The New Global Citizen - Summer 2014 by New Global Citizen

ENTERPRISE IN AFRICA SUMMER 2014 A CELEBRATION OF INNOVATION AND OPPORTUNITY

8 & 10

Comment

TWO VIEWS ON “DOING BUSINESS IN AFRICA”

Impact & Innovation

DEVELOPMENT NEEDS INNOVATION NOW De i r d re W hi te

Global Pro Bono

INTEL: VOLUNTEERING IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS L uk e Fi lo se

Excerpt

BESTSELLER PIKETTY, C a p i t a l i n t he Twen ty-First Ce ntury

Change starts here At EY, we see a bright future ahead, with increased trust and conď&#x192;&#x17E;dence in business, sustainable growth, development of talent in all its forms, and greater collaboration. Through our corporate responsibility efforts, thousands of EY people around the globe are using their skills to assist entrepreneurs, mentor students and reduce our environmental impact. Visit ey.com/us/cr.

Sponsored Content

WeAre

Empowering women and girls is a strategic imperative within PepsiCoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Global Citizenship Vision. In addition to their project work aimed at advancing sustainable agriculture practices, the PepsiCorps team mentored young girls living in rural South Africa offering advice and encouragement to continue their education and pursue their dreams.â&#x20AC;?

PepsiCorps

Performance with Purpose

is a one-month international community volunteering and leadership development experience that enables PepsiCo employees to use their talents to enhance the capacity of local community organizations, gain insight into global challenges, and deliver sustainable social impact around the world.

At PepsiCo, Performance with Purpose is our goal to deliver sustained value for our business, for the planet and the communities in which we live and work. www.pepsico.com

Summer 2014 Editor In Chief Alicia Bonner Ness

Executive Publisher Amanda MacArthur

Design & Publication Manager

Contributors Harry Pastuszek, Vice President, Enterprise and Community Development, PYXERA Global Omo Igiehon, CEO, Portals LLC Thomas Piketty, Professor of Economics, Paris School of Economics Daniel Breneman, Program Manager, PYXERA Global

Melissa Mattoon

Deidre White, CEO, PYXERA Global

Copy Editor

Guy Pfeffermann, CEO, Global Business School Network

Matt Clark

Page Schindler Buchanan, Director of Operations, Global Business School Network

Cover Illustration

Laura Asiala, Senior Director of Public Affairs, PYXERA Global

Matt Chase

Luke Filose, CSR Manager, Intel Corporation

Published Daily At:

Alice Korngold, Korngold Consulting & Author, A Better World, Inc.

www.newglobalcitizen.com

Scott Beale, Founder and CEO, Atlas Corps

Contact:

Matt Clark, Program Manager, The Center for Citizen Diplomacy

editor@newglobalcitizen.com

Rebecca Miller, Program Coordinator, PYXERA Global

(202) 719-0656

Matt Clausen, Vice President, Partnerships and Programs, Partners of the Americas

@BeNewGlobal facebook.com/BeNewGlobal

Ann Oden, Country Director, Nigeria, PYXERA Global

Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world demands individuals and organizations prepared to thrive in a globally interconnected network of challenges and opportunities. Greater social awareness and innovative approaches have allowed a growing number of individuals and organizations to cross borders and cultural boundaries to create shared value and understanding. The New Global Citizen chronicles the stories, strategies, and impact of innovative leadership and international engagement around the world. This publication seeks to capture the ground-level impact of these approaches, providing an avenue through which beneficiaries and implementers alike can showcase their impact. Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transformed and increasingly interconnected world has spurred a revolution in our global culture, reinforcing collaborative approaches to addressing complex challenges. The New Global Citizen elevates the ways in which individuals, corporations, and others are championing a better future for our world.

THIS IS THE WORLD OF THE NEW GLOBAL CITIZEN. THIS IS YOUR WORLD.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

CONTENTS 6

Inside the Issue EDITOR’S LETTER Ali c i a Bonner Ness

Comment AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY Harry Pa stuszek

BUSINESS ACCROSS BORDERS Om o I g i ehon

CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Happenings THIS SUMMER’S GLOBAL POWER PLAY IS NOT ON THE SOCCER PITCH U. S. -Africa Leader s Summit

SIX THINGS EVERY SUCCESSFUL LEADER SHOULD KNOW AT D Co n f erence & Ex p o

CATALYZING GROWTH IN EMERGING MARKETS PY XERA Glob al 2 0 1 4 Conf erence

INSIDE THE CLASSROOM OF THE WORLD Ci ti z e n Dip lomacy Wor kshop

CAN ENTERPRISE END POVERTY IN AFRICA? Al i c i a B o n n e r N e s s

DEVELOPMENT NEEDS INNOVATION NOW D e i rd re Wh i t e

MORE THAN DRUGS & DOCTORS Gu y Pfe ffe rm a n n a n d Pa g e Schindler Buchanan

Book Excerpt Tho m as Piketty

Features

VOLUNTEERING IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS Luke Filose

300 FUTURE LEADERS ARE ON A MISSION TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD Scott Beale

Around the World

Am a n d a M a c Art h u r

M a t t C l a u s en

Re be c c a M i l l e r

An n Od e n

ETHIOPIA: POWER AFRICA IN FOCUS

SAVING MOTHERS, GIVING LIFE

STUDY ABROAD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU THINK

NIGERIA SPOTLIGHT

Sponsored Content

A commitment to the communities where we live and work The JPMorgan Chase Foundation focuses on driving economic growth and strengthening communities across the globe by partnering with local efforts to advance skills-based training, help small businesses grow, and improve financial capability for underserved people. The Firm and its foundation give approximately $200 million annually to nonprofit organizations around the world and lead volunteer service activities for employees in local communities, utilizing its many resources, including access to capital, strength, global reach and expertise.

ÂŠ2014 JPMorgan Chase & Co.

jpmorganchase.com

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Here’s to an End to ‘The West’ & ‘The Rest’

T This issue focuses on enterprise in Africa, and the many opportunities that exist for business to become the driver of progress in the rapidly-growing less-developed corners of the world.

his summer has been rife with conflict and debate around the world. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new fever pitch, a commercial airliner has been shot out of the sky, and revolution and civil war rages on in Syria. This week, July 28, marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, which began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. In a world of bright spots, such events cast a long shadow. Nevertheless, there is reason for hope and an opportunity for progress. This summer, for the first time in history, the President of the United States has invited leaders from across Africa to be his guests in Washington, D.C. While the agenda is still taking shape, it seems an appropriate time in which to set the tone for the events to come. For too long, business has been dominated by a culture of ‘The West’ and ‘The Rest,’ but this summer presents a chance for leaders in all sectors to set aside that view. At the U.S.Africa Global Leaders Summit, heads of state from across the African conti-

nent will have the chance to develop new relationships and opportunities for partnership with American leaders in government and the private sector. In anticipation of this historic event, this issue of the New Global Citizen attempts to set a new tone for these conversations. Focused on enterprise in Africa, and the many opportunities that exist for business to become the driver of progress in the rapidly-growing, less-developed corners of the world, this issue highlights exciting progress combatting maternal mortality in southern Africa, the need for new language and new ideas in international development, and the ways in which electricity, enterprise, and leadership in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, and elsewhere are changing the futures of those nations. Under the leadership of those curious and ambitious enough to begin, in Africa, business can do extraordinary things.

Alicia Bonner Ness Editor in Chief

Leadership in Action

5 1 41 8

Leadership in Action offers a unique twist on leadership development through collaboration between Dow Sustainability Corps (DSC) and Dow Human Resources. Forty-one employees are putting their skills to work helping to address needs of local non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Areas of Focus Sanitation/Hygiene Education Business Planning Market Analysis Agriculture

months virtual consulting

week in country

participants

representing 17 countries projects with

NGOs

Thousands of lives changed

Dow Is Proud to Address the World’s Most Pressing Challenges

At Dow, we are committed to the success of our communities. When we invest in them, we invest in our future. Whether we support events and organizations, collaborate on high-priority needs, or roll up our sleeves to volunteer, we work to be solutionists, bringing together our employees, friends and neighbors to address local and global needs. We believe that together, science and the human element can solve anything.

www.dow.com

Sponsored Content

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

COMMENT AS U.S. AND AFRICAN LEADERS PREPARE FOR THEIR FIRST JOINT SUMMIT, CULTURE AND CONTEXT WEIGH HEAVILY ON OPPORTUNITY

AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY Har r y Pastuszek

he invitation of Africa’s leadership to Washington, D.C., this August is an important signal that the Obama Administration intends to improve America’s standing in Africa. And that’s good news—Africa represents a vast reserve

of untapped resources: mineral, fossil, biological, and human. It is too easy to oversimplify the opportunity ahead as a great race to prevent China from monopolizing Africa’s treasures. I am personally motivated to see other companies and governments

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 assume a greater role in Africa, not because I wish others to monopolize Africa’s treasures in place of China, but because my experience has shown that many U.S. and European entities invest in Africa with some sense of obligation to deliver positive social impact alongside business value. Since 2008, I have logged close to 120 days in numerous ports of call across sub-Saharan Africa. My travels have brought me from Angola, Ghana, and Guinea, to Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa and, most recently, to Sierra Leone. I fear I am nothing more than another businessman on a quick turnaround itinerary, but I have had the chance, in a relatively brief time, to observe firsthand the dramatic changes taking shape in many different corners of this vast continent. I have relished this journey with some irony, as for many years, I counted myself a Latin America and Asia expert—not because of any linguistic capacity, but because I somehow missed the Africa itch earlier in my career. I am so glad I have matured with time. The scale of the continent; the variety of landscapes, languages, and people; vitality and youth mix with tradition and malaise. I quickly learned there is no better place in which to facilitate balanced and inclusive private sector-led development— nor really any better place in which to gain a new perspective on your own place in the grand scheme of things. Africa, the home of humanity and so much else, has been a crossroads for millennia. And yet, most of the continent has missed out on the progress other regions have enjoyed over the past 100 years of remarkable technological innovation and economic growth. Since the 18th century, more-powerful nations have staged a global game, reliant on borders and stable governments for success in trade. The modern map of sub-Saharan Africa only began to take shape from 1950 onward, largely as a result of colonial rule. People are only a few generations into thinking of themselves as Sierra Leonean, or Angolan, or Zambian, and most maintain a deep connection with their tribal ethnic roots. Such dynamics are often subtle yet complex, especially to the undiscerning American eye. What’s more, they have significant implications for the business climate in subSaharan African markets.

Where to Begin in Africa In preparing American corporate leaders for a first experience in an African country, my primary focus is exactly this; how little any of us know about African cultures. Traveling to Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, and Kenya on a single itinerary, for example, will require navigation of four or five official languages, more than 50 regional dialects, and three to four major religions. I quickly aim to disabuse my listeners of the fear of the unknown, a rush to read all that Wikipedia

NGC

If anything can come of the Summit in Washington, I truly hope U.S. leaders who are invited to participate will take note of how much Americans have to learn from African nations and their people. has to offer on the people in a given country, or a wish not to offend the people they will meet. Going in curious, interested, and reminded that we all have two ears and only one voice box is the best recipe for success in any new locale. In Africa, particularly when working across multiple countries, local traditions and customs require that we Westerners, who are so used to being heard, speak more carefully, listen more often, and, recognize that there’s much to be gained in demonstrating personal respect, no matter the differential in economic, political, or military might. Many cultural subtleties warrant curiosity—which in turn will reveal fascinating aspects of human history. Ask a Sierra Leonean about her country’s history and why the capital is called Freetown. Try to understand how Ethiopia, mountainous to a fault and south of deserts in Sudan and Egypt, is home to so many Orthodox Christians, but be prepared to learn that the nation’s nearly-majority Muslim population finds the notion of Christian majority a bit overdone. Wonder aloud to Ghanaian hosts about the plethora of Chinese restaurants in Accra, and ask whether they have just arrived with the Chinese construction workers. Do not hesitate to speculate why there are so many Lebanese in West Africa and South Asians in East Africa. Do Liberians on the one hand or Tanzanians on the other count these fourthgeneration immigrants as fellow citizens? With our shared, if scarred, history, the United States and Africa have a page to turn in the balance of the 21st century. If anything can come of the Summit in Washington, I truly hope U.S. leaders who are invited to participate will take note of how much Americans have to learn from African nations and their people. By arriving at that simple realization of our own accord, I know Africa’s leaders can return home with a sense of accomplishment. I only hope to be fortunate enough to witness all that this new opportunity will have to offer.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

COMMENT

BUSINESS ACROSS BORDERS Authentic Leadership Is a Requirement for Long-term Success in Africa O mo Igiehon

once had a wealthy foreign investor express concern as we reviewed financials sent to us by a business owner of an investment opportunity in Africa. He said: “I don’t believe there’s any African who possesses a net liquidity of up to one million dollars through honest means.” On another occasion, a local African entrepreneur with a one percent share of a company said of his partner with a 99 percent majority share: “I’m older than he is and have more experience in this field than he does—that makes me the majority owner of the business!” My experience as an investment advisor working in emerging and frontier countries, including Africa and the Caribbean, is littered with examples of how our perceptions and values powerfully shape our success as business leaders in a global environment. Whether a foreign interest is looking to invest in another country or a local entrepreneur is partnering with a foreign entity, leadership in any business context or in any region needs to be governed by certain attitudinal, perceptual, and ethical imperatives that can overcome cultural differences and create a higher common denominator and basis for engagement.

When Cultural Mindsets Dominate Partnerships Negatively In my work across multiple sectors, such as real estate, oil and gas, healthcare, infrastructure, and logistics, I am responsible for coordinating investment transactions for private and public-private partnership projects. I also frequently conduct business mission trips taking high-level investors and institutions for extensive strategic engagements and exploratory trips into various countries across Africa. In these exchanges, I sometimes see how bias and misperceptions about countries and people make it difficult for leaders to make real progress and have relevant impact. Many inaccuracies exist on both sides—for both the foreign investor and the local African businessperson or government official. Quite often, the foreign investor explores partnerships with these assumptions: corruption only exists in Africa; Africans can’t be trusted; as a foreigner I bring superior knowledge; or one-size-fits-all for Africa. The local African businessperson is not immune to similar attitudes: honesty often equates to a feeling of weakness; there

is a constant search for loopholes to abort due process; financial profits are the only value that must be extracted from business relationships; and many feel giving up control or ownership is a loss. Such mistaken mindsets often lead to exaggeration of risk from both sides and can derail potentially beneficial dealings and partnerships.

