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Transcript of New Global Citizen - Fall 2014
8. MBAs Choose Toilets Over Stock Options
30. Are the United States and Russia Building a New Wall?
34. Net Impact is Breaking Boundaries to Repair the World
42. Jumpstart Your Career With Lean Method
52. Five Strategies for Effective Volunteer Alliances
Fall 2014
Editor in ChiEfAlicia Bonner Ness
ExECutivE PublishErAmanda MacArthur
dEsign & PubliCation ManagEr
Melissa Mattoon
CoPy EditorMatt Clark
PublishEd daily at: www.newglobalcitizen.com
ContaCt: [email protected]
(202) 719-0656
@BeNewGlobal
facebook.com/BeNewGlobal
Today’s world demands individuals and organizations prepared to thrive in a globally interconnected network of challenges and op-
portunities. Greater social awareness and innovative approaches have allowed us 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
global 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.
Today’s transformed and increasingly interconnected world has spurred a revolution, ushering in collaborative approaches that address
complex challenges. The New Global Citizen elevates the ways in which individuals, corporations, and social enterprises champion a
better future for our world.
THIS IS THE WORLD OF THE NEW GLOBAL CITIZEN.
THIS IS YOUR WORLD.
F a l l 2 0 1 4 Contributors
Jailan Adly Director, MBAs Without Borders
Rodrigo Soares Key Client Manager, PYXERA Global
Amy Crumbliss Senior Program Coordinator, PYXERA Global
Emma Boles Global Communications Officer, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
Chuck Montgomery Senior Managing Attorney, MidAmerican Energy Company
Deirdre White CEO, PYXERA Global
Liz Maw CEO, Net Impact
Katie Levey Director, Media Relations, PYXERA Global
Mark Horoszowski Co-founder, MovingWorlds.org
Deborah K. Holmes Americas Director, Corporate Responsibility, EY
Maggie DeLorme Program Manager, PYXERA Global
Susan Fowler Author, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…and What Does
CONTENTS
PIONEERS ON THE FRONTIER OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACYChuck Montgomery
THREE WAYS TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS TO POSITIVE NET IMPACTLiz Maw
JUMPSTART YOUR CAREER WITH LEAN METHODMark Horoszowski
FIVE STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE VOLUNTEER ALLIANCESDeborah K. Holmes
DEFINING “GOOD” DEVELOPMENTMaggie DeLorme
Inside the IssueEDITOR’S LETTERAl ic ia Bonner Ness
CommentWHAT IS A GLOBAL CITIZEN, ANYWAY?Al ic ia Bonner Ness
Book ExcerptWHY MOTIVATING PEOPLE DOESN’T WORK…AND WHAT DOESSusan Fowler
Features
Happenings
4
34
ARE THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA BUILDING A NEW WALL?25 th Anniversary of the Fa l l of the
Ber l in Wal l
LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR AFRICA’S FUTURE GROWTHU.S. -Afr ica Leaders Summit
THE DANGER OF VICTORY LAPSUN Week 2014
PARTNERSHIP IS THE FINEST FORM OF FLATTERYCommit !Forum
52
6
30
38
48
TOILETS OVER STOCK OPTIONSJai lan Adly
CAN PARTNERSHIP & TECHNOLOGY SAVE THE AMAZON?Rodr igo Soares
TV WHITE SPACES WILL BRING MILLIONS ONLINEMel issa Mattoon
Around the World
62
60
THE LONG ROAD TO PEACE IN COLOMBIA Amy Crumbl iss
SUSTAINABLE SHRIMP FARMING IN VIETNAM’S MANGROVE FORESTS Emma Boles
568
12
16
20
22
42
26
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 42NGC
Sp
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so
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Co
nte
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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.
Performancewith Purpose
WeAre
www.pepsico.com
Empowering women and girls is a strategic imperative within PepsiCo’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 o�ering advice and encouragement to continue their education and pursue their dreams.”
PepsiCorps 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.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
You’re More Like a Tree Than You Think
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.
Empowering the promise of a better world. Look Inside™
www.intel.com/educationFollow us @IntelInvolved
Copyright © 2014 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved Intel, the Intel Corporate logo, Look Inside and the Look Inside logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
“The knowledge you have left us with will change our country.“ Christopher, Teacher
Focusing technology, resources, and partnerships to help people thrive
Pyxera Global Ad_8.5x11.indd 1 3/18/14 3:55 PM
This fall, I visited New England just
at the peak of the fall foliage sea-
son. Truly a sight to behold, this
fall the colors were even brighter
than usual. A local revealed that an early
freeze, followed by a period of warmth,
had yielded a remarkable expression of
red, orange, yellow, and gold.
As I drove through the splendor of the
season, I reflected that, in some ways,
humans are not unlike trees, a compari-
son that might seem humorous at first,
but, upon reflection, showed itself to be
remarkably true.
We are each creatures of our environ-
ment, shaped by the people, ideas, and
endeavors we encounter every day. And
then, a shock to the system, an unexpected
experience—either good or bad—yields an
understanding that, once gained, cannot
be unlearned. Over the course of a lifetime
our perspective is colored and enriched by
these experiences.
Over the past months, the Ebola out-
break has cast a pall on world events.
The Islamic State in the Levant has gained
power and ground, with no apparent
means available to counteract this mali-
cious force. In a world full of threats, it
is natural to want to turn inward, to seek
isolation, to preserve the status quo.
Yet, in a globalized world, isolation
cannot address the challenges at hand.
By embracing mindfulness and prudent
curiosity, we each have an opportunity to
foster understanding and connectedness
that can leave each of us changed by the
experience.
This fall issue is full of inspiring innova-
tions, including how business is supporting
the sanitation industry in Ghana, Uganda,
and Zambia, how technology is aiding ef-
fective forest management in Brazil, how
traditional shrimp farming practices are
transforming the fishing industry in Viet-
nam, and how underutilized TV broadcast
frequencies are being used to bring Africa
online.
It’s also ripe with lessons learned in
volunteerism, personal leadership, citizen
diplomacy, and international development
as well as provocative reflections on recent
events, including the UN General Assem-
bly, Commit!Forum, the U.S.-Africa Leaders
Summit, and the forthcoming 25th anniver-
sary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In a world full of bad news, there is
plenty of room for doubt. Instead, these
pages offer great cause for hope in the
personal transformation that is in progress,
with more still to come.
Alicia Bonner Ness
Editor in Chief
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 44NGC
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.
Empowering the promise of a better world. Look Inside™
www.intel.com/educationFollow us @IntelInvolved
Copyright © 2014 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved Intel, the Intel Corporate logo, Look Inside and the Look Inside logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
“The knowledge you have left us with will change our country.“ Christopher, Teacher
Focusing technology, resources, and partnerships to help people thrive
Pyxera Global Ad_8.5x11.indd 1 3/18/14 3:55 PM
Sp
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Co
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Alicia Bonner Ness
This September, 50,000 people gathered on Central Park’s
Great Lawn in New York City for arguably the best concert
of the year. The 3rd Global Citizen Festival featured Beyonce,
JAY Z, No Doubt, Sting, Carrie Underwood, and the Roots,
alongside 15 national leaders—in town for UN Week—and close to
100 other celebrities. Their mission: end extreme poverty.
The Global Citizen festival is an initiative of the Global Poverty
Project (GPP) that seeks to “grow the number and effectiveness
of Global Citizens to achieve the public, business, and political
commitment and action to end extreme poverty” by 2030.
GPP and the Global Citizen Festival are not alone in this pursuit.
The World Bank, the UN Foundation, and several other organiza-
tions are allied with this target date in mind. What is unique about
the Global Citizen campaign is its insistence that such efforts are
principally oriented around justice, and a need for countries and
corporations to pledge more dollars in aid to bring about this end.
While I enthusiastically endorse all efforts to end poverty, I
can’t help but notice that this campaign exposes two fundamental
flaws in its construct. First, the campaign suggests that the answer
to extreme poverty is a call for more of what has, heretofore,
been largely ineffective: aid. For over 50 years, with the best of
intentions, national aid agencies and multilateral organizations,
like the World Bank, have poured billions into aid, and yet billions
continue to live below the poverty line, lack access to clean water,
and die from easily curable disease.
