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from other countries, were continuing to meet,” wrote the Harvard historian Akria Iriye, who outlined the history of such cooperative efforts in Global Community, “They shared information and exchanged ideas, thereby confirming the persistence of transnational endeavors in the immediate postwar years.” Of note is not simply the existence of such endeavours, but their policy focus.

While a large number of the notable cooperative efforts focused on education and reconstruction in

The pivotal roles of the U.S. and China in meeting global challenges also means a more treacherous diplomatic terrain for cooperating cities amid a chillier bilateral relationship. the wake of World War II, others, particularly those among the scientific community, focused on global threats.

The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, for example, founded in 1957, included scientists and experts from both sides of the Cold War divide focused on the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Today, the most pressing of those goals is climate change, and just because the relations across the Pacific are getting chillier, does not mean the oceans are not warming.

To be sure, examples of ongoing transnational cooperation come with a serious historical warning label.

That the global community persisted amid the Cold War does not mean, Iriye points out, “that great power rivalries and tensions did not intrude on the activities of international organizations.” Nations expelled relief SEPTEMBER 2019 32

organizations for fear of influence campaigns. Intelligence agencies sought influence within IOs or, at times, funded the establishment of new ones. Such efforts are all the more tempting today as the amplification power of networks provides the opportunity for both shared progress and great power influence. In other words, cooperation on global goals might be more important than ever, but practitioners of city diplomacy will have to so with a heightened awareness for international and national politics.

Mayors and city diplomats are fond of quoting global figures around advancing urbanization, but are shy as it comes to heightened tensions between states or superpowers. But they can’t be avoided entirely. China, Bill Burns observed, is a power “whose moment had come.” To the degree that the chilling of U.S. – China relations influences cooperation on issues such as trade and climate change, the effects will be felt in cities in both countries and beyond. And while rivalry, even bellicosity, need not mean the end of networked cooperation, it likely requires that the players understand that the terms of the great game have changed. ●

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D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m MEKONG RIVER ECONOMICS

THE I ENVIRONMENT, NOT ECONOMICS, IS AT STAKE IN THE VITAL MEKONG RIVER REGION By: Allyson Berri

n 2011, then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for increased American engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. This followed the 2009 introduction of the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), an American policy that established reengagement with five of the countries (Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand) that border the Mekong River in Southeast Asia.

The goal of the LMI is to “positively contribute” to “education, the environment, health, and infrastructure” in the Mekong River region. Though the policy sets several diverse goals aimed at stimulating development along the Mekong, including improving water sanitation and advancing Englishlearning opportunities, one of its larger geopolitical initiatives has little to do with the Mekong river countries. In the shadow of a looming Chinese presence, the LMI clearly seeks to establish better geopolitical balance in the Mekong river area.

The U.S. has many reasons to be competitive with a growing Chinese superpower. In 2010, China became the world’s second-largest economy; only the U.S. amasses a larger annual GDP. Over the last two years, the SEPTEMBER 2019 34

relationship between the two countries has been defined by escalating trade tensions. It only makes sense that conflict between the two powerhouses would meet in the Mekong river region, where Chinese influence has been growing for over a decade.

At first, China began building hydropower stations on its part of the Mekong river. Then came the patrol boats, which China began sending to the region in 2011, following an attack on two Chinese cargo ships. And China was only getting started. The country has future plans to make parts of the Mekong wider and deeper, changes that would allow China to increase commerce in the region. Additionally, China has targeted Cambodian cities for massive infrastructure projects, including a bid for a megadam in Sambor, an undertaking which would devastate the livelihoods of Cambodian workers. After all, downstream from China, over 60 million people in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia depend on the Mekong river for food and/or income.

The U.S. and China are competing for economic dominance in an arena where they are the world’s two biggest superpowers. Though Chinese influence is growing the world over, nowhere is it felt stronger

F E AT U R E

than in Southeast Asia. American influence, too, is growing, with the U.S. investing $17 billion dollars in the Mekong in 2017 and trading $109 billion dollars with the region in 2018.

The United States, however, has a reason larger than economics to become involved in the Mekong River region. Along the Mekong River, Chinese development is wreaking havoc on the environment.

Currently, Southeast Asia is one of the most critical regions in the world for climate change, and the coastal cities that make up much of the Mekong region are especially vulnerable. Further, the dams China has already built on the Mekong reduce water levels, hurting local fish populations and damaging farms downstream. China’s plans to make the river wider promise even more environmental damage, threatening food security for people in the region.

Further, the environmental impact of Beijing’s future development projects along the Mekong could have an even more severe environmental impact on the region.