The Need for Integrity Through Objectivity Cross-border partnerships require a new approach based on a more progressive mindset. When coordinating or participating in these transactions, it is refreshing when both parties enter sincerely with the intent for meaningful and sustainable engagement. Africans need to see themselves as stewards for local development, and foreign entities (institutions or investors) need to see that when they invest in Africa, they are investing in a world of equals—according to the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, African countries are expected to perform better than the BRICs in coming years. To ensure the viability of investments and the integrity of partnerships in Africa, all sides must challenge their stereotypes. As I bring foreign institutions into Africa, I am very aware of the connection between having accurate perceptions and developing productive relationships. I encourage my foreign partners to be more objective and insightful by looking beyond portrayals in popular media and by learning from foreign and local partners who are more in touch with local trends and values. My team encourages these entities to research in the right places. The same is true for local entities who sometimes may not fully understand their own local contexts. When we stare too closely at a thing, we often miss the obvious. I recall as an undergraduate, a fellow student asked me to translate the word for love because he wanted to write a letter to his girlfriend in my ethnic language. Growing up, I had been trained in my tribal language by private tutors, and told him there was no such word in our vocabulary. When I searched the books in my college library, I discovered that the very name of my tribe meant love, something I learned while living 300 miles away from home. We sometimes need to step outside of our frame of reference to

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

realize new approaches and perspectives. Those who can do this effectively will take the lead in any region or leadership context.

NGC

Om o I g i eh on , C E O, Por t a l s L L C

Translating Powerful Personal Principles to Corporate Imperatives Leadership starts fundamentally with internal motivation, whether as an individual leader engaging with a business partner or as a team working on a project with a client. What’s your motive for doing business? What is the true driving force behind your actions? I have found that authentic motives have a place in profit-driven business. For most leaders, profit-seeking comes at the expense of a higher good. As birds of a feather flock together, greed attracts greed and will ultimately breed failure. But if leaders consciously build an ethical culture that governs their company’s decisions and interactions, then values such as transparency, fairness, and integrity become objectives of their partnerships. Having the right motives attracts the right people and the right opportunities. Furthermore, being driven by principled motives in a partnership can activate true creativity that brings sustainable solutions for the partner. Business leaders who lead by their values empower others to embrace their convictions. Ethics, in this context, has nothing to do with a chapter in an MBA textbook or a public policy manual but your conviction and modus operandi. The business agenda, therefore, begins with the heart of the leader.

An Ethical Platform is Safe and Predictable In building this ethical framework for business relationships, leaders create a necessary environment of trust, accountability, and innovation. Beyond satisfying foreign and international laws, operating with an ethical incentive guarantees peace of mind, assuring others of a business’ standard of excellence. I once expressed frustration for a particular international organization’s lack of understanding of the African context, and the untarnished explanation given to me was as follows: "Everyone knows that the guy at the top doesn't really care about making real progress. He just loves receiving his large paycheck and perks afforded to him by living in Africa as an expat." Just as a leader’s lack of ethics can produce cynicism and mistrust, a leader’s ethical consistency can produce trust, security, and a willingness to serve.

Attitudinal Imperatives for Leaders In leadership, a handful of people are empowered to make decisions for the good of the whole. Leadership is, therefore, a responsibility, not a privilege. Accurate leadership implies selflessness and service, and creates a slipstream for others to follow. The trickle-down effect of leadership is real—people become what they see in their leaders. Leaders set the tone and have the power to create an atmosphere for progress.

The leaders and institutions that will have a truly lasting impact on Africa (and in other leadership contexts) are those who will: 1. Develop an Ethical Framework: Constantly examine and adjust your motives and the associated incentives on a personal and corporate level. 2. Pursue the Power of Accurate Sight: Seek new information and perspectives that shape your relationships and operations. 3. Build Relationships on the Right Values: Align yourself with the right individuals and corporations of like-minded mentalities and motives. 4. Learn to Learn: Approach partnerships with a willingness to learn. 5. Embrace the Wider Scope of Your Responsibility as a Leader: Feel a great sense of responsibility and charge beyond the desire to make profit. The future of Africa depends on the leaders willing to rise to the challenge and embrace authenticity as the new normal.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

Enterprise

Can End Poverty in Africa?

Fishermen in Takoradi on Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coast.

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

ENTERPRISE A GROWING CULTURE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACROSS THE AFRICAN CONTINENT IS CHANGING THE FUTURE OF MANY Alicia Bonner Ne ss “AFRICA IS SAID TO BE THE NEXT FRONTIER.”

mbassador Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, Ambassador of Nigeria to the United States, stood before a room of close to 150 leaders convened at the Africa Forum, a half-day series of conversations designed to set the tone for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit that would take place in Washington, D.C., just four weeks later. His Excellency Ambassador Adefuye was only one of five African ambassadors who graced the dais; subsequent panel discussions featured the opinions and perspective of Their Excellencies Dr. Tebelelo Mazile Seretse of Botswana, Faida Mitifu of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberata Rutageruka Mulamula of Tanzania, and Cheikh Niang of Senegal. Yet, in some ways Ambassador Adefuye’s opening remarks spoke for them all: “We in Africa don’t want aid any more. We want trade, and access to markets…. Sometimes we haven’t been able to get it right. But now we are determined to get it right.” While some leaders from the United States and Europe have failed to hear it, in recent years, Africa’s leaders have changed their tune. The long-held stereotype of African heads of state pleading for increases in foreign aid has been replaced by requests for long-term investments based on partnership and mutual gain. “Give us the opportunity and we will prove our worth,” the Ambassador declared. But these requests appear to have fallen on deaf ears in the United States, while other countries have heeded the cry, and responded to fill the gaps. China, India, and Brazil have quickly become major investors in many of Africa’s most promising frontiers: infrastructure, oil, natural gas, and telecommunications in Ghana, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Kenya, among others. America’s prominent absence in many of these new markets has finally gained the attention of U.S. government leaders. President Obama will welcome

private and public sector leaders from across the African continent and the United States in early August with two anchor agendas: good commerce and good government. The Summit seeks to bring together heads of state alongside U.S. cabinet members and American and African CEOs for productive conversations that can rectify America’s absence in these critical markets, focusing on trade and investment in Africa as well as its security and democratic development. Yet, the Summit’s optimal return lies a layer deeper, in conversations that take policy to practical process with regards to longterm lending, opening of markets, and the resulting partnerships and opportunities they can deliver, all of which are inextricably linked to a renewed emphasis at the core of truly sustainable development: enterprise.

The Entrepreneur’s Fairytale (and Reality) Since Mark Zuckerberg’s meteoric rise from Harvard dropout to tech superstar, it can seem as though the only requirements for a profitable business are a riskaccepting spirit and a good idea, but it’s not quite that simple. In subsequent years, many have sought to discipline the mystery of startup success. Now, thanks in part to people like Eric Ries and StartUp Weekend, incubators, accelerators, and entrepreneurs abound. The idea has grown in popularity to such a degree that it has even been used by large corporations, who seek to empower and promote intrapreneurs, individuals able to lead innovation and change within the context of a larger organizational structure. What’s more, social entrepreneurs insist that enterprise, not fundraising, can also become the driving force behind effective social impact solutions. This trend has given rise to an industry of products designed to support these new ventures. Impact investors and venture funds have grown in size, scope, and reach. Every major metropolitan area in the United States boasts a number of startup incubators that can help new startups fail or succeed faster, creating link-

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 struggle to maintain even a subsistence livelihood, and holding a manual labor job— often the most available employment—is completely out of the question. In such cases, starting a small business selling a hand-made product or a simple service is the most efficient and feasible means by which to earn a living.

Capital and the Promise of Enterprise

Ghanaian women smoke fish, preserving it to bring to market. ages between ideas, funders, and the tech savvy. In the United States and Europe, this startup culture has typically been focused on information technology; most recently, on developing applications for mobile devices. Innovation and its resulting products and services have had a transformative impact on individuals and industry around the world and, in more developed markets, entrepreneurs have come to be seen as the purveyors of innovation. This mindset, however, conflates entrepreneurship with innovation, where the distinction is critical—not all entrepreneurs are innovators, and not all innovators are entrepreneurs. For the most part, the demand for the enterprise needed to spur growth in Africa is of an entrepreneurial, not necessarily innovative, nature. In many other corners of the world, being an entrepreneur is often an occupation of necessity. What national accounts reflect as ‘the informal economy’ is in fact an economy driven by entrepreneurs. In the face of high unemployment and limited schooling, those determined to feed their families make their living wherever they

can, often in the world’s largest open-air markets—traffic intersections and roadways. In imperfect markets where supply struggles to meet demand, everything is for sale. For visitors to developing countries, these impromptu markets are visible, risky, and fluid. Yet, what remain largely invisible are the poverty traps that underlie them. Many international economic growth pundits are quick to point out that enough natural resources, food, and opportunities exist to feed, clothe, and sustain the people of the world, but market inefficiencies, lack of capital, and inconsistent governance prevent this outcome. Inherent in such market gaps are poverty traps, whose physiological underpinnings are simple, yet stark. Many types of poverty traps exist and have been chronicled in detail by the likes of Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Collier, and others. In the most basic poverty trap, an individual faces a circumstance in which she does not earn enough money to afford to buy enough food calories to meet her minimum daily caloric consumption, much less enough calories to support an active lifestyle. Under such circumstances, many

Leaders around the world proclaim the power of small business to drive economic growth, and there is good research to back up the importance of small businesses to provide communities with employment as well as services, enabling their owners to work as little or as much as they desire, and reap the corresponding returns. This trend towards entrepreneurship has coincided with efforts to ease the credit constraints the poor face. Starting a small business without cash on hand is a challenging proposition. Since the mid-1980s, Muhammad Yunus has sought to create access to finance for the poor through micro-financing mechanisms at the Grameen Bank; in 2006, his years of effort were recognized when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, microcredit has waxed and waned in perceptions of its efficacy, but the imperative that even the world’s poor require access to finance is here to stay. Tilman Ehrback, the CEO of CGAP, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, insists that the ability of small business to lift the world’s poor out of poverty is overstated in the absence of reliable infrastructure. In the United States and Europe, many small businesses operate in a preferential environment, with tax breaks, protected contracts, and extensive resources that incentivize small business. In emerging markets, access to financial services, including bank accounts, credit, and insurance is often unavailable. The call for financial inclusion grows stronger by the day, as leaders across Af-

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

In many other corners of the world, being an entrepreneur is often an occupation of necessity. What national accounts reflect as ‘the informal economy’ is in fact an economy driven by entrepreneurs. rica and around the world realize its critical implications for the ability of business to shape the opportunities of tomorrow. Yet neither access to financial services nor the enterprise they enable is a panacea, and much remains to be understood about successful systems of sustainable commerce. In one randomized study in Malawi, only 33 percent of those offered a loan with which to begin a new crop of hybrid maize and groundseeds took the loan. What’s more, when offered the loan along with crop insurance, just more than half as many—17.6 percent—took the loan. Of course, the findings of this randomized trial may not be relevant to every market, but the implications are clear. In developed markets, the benefits of financial services are known and appreciated. Yet, in less developed markets where scams are common, savings, insurance, and credit may be met with skepticism, as too-good-to-betrue. Overcoming these cultural obstacles requires not only making these services available, but also educating communities about their value and reliability.

This spring, Thomas Piketty made headlines in the United States with the release of the English translation of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty, whose book quickly jumped to number one on The New York Times bestseller list, has compiled extensive and compelling data with which to more factually and accurately assess the historical trends in the realm of economic growth and inequality. His research suggests that today, much like in the 19th century, we confront a world in which the rate of return to capital—infrastructure, investment, and savings—outpaces growth in both economic output and individual income. In such circumstances, “capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.” Piketty convincingly describes a global economy of ‘supermanagers,’ in which the top decile of earners grows richer, their wealth compounded by the fact that they reap the returns of both capital and income. The unspoken corollary to Piketty’s conclusion is that becoming an entrepreneur is perhaps the only road to ‘supermanagement’ for many of the world’s poor and middle class. With limited opportunities for

NGC

employment and even scarcer chances for professional development and promotion, creating a small business—whether it be to enable the sale of sausages, saris, soap, or services—is the fastest path to accruing capital in business infrastructure and savings… and income. Back at the Africa Forum, Rick Angiuoni, the Director for Africa at the U.S. ExportImport Bank, eloquently framed the two greatest challenges facing Africa today: sustained economic growth, and poverty reduction. Africa, a continent of 54 different countries, each with a different historical legacy, and each with multiple languages and cultures, is a highly heterogeneous place where barriers to progress abound, and no solution is one-size-fits-all. “How do you transform potential into opportunity?” Angiuoni asked. By empowering more entrepreneurs, governments and investors alike can enable the creation of more capital-generating entities that accrue wealth to more individuals, mitigating the effects of economic inequality. What’s more, the financial systemization that results from more powerful enterprise only reinforces the fact that business really can do extraordinary things.

A ba n k e r d i s c u s ses f in a n cin g o p t i o n s w i t h a s m a l l b u s in es s o w n e r i n M oza m b iqu e.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

BOOK EXCERPT When it comes to global development, Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has made quite a splash. Published in 2013 in French, its English translation, which is of superb quality, was released in April 2014. After only one month on the market, it quickly became Amazon’s number-one bestseller. Its popularity is no accident. Piketty’s nearly 700-page tome is an historic attempt to chronicle the causes of inequality in the present day. Collaborating with a number of scholars around the world, Piketty has compiled an astounding quantity of research that has allowed him to draw some provocative new conclusions that explain the impact of the accrual of capital on social development. His research, which focuses primarily on France, Britain, Germany, and the United States, extends the conclusions drawn from the large quantities of data available on these four countries to the rest of the world. His conclusions lay a clear foundation of the economic environment future leaders face in the world today. At the InterAction Forum in June, World Bank President Jim Kim suggested this is one of the most important books of the decade, and likely of the century.

he distribution of wealth is one of today’s most widely discussed and controversial issues. But what do we really know about its evolution over the long term? Do the dynamics of private capital accumulation inevitably lead to the concentration of wealth in ever fewer hands, as Karl Marx believed in the nineteenth century? Or do the balancing forces of growth, competition, and technological progress lead in later stages of development to reduced inequality and greater harmony among the classes, as Simon Kuznets thought in the twentieth century? What do we really know about how wealth and income have evolved since the eighteenth century, and what lessons can we derive from that knowledge for the century now under way? These are the questions I attempt to answer in this book. Let me say at once that the answers contained herein are imperfect and incomplete. But they are based on much more extensive historical and comparative data than were available to previous researchers, data covering three centuries and more than twenty countries, as well as on a new theoretical framework that affords a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have made it possible to avoid the Marxist apocalypse but have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality—or in any case not as much as one might have imagined in the optimistic decades

following World War II. When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based. There are nevertheless ways democracy can regain control over capitalism and ensure that the general interest takes precedence over private interests, while preserving economic openness and avoiding protectionist and nationalist reactions. The policy recommendations I propose later in the book tend in this direction. They are based on lessons derived from historical experience, of which what follows is essentially a narrative.