Can the right answer actually be “more of the same”?
More problematically, however, the Global Citizen campaign
confuses outrage over the injustice of extreme poverty with the
notion of global citizenship. The campaign seeks to promote a
culture of clicktivism that rewards online actions with tickets to
Usher, instead of promoting a culture of good citizenship that
endorses respectful curiosity for all people of the world.
It’s unclear whether the 1.75 million actions taken by 250,000
“global citizens” were primarily motivated by a quest for justice
or an opportunity to get up close and personal with JAY Z. The
world is almost certainly better off for having 250,000 people who
What is a Global Citizen, Anyway?
COMMENT
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 46NGC
are more aware of the great development challenges facing our
world, but I fear the campaign’s information may not be as well-
researched as one might hope.
For example, the page celebrating the countless pledges made
from the stage during the concert on September 27 sought to draw
attention to the absence of sanitation infrastructure in much of
the world. The author claimed that “30 million people in Nepal
currently defecate in the open.” Upon reading this citation, I won-
dered at the number, thinking it quite high for a small country, like
Nepal. Indeed, further inquiry showed Nepal’s current population
to be approximately 27 million, and the number of visitors to be
close to 800,000 each year. This would suggest that Nepal is a
country entirely devoid of sanitation infrastructure in which all
people are forced to relieve themselves in public. This is clearly
not the case, and such hyperbole could likely lead to outrage in
quite another way.
I didn’t take the time to verify every other number quoted on
the page, but I wondered at the use of
information without citation. While I did
find this particular error unfortunate,
the fundamental issue lies in the use
of inflammatory information—both true
and exaggerated—to convince people
that the “net profits” of their $27 pur-
chase of a T-shirt, two bracelets, a USB
keychain, a door sign, and a Global
Citizen sticker pack can meaningfully
affect the injustice of extreme poverty.
On the other side of the globe, an-
other group of visionaries undertook a
similarly confusing endeavor. Based in
Dubai, UAE, Global Citizen magazine is
“a bi-monthly title that provides readers with a wealth of articles
covering investment opportunities and destinations, real estate
trends, entrepreneurial profiles, philanthropy, and challenges
facing the region’s leading business leaders.” It also features “an
impressive lifestyle section focusing on everything from the arts
and travel to luxury cars, male grooming and fashion, gadgets,
and dining out.” The cover of each issue to date has featured an
A-list celebrity, including Jimmy Carter, George Clooney, Jon Hamm,
Angelina Jolie, Matthew McConaughey, and Oprah Winfrey. While
one must admire their marketing panache, are we supposed to
believe that the definition of a “global citizen” is an ultra-wealthy
man or woman? I should hope not.
In both cases, the notion of global citizenship has been co-
opted as a symbol of status, rather than a way of being.
For centuries, citizenship has been a designation of political
rights; individuals had responsibilities as citizens, often designated
in a nation’s constitution, and in turn, enjoyed protections pro-
vided by their state. In today’s increasingly interconnected world,
the protections and privileges of the state have, in many ways,
been surpassed by the cohesion of the masses. In March of 2013,
another group, The Global Citizen’s Initiative, or TGCI, launched
the Amherst Declaration on Global Citizenship, which identifies
the eight values a global citizen should hold.
This publication seeks to build on that foundation, providing a
portal through which everyday people can better understand the
ideal of global citizenship not just as a hypothetical construct but
as a useful guide that informs our ability to engage appropriately,
purposefully, and globally every day.
This world view is not about fostering a culture of clicktiv-
ism, but about changing how things are done, and telling the
stories of those who are willing to lead the way in thinking and
acting differently. It requires adopting an individual mandate to
be good citizens who embrace and celebrate the opportunity to
connect with and learn from one another, to be curious about
the languages, cultures, and histories
of those around us. Individual mind-set,
manifested as personal leadership, is
the most fundamental way each person
on earth can contribute to transforming
the global status quo.
In his 2012 TED talk, Ernesto Sirolli,
the founder of The Sirolli Institute, sug-
gests that there is only one way to actu-
ally do this: “shut up and listen.” Lis-
tening means discovering more impact,
hearing (and sharing) more stories, am-
plifying the incredible difference global
engagement can make—both when we
do it right, and when we do it wrong.
So much becomes possible if we can better understand how in-
novative and impactful approaches are changing the way people
are empowered to define their own lives and livelihoods in the
far-reaching corners of the world.
In this worldview, xenophobia, as much as poverty, is a destruc-
tive adversary that must be eradicated. What’s more, a skin-deep
understanding is little better. Awareness isn’t actually helpful
unless it drives a change in perspective and understanding that
ultimately changes behavior.
As global citizens actively choosing to continue our growth
along a spectrum of global engagement, it is our responsibility to
bring others along, to see one, do one, and teach one.
What will you do today to help someone you know start their
journey, to listen to others, to share their story, to discover their
world?
This is the world of the new global citizen. This is your world.
Listening means discovering more impact, hearing (and
sharing) more stories, amplifying the incredible
difference global engagement can make—both when we do it right, and when we do it wrong.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 7
AROUND THE WORLD
This summer, four MBAs packed their bags and headed off to Kenya, Ghana,
Zambia, and Uganda to work on water, hygiene, and sanitation related
issues (collectively known as WASH) as MBAs Without Borders Advisors.
Why would four talented business professionals leave the comfort of
home and corporate job opportunities to go work in the toilet business? To be
honest, I didn’t fully understand the business potential of sanitation myself until
last spring when I attended the “Unclogging Blockages in Sanitation” conference
in Kampala, Uganda.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 2.5 billion people world-
wide live without access to basic sanitation facilities, and one billion practice open
defecation, contributing to contamination and disease. This population—25 percent
of the world—represents a massive global market with tremendous profit potential.
Sanitation and water problems are multifaceted and often require locally-driven,
multidimensional solutions.
Organizations like Water for People and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor
(WSUP) are spearheading efforts to bring such solutions to market.
Three months after I left the conference in Uganda, MBAs Without Borders was
on the hunt for four talented MBAs to support WSUP and Water for People’s work.
Jeff Walcott had just completed his MBA after what he dubbed “an early mid-life
crisis.” Jeff was expanding marketing operations for a large corporation in New York
and living what many people would consider to be “the dream.” But Jeff wanted
to do more. Jeff knew that business could be harnessed to solve the world’s most
complex challenges and, being an entrepreneur at heart, he was interested in using
creativity and business to develop solutions to problems.
“Despite the fact that I had a comfortable job, a career trajectory, and even
qualified for a pension—a rarity for young professionals now—I couldn’t shake the
feeling that by going to work every morning I was part of the problem and not the
solution. I longed to work for an organization that successfully combined profit-
ability and optimal well-being for the populations it served.”
Determined to make a change, Jeff left his job to pursue an MBA focused on
entrepreneurship. Now, four years after his mid-life crisis, Jeff is in Nairobi working
with WSUP Enterprises to help define business models in four different markets
that can provide communities with access to improved sanitation. He will spend
STOCK OPTIONSJai lan Adly
Why would four talented business
professionals leave the comfort of home
and corporate job opportunities to go work
in the toilet business?
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 48NGC
MBAS WITHOUT BORDERS ADVISORS USE BUSINESS
TO BUILD SANITATION MARKETS IN AFRICA
the next six months traveling between Kenya, Ghana, Zambia,
and Bangladesh.
“As an MBAs Without Borders Advisor, I’m happy to be part of
a new approach to improving lives, one that empowers consumers
by providing market-based choices to help solve their challenges.
Through this role, my passion for social entrepreneurship has
converged with my ability to fully execute on business ideas. This
experience will undoubtedly be one that transforms and defines
my personal and professional life for years to come.”
For Mikael Baker, working in sanitation was an obvious next
step. Mikael spent much of his youth in Botswana, Egypt, Ghana,
Kenya, and Tanzania where he witnessed countless failures of tra-
ditional development initiatives. As a result, he became interested
in how social enterprises could be used to disrupt and transform
the existing development paradigm.
While completing his MBA, Mikael attended a Net Impact event
and was thrilled to encounter a large network of like-minded
individuals with common values and goals. He joined the board
of the DC Net Impact Professional Chapter, which brought him to
the 2012 Net Impact Conference in Baltimore and ultimately to
MBAs Without Borders.
