Daniel O’Neil

thoughts and reflections

  • What will the World look like after this Economic Crisis?

    As I watch our economic crisis unfold, I've been wondering what the world will look like when we come out the other side. I believe that we will come out stronger, but also less rich. We will be less rich not just because we will have less easy credit, but also because we will have more competition. I see this through three trends:

    1. I first starting working in West Africa in 1986. Back before the internet when letters would take weeks to go in either direction and phone calls cost to the US several dollars a minute. The gap betweeen Westerns and the locals wasn't just financial. Very few Africans had skills to compete with every lower level foreigners. Many organizations had foreign finanical managers, project managers, and even administrative assistants. Twenty years later, there are far fewer expat jobs and foreign organizations find themselves competing directly with local ones. Despite the declining skills gap, the US and Europe have maintained a much higher standard of living than Africa, Asia, and the rest of the Americas.

    2. In Fareed Zakaria's book The Post-America World, he stressed that the "rise of the rest" rather than the decline of the United States will reduce the US's ecomonic and political power. As China, Russia, India, Brazil, and other countries strengthen their economies and grow in power; the US will be unable to take unilateral actions and will be competing not only for power but for resources.

    3. Finally, the economic crisis in the United States will cause a significant shake-up in all sectors of our life. I believe that the reduced spending and production that we are seeing today will continue. After all, so much of that spending was done on credit–money that we didn't have in the first place. The Federal Government is doing its bit to try to borrow and spend its way out of this crisis, but eventually we will have to pay back the trillion dollars that we are spending on the crisis today (plus the trillions that we borrowed for the Iraq war and will need borrow for Social Security and Medicare).

    I think we will look back at the 90's and the first half of this decade (what do we call it? the OO's?) as the high point for the American lifestyle. We will grumble that we are still paying off the excesses of those twenty years. Hopefully, we will find that our happiness is not tied to the size of our big screen tv and might actually end up poorer but more content. 

  • The Risk of Sharing Ideas

    What do you do with your great idea of how to change the world? Do you keep it secrete while you try to figure out how to make it work as your project or do you tell everyone that you know and risk having someone steal your idea? Seth Goldin blogged about the difficulty of selling ideas. In the non-profit world we rarely can be paid by an organization for developing an idea, however we do make our organizations grow by developing new ideas. We fear that if someone else hears our great idea, they will steal it and make their organization grow instead of ours.

    The same thought seems to hold once we begin implementing our great idea. I recently directed a project to build capacity among local organizations. My organization was one of thirteen organizations to get a similar grant. During the implementation of these five-year grants, I was astounded at how few of my fellow implementers were willing to share even basic information about their operations. Some organizations told me that they were unwilling to share their projects' annual reports, because they contained information about their operations that were trade secrets.

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    In his book The Dip, Seth discussed how ideas are cheap, but champions are hard to find. I think this better matches my experience with ideas. I've come up with a lot of great ideas. However unless I have the time and energy to put into making them happen, they wither away. When I've discussed an idea that I want to implement (such as my failed idea for creating a movement to end poverty in the Caribbean that inspired me to start this blog), the discussion helps me to refine the idea (and perhaps help me to realize that it wasn't such a great idea after all!).

    Seth concludes his article by stating that if you are not in the position to sell your idea, better to blog it and at least get bragging rights to have initiated the idea.  If you don't have the means to champion your idea now, wouldn't it be better to have the world become a better place because of your idea? 

    Perhaps we need an Idea-a-Day website for non-profits where we can push our ideas out and hope that someone adopts and champions them.

  • Feed poor New Yorkers and Receive New Music

    Robert Carr on the Everyday Giving Blog has highlighted a nice holiday giveaway. By downloading a free album from Peter Buffett, both Amie Street and the Robin Hood Foundation will donate a total of $3 for meal through the Food Bank of New York City.This is a great way to stimulate business for Amie Street, discover a new artist, and give money (free of charge to you!) to a great cause.