A Debate Without Data? Intellectual and political debate about the distribution of wealth has long been based on an abundance of prejudice and a paucity of fact. To be sure, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the intuitive knowledge that everyone acquires about contemporary wealth and income levels, even in the absence of any theoretical framework or statistical analysis. Film and literature, nineteenth-century novels especially, are full of detailed

Excerpted from CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by Thomas Piketty, published by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Inaugural Symantec Service Corps team: Arequipa, Peru February â&#x20AC;&#x201C; March, 2014 10 employees 4 weeks

Sponsored Content

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 information about the relative wealth and living standards of different social groups, and especially about the deep structure of inequality, the way it is justified, and its impact on individual lives. Indeed, the novels of Jane Austen and Honoré de Balzac paint striking portraits of the distribution of wealth in Britain and France between 1790 and 1830. Both novelists were intimately acquainted with the hierarchy of wealth in their respective societies. They grasped the hidden contours of wealth and its inevitable implications for the lives of men and women, including their marital strategies and personal hopes and disappointments. These and other novelists depicted the effects of inequality with a verisimilitude and evocative power that no statistical or theoretical analysis can match. Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers. It is of interest to everyone, and that is a good thing. The concrete, physical reality of inequality is visible to the naked eye and naturally inspires sharp but contradictory political judgments. Peasant and noble, worker and factory owner, waiter and banker: each has his or her own unique vantage point and sees important aspects of how other people live and what relations of power and domination exist between social groups, and these observations shape each person’s judgment of what is and is not just. Hence there will always be a fundamentally subjective and psychological dimension to inequality, which inevitably gives rise to political conflict that no purportedly scientific analysis can alleviate. Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts—and that is a very good thing. Nevertheless, the distribution question also deserves to be studied in a systematic and methodical fashion. Without precisely defined sources, methods, and concepts, it is possible to see everything and its opposite. Some people believe that inequality is always increasing and that the world is by definition always becoming more unjust. Others believe that inequality is naturally decreasing, or that harmony comes about automatically, and that in any case nothing should be done that might risk disturbing this happy equilibrium. Given this dialogue of the deaf, in which each camp justifies its own intellectual laziness by pointing to the laziness of the other, there is a role for research that is at least systematic and methodical if not fully scientific. Expert analysis will never put an end to the violent political conflict that inequality inevitably instigates. Social scientific research is and always will be tentative and imperfect. It does not claim to transform economics, sociology,

NGC

Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers. It is of interest to everyone, and that is a good thing. and history into exact sciences. But by patiently searching for facts and patterns and calmly analyzing the economic, social, and political mechanisms that might explain them, it can inform democratic debate and focus attention on the right questions. It can help to redefine the terms of debate, unmask certain preconceived or fraudulent notions, and subject all positions to constant critical scrutiny. In my view, this is the role that intellectuals, including social scientists, should play, as citizens like any other but with the good fortune to have more time than others to devote themselves to study (and even to be paid for it—a signal privilege). There is no escaping the fact, however, that social science research on the distribution of wealth was for a long time based on a relatively limited set of firmly established facts together with a wide variety of purely theoretical speculations.

Continue reading Capital in the Twenty-First Century at hup.harvard.edu.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

HAPPENINGS

THI S SU MME R ’ S G L OBAL PO WE R P L AY IS NOT ON THE SO CCER P I TCH D aniel Breneman

his summer, the world waited anxiously for the outcome of the World Cup in Brazil. During each game, a combination of a team’s individual skill, focus, and teamwork determined whether they would succeed or fail, going home early, or lifting the cup on July 13 to become heroes. In this year’s cup, teams from countries not generally granted the same influence on the global stage were demanding equality and respect on the playing field. Countries such as Costa Rica, Ghana, Algeria, and Iran have shown the world that they have what it takes to challenge the world powers on the soccer pitch on equal terms. Algeria and Nigeria were the only two African nations that advanced to Round 16, as the usual suspects—Germany, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Brazil—moved into the semi-finals stage. In the end, Germany took home the gold, evidence of the power asymmetry that still persists on the field. With the world’s attention on the global power plays unfolding in stadiums across Brazil, such circumstances present a unique opportunity to reflect on ways that sustainable approaches to global engagement can

mitigate this persistent asymmetry in the global political and economic arena.

The Future of Effective Collaboration in Africa This summer, the United States will host the leaders of some 50 African nations at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a forum that will facilitate strategic discussions on the critical challenges and opportunities ahead in development, trade, and international security. The two-day event, scheduled for August 5 and 6, 2014 in Washington, D.C., will empower Africa’s leaders to raise their voices and articulate a new strategy for engagement on the continent. Many experts have already begun to offer their recommendations for how American and African leaders alike can best realize gains from the upcoming dialogue. While the public and private sector are open to a more collaborative approach moving forward, advances will only be achieved if African leaders arrive prepared to offer a coherent plan and clear objectives that will permit rapid and effective engagement by interested parties within the U.S. government and the corporate community.

One such collaborative way of strengthening the relationship between the United States and Africa is through a greater emphasis on local content development policies and practice. Dr. Michael Warner of LCS broadly defines local or national content as “the participation and development of national capital, labor, technology, goods and services in the planning and execution of oil, gas, and mineral exploration, development, and production.” This increasingly popular practice area seeks to deliver greater local benefits from new resource discovery and extraction by international

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

WORLD CUP POWER DYNAMICS PREDICT OPPORTUNITY AT U.S.-AFRICA LEADERS SUMMIT oil companies, by ensuring at least some contracts remain within the local business community. Countries with significant petroleum deposits, such as Ghana, Indonesia, and Brazil, have all made strides to ensure that benefits are distributed locally, though their good intentions typically result in strict legislation that responds more to political initiatives than realistic expectations. According to Harry Pastuszek, Vice President of Economic and Community Development at PYXERA Global, finding the right balance can be difficult. “The tendency of international oil companies (commonly known as IOCs), to work with foreign suppliers and contractors is driven by more than a blind unwillingness to work with locals—finding qualified and competent local suppliers is more difficult than simply issuing an invitation to tender in the local language,” said Pastuszek.

While remaining within the boundaries of regulatory trade frameworks, the ability of countries with extensive natural resources to develop their emerging industry base can go a long way toward combating the natural resource curse. Further investment in the development of national capital, labor, goods, and services is essential to move nations beyond commodity exporting economies.

Natural Resource Blessing or Curse? For decades, the development community has embraced the expected de facto downside of natural resource discovery in emerging markets, for the benefit of greater economic growth. A combination of conflict, corruption, and weak public institutions has often meant that the dividends accrue elsewhere.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 ening national industry, local enterprises can become more competitive, enabling them to provide better livelihoods for local communities. These gains are already being realized in Mozambique, but the opportunities for similar interventions in countries across the African continent are almost endless.

Bringing Home the Gold

Over the past three years, discoveries of massive deposits of offshore gas have ensured that Mozambique will become one of the world’s top natural gas exporti ng countries. In Mozambique, one of the most natural resource rich countries in the world, this has been the case for decades. A long line of multinational corporations seeking coal, bauxite, tin, as well as precious metals and gemstones, have extracted a great deal of natural wealth, leaving limited economic gains in their wake. Over the past three

By strengthening national industry, local enterprises will become more competitive, enabling them to provide better livelihoods to local communities.

years, two international oil companies have reported discoveries of massive deposits of offshore gas, ensuring that Mozambique will soon become one of the world’s top natural gas exporting countries. One IOC has embraced an innovative and progressive view of the economic growth and development gains they hope the extraction project will enable. In partnership with our team at PYXERA Global, the company is seeking to engage a growing supply chain of local vendors able to meet the procurement demands of the project, acknowledging that the greatest game-changing opportunities often exist in the early phases of the project. At PYXERA Global, our team is engaging the private sector and governments throughout Africa, leading the way in national content development surrounding the extractive industry. Partnerships forged in the natural gas industry are a key way to level the playing field and pave a path for sustainable economic growth. By strength-

On June 30 in Brasilia, Nigeria played against France for the chance to proceed to the World Cup Round of 8. The odds were against them; in the tournament’s history, only three African teams have moved on to the Round of 8. Still, many in sub-Saharan Africa sported their African pride and many more around the world cheered for the underdog. Although they lost, during that game the team worked hard and showed the world their quality of play. Nigeria, a country rich in natural resources—especially oil—has struggled for decades to successfully establish local content policies and programs that effectively deliver financial returns to those who need them most. When U.S. and African leaders convene to discuss prospective partnerships, the potentially significant economic gains of effective local content development should not be lost among the many important topics that need to be addressed. Nigeria is sure to be among the delegations most actively engaged in the August Summit, and their approach to local content is worthy of scrutiny and reflection. African leaders will come to Washington expecting a new engagement strategy, one in which they’re not simply reduced to supplying commodities and receiving aid, but instead, a strategy that values collaborative partnerships on an equal playing field. With the right planning, they can ensure that nobody goes home with a loss, instead emboldened by a message of hope, and a clearly defined ground-breaking path toward economic sustainability.

Photo: Tsuda| CC BY-SA 2.0

IBM Corporate Service Corps: Creating leaders IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) sends teams of some of our most talented employees to provide pro bono counsel to countries in the developing world that are grappling with issues that intersect business, technology, and society. As of spring 2014:

2,500 IBMers from 55 countries worldwide

Sent to countries

850

140,000

completed assignments

lives positively impacted

Employees say…

82%

“My CSC experience increased my desire to continue my career at IBM.”

90%

“CSC increased my leadership skills.”

93%

“Compared to other leadership experiences at IBM, this was the best.”

97%

“I would recommend a colleague to apply for the CSC program.”

“... It’s the best program I know of to experience personal and professional growth on such a large scale in only a few short weeks.” — CSC participant

Managers say… “The CSC program allowed my employee to see his potential within IBM and how we can effect real change. He has been able to inspire others by relating his experiences.” — Senior manager

78%

“Employee shows improved attitude and motivation.”

89%

“Employee increased his/her understanding of business’s role in society.”

90%

“I would recommend another employee to apply for the CSC program.”

For more information, visit: ibm.com/corporateservicecorps © Copyright IBM Corporation 2014. IBM, the IBM logo and ibm.com are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.

Sponsored Content

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

DEVELOPMENT

NE E D S INNOVATIO N

N OW THE DEVELOPMENT SECTOR NEEDS NEW WORDS, BETTER IDEAS, AND DRAMATIC INNOVATION TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD D eird re W h i te

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

IMPACT & INNOVATION

esterday evening, thinking I’d relax and catch up—at least virtually—with some friends, I opened my Facebook account. As I scrolled through, I once again saw that post that has become all too ubiquitous, complaining about foreign aid. You know the one—it says that in America our homeless don’t eat, our mentally ill don’t get care, our troops don’t have equipment, yet we “donate billions to other countries before helping our own.” I also noted the number of Facebook friends who had liked or shared it—people who are well-read and at least somewhat aware of the fact that they live in a globally-connected world. When I saw this type of anti-foreign aid post in the past, I inevitably got angry at the poster’s ignorance and inability to see simple realities surrounding the cost and benefit of the U.S. investment in improving lives abroad. This time, though, it occurred to me that the ignorance is a direct result of the poor ability of those who believe strongly in foreign assistance to tell that story. Advocates almost always begin with the go-to statistic: less than one percent of the U.S. budget goes to international humanitarian response and development. This is immediately followed by a condescending shake of the head, and the revelation that a majority of Americans think that number

THE UNITED STATES PLACES NINETEENTH IN SPENDING ON INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORK AS A PERCENTAGE OF GNI. is closer to 30 percent. The stark reality is that that fraction of one percent places America—the wealthiest country in the world—in 19th place in spending on international development work as a percentage of Gross National Income. Today’s raging debate on illegal border crossings provides further fodder for solid arguments: the best way to secure our borders is to invest in economic opportunity in the world’s most underserved countries. Also worthy of consideration is the fact that a large portion of aid dollars create jobs here in the United States, supporting tens of thousands of taxpaying individuals and private companies who provide services around the world on behalf of USAID or other U.S. government agencies. And foreign assistance enhances America’s global economic competitiveness, improves national security through the reduction of poverty and civil strife, and of course, amplifies the importance of American values. Doesn’t it?

If Not Aid and Development, Then What? With a list of good reasons and a relatively low cost to this work, why then are there still so many skeptics out there, in

LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF THE U.S. BUDGET GOES TO INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE AND DEVELOPMENT.

the United States and other donor nations? A new body of research, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, tries to shed light on this disconnect. The Narrative Project is a partnership of several international NGOs and donor institutions seeking to increase public support for foreign assistance by finding better ways to coordinate and more compelling ways to tell the stories of what works, and why the general public should care. The Narrative Project reviewed a couple dozen studies produced over the past decade, and held its own focus groups. They learned that, while the moral argument for development assistance is still strong, people are highly skeptical that the approaches undertaken are effective; believing that, in fact, little has improved in 30 years. Not surprisingly, underpinning these opinions was a finding that the general public’s knowledge about development is quite limited. The Narrative Project is using this initial study as a foundation on which to create new language and new narratives, providing the most persuasive arguments in favor of development, which is a good thing. Innovation in the language we use to describe this important work is badly needed. As an experienced practitioner, I can say definitively that ‘developmentspeak’ leaves even the most knowledgeable veteran cold, and certainly does not attract support outside the field. But in

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

By actively embracing a deeper and more complex understanding of the failures of the past that have so successfully fortified the skeptic’s view, advocates might better convince those individuals that change is truly upon us. many ways, The Narrative Project is just the beginning. By limiting the research to four donor countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—the project subtly implies that the views of those countries that provide the largest amount of foreign assistance in gross terms are the most important. But this perspective is incredibly shortsighted for at least two reasons. First, it prioritizes an antiquated construct of charity in which the wealthy are counted on to supply those in need. Second, it overlooks the views of the public in the countries receiving assistance—additional research that may also be envisioned, but was not evident from the initial findings. If nomenclature counts in the United States and Germany, surely it must be at least as important in Malawi and Bangladesh. This oversight is critical as it risks sanctifying language that effectively persuades Americans, Brits, French, and Germans, but offends or condescends to those individuals whom it directly seeks to serve. In the enshrined ivory tower of wealthier countries, it is easy to overlook the implications of even the friendliest of terms: development, beneficiaries, and empowerment, for instance. Each implies an ongoing, paternalistic relationship rather than a partnership for mutual gain. Will a new develop-

ment vernacular continue this trend, or is it possible to find better language that is uniformly accessible, convincing, and enriching for all?