Following his MBA, Mikael worked with University Research
Co, joining the Translating Research into Action (TRAction) proj-
ect. TRAction guides research on how to effectively scale existing
Photo: Water for People
interventions in WASH, clean cookstoves, food
security, malaria, and maternal health. His work
with TRAction led him to work with WASH experts
on the viability of sanitation as a business, fuel-
ing his interest in this critical sector.
Mikael had a strong desire to return to Af-
rica but wanted to do so in a manner that was
impactful—he just needed the right opportunity.
Since his first introduction to MBAs Without
Borders in 2012, Mikael had gotten into the
habit of checking the MBAs Without Borders
opportunities page. When a position support-
ing Water for People, a global NGO focused on
increasing access to clean water and improved
sanitation in emerging markets opened up, Mi-
kael seized the opportunity. Water for People is
launching a pilot aimed to support sanitation
enterprises in Uganda and was looking for an
MBAs Without Borders Advisor to help support
its development.
“My desire to contribute to economic de-
velopment in Africa and my sense of adventure
prompted me to look for a career move that
would take me back to Africa, even if only on
a short-term basis,” said Mikael. “I decided I
would devote my energy to tackling sanitation
challenges if given the opportunity. The sector
is ripe for innovation, and I want to help bring
innovation to scale because of the social and
economic impact that will follow.”
Now, Mikael will spend the next year in
Uganda working with Water for People to launch
Sanitation Solutions Group. The position will en-
able him to develop a robust and well-rounded
understanding of social enterprise in emerging
markets as he helps build a new social business
sector, launch and scale a startup social enter-
prise, pursue investment opportunities, and de-
velop business plans with micro-entrepreneurs.
Krystal Kovalik, an INSEAD graduate and self-
described “frugal innovator” is working as an
MBAs Without Borders Advisor with Clean Team
Ghana.
Clean Team’s innovative business model en-
ables consumers whose homes are not served
by municipal sewage systems to rent portable,
private toilets. Clean Team collects the refuse
several times per week and is working toward
WATER FOR PEOPLE UGANDA IS TACKLING SANITATION CHALLENGES BY UTILIZING THE PRIVATE SECTOR TO MANAGE WATER SYSTEMS.
Photo: Water for People
ELISHA, A CLEAN TEAM WASTE COLLECTOR, REMOVES WASTE CAR-TRIDGES OF PARTICIPATING HOUSEHOLDS TWO TO FOUR TIMES A WEEK.
turning it into energy, fulfilling one
of society’s most basic needs—sani-
tation—with the bonus of a positive
by-product.
The idea of going to Kenya, Ghana,
Zambia, or Uganda for six to 12
months sounds fascinating to most
people I speak with, but having the
guts to actually get on the plane is
much more difficult than it sounds.
Effectively addressing a serious health
challenge in what may be the world’s
most unglamorous sector takes a
whole new level of courage. The work
might be dirty, but the potential for
impact is enormous, so much so that
The Bill and Melinda Gates Founda-
tion allocates almost $80 million a
year to address WASH-related issues.
Addressing sanitation would not only
improve the health and safety of more
than 40 percent of the world’s popula-
tion, it also creates the opportunity
to foster viable local businesses to
help those communities thrive and
prosper.
MBAs Without Borders Advisors
may have diverse and varied back-
grounds, skills, and interests, but
they often share a few critical char-
acteristics—courage to forge into the
unknown, resilience to bounce back
from failure, and the awareness to
understand that global connectedness
is key to our collective progress.
Khadija Jiwani, like Jeff, Mikael,
and Krystal, was drawn to MBAs
Without Borders because of her be-
lief in the power of business to drive
change, and her unquenchable en-
trepreneurial spirit. It was her sense
of adventure, grit, and tenacity that
gave her the courage to accept the
offer, pack her bags, and move to
Zambia—one of the world’s fastest
economically reforming countries—for
the next year.
“Routine. Just the thought alone
makes me squirm. There is a thrill in
the unexpected and, as it turns out,
I have a keen ability to adapt quickly
to changing environments, to thrive
in chaos and ambiguity,” said Khadija.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve
always been drawn towards the next
new challenge or adventure.”
Photos: Clean Team
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 11
IBM AND THE NATURE CONSERVANCY PARTNER TO TRACK DEFORESTATION IN THE AMAZON
Can Partnership and Technology Save the Amazon?
AROUND THE WORLD
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 412NGC
In May of 2014, I had the opportunity to visit Belém, Brazil,
to learn from the public and social sectors how the Brazilian
government is addressing deforestation in rural, privately-
owned lands in the Amazon. As a Brazilian, deforestation in
this region has loomed over the political and public discourse
of my home country for as long as I can remember. Fueled
by a multitude of social and market forces, Brazil alone has
cleared more than 153,000 square miles of Amazon rainforest
since the early 1990s. However, after an especially destruc-
tive year in 2004 and due in part to new political leadership,
deforestation rates in Brazil actually began to fall. For the first
time in my life, I felt hopeful that the Brazilian government
was working to monitor and curtail this dire problem.
Unfortunately, my optimism was short-lived. In 2013, defor-
estation increased by 33 percent, reversing part of the progress
that had been made over the previous decade. Economic
expansion in emerging and developed markets alike has mo-
tivated agribusinesses to clear huge areas of the Amazon to
meet a growing global demand for commodities like soybeans,
beef, and timber. According to The Nature Conservancy (TNC),
every 15 minutes, an area of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest larger
than 200 football fields is destroyed. Close to 20 percent of
the Amazon has been cut down in the past 40 years, and
scientists predict another 20 percent of the trees will be lost
in the next 20 years.
In spite of these ongoing, devastating losses to this crucial
biome, there is some cause for hope. In 2012, the Brazilian
government revised its Forest Code, requiring the registration
Rodrigo Soares
Photo: Haroldo Palo Jr.
Close to 20 percent of the Amazon has been cut down in the past 40 years , and sc ient is ts pred ict another 20 percent o f the t rees wi l l be lost in the next 20 years .
%20
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 13
of all private lands in a land registry system called SiCar, which
will enable local governments to collect environmental informa-
tion and assess the state of deforestation on private property
in the region. According to TNC, “The new Forest Code is one
of the most important advances in environmental management
in Brazil in the past 50 years. It
is revolutionary because local
public authorities will be able to
attribute deforestation to indi-
vidual rural property owners and
identify those who are manag-
ing their lands in a sustainable
fashion.”
Earlier this year, IBM’s Cor-
porate Service Corps (CSC) part-
nered with TNC in Pará state, in
Northern Brazil to support the
capacity of municipalities in the
Brazilian Amazon to enforce the revised Forest Code. Through
this collaboration, a team of 10 IBM pro bono consultants from
across the globe worked with TNC in Belém, Pará to help local
municipalities effectively establish land-ownership records,
monitor land use, and prevent illegal deforestation. Principally,
the IBM team is enhancing the features of the TNC’s Municipal
Environmental Portal (PAM), a web-based portal that has been
piloted in a number of Brazilian municipalities to assess land
use and compliance with Brazil’s revised Forest Code. The IBM
CSC team is working with TNC to enhance the portal’s capabili-
ties and its integration with other
government databases and is de-
veloping a road map for TNC to
introduce the portal to munici-
palities throughout the Amazon
River Basin.
This project is closely aligned
with the Brazilian government’s
goal of decentralizing environ-
mental management, as state
governments have been largely
unsuccessful at monitoring pri-
vate lands at a local level. By
building the capacity of the local municipal governments to
perform environmental management, the IBM team will play an
important role in ensuring the revised Forest Code’s impact is
effectively realized. According to TNC, “The focus should be build-
ing the capacity of local municipalities with technologies such
Economic expansion in emerging and developed markets a l ike has mot ivated agr ibusinesses to c lear huge areas
of the Amazon to meet a growing g lobal demand for commodit ies l ike beef , soybeans, and t imber.
The rainforest plays a key role in regulating the earth’s climate, and is home to one-third of the planet’s biodiversity and at
least one-fifth of its fresh water production. As such, it is no surprise that the Amazon
rainforest has been deemed “the most critical place for human survival.”
