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Burgess Manuscript
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Hundreds of Issues
From the book 'Hundreds of Issues that Impact Relief and Development'
Section EEE
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Issue
Economics
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Basic observation
Economics has been described as the dismal science, but it is interesting as a framework for preliminary analysis of relief and development.
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Prevailing response
Economic data has come to dominate the relief and development sector and the organizations that control the resources and allocate funds. This is good as far as it goes, but it is not a good way to allocate resources and make investment decisions.
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A better response
The economics data relative to relief and development should be used as the jumping off point for a strong management information regime that not only understands the aggregates, but the costs and the activities and the results that make up the aggregates. Management information is a huge missing component of available data.
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Issue
Economists
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Basic observation
Economists are fun, but rarely very practical. They analyze, and predict, but do not manage. It is not what economists are trained to do.
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Prevailing response
The relief and development sector is dominated by economists, and has been for many years. The data that economists use are solid, but the results being reported are disastrous.
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A better response
Economists need to identify what is wrong from the data, and then help to identify how and why the results are so disastrous. The work being done by economists needs to be supplemented by strong work of cost accountants, and people versed in science and operations research. Relief and development needs management in addition to analysis from economists.
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Issue
Education
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Basic observation
Education can be a great success, but a minimum level of resources is needed. Very poor communities are in a poverty trap in part because of the education deficits.
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Prevailing response
Is a priority sector, but has not been well integrated into a total development framework. The “north” model usually used is more costly than it needs to be, and government budgets cannot be enough. Not much focused on economic needs of students.
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A better response
Should be a priority, but using local resources to the maximum, and not assumed to be funded by government. Education is a precondition for productive employment, .
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Issue
Elections
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Basic observation
Elections are an important part of democratic governance, but only a part.
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Prevailing response
Elections have been identified as a key part of a democratic process, and then linked to good governance. There are too many examples of elections being the cause of conflict rather than being the solution. Haste has also been a cause of tension and lack of institutional support for the rights of electoral minorities.
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A better response
Good government and good governance needs to be assessed not by the structure but by the behavior and the results. Rapid changes in systems of governance can make a structure look better, but does it work better. Measure the results rather than merely looking at the structure.
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Issue
Employment
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Basic observation
Employment is perhaps the single most important determinant of success in development. No jobs, no employment and a modern economy and society is dysfunctional.
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Prevailing response
Very little attention has been paid to employment. The failed development is the “south” all have employment deficits that are obscene, and it has been little reflected in the strategy to reduce poverty.
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A better response
Employment must be a central element of successful development, and thought through from the community level and then up. Work should be paid for that does good things for the community and the local economy, and it needs to be paid for in ways that strengthen rather than weaken the economic foundation.
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Issue
Enabling environment
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Basic observation
This is shorthand for a lot of factors that make it possible for development initiatives and investments to be successful. Includes framework of law, regulations, attitudes of the society as well as physical infrastructure.
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Prevailing response
Most of the effort has been centered on governance and the policy framework, with much less on facilitating local success with local resources. The efforts are seen by many to improve the enabling environment for foreign success more than for local success.
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A better response
The enabling environment needs to by improved at many levels, and to address ALL the issues that constrain success. This paper looks at more than 100 issues that impact development performance. The enabling environment has got to help address specific constraints that hold up discreet activities in relief and development.
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Issue
Energy
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Basic observation
Energy was the big driver of progress in the industrial revolution for the “north”, and needs to be a driver of progress for development success in the “south” now.
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Prevailing response
Energy has not been on the agenda of the ORDA community, and when it has been proposed, environmental issues have often made progress slow and expensive. Too much energy is used for useless activity in development, meanwhile manual labor is doing a lot of work that machines can do better.
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A better response
Energy needs to be a priority wherever it is needed in a community to improve production performance. Manual labor constraining productivity should be solved by use of energy. Measuring installed energy capacity is a good metric for relief and development potential.
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Issue
Enterprise
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Basic observation
Enterprise is one of the key enablers of economic progress. A successful economic system needs to use enterprise as a driver of economic activities.
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Prevailing response
A large proportion of relief and development assistance funding has been disbursed through government and other non-enterprise like settings. Nothing is sustainable because everything depends on ongoing funding from donors and external well-wishers.
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A better response
A better economic result will be achieved when relief and development resources are channeled in ways that creates self-sustaining enterprises that create and deliver the goods and services needed by local communities. Enterprise structures are designed to make the most with the least.
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Issue
Entrepreneur
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Basic observation
Entrepreneurs exist in both rich and poor societies. They are critical in the value adding process that is the characteristic of successful development. In poor countries they do not have the benefit of either resources or an efficient infrastructure.
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Prevailing response
Entrepreneurial energy is not being used in the economic development model favored by ORDA experts. Often interventions to assist entrepreneurs merely add bureaucratic burden without aiding productivity.