Can Past Failures Drive Future Success? It is also clear that The Narrative Project is not enough. The Narrative Project states that “the conversation focuses on what doesn’t work and what is wasted.” It is true that there is a lot of noise about wasted funds and corruption, and perhaps not enough lauding of wild successes, such as the progress of PEPFAR or the contributions to economic stability in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe. But development also needs a complementary body of research that takes a deep and critical look at the lessons of the past 50 years and offers innovative recommendations on how to be more effective in the coming decades. Not enough has been done to examine why those efforts succeeded and how to replicate that success in other sectors or geographies. Equally important, or perhaps more so, is that little to nothing has been done to understand the failures— even the colossal ones—of so many efforts, both large and small. Some might criticize this proposition, suggesting that such an undertaking would only arm the opposition, pro-

viding the skeptics with further proof of their righteousness. But such a study, I believe, would serve the opposite end. By actively embracing a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the failures of the past that have so successfully fortified the skeptic’s view, advocates might better convince those individuals that change is truly upon us. At PYXERA Global, our team has initiated its own development insurgency, piloting new and innovative ideals in partnership with willing funders in many corners of the world. Be it local supply chain development in Mozambique, collaborative global pro bono in Ethiopia, or innovative integrated community development in India, we are learning from almost 25 years of experience in more than 90 countries how not to do things and how to do them. Seeking to forego the paternalistic implications of international development, we instead work under the umbrella of purposeful global engagement. Yet our approach, too, is deserving of scrutiny and we are committed to carefully assessing our own work, as well as that of the development sector at large. This analysis should be done and shared broadly, including an understanding of successes, an admission of mistakes, and a roadmap to ensure this sector institutionalizes what works and avoids replicating the blunders of the past.

The Best Ideas Start Small This future project could also explore some of the contributions to development from non-traditional sources, particularly those that focus on social innovation, such at the Hult Prize and the MIT IDEAS Challenge. Both of these programs foster student-driven initiatives that have the potential to dramatically effect change on a global scale. The winners have the freedom and the funding to explore their innovations without the constraints typical of the traditional development sector. Last year’s Hult Prize winners from McPhoto: Mark von Holden

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

Gill University have already launched their business, Aspire Food Group, focused on sustainable farming of edible insects. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional finalists from the University of Pennsylvania are building their Sweet Bites business around a simple solution to oral disease and its complications with a specially-formulated gum. Both projects encompass elements of job creation and income generation for local communities, while simultaneously addressing a critical development deficit. At this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MIT IDEAS Challenge, top prize winners included GridForm, a rural planning software designed to facilitate the creation of a power microgrid and renewable energy generation. Eagle Health takes on the problem of diabetes management by leaving blood sugar measurement, and the associated costs and inconvenience, out of the equation. Proprietary software moni-

tors other key data that is collected noninvasively by wearing a specially-designed and inexpensive ring. As a judge for the Hult Prize for the past three years, and for the MIT IDEAS Challenge for the first time this year, I had the chance to see firsthand the opportunities usually missed by the traditional development community. While the development sector makes great fanfare about potential innovation, the reality is that the donor-funded development system is not well-designed to innovate. It is currently configured to spit out relatively short-term projects based on oft-adjusted, narrow priorities. It cannot afford to take many risks, in some part due to the scrutiny and negative public perception being tackled by The Narrative Project. While the traditional donors and implementers may be hindered by history, politics, policy, and caution, they have a

NGC

real advantage in size and presence. It is fair to say that most of the highly impactful and innovative programming in place today is seen in small-size projects limited to one or two geographies, and usually not funded by the traditional donors. Imagine how that picture could change if even a portion of USAID, DfID, World Bank, and private-foundation funding were dedicated to identifying such innovations, fostering their growth, and scaling their impact. Reinventing these agencies is admittedly a herculean undertaking. Yet, if their core purpose became making long-term, substantial, financial commitments to scale up what works, then finding the right words to describe this work would be easy, because we would finally be moving the needle on the biggest challenges facing the world today. The narrative would almost write itself.

A spire Fo o ds o f Mc G i l l U n i ve rs i t y w i n s t h e H u l t Pr ize for th e ir in n ov ativ e food s e cu r ity s olu tion .

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

MOR E T H A N D RU G S & DOC TORS Management Education is Critical for Effective Healthcare in Africa G uy Pfeffer mann and Page S chindler Buchanan

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

frica is rising. In the past decade, the world’s perception of the continent has become more hopeful, and more nuanced. No longer seen from the outside as simply the continent of blood diamonds and disease, Africa boasts several rapidly growing economies, a rising middle class, innovative entrepreneurs, and ambitious goals for improvements in health, industry, and governance. Governments and corporations alike, from Europe, Asia, and the Americas, are paying attention and making investments in critical areas such as energy, water, infrastructure, small business, and education. Despite this optimism in the business sector, and massive health investments that are successfully addressing malaria, cholera, and AIDS, recently polio and even Ebola have threatened the future of the entire continent. Clean water, electricity, proper sanitation, local clinics with skilled healthcare providers, and better roads to help people reach them can enable the prevention and treatment of these and other maladies that weaken Africa’s ability to thrive. Yet, unlike pharmaceuticals and doctors, such resources cannot be airlifted in; they must be built and maintained by communities and their leaders. Good healthcare requires good management, so that resources, people, and finances can be managed and distributed appropriately. But good management and effective organizational leadership often require skills not regularly taught in school. Unfortunately, in this critical area of higher education, investment has been scarce. Governments, multilateral funding agencies, and private foundations have devoted few resources to nurture African leadership through management training.

Investing in Management Yields the Best ROI In 2003, the Global Business School Network (GBSN) was founded as a vehicle to improve the business education landscape in sub-Saharan Africa. Since its inception, GBSN has included health as a major area of focus for its work, due to the significant impact that can be made on access to quality healthcare when good management practices are introduced. A speaker at one of the first GBSN conferences demonstrated this point eloquently, both through her words and her career. After working as a pediatrician in a large Nigerian hospital, Dr. Lola Dare quit the profession she trained for to focus on promoting healthcare management because, as she told the GBSN audience, she couldn’t watch any more babies die of sheer resource mismanagement. “When oxygen was needed, nobody knew where it had been stored,” she said. Dr. Dare went back to school to earn a certificate in Advanced Management and today she is the CEO of the Center for

NGC

LEADERSHIP No longer seen from the outside as simply the continent of blood diamonds and disease, Africa boasts several rapidly growing economies, a rising middle class, innovative entrepreneurs, and ambitious goals for improvements in health, industry, and governance. Health Science, Training, Research and Development in Nigeria. She facilitates health leadership development and management programs and serves as a consultant for many regional and global organizations in public health and social development, advocating for the increased application of management and business tools to improve the performance of African health and social development systems. Effective, locally-relevant management education is a prudent investment in the economic and social development of Africa. Pockets of success in healthcare management education across the African continent provide evidence that, with increased attention to higher education in the next Millennium Development Goals, and further investment by the international community and African countries themselves, progress can be made in building healthcare management capacity.

Healthcare Management Training is Expanding, But Not Quickly Enough A number of key efforts are extraordinarily effective. In Kenya, a laudable effort has been made through Strathmore Business School’s Leading High-Performing Healthcare Organizations program, launched with USAID funding in 2011 in partnership with Management Sciences for Health (MSH). The following outcomes demonstrate the power that programs such as these have to transform healthcare in Africa.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

Good healthcare requires good management, so that resources, people, and finances can be managed and distributed appropriately. Management at the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) aimed to automate registries, provide an online system for issuing licenses, and create electronic systems that would regulate clinical trials. The experience of the top three PPB managers in the program led to changes that included increased accountability to the public; publication of a list of establishments authorized to stock and sell drugs; and a system to identify pharmacists who practice without licenses. Activities that used to take up to several months to complete now take only minutes. The Strathmore program offered leaders of various ‘silo organizations’—regulators, policymakers, practitioners, and private sector healthcare participants—the chance to meet colleagues in a setting where they could exchange ideas freely and build relationships that would support joint achievement of mandates. Through a series of meetings, the management team at the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) was able to build an environment where criticism became an effective method for identifying areas of improvement in their warehousing activities. They decided to focus on continuous improvement as a method for improving delivery time, and in the year following the completion of the leadership program, turnaround time had been reduced from two weeks to less than two days. A study1 by MSH documents the broader impact of leadership training, showing significant improvements in health outcomes

after health managers, doctors, and nurses from 18 districts in Kenya went through a leadership development program. The number of fully-immunized children under the age of one and the number of women who delivered a child with a skilled birth attendant increased sharply in the following years, but did not increase in other districts where the program was not offered.

Africa Needs More Management Training to Meet Demand If management and leadership education can have such positive development impact, why is the supply of relevant education so limited? The problem is not a lack of higher education institutions. There are hundreds of universities in sub-Saharan Africa, many of which offer management courses. Yet many suffer from overcrowding, due to a booming youth population, poorly trained educators, and perhaps most significantly, a disconnect between academia and the real world. A few excellent management schools are operating in Africa, many of which are GBSN members. Most were established during the past 20 years and are private nonprofit institutions like Strathmore. These schools emphasize experiential learning, local case studies, participant-centered pedagogy, teamwork, networking, and independent thinking. They belong to international knowledge networks, which help them marry global best practice with local relevance. They forge close partnerships with employers in the public and private sectors, which maximize graduate employ-

ability and readiness for the realities outside of the classroom. Access to world-class, locally-relevant management education will be essential for Africa’s growing healthcare sector. To make such opportunities accessible, Africa needs investment that looks beyond the horizon to ensure there are sustainable institutions embedded in its communities and economies to provide that education. GBSN is doing its part through programs and events that bring together top international business schools around the globe with development partners and industry leaders. This November, GBSN will host its 9th annual conference at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) campus in Accra, in partnership with EFMD, a Europe-based management education accreditation organization. The conference will focus on how business education should be designed and delivered to be effective in the context of emerging markets, with a focus on sectors like healthcare and innovative programs that are making a difference. Ripe with natural resources, a young and energetic population, and economic momentum that could further change how the world sees and interacts with the continent, Africa is poised for an exciting future. It would be unfortunate to squander such promise because of short-sighted investment and aid that fails to account for the need for management and leadership skills. GBSN will continue to work with our global partners to enhance the management talent needed to build a prosperous world. USAID and MSH, “The Kenya Leadership Development Program – Linking Management Training to Service Delivery Outcomes” (2010) 1

“Quality in Context: Management Education for the Developing World” November 3 – 5, 2014 2

Sponsored Content

The PULSE Volunteer Partnership is GSKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skillsbased volunteering programme. Through PULSE, motivated employees are matched to non-profit organisations for three or six months full-time, to solve healthcare challenges at home and abroad.

PULSE contributes to the GSK mission to do more, feel better and live longer by acting as a catalyst for change. Since its launch in 2009, PULSE has sent nearly 400 employees from 45 countries to serve 85 non-profit partners in 57 countries. Change Communities

Change Employees

Change GSK

Employees use their professional skills to create positive, sustainable change for non-profit partners and the communities they serve.

Employees are challenged to think differently about the world and as a result of the PULSE experience they develop their leadership skills.

Employees bring fresh ideas and new energy back to GSK to activate change in step with global health needs.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

SIX THINGS EVERY SUCCESSFUL LEADER SHOULD KNOW Laura Asiala

LEADERSHIP IS AN ACT OF SERVICE

At this year’s American Society for Training and Development Conference, servant leadership was the most pressing mandate issued by those sung and unsung heroes who have dedicated their lives to developing leaders. During four full days of programming, 9,000 learning professionals, from over 80 countries, participated in more than 250 educational sessions by industry experts, many of which were devoted in some way to leadership development. This year was a momentous one for the association as it unveiled a new global brand, transforming the organization from a U.S.centric body to one that is relevant for leaders and coaches everywhere in the world: the Association for Talent Development. Over the course of the multi-day event, these key lessons stood out from the rest, each supporting the general thesis of servant leadership.

IT’S NOT ABOUT POWER

Dr. Debra France doesn’t mince any words when it comes to describing the skills required to drive innovation at W.L. Gore

THE ASSOCIATION FOR TALENT DEVELOPMENT FOSTERS SERVANT LEADERSHIP AT INTERNATIONAL EXPO & Associates Inc. “Leadership abounds. It doesn’t imply authority at Gore. Leadership is available to all. Anyone can lead at any moment. If you’re the knowledgeable person, and you speak up at a moment of need, you’re a leader.” This approach, still considered radical even for a long-standing industry leader such as Gore, stands leadership on its head by explicitly starting with the need of the group, not the authority of the leader. Such an approach deemphasizes power in favor of outcomes. “A primary act of leadership is to know when to step away and let someone else lead. The task in the moment is indicative as to who should be leading.”

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU

Leadership that appropriately addresses the context of the moment is at the heart of Situational Leadership II, the foundation of the work of Ken Blanchard, well known and celebrated for his contributions to leadership theory and practice over the last 35 years. Blanchard and his associates have taken the long-standing view that leadership is other-focused. Says Blanchard: “The most effective leaders realize that leadership is not about them and that they are

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

HAPPENINGS only as good as the people they lead. These kinds of leaders seek to be servant leaders.” The first responsibility of a leader is to assess the individual and situation and then provide the appropriate level of direction and encouragement. Blanchard & Company continues to publish cutting-edge research alongside recommendations for its practical application. One of the more exciting sessions featured Blanchard & Company associate Susan Fowler explaining “Why motivating people doesn’t work” as she summarized her research that yielded a book by the same name to be released in September. “We are in a position to create an environment where other people flourish and thrive.” Fowler outlined the Optimal Motivation process, a scientifically-based approach to creating the environment for success, which, in turn, enables employees to internalize motivation and develop sustained engagement.