  • Why are we always too busy sawing?

    In sticking with the theme of why NGOs are not better at fostering internal capacity-building, I read the Mckinsey & Company entitled “Effective Capacity Building in Non-Profit Organizations” (August, 2001). The report was commissioned by Venture Philanthropy Partners as part of their analysis of how they can help the nonprofit sector. The report is an interesting look at nonprofit organizations by a for-profit firm.

    My favorite chapter is the second one that is entitled ” WHY CAPACITY BUILDING MATTERS – AND WHY NONPROFITS IGNORE IT.” The authors cite a variety of reasons why NGOs don’t do it, but they basically revolve around two points:
    * NGOs are too busy implementing their work to think about improving their capacity
    * It is very hard to get money for capacity building

    Although I agree that both of these reasons are the excuses that we use, I am also a bit baffled by them. Why are we too busy implementing to take the time to improve and why do we give it such a low priority that we don’t find the money to fund it? Somehow I don’t think that we neglect training because we don’t believe that we need it, but that it is hard to justify the investment. I would guess that for the private sector has an easier time justifying the time and expense because they hope to see the impact in their increased sales or profits. For the non-profit sector, perhaps we focus too much on our impact today and too little on our future impact.

    My favorite quote on the importance of capacity building comes from the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey and is found in the introduction to the chapter on the Seventh Habit, “Sharpening the Saw”:

    Suppose that you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree. “What are you doing?”, you ask. “Can’t you see,” comes the impatient reply. “I’m sawing down this tree.” “You look exhausted!” you exclaim. “How long have you been at it?” “Over five hours,” he returns, “and I’m beat! This is hard work.” “Well, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?” you inquire. “I’m sure it would go a lot faster.” “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw,” the man says emphatically. “I’m too busy sawing!”

    Why are we always too busy sawing to take the time to sharpen our saw?

  • “Lessons Not Learned” Why don’t NGO workers collaborate more?

    Several years ago, a friend of mine< Wade Channell, wrote a paper for the Carengie Endowment entitled, “Lessons Not Learned: Problems with Western Aide for Post Communist Countries.”. The main ideas that I took away from the paper are that development workers are lousy at learning from each other. Although we might be friends and socialize together, the world of international development workers does not foster learning. He cited four problems of learning (my comments follow each):

    * Incentives for Knowing, But Not for Learning: We are hired for the experience that we already have. In the 20 years I’ve spent working for different international NGOs, no organization has ever paid for any training for me except language classes. Whereas the private sector and even the Federal Government invests heavily in training its employees; NGOs don’t. Additionally, I don’t know of any professional journals related to international development, except for academic ones.
    * High Incentives for Repetition, Low Incentives for Innovation: Donors only want to fund proven successes and NGOs write their proposals to satisfy what the donor wants to hear. This is especially critical when entering a competitive bid. The NGOs seek to divine what the donor wants to hear, rather than to come up with the best approach. The Gates Foundation has made significant waves because they are willing to fund projects that take risky approaches.
    * High Incentives for Guarding Information: I was recently project director for one of thirteen projects funded by USAID to strengthen local organizations around the world. Each of the 13 organizations was given a five year contract to do similar work–this should have been an ideal learning environment. Instead, there was very little information sharing. Some organizations even refused to share their annual reports claiming that it would expose their trade secrets! Whereas I emailed my annual report and even my midterm evaluation to all of the other implementing organizations, only one and occasionally a second ever reciprocated.
    * Disconnection between Performance and Awards: It is very hard to measure how well a program was implemented and whether its successes and failures are do to implementation or luck–I learned long ago that if you have good relations with your donor, you can explain away any failure.

    The funny thing with this problem is that the individual development workers are committed to making a difference. It is the rare development worker that does not work long, hard hours trying to make their project a success.