Photo: Erik Lopes
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 414NGC
not just the for the hundreds of millions of
people who inhabit the eight countries con-
taining the 2.7 million square miles of Ama-
zon rainforest, but for everyone in the world.
The rainforest plays a key role in regulating
the earth’s climate, and is home to one-third
of the planet’s biodiversity and at least one-
fifth of its fresh water production. As such,
it is no surprise that TNC has deemed the
Amazon rainforest “the most critical place for
human survival.” The collaboration between
IBM and TNC is a small step towards address-
ing this enormous challenge. With luck, it can
inspire more partnerships that leverage the
innovative technologies required to achieve
large-scale conservation, protecting both the
health of the Amazon and the health of the
planet for years to come.
as the Municipal Environmental Portal,
which will enable local governments to
update the state government on a more
accurate and regular basis.”
IBM has embraced the opportunity
to support such an important and im-
pactful project, which aligns closely with
the company’s corporate objectives.
“This partnership with The Nature
Conservancy provides an opportunity
for IBM to exert environmental leader-
ship on the ground that will balance the
need for economic growth with the need
to provide sustainable performance in
the environmental space,” said Stanley
Litow, the Vice President for Corporate
Affairs who oversees the CSC program.
Mechanisms for monitoring defores-
tation and implementing preventative
measures depend heavily on the effec-
tive use of technology. Major invest-
ments in tools like PAM and SiCar are
building a strong foundation for future
initiatives. The partnership between IBM
and TNC can serve as a model for other
countries across the globe seeking to
effectively leverage technology to ad-
dress deforestation issues. Additionally,
further investments that allow these
tools to be integrated with other state
databases will enable their use across
the country, ensuring long-term success.
The partnership between IBM, TNC,
and the local Brazilian municipalities is
also a reminder that, like any complex
global challenge, the fight to preserve
the Amazon rainforest is not just the
sole responsibility of a single govern-
ment, corporation, or NGO. “We can’t
solve these big problems unless we
have governments working with busi-
ness, working with NGOs. It takes all
three to be successful,” said Henry M.
Paulson Jr., the former U.S. Treasury
Secretary and co-chairman of the Latin
American Conservation Council.
Deforestation of the Amazon has
significant environmental implications,
FARMERS FROM SÃO FÉLIX DO XINGU, A MUNICIPALITY IN THE STATE OF PARÁ IN THE NORTHERN REGION OF BRAZIL
Photos: Erik Lopes
AROUND THE WORLD
TV White Spaces Will Bring Millions Online
Melissa Mattoon
Microsoft 4Afrika Fosters African Competitiveness through Affordable Access, Innovation, and World-Class Skills
In a bright yellow shipping container
nearly 140 miles from Nairobi, Kenya, a
rural community is finally connected to
the information highway. The container
is actually a solar-powered internet café
called ‘Mawingu’—which is Kiswahili for
‘cloud.’ The café leverages Microsoft’s state-
of-the-art technology to provide broadband
internet access to local teachers, farmers,
and merchants in a community formerly
without internet or even electricity. The
shop, managed by the tech-savvy Benson
Maina, is part of the Mawingu White Spaces
Broadband Project, a pilot project of the
Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative that is testing
the commercial viability of low-cost hubs to
provide internet access and technological
services to rural communities in Africa. As
of its launch in November 2013, Maina’s
shop has seen enormous success.
Much of this success can be attributed
to the container’s use of solar power and
TV white spaces to deliver affordable broad-
band access to an area currently off the
grid. Recognizing that access to low-cost,
high-speed broadband is critical to clos-
ing Africa’s opportunity gap, Microsoft has
made internet access through TV white-
space broadband one of the three pillars
of the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative.
“Living here for the last 10 years, I
have seen people suffering. If I wanted to
know about something in high school, I
had to buy a newspaper, but I didn’t have
money,” Maina said. “Mawingu has had a
huge impact on the community already.
Having access to internet and technology
is life-changing—and it’s the way to allevi-
ate poverty. People in the area will begin
having incomes as a result of information
obtained from the internet. In a few years,
this area will be different than the rest of
the country; we will be icons for what’s
to come.”
For tech giant Microsoft, investing in
individuals like Benson Maina is not just
a corporate responsibility priority, it’s good
business. By providing access to technol-
ogy, particularly cloud services and smart
devices, Microsoft hopes to foster employ-
ment and African competitiveness while
securing its market position for years to
come. Maina’s shop is the first in what
will hopefully become a network of other
containers across Kenya, and eventually
Africa, that are creating new opportunities
for commerce, employment, and education.
At a high level, ‘TV white spaces’ refers
to the unused broadcasting frequencies,
typically used for television transmission,
that exist in the wireless spectrum. These
frequencies are also suitable for delivering
affordable broadband access to rural com-
munities because they are able to travel
over longer distances and penetrate more
obstacles than other types of radio signals.
Microsoft 4Afrika is a $70 million initiative designed to help improve Africa’s global competi-tiveness by bringing smart devices, connectivity, and technology training to African entre-preneurs, youth, developers, and graduates by 2016. The Initiative focuses on three critical areas: access, innovation, and world-class skills.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 416NGC
Typical home wi-fi can only travel through
two walls, but white space broadband
can travel over six miles, through fields
of crops, concrete buildings, and other
barriers. Tablets, phones, and computers
can all connect to this wireless network
through fixed or portable power stations
like Maina’s shop.
The feasibility of the white space
technology has already been seen in
over a dozen trials that have taken place
from remote villages in Africa to the
dense urban centers of Singapore, and
college campuses in the United States.
Microsoft hopes that the success of the
Mawingu project in Kenya and similar
pilots in South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania,
and Ghana will encourage other African
governments to implement the regula-
tory changes needed to allow this type
of technology to be expanded across the
continent.
“It is going to significantly increase
the ability for innovation and the great
ideas that Africans have to actually reach
markets and become available for use by
consumers... . I think that there is a fan-
tastic opportunity for Africa to showcase
its own capabilities in the world because
of the increased access,” said Fernando
de Sousa, General Manager of Microsoft
Africa Initiatives.
The economic impact of the Mawingu
White Spaces Broadband Project has al-
ready been seen with many of Maina’s
first customers, including farmers, small
business owners, students, and individu-
als seeking job opportunities. Diana, an
unemployed teacher, used the broadband
access at the Mawingu shop to research
By providing access to technology, particularly
cloud services and smart devices, Microsoft
hopes to foster employment and African competitiveness while securing its market position for years to
come.
Benson Maina holds a TV white spaces antenna in f ront of the Mawingu White Spaces Broadband pi lot conta iner near Nanyuki , Kenya. The café leverages white space technology to provide broadband internet access to a community former ly without internet or even electr ic i ty.
Photo: Georgina Goodwin
and apply for teaching opportunities on-
line, ultimately leading to the teaching po-
sition she now holds at Doldol Secondary
School. Another customer, Steven, went
to the Mawingu shop seeking information
on computer software and now operates a
successful business installing and repair-
ing commercial and residential software in
neighboring towns.
It is anticipated that shops like Maina’s
will eventually act not only as centers for
individuals to gain access to critical in-
formation and knowledge, but will also
serve as hubs for commerce, transforming
the inefficient and expensive traditional
marketplace. The Mawingu shop hopes to
offer merchants the opportunity to attract
a client base, grow awareness, connect
business partners, and develop coopera-
tives online. The internet access provided
at the centers will create efficiencies in the
production of goods and will help connect
products to new markets.
Supporting the development of rural
Africa’s broadband infrastructure couples
the company’s commitment to social im-
pact with its commercial interests. Having
operated in Africa for over 20 years, Mi-
crosoft is keenly aware of the enormous
market potential; the continent is home
to more than one billion people and 16 of
the world’s 30 fastest-growing economies.
Yet Africa also has the lowest penetration
of network connectivity. Only 20 percent of
the African population is expected to have
internet access by the end of 2014.
“Microsoft was built on the idea that
technology should be accessible and af-
fordable to the masses, and to date, this
promise has remained unfulfilled in Africa,”
said Louis Otieno, Legal and Corporate Af-
fairs Director for Africa Initiatives at Micro-
soft. “This technology has the potential to
deliver on the promise of universal and
affordable high-speed wireless broadband
for Africa, and we are proud and humbled
to be part of this important effort.”