IT’S ABOUT SHARED PURPOSE, IN SERVICE

Shared purpose is at the core of a successful organization’s environment, but creating such an environment requires exceptional leadership work. For effective managers, it never goes without saying, and it’s a never-ending responsibility. So is the accountability for developing the next generation of leaders. Representatives from both eBay and Samsung emphasized these ongoing twin challenges. Interestingly, both companies used examples of action learning to build that shared vision and further develop their leaders. Diane White of Right Associates spoke about eBay’s approach: “The greatest impact on a leader’s development comes from action-learning projects, simulations, coaching or mentoring, rotational programs,

and international assignments, if they are part of the strategy.” Samsung, celebrating its 20-year anniversary of “Move on to Quality” has taken that action learning one step further. During the company’s turn-around in the early 1990s, Samsung leaders established a program that would provide an on-going pipeline of innovation and new ideas. Each year, the company sends its most promising talent to a new region—a completely new environment—for an entire year. The result: a drastically different environment yields new connections, new relationships, new language skills, and overall, a deeply personal cultural understanding, which informs how the business can best serve the people of the region. Angela Oh, reporting this aspect of a strategy that contributed to building one of the world’s most successful companies explained, “The company trusted that these people would surely contribute to the global society. People have deep pride; they continued to work and to learn, reporting what they learned.”1

SOMETIMES, IT MEANS LEAVING YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Going cross-border is one of the most challenging learning experiences, and Judith Katz and Fred Miller of the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc. had four beautiful pieces of advice for leaders seeking to foster a high-performing, highly-aligned environment: • Lean into discomfort • Listen as an ally • Use common language to clarify intent • Embrace diversity of views Learning and change never happen from the comfort zone. By learning how to deliver results, even in the face of discomfort, leaders can effectively deliver business

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. – Lao Tzu outcomes, even in the face of adversity. Listening is one of the most overlooked leadership traits, and listening with a bias toward collaboration can make an individual and their team more accepting of other ideas. Discerning a project’s essential intent from its auxiliary details can often be the difference between business success and mission failure. Clarifying intent through common language, especially in new cultures when social nuance can be even more foreign than language, is a critical leadership capability. Most importantly, leaders must share ‘street corners,’ accepting every person’s perspective as true to them. If at the outset a leader believes that she has identified all views, she probably has a big blind spot. The best way to ensure a complete perspective is to ensure all corners are clear, all voices are heard. Leadership identifies the differences, legitimizes dialogue, and enables shared purpose, which leads to the development of shared value.

AND, ALWAYS ENABLING FOLLOWERS

In the final analysis, leadership is really about followership, about creating the kind of environment in which those we lead can excel in harmony with one another, moving forward in service for something greater than ourselves.

This leadership approach is further explored in the Harvard Business Review article July-August 2011 “The Paradox of Samsung’s Rise”

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

S t a cy Ye e , IE S C S wa z i l a n d, Int e l e n g i n e e r

VO LUN T EER I N G IS GOOD FO R BUSI N ES S

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

GLOBAL PRO BONO INTEL USES VOLUNTEERS TO ACHIEVE ITS CORPORATE VISION: EXTEND COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY TO EVERY PERSON ON EARTH

Luke Filose

ane Kiambo remembers the mud brick school she attended when she was growing up in Gachagi, a self-described slum one hour from Nairobi, Kenya. “Sometimes when it would rain, parts of the building would be swept away,” she recalled. “You would feel cold.” Many years later, Jane is now a teacher at a preschool down the road from Gachagi, and she has become one of her community’s experts on the use of technology in the classroom. Her expertise has been developed in large part through training from teams of Intel employees who have traveled to Kenya as part of the Intel Education Service Corps, or IESC. Five years ago, Intel’s employee volunteer program was widely respected within the corporate citizenship community, with 40 percent participation and one million hours contributed in a typical year. Intel had also just announced the third generation of its rugged Classmate PC, and its education business was growing rapidly in emerging markets as a result. However, Intel did not have a formal way to connect employee talent with users of its technologies in emerging markets. This is when Julie Clugage connected the dots. After college, Julie volunteered in rural Guatemala and worked for The World Bank before getting her MBA and joining Intel in 2002. After spending several years in our corporate citizenship group, it was perhaps not surprising that a transfer to the education team in 2009 gave Julie the idea that would lead to the creation of IESC: leveraging Intel’s culture of volunteerism to deepen its growing presence in emerging economies. Taking a two-week paid hiatus from their day jobs, teams of sociallyminded Intel employees would travel to Latin America, Africa, or Asia to support the installation of Intel education laptops. Later that year, the first IESC teams—a total of 20 employees—deployed to Bangladesh, Egypt, Vietnam, and Kenya, where one team worked with the staff at the Karibu Centre. “This program had been a dream of mine for years,” said Julie. “It really was an occasion to do a dance outside my grey cube when it was approved.” Today, IESC sends more than 100 employees each year on challenging, customer-focused assignments in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world. The program attracts employees at all levels of seniority from a wide range of departments and geographies, and these individuals commit to spending approximately eight weeks preparing for a few hours each week before traveling to the field for two weeks of full-time work on the ground.

Volunteering for Shared Value More than doubling the reach of Intel’s program in a five-year period required exceptional partners. To reach local communities, Intel collaborates with organizations like World Vision and Orphans Overseas, NGOs large and small that are investing in technology to improve the delivery of services to children and other beneficiaries. For tax reasons, companies cannot make foundation grants to fund the purchase of their own products, so Intel

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

seeks partners that are already investing in technology, and see value in the training IESC teams provide. In this respect, NGOs that work with IESC are a special breed: part customer, part strategic corporate citizenship partner. In 2009, Orphans Overseas became one of the first IESC clients. Jorie Kincaid, the Executive Director of Orphans Overseas, met Julie just as she was seeking organizations that might receive IESC volunteers, and two teams from the first cohort of volunteers traveled to Kenya and Vietnam to work with Orphans Overseas field projects. Orphans Overseas was purchasing the Classmate PC for their programs, and the IESC contribution of skilled labor fit with what the organization needed to make their program successful. Effective implementation and training are often two of the greatest barriers to successful technology uptake. By providing

Since 2009, Intel Education Service Corps has sent 360 employees to 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Projects primarily support non-profit partners that leverage intel technology to provide education to underserved communities.

A hm e d Da w so n , IE S C Ta n z a n i a , Int e l e n g i n e e r

these services pro bono to social impact organizations purchasing Intel products, Intel ensures that its devices are effectively used by teachers. At the same time, the company can discover important market insights and possible adaptations to enhance the utility of its product for a growing customer base. IESC was launched and incubated from Intel’s education business, so naturally the program focused on supporting Intel’s education products. When I took over the day-to-day management of IESC in 2011, I spent 18 months growing the program by identifying internal business group partners to fund additional projects. In 2013, we moved the program to corporate affairs, providing the flexibility to support other Intel technologies in addition to education. IESC’s business-driven model has allowed Intel to harness the generosity of its employees to pursue its corporate vision:

in this decade, Intel seeks to create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the life of every person on earth. Unlike some global pro bono programs that provide capacity building to social impact organizations across a range of topics, IESC focuses on support around a specific technology platform. Some might question this approach, given its narrow focus on leveraging Intel technology. In fact, IESC teams respond to multiple requests from our clients, many of which are not directly related to an Intel product. But the linkage to Intel’s core business and vision helps focus resources on areas related to employees’ core skills, and makes the program sustainable.

Volunteering Is Adaptable, Not One-Size Fits All For many companies, volunteering has a local, philanthropic connotation; plant a

Sponsored Content

Unleashing individual potential. Strengthening the community. Credit Suisse Global Citizens Program The Global Citizens Program aims to promote the transfer of skills and knowledge through skills-based volunteering, and by immersion in local communities, to support the work of our partners in education and microfinance. We believe investing in these programs is one of the best investments we can make.

credit-suisse.com/responsibility/gcp Sponsored Content

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 tree, read a book to a child, or feed the homeless. This form of volunteerism is incredibly important and highly scalable, but it does not meet some strategic needs of community organizations or the desires of today’s employees to use their core skills. With the right preparation, a volunteer can implement a program to build a teacher’s skills instead of helping a teacher mind their class. In some sense, IESC participants are hardly volunteers at all, at least no more than an employee might ‘volunteer’ to help her manager with a new project. As IESC assignments get more complex and involve new Intel technologies and initiatives, I expect the program will continue to expand the meaning of employee volunteerism. Ultimately, a global pro bono program is constrained or liberated by a company’s corporate culture. At Intel, where employees get an eight-week paid sabbatical every seven years, there’s a culture of “covering” for colleagues; being out of the office for a few weeks is not particularly unusual. When Julie started IESC, she worried that

Lind a K e n wo r t h y, IE S C S e n e g a l

employees might not succeed in getting their managers’ approval to participate, but within a couple of weeks, 500 people had applied for the first 20 slots. The power of a global pro bono program lies in its ability to provide shared value: benefits to external organizations, a company’s employees, and multiple departments of the business. But this can complicate the decision of who should manage it. Some companies use their program to focus on leadership development through the human resources team, or social impact via their corporate foundation. When Julie created IESC, she didn’t have all the answers, but she was confident in the demand and was able to get her ‘minimum viable product’ out the door quickly and inexpensively. As IESC evolved, it became clearer what the right ‘home’ was for the program. This has allowed Intel to expand the scope of its support while refining its value proposition for long-time partners such as Orphans Overseas. Relationships with teachers like Jane remain a key indicator of the program’s

NGC

on-going impact, as Intel provides no cash support and continues its engagements only at the invitation of its clients. “I so look forward to every visit,” Jane told me. Intel’s partnership with Orphans Overseas began with the installation of Classmate PCs in 2009. This year, a team worked with Jane and her fellow teachers to introduce a science-based after-school curriculum for local girls, responding to a request from Jorie and aligning with a new Intel initiative to empower girls and women around the world. This decade is far from over, and Intel has a long way to go to reach every person on earth with technology. With the help of programs like IESC, Intel can make faster and more lasting progress, especially in some of the hardest-to-reach communities. It’s not easy to design and implement global pro bono programs that make a meaningful difference to a company’s vision, but the end results are well worth the effort.

IESC’s business-driven model has allowed Intel to harness the generosity of its employees to pursue its corporate vision... to create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the life of every person on earth.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

CATALYZING GROWTH IN EMERGING MARKETS

PY XE R A Glob a l ’s A n n ual C o n f e rence High l igh ts Pow e rful Opportuniti es f or C om pa ni e s t o P ro f it an d So l v e Gl obal Probl em s

Alice Kor ngold

lobal pro bono experience—or “international corporate volunteering” (ICV)—prepares nextgeneration leaders to maximize corporate profits by solving vital problems in emerging markets. The case for companies and the world to benefit from global pro bono was made abundantly clear at PYXERA Global’s Fifth Annual ICV Conference held in April in Washington, D.C. Aptly named “Catalyzing Growth in Emerging Markets,” the event included a new “Public-Private Partnership Forum,” and was attended by hundreds of influential experts from multinational corporations, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations over the course of two days. Speakers and panelists from dozens of companies, including The Dow Chemical Company, EY, Credit Suisse, IBM, SAP, and Merck, testified to the experiences of more than 8,000 employees who have worked in pro bono across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, to assist educational institutions, social enterprises, NGOs, and local governments to be successful. ICV contributions help their local clients—particularly in emerging markets—to strengthen their operations thereby building econo-

mies, providing jobs, expanding access to healthcare and education, and improving the quality of air, water, and arable land.

Global Pro Bono is Smart Business The greatest opportunities for companies to profit in the next two decades are in emerging markets, where three billion people will enter the middle class. According to McKinsey & Company, in Africa alone, consumer-facing industries will grow by $400 billion. Women also represent an important emerging market for companies, as they will control close to 75 percent of discretionary spending worldwide in the next five years. By helping to develop economies, prepare the workforce, and improve health, companies are building the capabilities and capacities of new markets and engaging with valuable new stakeholders: consumers, employees, and members of communities where businesses seek to establish roots. In developing my recent book, A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems ... Where Governments Cannot (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), research revealed that companies are only successful in profiting by advancing educa-

tion, healthcare, workforce development, and other vital issues under three conditions: they partner with nonprofits and sometimes other companies; engage with stakeholders (the community, employees, investors, and others affected by the company’s strategic decisions); and ensure effective board governance. The beauty of global pro bono is that it fulfills all three conditions for companies to profit by solving global problems. Through ICV, businesses collaborate with NGOs, nonprofits, and sometimes other companies in regions where they seek to strengthen communities and engage with stakeholders. As demonstrated by dozens of speakers from corporations at PYXERA Global’s conference, global pro bono is uniquely effective for leadership development. “The IBM Corporate Service Corps provides an unparalleled triple benefit: exceptional leadership development, often touted as ‘life changing;’ outcome-driven, pro bono problem-solving for communities across the globe; and terrific insights and relationship building in emerging markets for IBM’s business,” said Gina Tesla, Director, Corporate Citizenship Initiatives, IBM.

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

HAPPENINGS I contend that ICV alumni possess the on-the-ground experience that is needed to lead their companies to become true innovators, and eventually, to rebuild corporate boards to maximize profit opportunities in the new global marketplace.

Speakers From Companies Testify to the Benefits of Global Pro Bono Deborah Holmes, Americas Director of Corporate Responsibility at EY, who spoke at the Public-Private Partnership Forum on livelihoods and leadership, addressed the question of human capital. “EY supports entrepreneurs in emerging markets by lending them our very best resources: our most talented professionals,” said Holmes. “We do this because, especially (though by no means only) in emerging markets, entrepreneurs create jobs, drive innovation, and strengthen communities.” Holmes continued to explain that “some of our work has focused on women entrepreneurs because we see them as an especially significant engine of growth. In the next five years, the global incomes of women will grow from $13 trillion to $18 trillion. That incremental $5 trillion is almost twice the growth in GDP expected from China and India combined.” According to Bo Miller, Global Director of Corporate Citizenship at Dow and President of The Dow Chemical Company Foundation, Dow views the engagement as a way to establish meaningful relationships and better understand the economy in a region where the company will be investing billions of dollars in building manufacturing plants that will have a life of 50 to 60 to 100 years. Dow’s pro bono volunteers help to advance social enterprises and nonprofit organizations in East and West Africa that provide water, sanitation, agriculture, and energy services. Volunteers bring a variety of problem-solving expertise and general capacity-building consulting experience, such as marketing, IT services, finance,

product design, product development, business strategy, supply chain, impact measurement, and market expansion in new geographies. Not only does Dow’s pro bono initiative promote promising organizations, it also provides the infrastructure to develop economies and improve lives in entire communities. Paul Tregidgo, Vice Chair and Managing Director of Debt Capital Markets at Credit Suisse, who spoke on powering new business in new markets at the Forum, drew an important parallel between employee participation and local enterprise. “From an enterprise perspective, global pro bono brings together two important and interlocking pieces of business sustainability: active engagement with employees and active engagement with an enterprise’s local, international and, indeed, virtual communities.” Eva Halper, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Credit Suisse, also commented on the value of community relationships and economic development. The company’s volunteers have worked on microfinance and education projects for five years in twelve different countries. “For a global firm, a stable social and economic environment is key to our long-term success as a company,” stated Halper. “We see ourselves as an integral part of society. We want to work with our partners long term. We want our relationships to grow and have an impact.” Through Merck’s Richard T. Clark Fellowship for World Health, Fellows spend three months embedded in a nonprofit organization working intensely on projects designed to improve the efficiency of operations, effectiveness, and reach of their NPO partners. “The Fellows embody Merck’s commitment to bringing greater access to quality healthcare to people throughout the world. In addition, the experience they gain is integral to Merck’s future success and ability to deliver innovative health so-

lutions to patients and customers around the world,” said Theresa McCoy, Associate Director, Corporate Responsibility, Merck & Co., Inc. Like others, Credit Suisse underscores the value of pro bono for leadership development. “Our volunteers work in unfamiliar environments, without their home team for support. They have to build rapport with new people in a new culture in order to problem-solve. This involves practicing, enhancing, and developing skills to deal with change and uncertainty,” explained Halper.