    So what is it that keeps us apart? Why aren’t we a stronger tribe? This past year, I watched in dismay as USAID awarded contract after contract to professional consulting firms rather than NGOs. When I talk with my NGO friends, we all believe that we do a better job. USAID says that they cannot see any difference and it’s easier to work with the private sector. That’s a sad statement.

    What would happen if we did begin talking to each other about our failures and problems. What if we shared honest case studies–not the trumped up success stories that we have on our websites. Could we use these blogs, discussion groups, and wiki’s to promote this culture of learning and to reward true successes?

    Is it already happening somewhere? Post a comment–let me know.

  • Macroeconomics versus antipoverty projects

    I am coming to the conclusion that poverty is influenced far more by macro economic policy than by antipoverty projects. I’ve just read Philip D Osei’s 2001 critique of the antipoverty programs in Jamaica. He asserts that although poverty did drop significantly during the implementation of this program, it was more the result of macroeconomic improvements than the specific antipoverty projects. This fits well with the idea that people move into and out of poverty depending on a variety of circumstances as described in my previous post. It also matches the experience of the Dominican Republic when poverty rates doubled as a result of macroeconomic problems (as described in my post on the DR). It also matches the Haiti experience where despite excellent antipoverty projects, bad macroeconomic policy has led to terrible poverty rates (the IMF put out a paper comparing macroeconomic policies of Haiti and the DR entitled “Growth in the Dominican Republic and Haiti: Why has the Grass Been Greener on One Side of Hispaniola“. The current global financial mess will probably increase poverty rates far faster than antipoverty projects can protect people.

    Therefore, we cannot end poverty in the Caribbean by mobilizing support for antipoverty projects–we could never mobilize enough energy and resources to overcome bad policies.

    I’m not sure where to go now with this blog. I’m not ready to give up on the idea of working to end poverty in the Caribbean, I’m just not sure where to go. Any ideas?

  • “New Thinking on Poverty”

    I’ve just read Paul Shaffer’s excellent article “New Thinking on Poverty: Implications for Globalisation and Poverty Reduction Strategies” (Real-world Economics Review, Issue no. 47, 3 October 2008, pp. 192-231). It is a great overview of the current thinking on poverty reduction and clarified a number of issues that have been bugging me. One of the most important ones relates to Friday’s post, “How many people line in Poverty in the Caribbean.” Shaffer’s article points out the there is a significant difference between those who are impoverished–living chronically in extreme poverty–and those who pass cyclically into and out of extreme poverty. He cites a studies showing that the number of people that pass through poverty is much higher than those that are chronically poor. If we switch our focus from a “stock of poverty” (as per my previous entry) to one of poverty flows, the programmatic focus switches from providing assistance to escape poverty to helping prevent people from falling into poverty. I don’t think this invalidates the idea of tracking the number of people living in extreme poverty, but means that the programs should focus also on helping people above the line to not fall below it.

    Equally interesting in Shaffer’s article is a very thorough catalog of the different anti-poverty program and approaches. He lists seven types of capital (p. 200: Economic, Human, Social, Political, Cultural, Coercive, and Natural capital) and then describes how the different anti-poverty programs tackle each one. This is a nice catalog of interventions and best practices.

    So what does this mean for our movement to end poverty in the Caribbean?

    First of all, I suggest that we keep the “stock of poverty” banner as a useful oversimplification. Although it is certainly true that the list of individuals in extreme poverty today will be different than those in a list compiled in three months, the overall number is a useful motivational tool.

    However, we need to keep in mind that people do not graduate out of poverty. Instead, people naturally move into and out of poverty. Therefore, the program must have the twin goals of raising people out of poverty and of keeping them out.

    Finally, the Shaffer article includes a useful framework for tracking progress in building the different types of capital and for classifying the different interventions. In subsequent blogs, I will try to look at these different type of interventions.

  • How many people live in extreme poverty in the Caribbean?