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A better response
The energy and creativity of entrepreneurs can be used to drive socio-economic progress when the value adding remains in the community rather than all being removed from the community. Progress metrics makes it possible to differentiate between different forms of entrepreneurial activity
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Issue
Environment
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Basic observation
Environment was given little attention in the first 100 years of the industrial revolution. Today it is recognized that environment needs to be given due consideration within planning for development investment.
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Prevailing response
Environment has tended to be an issue that has been used to stop development in order to preserve environment, yet a lot of big established corporate entities continue to do bad environmental things in places where law and regulation are weak.
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A better response
Environment needs to be incorporated into mainstream planning and the metrics for measuring development progress so that it is not merely the policy and the activism that gets attention but the actual practices used. Poverty is more damaging to the environment than wealth, and with wealth there is the resource to do remedial work where it is needed.
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Issue
Environmental degradation
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Basic observation
Environmental degradation is a huge cost of modern industrial society.
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Prevailing response
Though environmental degradation is a big cost to society,it is totally ignored in business accounting, and consequently is also ignored by society at large. This is a sad and dangerous reality that impacts the north less now than in the past, but is still a major problem in the “south”.
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A better response
The value analysis approach to socio-economic development progress metrics brings the issues of environment right into the middle of dialog ... it can change the perception and the performance of foreign direct investment (FDI) initiatives which frequently are able to totally ignore the environmental consequences of their activities.
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Issue
Equity
fairness concept
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Basic observation
In the context of fairness
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Prevailing response
Not thought about very much. There is a focus on different issues, but rarely discussed with reference to equity or fairness.
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A better response
Try to get a fair result, but do not do it by regulation and rules, but more by opportunity and incentives. Human energy is needed for success, and rarely achieved in a welfare mode.
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Issue
Equity
financial concept
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Basic observation
In the context of accountancy and financial reporting, equity is the “owners” share of a business.
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Prevailing response
Equity is rarely thought about in the ORDA system of development.
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A better response
The concept of equity and the ownership of a business is a critical component of wealth creation in the “north” and should be a much bigger issue in relief and development so that it can help to drive development and be an important incentive to energize activity.
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Issue
Ethnicity
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Basic observation
Ethnicity is an issue that can cause tension and worse.
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Prevailing response
Ethnicity has been part of the root cause of various conflicts, but it is not addressed as carefully as it needs to be. Any situation where there is a winner and loser will seriously aggravate historic tensions.
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A better response
Ethnicity needs to be recognized as a reality, and much more effort made to ensure that development opportunity does not aggravate tension, but helps to reduce it. This is not easy, but a start is to make sure that the there is sharing of development opportunities and the allocation of resources is fair.
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Issue
Ethics
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Basic observation
Ethics is a critical issue. Ethics is more than philosophy, and nor just a component of religion. Ethics are the foundation of a civil society.
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Prevailing response
Laws provide a framework for a society of law, but it is only good laws that make a society ethical and just. Ethics have dropped out of the core of economic and business life and this goes a long way to explain much of the abuse recently being prosecuted.
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A better response
Ethics needs to be an area of great consensus, and this consensus should aim to be universal. A lot of law and regulation should be revisited based on issues of ethics, fairness and human rights.
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Issue
Evidence based decisions
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Basic observation
This is a recently developed phrase ... is there any other way of making decisions.
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Prevailing response
The need to invent a phrase like “evidence based decisions” suggests that there has been a practice of making decisions in ways that are perhaps in conflict with available facts. No wonder that relief and development initiatives have failed.
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A better response
Clearly decision making should be based on the best possible information, and information should flow quickly and be as accurate as possible and as low cost as possible. Decisions should look to both short term and long term impact.
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Issue
Exchange rates
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Basic observation
Exchange rates tell a lot about the management of an economy.
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Prevailing response
But exchange rates are not given enough thought in a typical World Bank project analysis, in fact, for years any consideration of exchange rate projections was explicitly ignored in the projections. This makes little sense and explains some of the World Bank's poor project performance.
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A better response
Exchange rates need to be taken into consideration in every aspect of relief and development analysis. To the extent that many analysts in the RDS do not understand the impact of exchange rate changes, people with appropriate understanding should be engaged.
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Issue
Experience
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Basic observation
Experience is a key strength and helps a person or organization avoid mistakes.
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Prevailing response
But practical experience is sadly lacking in the relief and development sector both at the individual leval and within organizations. Most large organizations have extremely weak institutional memory, and for all practical purposes do their basic learning over and over again.
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A better response
The relief and development sector would be vastly more effective if it could organize to use the experience and talent of ALL the people in a community, rather than being focused on a few. The same goes for organizations and the whole power structure of the global economy. The RDS and leadership could be so much more effective if it could find experience and use it.
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From 'HUNDREDS OF ISSUES THAT IMPACT RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT'
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