PYXERA Global Has a Vision for the Future The final word belonged to PYXERA Global’s visionary CEO, Deirdre White. “While we are seeing more and more multinational corporations getting involved in ICV, this is just a start.” Not only does White hope to see more companies establish ICV programs, but her vision is bigger. “If ICV is so powerful in developing new styles of leadership at companies, and building capacity in emerging markets where companies seek to establish a serious presence, then ICV needs to scale up in a more significant way.” White’s vision is of companies partnering with each other to help develop local supply chains that are useful to their industries. “The ultimate win-win is when company experts—as international corporate volunteers—serve as advisors to help local businesses in emerging markets to become suppliers to multinational corporations,” said White. “The experience for the advisors will also help them to understand the real challenges facing these local businesses and rethink how they work together, including finding innovative ways to contract with these businesses,” added White. With this vision, ICV could help lift entire regions out of poverty, while providing opportunities for companies to profit and increase their long-term value.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

300 FUTURE LEADERS ARE ON A MISSION TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD Atla s C or ps Le ve ra g e s G l oba l Exchange to Redistr ib ute O ppo rtun ity

S cott Beale

ohammed boarded the plane with incredible anticipation. After 10 years as a medical professional, he was excited to put his training to work serving overseas. He was at a point in his career where he had a lot of experience he wanted to share with other people, but also new skills he wanted to learn. For much of his life, he had seen people around him serving overseas and he never thought that he would get the chance. He applied for the Atlas Corps Fellowship for his opportunity to serve

abroad, to meet leaders from around the world, and to develop his skills. It seemed like an unlikely dream, with his background, to be able to fly 7,000 miles from his home and serve overseas, but now the day had come. His family all came to the airport with him to say goodbye; they were all so proud that this Sudanese doctor would serve in the United States for one year at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, aiding the global fight against breast cancer. For more than 50 years, Americans have served overseas through the Peace Corps, educational programs, religious misPhotos: Atlas Corps

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

CITIZEN DIPLOMACY Talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. sions, voluntourism and more, often with the desire to make the world a better place. Outside the United States, there are many talented, smart people who want to contribute to a better world, but they do not have the opportunities to develop their skills in the same way that Americans do by serving abroad. Talent is evenly distributed in the world, but opportunity is not. Until recently, they did not have the visas or financing to cross borders in service. Atlas Corps has changed all this by recruiting the best social-sector professionals from all over the world to serve in U.S. organizations—future leaders like Dr. Mohammad Abdalla from Sudan.

ince 2006, Atlas Corps has supported 300 people from 60 different countries serving across the United States. Each Fellow has between two and 10 years of experience, is proficient in English, and has a college degree. These Fellows tend to be professionals in their late 20s and early 30s. They spend six to 18 months serving on the team of their host organization and are simultaneously enrolled in a leadership development program. Atlas Corps has partnered with some of the world’s best organizations to host these Fellows, including American Red Cross, Acumen, Ashoka, CARE, Grameen Foundation, Mercy Corps, NED, Operation Smile, PYXERA Global, Save the Children, Special Olympics, UN Foundation, UNICEF, World Wildlife Fund, and many more. Atlas Corps’ partners are usually nonprofits, but private-sector companies, such as McKinsey & Co., Nike, and American Express, as well as government agencies, such as the Peace Corps, have also hosted Atlas Corps Fellows. By providing opportunities to serve with these organizations, share best practices,

and form networks, Atlas Corps is investing in the next generation of social change leaders. Atlas Corps applauds President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) because it focuses attention on the next generation of men and women in Africa ready to make a difference in their communities. Nearly 50,000 people applied for the YALI Washington Fellows in 2014, of whom 500 have the chance to come to the United States for six weeks, and another 100 to stay for an additional eight-week internship. This focus on next-generation leaders is exactly what Africa, the United States, and the world need, but the short-term nature of this exchange has three major shortcomings: such opportunities are too short, too expensive, and too reliant on Americans teaching Africans, with too little emphasis on a reciprocal exchange of ideas. By pro-

FORMER PEACE CORPS DIRECTOR, AARON WILLIAMS WITH NIGERIAN ATLAS CORPS FELLOW, GBENGA OGUNJIMI

viding more opportunities for one-sided exchange, it is as if the U.S. government has realized that opportunity is not evenly distributed but has failed to see that talent is. Bringing Africans to learn from Americans without acknowledging what Americans can learn from them is only slightly better than sending Americans to Africa to teach them skills in their own country. The YALI program does not effectively leverage the skills that the African fellows bring with them to the United States. Atlas Corps is built on a complementary, but radically different, model that recognizes how much Africans have to contribute to their host organizations and proposes longterm service for sustainable, high-impact leadership development. Atlas Corps has also developed a public-private partnership model that makes the experience affordable and desirable for host organizations and Fellows alike. A one-year fellowship costs $45,000; a host organization such as Susan G. Komen pays $30,000 for the opportunity to host a Sudanese doctor for one year, covering two thirds of the costs. Atlas Corps’ generous donors make up the bal-

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

By creating a world in which talent and opportunity are equality distributed, longterm, sustainable social progress becomes inevitable in the

At las C o r ps f el l o w s M a i s o o n I b ra h i m fro m S u d a n an d N atas h a U ppal from In dia.

ance. With this innovative business model, Atlas Corps is fundamentally altering the status quo and future potential of international exchange.

he talents of Atlas Corps Fellows are unique and diverse; Mohammad is only one of 300 colleagues with equally inspiring stories of serving abroad. Kate, a humanrights lawyer from Kenya, is currently serving at the Nike Foundation in Portland. She brought her experience empowering teenage girls in Nairobi to Nike to help them improve their girls’ leadership programs. Tom, a Fellow from Uganda, served at the U.S. Peace Corps headquarters, using his experience working for World Vision in Uganda to strengthen the Peace Corps’ Africa office in Washington, D.C. After his year of service, he returned home to address environmental issues in Kampala. Zhirayr from Armenia became an Atlas Corps Fellow to develop his management skills and prepare him for greater leadership roles. Four years after returning to Armenia, he was hired as the Country Director for World Vision Armenia— the first Armenian to serve in a leading role historically held by an expat.

The experiences of these Fellows prove the founding concept of Atlas Corps: talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. In Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Armenia— indeed, everywhere in the world—there are talented, smart people who want to make the world a better place. The greatest insight from Atlas Corps is that these young leaders not only want to learn skills, but they also want to share their insights, experiences, and talents. These young leaders are not asking to be recipients of aid, but rather to be partners in development. This requires a new mindset towards exchange that is closer to the way the private sector leverages global talent to advance profit margins. To achieve this goal, the social sector must more effectively empower young professionals everywhere in the world to gain the skills, knowledge, and experience they need to advance the common good. The plethora of programs launched in recent years to encourage youth exchange are a boon for this mandate, but at Atlas Corps, we believe that this is just the start. To have the desired effect, a more com-

United States, Africa, and beyond. prehensive strategy must leverage publicprivate partnerships, embrace long-term exchange, and truly value the skills and experiences these leaders already bring to their term of service. At the end of his 18-month fellowship, Mohammed returned to Sudan as Susan G. Komen’s Regional Manager, responsible for leading the development and execution of the foundation’s strategy in Africa. A young African doctor now holds a prestigious post in a U.S.-based organization. Empowered to address women’s health on his continent and equipped with international networks and an understanding of American culture, he can work with U.S. partners, not just for U.S. donors. African leaders with professional experience in the United States have the ability to fortify the future of both Africa and America. So begins a process of global partnership that will create a network of future leaders ready to address the world’s most pressing challenges. By creating a world in which talent and opportunity are equality distributed, long-term, sustainable social progress becomes inevitable in the United States, Africa, and beyond. Photo: Atlas Corps

“This is my office.” Jessica Custer, an MBAs Without Borders Advisor in Kerala, India, brainstorms with the Kara Weaves staffs on ways to integrate the natural beauty of Kerala into the design of local artisans’ handwoven products to reach more consumers in new markets. MBAs Without Borders sends business professionals into frontier markets to utilize and adapt the latest management tools and techniques to fuel economic growth.

Where will your next meeting be?

A Signature Initiative of PYXERA Global

@MBAsWB Sponsored Content

www.MBAsWithoutBorders.org

#ThisIsMyOffice

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

HAPPENINGS

IN S I D E THE CL A SSRO OM O F THE WO RLD

By Laura Asiala

S tudents Lea r n th e Powe r o f a G loba l M i nd s e t Matt Clark

his spring, leaders in international education at Drake University invited the Center for Citizen Diplomacy to give an undergraduate workshop on the theory and practice of citizen diplomacy. Afterward, one student evaluation offered the following definition: “Citizen diplomacy is the right and responsibility of all people to engage in cross-cultural, person-to-person interactions that create some greater shared understanding.” I was thrilled to read this response because it so closely reflects how the Center talks about citizen diplomacy as a tool for global engagement. It was exciting to see undergraduate students at my alma mater not only embrace the concept, but also feel empowered by it. The workshop, designed for undergraduate students with internationally-focused majors and held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, was called “Citizen Diplomacy: How to Be More Relatable, Likeable, and Employable.” It sought to deliver big ideas in engaging ways to university students in a single afternoon. Learning objectives for the workshop were threefold: create an understanding of citizen diplomacy and its value to personal and professional development; connect students to resources, particularly on campus, to be engaged global citizens; and inspire

a higher level of student empowerment to act with purpose as globally fluent citizen diplomats. Through ice breaker activities, story sharing, short lectures, videos, and other interactive exercises, I spent four hours with about two dozen students exploring what it means to be an engaged citizen of the world, and how concepts like citizen diplomacy and global fluency are powerful forces in building and sustaining a secure, economically sound, and socially interconnected planet. These ideas matter at both a macro and micro level. For example, presenting statistics about how dependent the U.S. economy is on global demand is all fine and good, but what soon-to-be college graduates really want to know is how they are going to get jobs after graduation. Young ears perk up when you mention that employers like Google, Apple, and the State Department want to hire globally fluent individuals who thrive when collaborating with colleagues from diverse backgrounds and different ways of operating. When exploring concepts of engaged citizenship and citizen diplomacy, it’s vital to realize these aren’t just ‘nice ideas’ that make the world a better place but have practical application in terms of finding and retaining employment. That message resonates

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 with college students who want to know how to succeed in the global marketplace. These students want careers that are not only personally satisfying, but that also pay the bills and allow them to support themselves while putting the skills they learned in school to use. All soon-to-be college graduates want to make sure the walls on which they’ll hang those expensive diplomas aren’t in a guestroom of their parents’ basement. Returning to the evaluation forms from this pilot workshop, I again look at the reflections of the student who summarized her definition of citizen diplomacy so well. That same participant rated her understanding of citizen diplomacy as a “2” on a scale of one to five before the workshop started. After the workshop, she rated both her understanding of citizen diplomacy and her feeling of empowerment to engage as a global citizen at the “5” level. Her responses—and those of the other students from Drake—reinforce what we believe to be true: college students can be extraordinarily effective citizen diplomats. With opportunities to study abroad and interact with international students on campus, as well as a nearly constant use of social media platforms that connect them to information and peers around the world, college students have the potential to be globally engaged every day. We simply need to show them the benefits of

operating in a globally fluent community, and inspire them to act with purpose. One of my favorite activities from the workshop was the ‘speed dating’ session. At each station, participants learned a traditional greeting from a different culture, practiced a word or phrase in another language, were invited to an event on campus where they could continue to engage with peers from other countries, and were presented with a small gift as a token of this interaction. In one session, we practiced the correct angle to bow to a new colleague in Japan, learned how to say, “Nice to meet you” in Japanese, were invited to a tea ceremony, and were presented with a small origami crane. Every few minutes the speed dating bell rang and participants engaged with new peers who taught them something about life in Malaysia, France, China, Kenya, and elsewhere. The point of the speed dating activity was to connect students to resources available to them right on their own campus, and also to demonstrate how easy it is to engage with the world beyond our borders, even in our own backyard. Not everyone can spend a semester abroad, but there are any number of ways to become a more globally fluent individual at home. During the fourth attempt of one student to learn the polite way to say “thank you” in Mongolian during a speed dating

NGC

When exploring concepts of engaged citizenship and citizen diplomacy, it’s vital to realize these aren’t just ‘nice ideas’ that make the world a better place but have practical application in terms of finding and retaining employment.

round, her beaming peer from Mongolia exclaimed, “There you go! You got it!” The Drake student smiled back and said, “Yeah? I got it!” Yes, in that moment she did get it. She learned a new word, true, but she also learned how easy it is to make a genuine connection with someone who has something new to teach you. She experienced how good and empowering it feels to be a part of the world beyond your own little bubble. She got it.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

AROUND THE WORLD

P o w e r A f r i c a Takes Off and Africa’s Future Grows Brighter Amanda MacArthur

ETHIOPIA:

POWER AFRICA

IN FOCUS

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

70% Seventy percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa—600 million people, twice the U.S. population—do not have access to e l e ct r i c it y.