In Cambodia, where China has plans to build its biggest dam yet at Sambor, the environmental impact could be massive. A study commissioned by the Cambodian

In the shadow of a looming Chinese presence, the Lower Mekong Initiative (an american policy) clearly seeks to establish better geopolitical balance in the Mekong river area. government found that the dam could “literally kill the river,” threatening fish populations and exacerbating the impacts of climate change. The report even identified Sambor as the “worst possible place” to build a hydropower dam.

Cambodia, however, has something to gain from infrastructure projects with China. Though the Sambor dam project would devastate the environment in the region, it would also provide Cambodia with valuable access to electricity. Currently, only 53% of Cambodian households have access to grid-quality electricity, and most of the country’s energy is imported. Similar pressures exist with other Chinese projects elsewhere along the Mekong.

In Thailand, environmental activists were successful in stopping China from making the river wider and deeper.

Protests went on for months, and the

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Thai government put the plans on hold.

However, the pressure to expand the Mekong in Thailand doesn’t just come from Beijing—certain Thai businesses are in favor of the growing the river to allow for more trade with China.

As it celebrates the ten-year anniversary of the LMI, the U.S. needs to look past its trade disputes with Beijing and consider the environmental impact growing Chinese influence has had on the Mekong region. With coastal cities that are already vulnerable to climate change, the Mekong region is especially vulnerable to infrastructure projects that could potentially damage the river’s life-giving resources. And as the Mekong River countries develop, the U.S. needs to be mindful of the incentives they may have to strike deals with China. As China’s building projects extend beyond the hydropower dams which have already created environmental damage along the Mekong, the U.S. would be wise to build upon the sustainable development initiatives it established in the LMI and foster development that actually benefits the environment. The lifeblood of the lower Mekong River states may just depend upon it. ●

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m C L I M AT E P O L I C Y

WE DON’T R NEED ALL THE ANSWERS TO MAKE CLIMATE POLICY DECISIONS By: Sonia Seneviratne

ecent heatwaves and extreme climate events highlight the fact that the weather on our planet is changing. In parallel, we know that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing during the last century due to human activities. What has not been entirely clear up until now is the relationship between water availability on land and CO2 in the atmosphere. If we have more heatwaves and more droughts, could this contribute to climate change?

In a study published last year, we used satellite data to measure water availability on land and tried to relate this to CO2 growth rates in the atmosphere, to determine by how much carbon dioxide concentration is increasing year-on-year. Plotting this showed a clear relationship between this otherwise independent data. In other words, whenever you have droughts, the volume of CO2 released into the air increases. On the other hand, during wetter periods, the intake of CO2 increases.

The reason this observation matters is that the land-surface models currently used in climate change simulations do not take into account that there is such a strong SEPTEMBER 2019 36

coupling between water availability and the carbon cycle. That means that current models underestimate the potential negative effects droughts could have in the context of global warming, which would amplify that effect.

Why climate models underestimate the relationship The explanation for this might be that the models misrepresent the relationship between water and carbon dioxide. One example is that plants do not die in a climate model. In addition, most models do not account for fires. Furthermore, it is likely that the models also underestimate fluctuations in water availability, as linked to soil depth, for instance.

The overall point is that we are likely to be underestimating the projected warming of the planet. Our research shows that the impact of droughts on plants is greater than we previously thought, causing an increase of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and by extension an increase in global warming.

The impact on policy The implication is that, to be on the safe side, we need to avoid any scenarios where projected emissions

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are too high. The trajectory we are on in terms of emissions’ commitments by world countries is more like 3 degrees by 2050, compared to the 1.5°C aimed for in the Paris Agreement. In spite of the evidence and the warnings of the scientific community, we have been lulled into a false sense of security.

We should recognise that we do not need to wait for full knowledge from science to make decisions. We are out of time. If anything, we should err on the side of caution, because drought is one possible feedback that is being underestimated – there could be others.

This means that, on the policy side, we should do everything we can to fight global warming, beginning with upholding the Paris Agreement and aiming for a stabilisation of global warming at 1.5°C. The scientific community will continue to work towards understanding the uncertainties around droughts and the carbon cycle, but in the meantime, we have plenty of reasons to act now, given what is at stake and the impacts associated with only a 1.5°C increase in global warming. Remaining scientific uncertainties, if anything, should worry us and speed up action. There is no viable reason to delay decision-making about climate mitigation. ●

Sonia Seneviratne is one of the authors of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Global Warming of 1.5° Report.