As a result of white space broadband,
an individual’s birthplace will no longer
determine her ability to access a world of
information, a disruptive innovation that
has the power to reshape the continent.
Students at a school near Nanyuki , Kenya, use a tablet connected to the internet by white space broadband. These f requencies are ideal for del iver ing broadband access to rura l areas because they are able to t ravel over longer distances and penetrate more obstac les than other types of radio s ignals .
This technology has the potential to deliver on
the promise of universal and affordable high-speed
wireless broadband for Africa, and we are proud
and humbled to be part of this important effort.
Employees say…
Managers say…
IBM Corporate Service Corps: Creating leadersIBM 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 34 countries
850completed assignments
140,000 lives positively impacted
“... 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
97%“I would recommend a colleague to apply for the CSC program.”
93%“Compared to other leadership experiences at IBM, this was the best.”
90%“CSC increased my leader-ship skills.”
82%“My CSC experience increased my desire to continue my career at IBM.”
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.
“The CSC program allowed my employee to see his potential within IBM and how we can e�ect real change. He has been able to inspire others by relating his experiences.”—Senior manager
90%“I would recommend another employee to apply for the CSC program.”
78%“Employee shows improved attitude and motivation.”
89%“Employee increased his/her understand-ing of busi-ness’s role in society.”
S p o n s o r e d C o n t e n t
Photo: Policía Nacional de los Colombianos | CC BY-SA 2.0
On September 24, 2014, Cristina, a former Colombian guer-
rilla, experienced the ultimate act of absolution. In an
audience with Pope Francis, Cristina asked forgiveness on
behalf of all of her comrades for the years of pain they
have caused her country. Cristina is one of hundreds of thousands
of Colombians who have fought in the country’s half-century-long
civil war that has left over 200,000 dead and pushed approximately
five million Colombians from their homes. But, like many others,
Cristina chose to abandon this life of violence. In 2006, Cristina laid
down her arms and began the long road of reintegration that led
her to receive the Pope’s pardon.
Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, is currently in treaty
negotiations with the FARC—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia—bringing the country the closest to peace it has been in
the past 50 years. But peace isn’t the only hurdle. If an agreement
is reached, the country will face the subsequent challenge of how
to manage the simultaneous demobilization of tens of thousands of
combatants, some of whom have spent their entire lives as guerillas.
FORGING A PATHWAY TO COMBATANT REINTEGRATION
The Colombian Agency for Reintegration (ACR) believes it has
the answer. This government entity, which reports directly to the
Presidency of the Republic of Colombia, is tasked with coordinat-
ing and executing the social and economic reintegration of demo-
bilized people from organized illegal armed groups. Confident in
his agency’s ability to successfully reintegrate former combatants,
former ACR Director Alejandro Eder boasted that the ACR could
double the number of demobilized combatants it currently men-
tors. In an interview with the BBC, he further articulated that they
have an “emergency reaction plan” and are ready to receive up to
40,000 ex-combatants. Such is the faith Eder has in the innovative
model of his agency.
Colombia is on the frontier of former combatant reintegration.
Decades of armed conflict have provided the ACR with ample oppor-
tunity to learn what works and what does not. The model developed
and employed by the ACR today has drawn international attention.
It is comprehensive, multi-dimensional, and personalized. Demobi-
lization involves each combatant entering a program customized for
the individual by a reintegration advisor who provides accompani-
ment and support during the lengthy community reentry process.
The unique path is personalized based on the specific needs
and goals of the individual. The ACR’s model is comprised of eight
dimensions: personal, productivity, family, habitability, health care,
educational, citizenship, and security. Each dimension is broken
down into specific steps, such as psychosocial care for the demo-
bilized person and their family, access to education and training
programs, provision of healthcare services, business development
and employment support, education about the duties and rights
of citizens, and financial provisions. The ACR employs this multi-
THE LONG ROAD TO PEACE IN COLOMBIA
Colombia’s Government Aids Demobi l ized Combatant Re integrat ion
Amy Crumbliss
AROUND THE WORLDdimensional method in order to address all
aspects of a person’s life, to ensure that the
demobilized individual will be holistically
reintegrated into society. The organization
contends that it is not sufficient to provide
a monetary stipend and a job. Persons in
the reintegration process receive training in
skills that allow them to pursue constructive
projects as well as the personal support to
ensure those projects become a sustainable
foothold to keep them out of illicit activities.
The average duration of the reintegration
process is six and a half years per person,
though this varies significantly from person
to person based on individual needs. In
most cases, individuals abandon their affili-
ation with guerrilla groups with very little to
no education and no skills that could lead to
gainful employment. Some individuals even
lack knowledge of common, everyday tasks.
According to Eder, even the most basic con-
ventions of society must be learned:
“You have to teach people how to stand
in line at the bank, and how to pay [in
a shop] because when you have an AK-47
slung over your shoulder, nobody wants to
charge you.” As a result, the road to becom-
ing a productive, law-abiding citizen can be
a rather long one.
MOVING FROM REINSERTION TO HOLISTIC REINTEGRATION
The ACR was the first agency of its kind
in the world tasked solely with former illegal
combatant reintegration, so it has had to
employ a learn-by-doing approach to the
process rather than looking to similar orga-
nizations in other countries as a guide. The
origins of the ACR date back to 2003 when
the Program for Reincorporation to Civilian
Life (PRVC) was created under the Ministry
of Interior and Justice.
The PRVC’s focus was reinsertion—an 18-
month long process that sought to prepare
people for their return to civilian life through
psycho-social support, health care, educa-
tion, and financial assistance. The collective
demobilization of 30,000 combatants in 2006
forced the government to reassess its re-
insertion program. While the model it was
employing was efficient and well-managed,
it lacked a holistic approach to reintegrating
former combatants that accounted for ex-
ternal social factors such as family support
networks and employment opportunities.
Instead of a short-term assistance-fo-
cused approach, the ACR determined that
it needed a more long-term, sustainable
strategy. Demonstrating its commitment
to effective reintegration, the government
created a specialized unit named the High
Presidential Council for the Reintegration of
Individuals and Armed Groups. Under this
new agency, the aim switched from reinser-
tion to holistic reintegration and the active
participation of society in the process of
reintegrating former combatants into civil-
ian life. In 2010, the Council was renamed
the Colombian Agency for Reintegration and
placed directly under the President.
CREATING A CULTURE OF RECONCILIATION
The ACR has found that focusing on
sustainable reintegration—instead of rein-
sertion—and adopting a multi-dimensional
model is the most effective way to foster
combatants’ conversion to productive, law-
abiding citizens. Currently, more than 30,000
individuals are moving through the reinte-
gration process and 76 percent are gainfully
employed. To date, over 8,000 former com-
batants receiving ACR support have started
an entrepreneurial activity with seed capital
provided by the ACR.
Probably the strongest indicator of the
success of the ACR’s model is the recidi-
vism rate. As of January 2013, a meager
one percent of people undergoing or hav-
ing undergone reintegration returned to an
illegal armed group, and only one in four
participants reverted back to criminal activ-
ity. That number may seem high, but consid-
ering the recidivism rate of individuals who
have served time in the Colombian criminal
justice system is 70 percent (comparable to
criminal recidivism in the United States), a
recidivism rate of 25 percent is highly favor-
able and speaks to the success of the ACR’s
model in helping former combatants remain
peaceful, law-abiding citizens.
Despite the ACR’s success, challenges
still persist, and much remains to be done.
“The reintegration we are doing well, be-
cause there are already more than 20,000
people that are demobilized and legally
working,” said Eder. “The biggest challenge
now,” he added, “is eliminating the apathy
and rejection shown towards this popula-
tion.”
Cristina, describing the day she met
Pope Francis, noted that her fear of rejec-
tion was one of the first hurdles she had to
overcome as a former combatant. Demobi-
lized individuals carry a negative stigma in
society, causing neighbors to distrust them
and businesses to reject their applications
for employment, two factors that are pivotal
to the success of the ACR’s reintegration
model. Reintegration, much like peace, re-
quires the involvement of all members of
society—not just the government. This is a
significant demand of a society terrorized
by decades of violence that has destroyed
lives and shattered communities.