“The Earth at Night” | NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

NGC

ecently, I was sitting in a hotel boardroom in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with a team of executives from a major pharmaceutical company who were seeking to gain a better understanding of local challenges and opportunities. Over the course of 20 minutes, the power came and went five times. Each time, a momentary pause and a nervous chuckle would follow, and then the hotel generator would quickly kick on and we would continue. The disruption, while frustrating, was minimal. As we had spent much of the day in parts of Addis where a generator is a major luxury item, the stuttering lights made me think about the impact this type of interruption has on daily life. From the student who can’t finish her homework, to the entrepreneur unable to generate product, to hospitals and clinics unable to maintain life-saving drugs at a constant temperature, the challenges associated with unreliable power have a ripple effect that undermine economic growth. When two-thirds of those living in sub-Saharan Africa, including 85 percent of those living in rural areas, lack access to power, the negative impact isn’t just a ripple effect; it’s a tidal wave. As I sat in the flickering light, I wondered how a country like Ethiopia, which has made dramatic development gains over the past several years, can be expected to reach its full potential until this critical issue is addressed. The answer is simple—it can’t. “Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It’s the light that children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. It’s the lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs, and it’s the connection that is needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy.” With these words, President Barack Obama launched the initiative to “Power Africa” in 2013 at Cape Town University, with the intent to double access to power in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years. To fulfill this commitment, the U.S. government has pledged more than $7 billion in financial support through USAID, OPIC, U.S. Export-Import Bank, The Millennium Challenge Corporation, The U.S. African Development Foundation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency—a rare level of collaboration and commitment across agencies. This pledge includes significant funding for U.S. exports that will support the development of power projects across Africa, as well as the financing, insurance, and technical assistance needed to help African governments attract additional private-sector investment. Power Africa is, to date, one of the farthest reaching publicprivate partnerships the United States has ever initiated. In

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

addition to the $7 billion from the U.S. government, almost $15 billion in added private-sector funds have been secured, supporting smaller or off-grid projects. Less than 50 percent of Ethiopia’s population of over 90 million has consistent access to electricity and just over 80 percent live in rural areas. Yet, its economic growth rate hovers just above seven percent per year and its government is hungry for investment to drive much needed infrastructure growth. Within these realities, it is no mystery why Ethiopia was so eager to support the first Power Africa agreement, signed in September of 2013. The project, which will cost an estimated $4 billion and take eight to 10 years to reach completion, is the first independent power project in Ethiopia’s history. Once complete, it will be the largest geo-thermal plant in Africa. Because so much of Ethiopia’s population lives in rural areas,

A NEIGHBORHOOD IN ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA MAKES DO WITHOUT ACCESS TO THE GRID

the opportunities for off-grid generation are equally significant; the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association reports the market potential at nearly $9 billion. A number of initiatives are seeking to fill the market, including the construction of solar villages, training for solar technicians, distribution of solar lanterns, and the establishment of rural solar centers to support generation unit installation, maintenance, and servicing. As of September 2013, Clean Technica reported that Ethiopia had funded the installation of more than 13,000 off-grid solar power systems in a 10-month period. As more Power Africa projects get underway, investors and governments can seize the opportunity to engineer such investment to deliver a parallel return: jobs. Power Africa has the potential to not just turn on the lights, but ignite an engine of much greater economic growth spurred by enterprise and em-

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

Increasing access to and reliability of electricity will improve learning conditions, modes of communication, and access to health care, while fostering greater productivity in essentially every pocket of African industry.

NGC

ployment. The private sector can and should play an equally active role in building local capacity as do donors like USAID. Such efforts can be modeled on the lessons learned by the extractive industry in engaging with and building the capacity of locallyowned businesses in their supply chains. Too often, extractive operators wait until a project has entered the operations phase before considering local employment, missing an opportunity to employee 15,000 or more people in the construction phase. Determined not to miss such an opportunity, one operator in Mozambique has taken an innovative approach as it builds out its liquid natural gas plant, investing in building the capacity of local firms before construction even begins. A similar model is possible for the power generation sector—ensuring local catering, transport, and engineering services firms alike are all well-prepared to bid on, win, and successfully implement power-related contracts. While the above approach is probably most appropriate for more traditional power generation sites with significant physical infrastructure, an enormous amount of electricity will need to be generated, at least in the medium term, to meet the mostly rural needs of much of the continent. Much of this off-grid power generation will be driven by small-scale operators and social entrepreneurs—many of whom could benefit from the skills and expertise of the global private sector. Large corporations, whose product or industry may not in any way relate to power, have the opportunity to support these efforts by leveraging their greatest asset—their human capital—through global pro bono programs, providing opportunities for employees to use their skills and expertise to enhance the capacity of local power-generating organizations through deliverable-driven assignments. Such programs are a relatively low-cost way to support economic growth while also discovering new insights into local markets. Companies like The Dow Chemical Company and IBM—both of which see significant investment opportunity in the country—are already bringing their talent to bear, partnering to build the capacity of organizations through their respective Leadership in Action and Corporate Service Corps activities taking place in Ethiopia this summer. Increasing access to and reliability of electricity will improve learning conditions, modes of communication, and access to healthcare, while fostering greater productivity in essentially every pocket of African industry. The Power Africa initiative is an important step towards creating this type of meaningful and sustainable growth, but it depends on a mutual commitment from governments of African nations, the private sector, and international development organizations to be truly successful. Back in the board room, the lights continued to flicker and the generator continued to kick on and off, but glancing out the window, the energy and entrepreneurial spirit on the street below was palpable. Ethiopia, as much of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, is a country on the rise. Bridging the energy gap will only provide greater momentum as it powers toward a brighter future.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

SAV I N G MOTH E RS, G IVIN G LIFE A COALITION OF DEDICATED PARTNERS FOSTERS MATERNAL SURVIVAL IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Rebecca Miller

Photos: Anne Jennings for Saving Mothers, Giving Life

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

19-year-old woman, five months pregnant, urgently needed to see a doctor, but the nearest medical facility was an hour-long drive away. Living in rural Zambia, public transportation was non-existent and the obvious solution—getting in a car—was also unavailable. The only accessible form of transport was a bike or an ox-cart, both of which were unmanageable in her condition. In Zambia, the patient-tophysician ratio is 8,300 to one and one in 37 women is likely to die from a pregnancy or childbirth complication during her life time. The odds were already stacked against her; the chances of her survival were slim. Fortunately, in this rare instance, Jaron Link, one of Merck’s Richard T. Clark Fellows, and a team from Boston University’s Center for Global Health and Development, were nearby and available to drive the woman and her mother to a clinic in the back of a pick-up truck. Despite the scorching 90°F heat and the unpaved and bumpy roads, they made it. Not the ideal situation for an expectant mother in need of urgent healthcare, but ultimately one that likely saved her life.

The Challenges of Childbirth in Rural Zambia The Netherlands, Jaron’s home, has a maternal mortality ratio of six in 100,000 live births resulting in death, making the dire circumstances many Zambian mothers face even more striking. Zambia ranks 156th in the world for maternal mortality due to high birth rates and a lack of access to affordable and quality health care. According to the WHO, in Africa the two leading causes of death related to complications of pregnancy and childbirth are post-partum hemorrhage and hypertensive disorders such as preeclampsia—accounting for 33.9 percent and 9.1 percent of maternal deaths respectively. The tragedy is that these deaths can be prevented. When a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth, her baby is twice as likely to die before the age of two and her other children are 10 times more likely to leave school, suffer from poor health, or die at an early age, creating grave implications for communities that lack access to health services. Adolescents are at particular risk for poor maternal health outcomes. Girls aged 15 to 19 are far more likely to suffer from complications from pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, this is the leading cause of death for girls in the age bracket. Furthermore, stillbirths and newborn deaths are twice as common in infants born to adolescent mothers. Maternal mortality has an indelible ripple effect that can undermine development and growth in less-developed corners of the world. In countries like Zambia, pregnancy and childbirth is often a life-changing event in more ways than one.

NGC

AROUND THE WORLD Partners in Maternal Survival In 2000, the United Nations Secretary General announced the fifth Millennium Development Goal, pledging to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters and later added an additional goal: achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015. While maternal mortality rates have declined by 47 percent since 1990, with one year remaining, achieving these goals remains out of reach. To reach these benchmarks, international leaders have enlisted a broad commitment from both the public and private sector. Saving Mothers Giving Life is an ambitious five-year public-private partnership to rapidly reduce maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. The partnership’s founding members include the U.S. Government, Merck for Mothers, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Government of Norway, Every Mother Counts, and Project C.U.R.E. The partnership’s interventions focus specifically on the critical period of labor, delivery, and the first 48 hours post-partum, when most maternal deaths and approximately half of newborn deaths occur. With the active engagement and support of the governments of Zambia and Uganda, Saving Mothers, Giving Life has been piloting various approaches to strengthen health services, including equipping facilities and improving the ability of healthcare providers to manage obstetric emergencies, ensuring the availability of essential supplies and drugs, and shoring up referral and transportation systems that enable women to reach a childbirth facility in a timely manner. In just one year, maternal mortality fell sharply (30 percent in target districts in Uganda and 35 percent in target facilities in Zambia) and the proportion of women who gave birth in a health care facility rose significantly (62 percent increase in Uganda and 35 percent increase in Zambia). Another approach

It’s heartbreaking that in 2014 women continue to die during pregnancy and childbirth. Merck is committed to making childbirth a celebration, not a tragedy—as is too often the case in many areas around the world. - Dr. Naveen Rao, Merck for Mothers

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

that proved to be highly effective was the training of Safe Motherhood Action Groups in the four pilot districts in Zambia. These groups work with couples in their respective villages to encourage early antenatal care and assist in developing birth plans.

The Human Capital Impact Additionally, Merck has established a 10-year, $500 million initiative to reduce maternal mortality around the world through Merck for Mothers. “It’s heartbreaking that in 2014 women continue to die during pregnancy and childbirth,” says Dr. Naveen Rao, the Lead for Merck for Mothers. “Merck is committed to making childbirth a celebration, not a tragedy—as is too often the case in many areas around the world.” One area Merck for Mothers is exploring to save women’s lives focuses on making it easier for women to give birth in a facility. Maternity homes, or mother shelters as they are colloquially referred to in Zambia, are residences near a healthcare facility where women from remote areas can stay in late stages of pregnancy until they go into labor. Merck for Mothers is collaborating

IN JUST ONE YEAR, MATERNAL MORTALITY FELL 35 PERCENT IN FACILITIES IN ZAMBIA TARGETED BY THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP, SAVING MOTHERS, GIVING LIFE.

with Boston University, Africare, Jhpiego and others in developing new models of these waiting homes to make them financially and operationally sustainable. Jaron used his expertise in finance and business planning to help the team understand the utility and feasibility of maternal waiting homes as a sustainable solution to improve maternal health. Jaron is just one of 13 Richard T. Clark Fellows Merck has deployed to countries seeking to reduce their incidence of maternal mortality for three-month assignments with six organizations across India, Zambia, and Uganda in 2013. “The Fellowship program enables employees to meaningfully contribute to Merck’s commitment to improve global health outcomes,” says Brian Grill, Executive Vice President of the Merck Foundation. “It bolsters Merck for Mother’s commitment to a world where no woman dies while giving birth.” Since returning to the Netherlands, Jaron’s conviction in the power of mother shelters still holds, but he believes this approach should be complemented by further investment in infrastructure and transportation. Paving thousands of miles

is extremely costly and will take at least another 20 years; in the meantime, it’s important to chip away at realizable achievements, like providing more mothers with access to maternity homes. Another cross-sector initiative, the Public Health Institute’s Global Health Fellows-II program, funded by USAID, is strengthening health systems by engaging a diverse group of global health experts at all levels in fellowships and internships with USAID and partner organizations. As of 2014, Merck and other multinational corporations have provided $2.17 million of in-kind support through corporate volunteerism programs like the Richard T. Clark Fellowship for World Health. GHFP-II’s Global Health Champions increase the expertise of their partners by linking corporations to USAID’s strategy with hopes of creating new synergies that address complex global health challenges. A coordinated effort among the public, private, and social sectors to research and understand the cycle of maternal and child mortality, and collaboratively undertake the implementation of proven interventions, will be the driving force for sustainable approaches that meet local needs.

Sponsored Content

MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS MAY COME OUT OF THE LAB. BUT THEY BEGIN IN THE HEART. For more than 150 years, a very special passion has driven the people of Merck. Our goal is to develop medicines, vaccines, consumer care and animal health innovations that will improve the lives of millions. Still, we know there is much more to be done. And we’re doing it, with a long-standing commitment to research and development. We’re just as committed to expanding access to healthcare and working with others who share our passion to create a healthier world. Together, we’ll meet that challenge. With all our heart.

For more information about getting Merck medicines and vaccines for free, visit merckhelps.com or call 800-727-5400. Copyright © 2012 Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved. CORP-1060080-0002 12/12

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

AROUND THE WORLD

STUDY ABROAD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU THINK Matt Clausen

landed in Accra, Ghana in early January 1992 amidst the dusty harmattan to start the spring semester of my junior year. A dynamic and opinionated advisor from the now-defunct United States Information Agency received me at the airport and I soon found myself at the University of Ghana administrative offices, standing in line for my student ID photo and my dormitory room assignment. I decided to study abroad early during a challenging sophomore year at Swarthmore College, but because I had waited until late fall to make my decision to apply for this spring program, I needed to wait until spring of my junior year to actually travel. I could barely contain my excitement that the moment had finally arrived. Over the course of the semester, I found myself repeatedly readying payment for my semester abroad, only to find that nobody seemed to want my tuition money. Swarthmore didn’t charge me for this semester abroad and, as it would turn out five months later, neither did the University of Ghana. The daughter of the Chancellor of the University of Ghana had recently studied at Swarthmore. This personal connection gave birth to an informal arrangement only two years young between the two schools to provide study abroad exchange for American and Ghanaian students between the universities. This was a very informal arrangement.

The Bureaucratic Legacy of Education Partnerships Do institutional partnerships always start so informally? Actually, they often start—and end—too formally. Mounds of memoranda of understanding ceremoniously signed and carefully archived gather dust at schools across the globe. As one university president recently told me at a conference, “An MOU is so often like getting engaged without getting married. People keep hoping and hoping that something will happen, but going beyond is expensive.” This is especially true in the Americas. According to the most recent Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, 526,000 students from Asia study in the United States annually, compared with 67,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). There were more students from South Korea studying in the United States (71,000) than from the entire LAC region combined, and more students from Vietnam studying in the United States (16,000) than from Mexico (14,000), the third-largest U.S. trading

If we’re serious about building a 21st century workforce, then we’re going to have to build knowledge and relationships that reach across borders. And that’s how we’re going to create new jobs and develop new markets, explore new ideas, and unleash the hemisphere’s extraordinary opportunity. - President Barack Obama

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

100,000 Strong in the Americas Partnership Transforms U.S.-Latin America Exchange

partner and the anchor of the now $1 trillion NAFTA trade pact. These figures represent strong and commendable integration of higher educational efforts between the United States and Asia, but a poor base upon which to build increasingly integrated economies in the Americas. The LAC region, with 275 million people, recently welcomed more than 50 million into the middle class; these Western Hemispheric neighbors receive 40 percent of U.S. trade, and the region is on track to become the world’s energy hub. Yet, despite these statistics, of the few U.S. students who study abroad, only one in six do so within Latin America.