Published in summer 2018, the report assessed what a 1.5°C warmer world would look like, and analysed the different pathways by which global temperature rise could be limited to 1.5°C. A year on, Sonia gives her take on the impact of droughts on the carbon cycle and explains why, more than ever, the time to act to curb global warming is now.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in Switzerland, Sonia studied at the University of Lausanne and ETH Zurich. In her research, Sonia analyses climate extremes, land-climate processes, and climate change.

She has received several awards for her research, among others the Macelwane Medal of the American Geophysical Union (2013) and a consolidator grant of the European Research Council (ERC, 2014).

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m C L I M AT E & A G R I C U LT U R E

MAPPING W OUR WAY OUT OF THE CLIMATE CONUNDRUM By: Thomas Crowther

hat if we could restore forests in natural areas outside urban and agricultural land and capture twothirds of the excess carbon in the atmosphere? The Crowther Lab, at ETH Zurich, mapped the world’s 3 trillion trees, enough data to launch the United Nations’ Trillion-Tree Campaign.

The new maps show not only how global restoration is possible, but also how people around the world can be effective in this global mission.

The devastating impact of climate change is an unfathomable prospect that will pervade current and future generations. Despite enormous global awareness, there remains no clear-cut, realistic, and tangible climate change solution. Government officials, activists, and scientists propose numerous changes for reducing carbon emissions. The proposals range from effective refrigeration management, with the potential to save ~24 billion tons – 65,000 Empire State Buildings - of future carbon emissions to adopting a plant-only diet – a measure that could save approximately ~18 billion tons of future carbon emissions.

Restoring Natural Ecosystems Behavioral and technological changes SEPTEMBER 2019 38

are all vitally important for addressing climate change, but if we want to substantially reduce our current trajectory – capturing in excess of 300 billion tons of atmospheric carbon that already exists – we need a more powerful and comprehensive approach.

Recently, a number of technological solutions and geoengineering strategies – such as Direct Air Capture (i.e., scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere) – have emerged that show some promise for capturing existing carbon. Ultimately, we will need to use many of these approaches in combination to significantly drawdown the current level of atmospheric carbon.

Restoring natural ecosystems is one solution often talked about, but rarely given any serious consideration as a viable approach. Die-hard environmentalists often view ecosystem restoration as a somewhat “feel-good” endeavor - a futile response to deforestation. The stigma surrounding forest restoration persists for the simple reason that we lacked quantitative global information about the current state of the world’s ecosystems. Questions such as, “How much carbon do the world’s forests currently store?” and “What is the future carbon storage potential of

F E AT U R E

The Crowther Lab, at ETH Zurich, mapped the world’s 3 trillion trees, enough data to launch the United Nations’ Trillion-Tree Campaign. The new maps show not only how global restoration is possible, but also how people around the world can be effective in this global mission.

forests?” left researchers and policy makers with little more than conjecture.

Without comprehensive data, it has been impossible to benchmark the value of forest or ecosystem restoration as a valid climate-change solution.

A Big-Data Approach Until recently, our understanding of global ecosystems stemmed only from satellites. Satellites provide amazing global coverage of forests, but they do not tell us about the plants and microorganisms that form the structure and basis for ecosystems below the canopy. To address this challenge, researchers in the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich have begun to develop and implement new approaches for generating quantitative information about the current and potential carbon storage of global ecosystems. By establishing massive international networks of ecologists and pooling data from millions of on-the-ground measurements of local ecosystems, we can now build machine-learning models to map the distribution of microorganisms across the globe.

This big-data approach has already revolutionized our understanding of the terrestrial biosphere, illustrating the staggering scope and complexity of the world’s forests. We have revealed

that there are just over 3 trillion trees on the planet - more than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. More importantly, we can now identify where forests could exist across the globe, demonstrating that there is room for an additional 0.9 billion hectares of forest.

Restoring these areas would capture 205 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere, two-thirds of the global atmospheric carbon burden - simply by reforesting natural ecosystems.

Following this information, the United Nation’s ‘billion-tree campaign’ has been scaled to the ‘trillion-tree campaign,’ and a large network of restoration organizations are using the global maps generated by this research as guidelines for optimizing and targeting their planting effort.

Researchers in the Crowther Lab, along with others across the globe, continue to build on the data. The information that the data provides gives us a comprehensive, quantitative, and holistic understanding of the carbon-capture benefits of forest restoration. Indeed, tree planting is just the tip of the iceberg. In order to understand the health of ecosystems across the globe, we need to understand the soil beneath our feet.

Soil serves, at least for now, as the largest terrestrial carbon stock across

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the globe. We are using the same big-data approach to quantify the composition and health of forest soils, and to assess the carbon-storage potential of other ecosystems, such as grasslands and savannas. This work reveals that the carbon-capture potential of ecosystems is not limited to trees and that combined, restoration of natural ecosystems to their native states has the potential to capture the majority of human-derived atmospheric carbon.