Bitterness and demands for retribution
continue to permeate Colombian society,
but more and more people are joining those
allied towards forgiveness and reintegra-
tion. On the day of her audience with the
Pope, Cristina was joined by Sandra, a victim
of illegal armed conflict who has survived
kidnapping, torture, and the loss of her
husband and son at the hands of guerillas.
If anyone has a right to seek revenge, it is
Sandra. Instead, she has chosen to forgive.
Today, Sandra employs former combatants
and leads reconciliation activities in her
community. Only when more people like
Sandra raise their voices for change will
society forgo vengeance for forgiveness, en-
abling reconciliation and sustained peace to
come to Colombia at last.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 21
SUSTAINABLE SHRIMP FARMING IN VIETNAM’S MANGROVE FORESTS
Emma Boles
In the humid pre-dawn darkness of southern Vietnam’s man-
grove deltas, Van Cong To is hard at work hauling nets to
harvest shrimp for the world’s markets. Before the early
morning light tints the estuaries of Cà Mau province, Van
and his wife and child will have sorted 50 kilograms of shrimp
for delivery to a nearby seafood processing plant. There, Van’s
shrimp will be graded, frozen, and packed for export all over
the globe.
The profitability of shrimp exports in recent years encour-
aged Van and thousands of other farmers in the deltas of Cà
Mau, Vietnam, to convert from rice farming to intensive shrimp
aquaculture—the fastest-growing food source globally. Cà Mau is
home to half of Vietnam’s shrimp production, an export industry
worth $3.1 billion in 2013 alone. Van’s family, like many others,
depends upon shrimp farming for their livelihood. However,
over the past 15 years, more and more of their shrimp have
been dying from disease.
Mangroves Support a Vital Ecosystem
Mangrove forest is the natural habitat and breeding ground
of shrimp—providing wild feedstock, organic waste for food and
shade, and root structures for shelter. In response to the rising
global demand for shrimp over the past three decades, over half
of Vietnam’s natural mangrove forest has been cleared to accom-
modate shrimp aquaculture ponds. Due to rapid expansion and
insufficient environmental standards, the deltas of Cà Mau are
now pockmarked with failed shrimp ponds, abandoned because
of high costs and decreasing returns due to erosion, pollution,
and shrimp disease. The development of shrimp aquaculture
in Vietnam has come at the expense of the mangrove environ-
ment—reducing incomes and increasing the vulnerability of the
livelihood of Van and others.
Mangroves are integral to natural ecosystems, protecting
against tidal waves and storm surges, and providing vital fish
nursery grounds. They also function as blue carbon sinks. Blue
carbon is carbon captured and stored by living coastal and ma-
rine organisms. The blue carbon that is locked away in coastal
wetlands such as mangroves is critical to managing excess
carbon in the atmosphere as it has extremely long residence
times, potentially for millennia. Carbon sequestration—remov-
ing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in vegetation
VAN’S FAMILY,
LIKE MANY OTHERS IN
THE REGION, DEPENDS
UPON SHRIMP
FARMING FOR THEIR
LIVELIHOOD.
SNV INTEGRATES SHRIMP AQUACULTURE WITH MANGROVE PROTECTION IN CÀ MAU, VIETNAM
AROUND THE WORLD
and soils—plays a critical role in managing global greenhouse gas
emissions, thereby mitigating climate change.
Changes in land use that disrupt ecosystems, such as man-
grove deforestation, currently account for up to 20 percent of
global carbon dioxide emissions, which is second only to fossil
fuel combustion. Removing mangroves releases the carbon stored
in the trees and the excavation of the soil to create shrimp aqua-
culture ponds releases the carbon in the soil into the atmosphere.
The global greenhouse gas emissions from the conversion of
mangroves worldwide have been estimated as equivalent to the
annual fossil fuel emissions of the United Kingdom.
Integrating Mangroves with Sustainable Shrimp Markets
Increasingly, sustainability experts recognize the need for a
new approach that preserves the critical environmental protection
provided by the mangroves while also providing a sustainable basis
for the shrimp farming industry. SNV Netherlands Development
Organization has taken up this challenge with the Mangroves and
Markets (MAM) project to integrate ecologically sound shrimp
aquaculture with the mangrove environment of Cà Mau—reversing
mangrove loss and reducing carbon emissions. In alliance with
shrimp importers, traders, and over 5,000 farmers, MAM provides
training on breeding and marketing ecologically-certified shrimp,
supports replanting and management of the mangrove forest, and
mobilizes access for shrimp farmers to certified carbon markets
and carbon financing.
The MAM project utilizes a traditional shrimp farming model
that integrates the farms into the mangrove ecosystems to reduce
pollution and disease. These extensive, low-input shrimp farms
require at least 50-percent mangrove cover and have much lower
management costs than intensive farms. They are more sustain-
able for the small-scale shrimp farmers who make up the majority
of shrimp producers.
Van, who is a member of one of the 35 farmer groups that
MAM works with, now supports the traditional farming approach
for its benefits.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 23
“Forest area in my land is less than the required 50 percent.
Many of my shrimp died from disease, especially on the land
not protected by mangrove forest. I could see then that the
forest is useful for raising shrimp,” he said.
Yet, traditional shrimp farms do not have the high yields
of intensive aquaculture, so access to stable and profitable
markets is important for their long-term sustainability. Organic
certification offers access to better export markets, provid-
ing shrimp farmers with a price premium and strengthening
small-scale shrimp aquaculture. MAM selected global standard
Naturland as the most suitable organic certification that requires
mangrove conservation. Since the project’s start in 2012, MAM
has trained over 1,300 shrimp farmers in organic shrimp farm-
ing practices and mangrove restoration.
New Farming Practices Yield Profitable and Sustainable Benefits
With organic shrimp certification in place, MAM guided
farmers in negotiating a favorable purchase agreement with
Minh Phu, the world’s second-largest seafood processor by
shrimp export value. The farmers can sell their shrimp at a
10-percent price premium with significant benefits. The net
income from selected integrated mangrove shrimp farming in
2013 has increased 1.5 times by comparison with traditional
shrimp aquaculture or rice-shrimp without mangroves. Van has
already realized the value of this new approach.
“Previously, farmers could make 60 to 70 million Vietnamese
dong per year. Having joined this project, we are able to make
150 to 200 million Vietnamese dong,” Van said.
This arrangement does not just benefit the farmers. Mr. Le
Van Quang, the Managing Director of Minh Phu also values the
program’s contribution to the company’s corporate responsibil-
ity mandate.
“With certified shrimp from the farmers in the area, we
oversee the shrimp farming process and protection of the for-
est. We have a responsibility to protect the forest, and at the
same time ensure that the shrimp industry here will develop
enough to supply our factory and global market demand.”
A stable market and increased income from certified shrimp
provides a strong incentive to all actors in the shrimp value
chain to maintain and conserve the mangrove forest.
Without the support of regional and national authorities,
the gains of the MAM project will likely be short-lived. SNV has
supported ongoing efforts by Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture
and Rural Development, the International Union for Conserva-
tion of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and The Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) to
introduce national policy that provides the legal basis for man-
grove protection. Because sustainable shrimp farming reduces
carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation,
this policy also incorporates strategies to leverage carbon fi-
nance to fund ongoing rehabilitation of the mangrove forests.
A stable market and increased income from certified shrimp provides a strong incentive to all actors in the shrimp value chain to maintain and conserve the mangrove forest.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 424NGC
Photos: Anna-Selina Kager
THE GLOBAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM THE CONVERSION OF MANGROVES WORLDWIDE ARE ESTIMATED TO BE EQUIVALENT TO THE ANNUAL FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.
value chain. Such carbon in-setting would
monetize the carbon savings for farmers,
further incentivizing sustainable shrimp
production. Furthermore, new certifica-
tion standards would specifically require
climate change mitigation, providing an
opportunity to market the ‘low carbon’
benefits of Naturland certified shrimp.
Across the Cà Mau shrimp value chain,
SNV is working with producers, businesses,
and governments to improve incomes for
farmers like Van, incentivize protection of
the mangrove forest, and safeguard the
sustainable future of shrimp farming. Tran
Quoc Van, the leader of one shrimp farmer
group, is now much more optimistic for
the future.