    One of the intriguing aspects of working on a movement to end extreme poverty is that we should be able to quantify the progress. It should be possible to come up with a good estimate of the number of people living in extreme poverty in the Caribbean and track changes to it. The World Bank puts out detailed poverty estimates for each country. At least the Dominican Republic has a detailed poverty census that lists how many people are living in houses without paved floors and other indicators. What if we pulled all of this data together, validated with local surveys, and came up with a good estimate for the number of extremely poor people? This could be a banner on our website. We could then try to track changes to this number–estimating the number of people helped in different areas by the different programs and those hurt by changes (storms, bank failures, etc.). We could then show the world the magnitude of the problem, but more importantly the progress that we are making. Does anyone want to help come up with the first estimate?

  • Poverty in the Dominican Republic

    The Dominican Republic is a fascinating country, full of amazing contrasts. On one hand, it is a modern country with good roads, a modern skylineShowimage1php_typeid3imageid105864 (photo Miguel Calzada, Diario Libre). The new Metro train system is almost working and there are an incredible number of modern, luxury hotels and resorts. Yet at the same time, the poverty rate is very high. According to the World Bank’s 2006 poverty report, extreme poverty rose from 8.7% of the population in 2001 to 15.7% in 2004, following the banking scandal (table 1.2, page 17). There are clearly opportunities for work in the Dominican Republic–the same report goes on to state that “the low incomes of the poor are a reflection of their low productivity and do not come from barriers to enter the labor market” (translated from the Spanish version of the executive summary, paragraph 23). So why is poverty so bad?

    There are some easy over simplifications–the education system if very weak in the DR, the large number of low-skilled Haitians keeps wages low, government investments in the rural areas are quite weak, there are serious problems with political cronyism and corruption.

    I would guess that the strong economy since 2004 has improved the situation already, but people still seem to be poorer than they were before the crisis. So what should be done? Is the answer to strengthen the micro-credit work of groups like the Dominican Development Foundation ? Should the focus be more on education like the work being done by Aide et Action and Educa? Would it be possible to measure the impact of the different organizations work against an actual number of poor people?

  • Poverty in Haiti

    One of the biggest questions for ending poverty in the Caribbean is whether or not it could be done in Haiti. I’ve lived in Haiti for six years and have worked with Haiti for twelve. I love the people and love the country and it is constantly breaking my heart. 2008 was a rough year. Although things had started off well, the country fell apart first with the riots in March that led to the collapse of the Alexis government, the debacle over the naming of the new Prime Minister, the four storms that devastated the country, and now the collapse of the school in Petionville. Things continually seem to go wrong for Haiti. Would it be possible to end extreme poverty in Haiti?

    Despite all of these problems, there is some progress being made and a lot of good work is being done. My organization has been working with the rural poor for twenty five years. We’ve helped plant millions of trees, repaired countless kilometers of roads, trained numerous farmers, and helped the government to establish their disaster response strategy (despite the very high level of flooding, the number of deaths this year was dramatically less than in 2004!). There are other great organizations like Fonkoze, CARE, ORE. and World Vision to name just a few.

    The government is also trying hard. We work closely with the national offices for disaster preparedness and for border development as well as with the parliament. There are a lot of people within the government that are trying hard to make the country work.

    Yet the situation in Haiti is not improving. In a talk that Anne Hastings of Fonkoze gave in September, she stated that half of all Haitians live in extreme poverty (the citation comes from a nice presentation that you can download). What would it take to pull these 4.3 million people up to poverty? Given the weak physical and governmental infrastructure, it is possible?

    Conversely, if Haiti is not brought out of extreme poverty, what happens to all the Haitians that continue to flee Haiti in search of a better life? How could extreme poverty be ended in the Dominican Republic when thousands of Haitians continue to move to the DR in search of a better life?

    It seems that one of the challenges of this movement will be to figure out how to balance Haiti’s extremely high needs with the easier challenges of reducing poverty in the rest of the Caribbean. What do you think? How could we do this?