A Comprehensive Climate Solution As a low-tech, low cost solution, global ecosystem restoration is among our most powerful tools in the fight against climate change. It took a unique, holistic approach, as well as a collaboration with hundreds of researchers from around the world to map out this solution. The global-scale of this research transforms our understanding of the biosphere, providing a realistic climate change solution that each of us can implement immediately.

What makes this solution so revolutionary is that it does not depend on new technologies, and it does not rely on governmental policies that can oscillate over time. In fact, it is a truly democratic solution, one in which potentially everyone on the planet could participate. Depending on an individual’s level of support and commitment, each one of us could get involved by: •

• •

Volunteering to plant trees directly with local restoration groups, Donating money for restoration projects, or Simply investing wisely and buying goods from environmentallyresponsible organizations.

Like most climate change solutions, engaging people around the world remains the only and most significant hurdle. Unlike all of the current climate change solutions, we do not need to wait around for politicians and governments to make it happen. ● ABOUT THE AUTHOR Thomas Crowther is a professor of Global Ecosystem Ecology at ETH Zurich where he founded the Crowther Lab.

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m FOOD SECURITY

INVESTING S IN SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS By: Martijn Sonnevelt

triking the right balance and adopting a consumer driven approach to investing in the world’s food systems might be complex, but it presents a powerful tool towards achieving many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Fighting hunger is a central element of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to build a better world. However, since the goals came into effect in January 2016, the world has actually witnessed an increase in the number of persons suffering from hunger.

In many parts of the world, progress towards addressing hunger and malnutrition has stalled primarily due to violent conflicts combined with climate variability and more frequent and intense climate extremes.

According to the 2019 report on “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World,” the world faces an unacceptably high burden of malnutrition. Over 820 million people do not get enough food to eat, and malnutrition is responsible for more ill health than any other cause. At the same time, obesity has contributed to 4 million deaths SEPTEMBER 2019 40

globally. The way the world produces, consumes, and wastes food is far from sustainable. The agricultural sector, together with forestry, accounts for 24% of the total greenhouse gas emissions.

Producing, processing, and delivering food is resource- and energy-intensive. The UN estimates that each year, a third of the food produced worldwide worth US $1 trillion ends up rotting in waste bins or spoils because of poor transportation or harvesting practices. If the world fails to increase efforts and to implement more targeted measures, it will fall far short of achieving the ambitious SDGs. Crucial for Developing Food Systems The food system serves as the basis for the livelihood of billions of people worldwide from the small-scale farmer to the inhabitants of megacities. Food and nutrition security, environmental health and quality, and social well-being represent key outcomes of sustainable food systems. Most issues and challenges addressed by the 17 SDGs; therefore, also play a crucial role in the development

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of sustainable food systems.

A secure and decent living, including appropriate nutrition year-round, is a fundamental right of a family unit. The small-scale farming household, for example, demonstrates the connections between security and social wellbeing. Changing climate conditions, decreasing quality of soil resources, and insecure political, legal, and economic circumstances endanger a small-scale farming family’s access to healthy and diverse food. The way a family invests its scarce resources is crucial for developing food systems. Striking the right balance between producing food for sale or for personal consumption and buying food highly depends on available capabilities and resources. It also depends on the ability to invest time in off-farm employment and the possibilities to integrate into existing value chains. Rural farming households are, in one form or another, connected to global developments.

Their future depends directly on many of the aspects tackled by the SDGs. Further investment in well-adapted practices, new technologies, and innovations along the entire value

In the shadow of a looming Chinese presence, the Lower Mekong Initiative (an american policy) clearly seeks to establish better geopolitical balance in the Mekong river area. chain - from the small farms to supermarkets - will facilitate the transition towards sustainable food systems and could bring the 2030 Agenda a big step forward.

Switzerland and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN presented their view on investment in a recently renewed framework agreement. The framework places the 2030 Agenda at the center of Swiss cooperation with the UN in order to intensify cooperation to promote the transformation of food and agriculture.

Engaging a Consumer Approach The five principles for sustainable food and agriculture proposed by FAO are key for developing more sustainable food systems. Ultimately, achieving many of the SDGs requires

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the definition of focus areas that allow adapted measures and instruments as well as consider the local context and relevant expertise and knowledge.

Accordingly, a food system is only sustainable if all actors involved manage to (i) improve efficiency in the use of resources to increase addition in food systems; (ii) protect and enhance natural resources and ecosystems; (iii) protect and improve livelihoods and foster inclusive economic growth; (iv) enhance the resilience of people, communities, and ecosystems; and (v) adapt governance to address upcoming challenges responsibly and effectively. If the actors in the food system apply these principles as guidelines to identify priorities and design targeted actions, then, from a production perspective, a more sustainable future is possible.