“All of the farmers have put what they
learned into practice on their farms, so this
project has been really successful for us.
And with plans to expand this approach
to up to 6,000 hectares, it really is just the
beginning.”
Forest Degradation (UN REDD+) standards.
In addition, the project team is consulting
with Naturland to explore opportunities
to incorporate carbon-specific standards
into their certification process. This change
will allow farmers to earn carbon credits
against the carbon savings in the shrimp
Extending the Benefits of Sustainable Shrimp Farming
The MAM project continues to develop
interventions to preserve and restore the
mangrove forest, which include improved
forest management based on the UN Re-
ducing Emissions from Deforestation and
In 2012, Xi Jingping, then Vice President of China, paid a return
visit to the small town of Muscatine, Iowa. Xi reflected on his
earlier visit, observing: “You were the first group of Americans
I came into contact with. To me, you are America.” With these
words to old friends, Xi marked his return to the community that
had warmly welcomed him over a quarter century before.
In 1985, while a young bureaucrat from Iowa’s sister state,
Hebei Province, Xi experienced a visit so personally meaningful
that, 27 years later, he insisted on a return visit and a private re-
union with the score of Muscatine residents to whom he had been
closest. Xi’s reaction illustrates the power of citizen diplomacy,
and the seriousness of the work entrusted to citizen diplomats,
as do the reflections of his former Muscatine homestay hostess,
Eleanor Dvorchak. She greeted Xi, in 2012, by recalling: “You were
my first introduction to the Chinese people... . So many times
you hear so much bad in the news. And after having met you,
it was all washed away.” As Xi’s and Dvorchak’s observations
underscore, citizen diplomats are their country for those with
whom they connect.
Thanks to his homestay experience, Xi Jingping, now the Presi-
dent of the People’s Republic of China, has a uniquely rich notion
of the American people. He is only one of many high-government
officials whose bilateral relations with America have been shaped
by citizen exchange. At the height of the Cold War, Roswell Garst,
an Iowa farmer and seed corn salesman, started a correspondence
with Nikita Khrushchev that inspired a series of meetings aimed
at improving Soviet farming practices. Khrushchev appreciated
the straight-talking farmer, and when Garst eventually invited
Khrushchev to his farm in central Iowa, the Soviet leader ac-
cepted. Indeed, Khrushchev insisted that his 1959 state visit to
America include a tour of Garst’s farm and it became one of the
highlights of Krushchev’s sojourn across the United States. The
journey was otherwise largely characterized by tense interactions
with government officials. Marking the 50th anniversary of his and
his father’s visit to Iowa, Sergei Khrushchev observed to Rachel
Garst, Roswell’s granddaughter:
“Your grandfather was one who made a hole in the Iron Cur-
Citizen Exchange Overcomes
Tense Bilateral Relations to
Foster Peace
Chuck Montgomery
PIONEERS ON THE FRONTIER OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY
Photo: Thomson Reuters
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 426NGC
tain… He didn’t end the Cold War. He was the person who started
the road to the end of the Cold War.”
These two examples demonstrate the heightened importance
of citizen diplomacy when international relations are fraught.
Khrushchev’s relationship with Roswell Garst, and Xi Jingping’s
relationship with Eleanor Dvorchak illustrate the ways in which
people-to-people exchanges can transcend troubled government-
to-government relations and inspire unlikely bonds of friendship
and understanding. When Xi visited Muscatine in 1985, China and
the United States were still emerging from decades of mutual
recriminations, even armed conflict. Khrushchev visited Garst’s
farm when a nuclear exchange between the United States and
the Soviet Union still seemed possible.
The fruits of citizen diplomacy are mutual respect, understand-
ing, and friendship across national boundaries. Today, these char-
acteristics are notably lacking in U.S. relations with Iran, Pakistan,
Syria, North Korea, Russia, and China. In some cases, the absence
of citizen exchange has weakened bilateral ties to such an extent
that formal diplomatic relations are all that remain, along with the
accompanying increased risks of escalating tension and military
engagement. It is on these frontiers of citizen diplomacy where
individuals who embrace opportunities for citizen exchange have
the ability to change the status quo for the better, as did Roswell
Garst and the citizens of Muscatine.
Following in the footsteps of Garst and Xi’s Muscatine hosts,
leaders in the American Mennonite faith community have, in
recent years, embraced the opportunity to build bridges between
the United States and Iran, by serving the Iranian people in the
aftermath of a major earthquake. Following the Mennonites’ ex-
ample, between March and June 2014, three delegations of faith
leaders have visited the Islamic Republic of Iran, including Bishop
Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick,
megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, and Robert Destro, professor of law
at the Catholic University of America, as well as other American
Catholics, Protestants, Mennonites, and Sunnis. They have met
with senior Iranian religious officials to discuss topics ranging from
confronting religious extremism to weapons of mass destruction.
In May, nine female Iranian seminarians from Jamiat al-Zahra,
the world’s largest seminary for women, engaged in a citizen
exchange with Eastern Mennonite University. In addition to being
enrolled in the university’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, the
seminarians visited Washington, D.C., and an Amish community
near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Mohammad Shomali, the dean who
accompanied the delegation, emphasized the importance of peo-
ple-to-people relations, urging more American-Iranian exchange.
“Nothing can replace face-to-face encounters as a path to peace,”
said Shomali.
On yet another frontier of citizen diplomacy, faith leaders are
CITIZEN DIPLOMACY
People-to-people exchanges can
transcend troubled government-to-
government relations and inspire
unlikely bonds of friendship and
understanding.
Xi J inping makes a v is i t to Iowa farmer R ick K imber ley dur ing a 2012 tr ip to the United States.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 27
seeking to improve relations between the
United States and Pakistan. In May 2012,
24 faith leaders from Muslim, Jewish, and
Christian backgrounds formed the U.S.-
Pakistan Interreligious Consortium (UPIC)
which has, since 2012, conducted four
meetings in Lahore and Islamabad, Paki-
stan, and Muscat, Oman. These meetings
have included wide-ranging discus-
sions of issues like blasphemy laws,
free speech, American drone attacks,
the troubled U.S.-Pakistani relation-
ship, scripture, and religious tolerance.
The visits to Pakistan allowed many
Pakistani students their first interac-
tion with a Jewish rabbi. The visits also
yielded an inspired means of collective-
ly addressing drone attacks, an issue
that is troubling to nearly all Pakistanis.
Adopting an approach that emphasizes
the common values of all three faiths,
the faith leaders have launched a joint U.S.-
Pakistani campaign to raise money toward
rebuilding the lives and communities where
drone strikes occur.
Mumtaz Ahmad, one of the Pakistani
members of UPIC, noted the way in which
interactions with Americans have changed
the Pakistanis’ view of the United States.
Specifically, he noted his colleagues’ sur-
prise at “the modesty and humility they
saw in their American guests.”
“It was surprising for them for two rea-
sons: they often find their own religious
leaders here mostly stiff-necked and self-
righteous,” he remarked. “They thought
that all Americans speak like the U.S. offi-
cials who visit Pakistan,” who typically em-
phasize greater effort and good behavior.”
“Almost everyone told me that they
saw a new face of America: deeply reli-
gious, caring, compassionate, humble, and
willing to listen with respect and patience.
You simply can’t imagine, my friends, how
important was your trip to Pakistan!” said
Ahmad. “It was for the first time that many
of us came to know that ‘winning hearts
and minds’ meant something real.”
Favorable contrasts, like Ahmad’s, be-
tween formal bilateral relations and people-
to-people exchanges are not uncommon.
The impact of citizen diplomacy is real and
lasting and often helps individuals chal-
lenge and overcome persistent national
stereotypes. Today, the accessibility of
global travel, email, and social media offer
people everywhere the opportunity to build
meaningful global relationships. As a
result, common folk, not government
officials, increasingly represent their
nations to citizens of other countries.
Those so engaged—citizen diplomats—
now have the opportunity to shape
international relations, even between
nations at odds. Authentic, person-
to-person contact is fundamental to
meaningful international relations. The
greater the number of such relation-
ships, the greater the probability of
correcting misunderstanding and en-
hancing cooperation.