Lessons from the Global Classroom Unlike approximately 99 percent of U.S. four-year degree students, I was fortunate enough to have and to take the opportunity to study abroad in a non-traditional country. Currently, nearly one-third of U.S. students who study abroad do so in the United Kingdom, Italy, or Spain. I chose Ghana because there was a casual, inadvertent relationship between two higher educational institutions and because my school encouraged students to study

abroad; to this day, about 40 percent of Swarthmore students choose to do so. I learned more valuable life skills in one semester in Ghana than in all of my college years up to that point. Yet, jumping into a trimester system with little context for the learning environment, I learned much more outside the classroom than I did in it. I distributed surveys to Ghanaian students about their views of the United States and the Gulf War. I took drumming classes. I wrote profusely—and not that well—about each. Later, I had to fight for my credits in order to graduate because the credits from my study abroad courses didn’t automatically transfer to my home institution, though I ultimately received the credits I needed to graduate on time. In the long term, although I didn’t know it at the time, my study abroad experience would set the foundation for my career in international engagement. “Educational exchange is increasingly a gateway for more than cultural understanding—it also helps open doorways to new opportunities for employment and economic growth,” notes Ben

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting at the White House. One study even correlates students’ multicultural engagement with the number of job offers they received following their program and recent analysis by the Institute of International Education reveals a promising trend that the greatest increase in field of study for U.S. students studying abroad is in engineering, agriculture and health among others, fields in which students are likely to more easily find greater job prospects. What prevents more long-term partnerships between colleges and universities in the United States and their neighbors in the Western Hemisphere? Why do students and faculty so willingly travel the well-worn paths between Western Europe and the United States and venture so slowly, if at all, into other regions?

Cracking the Education Partnership Code NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, has been researching and wrestling with the challenges of intrahemisphere exchange for years. Partners of the Americas has been quietly building long-term partnerships for 50 years—a great number of which are between colleges and universities—sometimes without realizing the incredible durability of these alliances. Foreign governments such as Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, and many others in the region have been investing heavily in recent years in scholarship programs.

In 2011, President Obama announced the 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative. Two years later, and following more than a year of partnership dialogue, Partners of the Americas, NAFSA, and the U.S. Department of State—implementing the initiative at the request of the White House—signed a partnership agreement to promote the initiative and to create the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund seeks to invest up to $10 million annually to deepen the relationship between educational institutions across the Western Hemisphere over the course of this decade. The three institutions aim to work together to build and rebuild the engines of connectivity by inviting and rewarding institutional innovation. This new synergy will fuel and accelerate student flow by re-wiring partnerships, reducing barriers, and accelerating what works. Additional programs and institutions will complement the three-way partnership through a strategic combination of scholarships and other multi-sector approaches. The Innovation Fund doesn’t make large grants—most are between $20,000 and $60,000—but the incentive it provides for institutions to articulate innovations to increase study abroad in the Americas has dramatically exceeded expectations, and thus far every $1 invested has leveraged $1.70 of additional investment from colleges and universities and their partners across the Western Hemisphere. Thus far, more than 875 institutions have registered for the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Network. Contri-

butions from Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation and Santander Universities, a division of Santander Bank, together with initial capacity-building resources from the U.S. Department of State, have drawn 257 applications for only 22 available innovation grants. Two more competitions are scheduled for 2014—one supported by the Exxon Mobil Corporation, and one by the Coca-Cola Foundation.

Innovation Through Education in Action For most schools, a modest outside investment, strong institutional support, and an innovative leader inside the school can build a program in an impactful way. A great example that has been funded by the partnership is Northampton Community College’s practical learning initiative in Peru, which positions students to use their skills for global community impact, which also makes them more employable upon their return. “Implementing Sustainable Energy Systems in Developing Communities,” was the brainchild of Northampton Community College (NCC) Associate Professor Christine Armstrong, NCC’s first overseas class project. As part of their project, a group of 10 students and faculty helped Peru’s Universidad Nacional de Trujillo (UNT) and an NGO, WindAid, build a wind turbine. Standing nearly 16,000 feet above sea level, it was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “highest altitude wind turbine in the world.” Long-term sustainability of the initiative is based on the strong inter-institutional

We’re trying to create a synergy. A new synergy with sectors, charities, universities, and all the governments in the hemisphere, to invest in sending students to and from the United States, to lower the financial and logistical and language and informational barriers that now stand in the way. - Vice President Joe Biden

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

STUDENTS FROM NORTHAMPTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE WORK WITH PERU’S UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE TRUJILLO AND WINDAID TO BUILD THE HIGHEST WIND TURBINE IN THE WORLD.

partnership established with UNT. UNT faculty and administrators will be going to NCC in October to deepen the partnership, leading to a two-way exchange. Seven students and two NCC faculty members left in May for the second year of the project. The students come from a broad background: nursing, HVAC, construction management, electromechanical technology, and biological sciences. “Our students come back with experience in project management, problem-solving, teamwork and specific skills in sustainable energy planning,” said Manny Gonzalez, NCC’s associate dean and director of international studies. “Their weeks of study and work have a lasting impact not only on their employability but also empower in multiple ways a poor community high in the Peruvian Andes.” Every student learns about welding, metal fabrication, and carbon fiber blade construction from NGO partner WindAid and NCC’s own team. Beyond building and installing the wind turbine, the NCC students are helping wire the town, teaching residents how to maintain a small power plant. “We have a decent international program as a community college but we see this grant as a way to bring sustainability to our Peru program,” said Nathan Carpenter, the project’s coordinator. “It appears as a model that works in all our grant applications and we will be running it again next year without 100,000 Strong in the Americas funds but with the strong support of NCC’s own educational foundation.”

The NCC model will now become an example for other community colleges, which now serve about half of the higher education students in the United States. In order to expand the number of those studying abroad in the Americas—or anywhere—the United States must support initiatives that are accessible to community college students.

Education Seeds Productivity and Economic Growth Long-term partnerships often have serendipitous and informal beginnings that should be celebrated on par with those that are developed through formal proposals. Innovative arrangements that show impactful results serve as shareable models with others, increasing the likelihood of institutional tipping points in which student mobility increases exponentially because the question changes from “why would we?” to “why wouldn’t we?” Students themselves will then be the best ambassadors of change and integration, and with more students studying abroad and more effectively entering the workforce because of it, more will want to follow. A relatively modest, yet extraordinarily strategic, private-sector investment serves as a positive, disruptive force that allows innovative partnerships to emerge and scale, increasing educational collaboration in the Americas. Through innovation, investment, and a little bit of good luck, 100,000 Strong in the Americas is preparing a more engaged and competitive workforce across the Western Hemisphere.

NGC

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

AROUND THE WORLD

Nigeria

Spotlight:

An Interview with Ann Oden Nigeria is now the largest economy in Africa—what are the opportunities ahead for partnership and growth? Nigeria is a huge market. By size, it is five countries in one, more or less, so for any business, the market is there. And then there is our growing democracy. We certainly have our challenges, but we have come a very long way from our authoritarian past. Nigeria’s democracy is becoming more mature—elected leaders coming from different backgrounds, not just the elite. The last thing is that, like it or not, we have the oil resources. We are the number-one producer of oil in Africa and the fifth- or sixth-largest exporter to the United States. In short, opportunities abound!

A lot of stereotypes prevail about the difficulties of doing business in Africa, and especially in Nigeria. To what extent are these true or not? What implications does this have? That is a very interesting question. A World Bank report several years ago laid out all the challenges around business environment, taxation, land ownership, and other legislation as well as security challenges. That report drives most people’s understanding of Nigeria’s business environment. When the World Bank says something, we all tend to agree,

mostly because we don’t have something to counter it. But in reality, the government, especially government at the subnational level, has worked hard to try to overcome the legislative challenges, eliminate the bottlenecks, and ensure that it is easier to do business in Nigeria. By the time the World Bank puts out its next report, I hope it will reflect positively on this progress. Security is an area where Nigeria has not made the progress needed for business to thrive. This is a critical challenge, but there is a significant government commitment and many resources are being directed at strengthening security. It is also significant that for the first time, the Government of Nigeria has sought assistance from other nations, including

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014 the United States, to bring resources, skills-transfer and intelligence to help us resolve this challenge.

What guidance can you offer foreign businesses interested in doing business in Nigeria? They need to come in with an open mind and not rely on stereotypes presented in the international press. It might be worthwhile for these foreign businesses to do early reconnaissance on the opportunities that they wish to invest in. One way I’ve seen this done well is through global pro bono initiatives, such as IBM’s Corporate Service Corps and Smarter Cities Challenge programs. These programs provide excellent insights and help business leaders understand how to be successful in Nigeria. At the same time, they contributed real social value by advising local governments and NGOs on how to solve some of their core challenges in service delivery. It’s critical for foreign businesses to find a good local partner that can help them navigate the Nigerian context, which is a critical part of a local security strategy, as these partners have the best sense of risk and safety. These local entities can be vetted through the Investment Promotion Commission, which directs investors to credible local partners.

How does Nigeria’s great wealth of natural resources figure into the country’s future? Is it a blessing or a curse? Until recently, we were the only oil producer in our neighborhood. Now the newer producers, like Ghana, are saying, “Let’s look at Nigeria and learn from their mistakes.” We would certainly prefer not to be held up as the negative example, but that is certainly an understandable position. While we cannot say that the oil has been exclusively a curse since it has kept our economy afloat, there do seem to be more curses than blessings to date. The oil has been a curse, in no small part, because we had no one to learn from, especially regarding environmental degradation, and allocation of oil resources and revenues. There is a current national dialogue afoot and resource allocation is a key issue

NGC

that is being discussed, though without consensus yet. All of the security issues in the Niger Delta are rooted in the inability to resolve this debate in the past, and that is clearly a tough one to chew on. Nigeria has a key decision to make in order for our future to be secured as a sovereign nation. A ‘sharing formula’ needs to be worked out in a way that works for generations to come—that would help to turn the curse into a blessing. With regards to the environment, everywhere in the world, where natural resources such as oil are extracted, reasonable resources are allocated to address the degradation that comes from extraction. It is important that Nigeria addresses this issue quickly. Communities around the oil producing areas must have adequate resources to alleviate the impact the environment degradation and the necessary infrastructure for sustainable development.

You’ve held influential posts in a variety of institutions, including USAID, DfID, and Cross River State Government. From such an informed vantage point, what have you seen that has the greatest promise? Yes, we must be honest—we face some real challenges, but I still think we are moving in the right direction and there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are seeing new types of investments across the country. There is growing excitement for agribusiness among youth. This is a critical sector to create jobs and to feed the nation and the region. The government is also investing in an Agriculture Transformation Agenda. We are also starting to see the oil and gas sector seek out new ways to ensure that more Nigerian citizens benefit from that natural resource; for instance, they are looking at ways to build the capacity of local businesses to effectively supply the industry. While it is true and unfortunate that we have not been blessed with good leadership, as someone who has spent most of her career in development, I strongly believe that there is real momentum. We are seeing incremental change now, and we will see enormous change a few years down the line.

Over the past five years, Ann Oden has served as PYXERA Global’s Country Director for Nigeria, where she manages global pro bono programs and oversees PYXERA Global’s overall portfolio in Nigeria. Ann has over 20 years of experience in international development, most recently with USAID Nigeria where she served as Senior Program Management Specialist for Education. Prior to that, Ann held posts with the Department for International Development and Cross River State Government. Ann is also a renowned gender rights activist and advocate with a track record of successful work with international development agencies, NGOs, and community-based organizations in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Standing by people At ”la Caixa” Foundation we are fully committed to achieving a society with more opportunities for everyone by:

Spain’s number one foundation

• Fighting to eliminate poverty and promote development. • Working to boost employment. • Promoting health and medical research. • Supporting education as the basis for social progress. • Encouraging art and culture.

Over 500 projects in 62 countries.

www.laCaixaFoundation.com

Sponsored Content

The New Global Citizen | Summer 2014

NGC

CONTRIBUTE

WHAT’S Y O U R STORY?

We welcome submissions from individuals, corporations, and organizations engaged in:

LEADERSHIP • CITIZEN DIPLOMACY • IMPACT & INNOVATION GLOBAL PRO BONO • ENTREPRENEURSHIP Send your content or proposal to editor@newglobalcitizen.com or scan the QR code for our online submission form.

Tweet a Minute! Follow @BeNewGlobal

C H R O N I C L E

O F

L E A D E R S H I P

for updates from The New Global Citizen! @LFilose #CSR manager @Intel explains why #Volunteering is #Good4Business #Intel #IESC #education Intro excerpt from Thomas #Piketty on #Capital in the 21st century and #inequality #economicgrowth @Harvard_Press Can #Enterprise End #Poverty in #Africa? @AliciaBNess on #microfinance and #entrepreneurship @BeNewGlobal #Development Needs #Innovation Now! @DeidreWhite CEO @PYXERAGlobal on @GatesFoundation #NarrativeProject Scott Beale CEO of @AtlasCorps advocates for a new culture of #global #exchange #YALI @sbatlas @SusanGKomen @LauraAsialaCSR Covers Lessons in #Leadership from @ASTD #ASTDNews @KenBlanchard @SamsungTweets @eBay @MasshuuClark at @CitDiplomacy on the Power of #GlobalMindset for students at @DrakeUniversity @Merck supports #SavingMothers in #Zambia with @EveryMomCounts #MaternalHealth @bmiller503 @PYXERAGlobal @MatthewClausen of @PartnersAmerica Explains how #100KStrong #Partnership is Changing #Exchange for #LatAm @StateDept Better #health means more than drugs & doctors! Global #Biz School Network on #health #management in #Africa @GBSNonline

“The knowledge you have left us with will change our country.“ Christopher, Teacher

Focusing technology, resources, and partnerships to help people thrive Drawing on what has made us an industry leader, we develop scalable social initiatives designed to improve lives. The Intel difference starts with our people, who bring expertise spanning education, the environment, international development, and public policy. Calling on a track record of success and our commitment to accountability, we remain focused on working together in pursuit of positive social change.

Sponsored Content

Empowering the promise of a better world. Look Inside™ www.intel.com/education Follow us @IntelInvolved

Global Pro Bono Volunteering:

Innovation in Corporate Investment

ACHIEVING TRIPLE IMPACT

Dreifache Wirkung erzielen mit Join us September 25, 2014 in Berlin, Germany for a free, one-day workshop on the power of global pro bono. Attendees will have a chance to engage with experts in the ďŹ eld to learn how to establish global pro bono programs within their corporations. Reserve your spot: bit.ly/3ximpact

25 September 2 0 1 4

BERLIN

Germany