However, one important actor group is not explicitly considered in these principles: consumers. A shift away from a supply-focused approach to a one that includes a consumption perspective is a vital, yet missing element in the FAO principles. Waiting until consumers change their behavior and choose a more sustainable and healthy diet

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m FOOD SECURITY

may be a naive approach. A better approach could include incentives for the food industry to improve both the nutrition and environmental footprint of products. Additionally, if governments, together with civil society, supported educational programs it could raise both awareness of the consequences of certain consumption patterns on human and environmental health and spark possible alternatives.

Knowledge + Understanding = Change Environmental, socio-economic, and current political conditions drive decisions and impact all actors along the entire food value chain.

Incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives enables a better understanding of the complexity of the food system and inspires change. By knowing the system, smart solutions can be developed for the way food is produced, processed, and distributed and can even inspire drastic shifts in consumption.

One way that the World Food System Center at ETH Zurich incorporates differing perspectives is by bringing academia, industry, and society together to create real-world

Waiting until consumers change their behavior and choose a more sustainable and healthy diet may be a naive approach. solutions. Through solid research and education, the Center seeks to inspire and eventually support the development of participant-led local initiatives like a small-farmers’ cooperative and organic seed company in India; building a data exchange platform in the Ukraine; and creating digital tools to improve climate resilience for farmers in Africa. Scientifically grounded, yet practically-oriented and sociallyinclusive, such living examples expand the capacity of next generation leaders as change makers.

By understanding the food system from different perspectives, policy makers, industry professionals, and consumers can identify levers and synergies. A systems approach is complicated but necessary to create solutions to achieve a more sustainable and resilient food system and reach the SDGs. â—?

SEPTEMBER 2019 42

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Martijn Sonnevelt is an agricultural economist and Executive Director of the World Food System Center at ETH Zurich.

He also has faculty position at ETH Zurich and teaches courses on environmental systems and food security.

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YOUTUBE’S I MANAGEMENT NEEDS A #METOO MOMENT By: Marc Ginsberg

n another ploy to throw circling regulators off its scent, YouTube declared it will remove thousands of videos and channels that advocate neo-Nazi white nationalism and other uber right wing content. It joins its social media corporate brethren in yet another public declaration of penance to clean up its platform before a fedup American public demands more accountability and oversight of #BigTech.

My reaction? Better to mobilize victimized Americans to make a citizen’s arrest of YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki for failing to act sooner and continuing to turn a blind eye to YouTube’s aiding and abetting extremist content.

Under Wojcicki’s management YouTube has remained a malignant purveyor of violence and terrorism subsisting within a corporate-wide culture of extremism tolerance. Not one such previous YouTube policy shift has added up to much more to a hill of beans. Time and again, her indifference to the storms swirling around YouTube suggest, at best, she is unable to fix YouTube, or at worst, is too Silicon Valley libertarian for her to continue in her role. After all, YouTube’s own published rules prohibit content which incites violence and extremism. It’s as SEPTEMBER 2019 44

The UK’s Parliament will begin considering a new “Online Harms” law which would impose the most sweeping civil and criminal liability on social media companies operating in the UK. if YouTube’s own rules are meant to be ignored by her.

A recent expose in the NYTimes “The Making of a YouTube Radical” describes how YouTube provided a web-based “on ramp” to enable Caleb Cain to be sucked into a vortex of far-right politics on YouTube. The Times’ elaborated how YouTube has been a convenient recruiting tool for neo-Nazis, or “red-pilling” (an internet slang word for converting to far-right beliefs).

YouTube Repeatedly Turns a Blind Eye to Extremism—It’s A Money Maker For many years, the Counter Extremism Project has called YouTube to task for failing to enforce its own customer terms of service against the prevalence of radical Jihadi incitement and neo-Nazi

OPINION EDITORIAL

content. Despite pleas from CEP and impacted governments, YouTube has left many of the radioactive accounts online even when they violated its own rules against extremism.

In 2017, I questioned whether YouTube would ever live up to its repeated pledges to permanently remove the most egregious neo-Nazi and radical Islamic content on its platform (Google’s New Anti-Extremist Policy Is Thin Gruel Against Terrorism —Huffington Post, June 22, 2017).

I was right to be dubious. In response to an advertiser boycott in 2017, YouTube pledged to remove dangerous videos enabling domestic neo-Nazi violence and terrorism caused by YouTube’s so-called “recommendation algorithm” (RA) migrating American corporate ads onto extremist sites visited by users. The RA is responsible for more than 70% of all time spent on YouTube. The longer a user is on, the more ads eyeballed (what is known as “rabbit holing.”) The advertiser boycott cost YouTube almost $700 million in lost digital ad revenue that year. Loss of ad revenue was incentive enough for YouTube to tinker with the RA to satisfy boycotting corporate advertisers, but the patch was insufficient.

But while YouTube was trying to fix its “ads on extremist content” problem, it was feverishly working to accelerate the success of its RA to gain more and more ad revenue.

In early 2017, Ms. Wojcicki oversaw her team’s development of each new iteration of its RA, including its most “lethal” version known as “REINFORCE” which migrates potential radicals to recommended videos by “baiting” them to watch more and more. REINFORCE soon became a “red-pilling” gold mine for the far right, who developed more and more videos to play off REINFORCE. CEP continues to find corporate ads on extremist content despite YouTube’s pledges to corporate advertisers to prevent that from happening again.

Terrorists & White Nationalist Extremists Rely on YouTube’s “How to” Videos It’s not merely the prevalence of neo-Nazi and radical jihadi extremist incitement and recruitment on YouTube, it’s also the proliferation of terrorist “how to” videos, a year ago, I wrote an OpEd pleading with YouTube to remove these terrorist instructional

The European Union is on the cusp of adopting a new regulatory framework, which would require swift removal of extremist content within a limited period or face fines commensurate with their market share and global revenue. videos which the FBI has revealed were utilized by ISIS and neo-Nazi inspired terrorists.

On any given day there are tens of thousands of videos on YouTube providing step-by-step instructions how to construct bombs—pipe bombs, pressure cooker bombs, you name the type terrorists rely on to hone their training and build their weapons. They are all in plain sight without needing to hire a technological Einstein to find them on YouTube.

Ms. Wojcicki has never come clean about these “how to make a bomb” videos fulfill YouTube’s duty of care to its customers. Why doesn’t YouTube just offer up the matches as well?

Where is the public outrage? Where is the accountability to the public?

Nazi Sympathizers Enjoy a LongTerm Lease on YouTube On January 31 of this year, I authored an article entitled: “The Acrid Stench of Neo-Nazi Content on YouTube.” The article highlighted the “in plain sight” hospitality YouTube accorded vulgar videos from the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division and the notorious neo-Nazi tome—Seige (a rancid diatribe scribed

by American neo-Nazi James Mason, which serves as the manifesto for the Atomwaffen gang). Seige urges its disciples to launch lone-wolf terrorist attacks against the U.S. government to cause it to collapse in favor of a new Fourth Reich. Did YouTube take down Seige-related content, which is uncontestedly incitement and not a part of some investigative assessment? An audiobook of it is still on YouTube today.

My article also disclosed the existence of a neo-Nazi video game “Zog’s Nightmare,” which was readily accessible by merely inserting into YouTube’s search bar the neo-Nazicreated catch-all YouTube acronym “ZOG” (Zionist Operated Governments).

45

Guess what? Version #2 of the neoNazi-created video game is now up on YouTube as of June 10 (Chanukah Special ZOG’s Nightmare #2). There are so many other examples of neoNazi extremist incitement easily located on YouTube, there is not enough room to list the most egregious examples.

YouTube’s Goal: Spend Whatever it Takes to Prevent Regulation & Accountability Let’s start with the reality social media companies will spend whatever it takes to prevent oversight and accountability rather than invest those dollars in permanent technological fixes.

Either unwilling or unable to govern itself as it has grown exponentially, YouTube has plowed a king’s ransom into Washington lobbying to forestall Congressional regulation and to prevent Congress from repealing its content immunity granted under the 1996 Communications Decency Act (18 USC Section 230).

Section 230 represents #BigTech’s Holy Grail. If Section 230 were to be repealed by Congress, social media companies would be held to the same standard of content responsibility/ liability as other major media companies (think of the Washington Post, or New York Times). YouTube would be forced to take down those “how to” videos and extremist incitement or face civil or even criminal liability. Why should #BigTech continue to benefit from such immunity which enables them to voluntarily decide when and how to act?

YouTube would have to vet every image before it reached the public or be held liable by victims of its content transgressions. And if YouTube’s Wojcicki pleads it’s not technologically feasible to capture white nationalist or “how to” content, Section 230 immunity was repealed years ago to hold #BigTech liable for permitting the posting child porn or sex trafficking videos.

America’s Democratic Allies Have Had Enough of #BigTech’s Empty Promises America’s trans-Atlantic and transPacific allies are no longer prepared to sit on the sidelines hoping for some #BigTech anti-extremist miracle.

After the Christchurch massacre, New Zealand adopted legislation

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m YOUTUBE

holding social media companies criminally liable for livestreaming any variant of the massacre. Australia passed a law criminalizing the failure of social media platforms to “take timely action in relation to abhorrent violent material.” Australia is currently considering new legislation which would require more government oversight of Big Tech’s own customer terms of service.

The European Union is on the cusp of adopting a new regulatory framework, which would require swift removal of extremist content within a limited period or face fines commensurate with their market share and global revenue. And the UK’s Parliament will begin considering a new “Online Harms” law which would impose the most sweeping civil and criminal liability on social media companies operating in the UK. YouTube’s executives assured New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Adern that it was throwing the proverbial technological kitchen sink at locating and removing any variant of the live-streamed Christchurch massacre.

Nearly three months after the attack, Eric Feinberg, a respected cyber intelligence analyst with GIPEC provided me on June 12 a link to a video of the white extremist Christchurch mosque massacre on YouTube. The Arabic language call for vengeance against “infidels” has the raw video of the massacre in the lower right-hand corner. If Mr. Feinberg can find it, why can’t YouTube with all its technological resources? So much for Ms. Wojcicki’s pledge.

If Congress Won’t Act, Why Not Corporate Advertisers?

Despite a growing Congressional chorus calling on YouTube and its brethren to clean up their acts under threat of involuntary regulatory oversight, there is no pending legislation of immediate consequence working its way through either the House or Senate. Apparently, the lobbyists are prevailing.

It is a sad commentary on the stubborn resistance of Silicon Valley to get ahead of the extremist curve that our allies are doing more than the U.S. Government to demand accountability.

But all this international regulation will only protect the citizens of those countries, not Americans.

Dr. Hany Farid (one of the world’s

Nothing will be accomplished until social media companies are certain that their failure to impose order will result in mandatory oversight and regulation. preeminent computer scientists, the developer of the “eGLYPH” software used to identify extremist content and my CEP colleague) opined in USA Today a few months ago “…if our government will not step up to the plate, it is time for corporate CEOs who fuel the bottom lines of #BigTech to demand accountable action. Advertising accounts for 90% of social media’s revenue…: “These CEOs can stand up and say unequivocally: enough is enough. We will no longer be the fuel that allows social media to lead to deaths of innocents, to interfere in democratic elections, to be the vessel for distributing child sexual abuse material, extremism, and dangerous conspiracies.

We will no longer stand idly by as social media turns its back on society.”

In June, marketers announced they are launching the Global Alliance for Responsible Media alongside 14 other global advertisers, the five leading agency holding companies and media companies that include Google, Facebook, and NBC/Universal.

This is an important first step, but no panacea. Nothing will be accomplished until social media companies are certain that their failure to impose order will result in mandatory oversight and regulation.

One Step Short of Mandatory Government Oversight: A New Private Sector #BigTech Oversight Standards Board There is no perfect solution on the immediate horizon to force YouTube to fix its mess. One proposal engineered by my CEP colleague, Robert Benton, is to couple the advertising industry’s proposed “standards” with a private SEPTEMBER 2019 46

sector regulatory watchdog.

The idea is to create an independent social media regulator to “certify” Big Tech compliance with a code of conduct (whether the advertising industry is the source or not) governing rapid identification and permanent elimination of extremist content. The code would establish the required measures and remedies social media companies must enact in order to be “certified.” A loss of certification would result in the imposition of specifically enumerated penalties—both fines and revocation of ad revenue.

Loosely modeled after the highly successful Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which was established in 1973, the “regulator” would incorporate code of conduct reporting and compliance standards for social media companies and be “housed” in a privately-created, independent, private sector, not-forprofit foundation responsible for overseeing, administering, financing, and appointing the board and staff of the “regulator.”

The model purposely avoids the pitfalls of having Congress establish a publicly chartered regulator of social media companies, including the impact of First Amendment restrictions on extremist content regulation. The regulator would publish public compliance reports available to Congress and the executive branch by which Congress can judge whether private regulation is either succeeding or failing, thus giving way to a possible repeal of Section 230. Although this proposal does not envision direct Congressional action against social media companies, Congress has a vital role to play to get Big Tech to line up behind a voluntary, private sector, independent regulator.

Ms. Wojcicki has turned a blind eye to YouTube’s “culture of extremism.”

She is fully acquainted with the content abuses pervasive on YouTube but has stuck her head in the sand hoping a little management fairy dust would keep the public at bay. She simply cannot be trusted to fix the mess that YouTube has created for itself. ●

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ambassador Marc C. Ginsberg is an opinion contributor to Diplomatic Courier and Senior Global Counselor to the Counter Extremism Project in New York.

D I P L O M AT I C O U R I E R .c o m

D I P L O M AT I C LIFE

Weaponizing Wardrobe Criticism How Women Political Leaders Exercise Bejeweled Diplomacy Special Report by Allyson Berri

I

n an interview earlier this year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel remarked that her wardrobe choices have often prompted letters from concerned citizens. Meanwhile, Merkel noted, her male colleagues entirely avoided the same scrutiny in wardrobes composed of identical navy suits.

Similarly, while campaigning for the American presidency in 2016, Democratic party candidate Hillary Clinton faced much criticism for her decision to wear pantsuits instead of skirts. Clearly, when presented with some of the most powerful women in

the world, the press skips over questions of foreign policy or domestic dilemmas and instead focuses on one key concern: what she is wearing.

For women in power, the media torrent that can rise out of even the most minor fashion faux pas (former British Prime Minister Theresa May was once slammed for wearing a sleeveless dress) is clear evidence that society still assigns women to antiquated gender roles. And the research to support this phenomenon extends outside of what’s reported in the weekly news. One 2014 study found that people are much less

SEPTEMBER 2019 48

likely to vote for women when the candidates even slightly deviated from their traditional gender role—a phenomenon that did not carry over to male politicians. Numerous American studies on women running for political office found that these candidates were asked questions regarding their appearance, marital status, or emotional state. During the 1984 presidential campaign, vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, the first American woman to run on a major party ticket, was even asked if she knew how to make blueberry muffins. Clearly, strict

D I P L O M AT I C LIFE

gender roles create barriers for female political leaders and force women in politics to find innovative ways to get their messages across.

For example, in spite of scorching sartorial sexism, Clinton and Merkel both found subtle ways to turn the wardrobe discussion in their favor, using jewelry as a way to communicate subtle messages about their leadership abilities. During a debate preceding the 2013 election, Merkel exhibited subtle nationalism by wearing a small red, gold, and black metal necklace that reflected the colors of the German flag.

And before embarking on her own presidential designs, Clinton eschewed the gaudy gold earrings she donned as a former First Lady in lieu of a folksy charm bracelet containing photographs of her granddaughter, emanating sentimentality and accessibility.

Women in power have used jewelry to turn the inevitable wardrobe discussion back towards themselves. While serving as the only woman on the United Nation’s Security Council, American diplomat

“Madeleine Albright wore a snake brooch to a meeting on Iraq. The Iraqi media had referred to her as an ‘unparalleled serpent’ for comments she had made regarding then-leader Saddam Hussein, and the snake pin was Albright’s clever method of clapping back.”

Madeleine Albright wore a snake brooch to a meeting on Iraq. The Iraqi media had referred to her as an “unparalleled serpent” for comments she had made regarding then-leader Saddam Hussein, and the snake pin was Albright’s clever method of clapping back. Albright continued to use the pins as a method of non-verbal communication when she became the United States’ first female secretary of state. When she negotiated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, she wore an arrow pin that looked like a missile, and she donned a mushroom pin for difficult talks with Syria and Israel, conversations that Albright told press would “do better in the dark for a little while.”

Even Queen Elizabeth II has been suspected of communicating political messages through jewelry. The internet has twice exploded with headlines suggesting that the Queen made her jewelry choices to convey messages of disapproval during meetings with President Donald Trump. Royal jewelry expert Ella Kay, however, has argued that a queen committed to six decades of “careful diplomatic behavior” was likely not taking passive aggressive jabs through her jewelry choices. Nevertheless, if the Queen is guilty of such behavior, she is certainly not the first female political powerhouse to do so.

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Earlier this year, American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore large, silver hoop earrings to her formal inauguration into the House of Representatives. Paired with a bright red lip, the look made a loud statement.

The lipstick was a nod to Sonya Sotomayor, the Supreme Court’s first Latina justice, who was advised against wearing red nail polish during her confirmation hearing because of her heritage. The silver earrings, too, packed a powerful message. Hoop earrings, often associated with women of color, are labeled “unprofessional” or “ghetto.”

Ocasio-Cortez turned this association on its head, tweeting that women in her district could tell naysayers they were “dressing like a Congresswoman” the next time someone told them to take off their hoops.

Like the many female leaders that came before her, Ocasio-Cortez’s use of jewelry weaponizes the wardrobe criticism that is aimed at every female politician throughout the course of her career. Female leaders are thrown many blows—harassment, wage disparity, and objectification, to name just a few. However, sparking political conversations through jewelry is just one way that female leaders can take a lemon and make lemonade. ●

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