The stories of Xi Jingping and Musca-
tine, and Roswell Garst and Nikita Khrush-
chev must inspire the citizen diplomacy
community to first identify today’s fron-
tiers of citizen diplomacy, and then deploy
citizen diplomats to the troubled relation-
ships found there, in the same spirit as
the above-mentioned faith leaders from
the United States, Iran, and Pakistan. As
a proud Iowan, I am a true believer in the
uniqueness of my state and its citizens,
especially our skills as citizen diplomats.
On a per capita basis, I believe Iowa packs
more citizen diplomacy punch than any
other state or province on our planet. But,
I am willing to be proven wrong. I invite
you to share stories of your state’s or prov-
ince’s citizen diplomacy accomplishments,
especially how you have found success
on the “frontiers.” I hope you’ll take me
up on that challenge so that we can learn
from our parallel experiences. Work on the
frontiers of citizen diplomacy is far too
important to neglect.
Authentic, person-
to-person contact is
fundamental to meaningful
international relations.
The U.S . -Pak is tan Inter re l ig ious
Consort ium (UPIC) v is i ts a c lass
at a Care Foundat ion school in
Lahore, Pakistan. Submit your citizen diplomacy stories to [email protected]
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 428NGC
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© 2014 EYG
M Lim
ited. All R
ights Reserved. ED none
At EY, we see a bright future ahead, with increased trust and con 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.
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Change starts here
S p o n s o r e d C o n t e n t
Deirdre White
Are the United States and Russia Building a New Wall?
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER, A CITIZEN DIPLOMAT REFLECTS ON THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL
HAPPENING
A quarter century later, I remember the day the Wall
fell as though it was yesterday. On November 9,
1989, the world changed. As a student in the Soviet
Union a few years earlier, I had come to under-
stand Russia’s history and culture, making lifelong friends
along the way. I remember the elation I felt upon hearing
and seeing the news.
So many lives changed, including mine. A year later, I
uprooted my life and moved to Moscow for a four-month
assignment at a university. I stayed for nine years. I fell in
love with the Russian language, Russia’s culture, and her
people. Many Russians are among my closest friends in the
world. I married a Russian, and we are raising bilingual, bi-
cultural children.
Yet, over all these years, I had never journeyed to Berlin
to pay homage to those courageous enough to overturn the
world order. For years, I anticipated the joy and humility I
would feel when I finally made the pilgrimage. This Septem-
ber, the opportunity to visit Berlin finally presented itself.
Just weeks before the 25th anniversary of the re-opening of
the East-West gates, I stood at Checkpoint Charlie, and then
at the Berlin Wall Memorial, and choked back tears. Having
spent a great deal of my life and my career working towards
collaboration between the United States and Russia, I felt
a cascade of feelings. Being reminded of the sacrifice of
so many and walking the route of the Wall evoked all the
expected emotions. The tears, though, quickly gave way to
something else entirely. I was suddenly overcome with an
almost unbearable anger.
How is it that, 25 years later, the United States and Russia
are once again rebuilding that wall?
The old wall was built quickly, in the dead of night, such
that the next day, it was impossible to ignore. This new wall,
though invisible to the eye, is no less divisive. It has been
erected slowly, brick by brick, many of them placed by neglect
and ignorance, rather than intent.
Building Barriers by Neglect
Some of the construction is fresh.
Earlier this year, Russian authorities announced the can-
cellation of the Future Leaders Exchange, or FLEX as it is
known, one of the few remaining exchange programs funded
by the U.S. Government. In just over two decades, FLEX built
people-to-people relationships, bringing nearly 8,000 Russian
high school students to the United States for a full academic
year for a homestay and study abroad experience.
At the 20th anniversary celebration of FLEX, in November
2013, Senator Bill Bradley, the founder of the program, stated:
“The whole purpose of the program was to bring people
together and show how basically we are all the same. And
that should be the continuing objective and, hopefully, be a
long-term outcome of the FLEX program.”
Who could have imagined that a year later, the landmark
program would be no more?
On the occasion of the cancellation of FLEX, John Tefft,
the U.S. Ambassador to Russia remarked on the program’s
returns.
“These young Russians have served as cultural ambassa-
dors, representing the best of Russia, to millions of Americans
throughout all 50 states…the United States remains committed
to exchanges and programs that promote cultural ties and
mutual understanding between the Russian and American
people,” said Tefft.
While the former is certainly true, the latter is a bit hard
to swallow. The Russian Government is responsible for the
cancellation of FLEX, but the U.S. Government’s commitment
to cultural, educational, and scholarly exchange is also se-
verely compromised. From 1983 until 2012, roughly $5 million
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…
- Robert Frost
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 31
annually was obligated to Title VIII, the Program for Research and
Training for Eastern Europe and the New Independent States of the
Former Soviet Union. In 2013, after the United States Department
of State severely cut funding the year before, these monies were
removed by State in their entirety and without explanation. In 2011,
all funding for the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research
Abroad (DDRA) program for Africa, Latin America, Asia, Eastern
Europe, and Russia was cancelled due to Congressional budget
cuts. DDRA has since been restored but at significantly reduced
funding levels. To add insult to injury, the half-million to $1 million
in annual Department of Education funding for The United States-
Russia Program: Improving Research and Educational Activities in
Higher Education, which began in 2006 was terminated in 2010.
The decline in opportunities to build bridges between the two
nations due to the contraction over the last four years of these
and other regionally-focused programs makes it too easy to gloss
over this as a recent phenomenon; however, the erosion of public
diplomacy between the United States and Russia has taken place
over more than 15 years. This is especially disappointing given that,
over the decades of the Cold War, scholarly and cultural exchange
kept important conversations going and built key relationships at
a time when our governments were unable to do so.
Looking back to the mid-1990s, statistics from the Institute for
International Education show that the number of students coming
from Russia to the United States annually peaked at just above
7,000 in 1999 to 2000; the number of American citizens studying
in Russia has seen incremental increases, but has still never
broken the 2,000 mark. Together the countries have a population
of nearly half a billion; it seems inconceivable that in 2014 fewer
than 6,500 students will cross borders to learn about the other
country and culture.
Effective Bilateral Relations Depends on Citizen Engagement
There is an abundance of anecdotal evidence of the value of
people-to-people interactions known as citizen diplomacy, but to
date, there have been no broad-based studies of its impact. In
2012, the British Council conducted research on cultural diplomacy
(like citizen diplomacy, a subset of public diplomacy) and shared
its findings in the report Trust Pays: How international cultural relationships build trust in the UK and underpin the success of the UK economy.
The British Council’s research demonstrated four key facts
about cultural engagement. First, participation in one or more
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 432NGC
cultural activities with the United Kingdom was correlated with
an increase in the average level of trust in UK citizens in all 10
countries surveyed. Second, the average level of trust in people
in the United Kingdom increases with the number of different
types of cultural activities in which a person has been involved.
Third, increased levels of trust are associated with a significantly
increased level of interest in opportunities for business and trade
with the region. And lastly, when people trust UK citizens, they
are also more likely to trust the government of the UK. It is not
a stretch to extrapolate that the indicators for citizen diplomacy
would echo these results, and thus all the more surprising that
U.S. Government funding has been so lean for the past 15 years,
a critical juncture for U.S.-Russia relations.
Of course, government support is just part of the story—private
grant-makers are doing no better where Russia is concerned. The
MacArthur Foundation, which launched in Russia in 1991, provided
an average of over $7 million in grants each year; in 2011, MacAr-
thur decreased its grant pool for Russia by half. Ford Foundation
ceased its Russian operations in 2009 after nine years, closing
the door on over $100 million in funding it had provided. Both
foundations were adversely affected by the Russian Government’s
crackdown on foreign influence. Restrictive legislation regarding
NGOs has also had a detrimental effect: In April 2014, Russia
ordered American Councils, an NGO working in Russia for four
decades (and the organization that managed my study abroad
program in Russia in 1987), to cease operations and re-register.
Six months later, the new registration is still not approved. Russia
has done almost everything possible to prevent private interests
from stepping in where the U.S. Government fears to tread.
Though it is, no doubt, a great
investment, citizen diplomacy does
not require government, founda-
tion, or NGO funding or facilitation.
The overwhelming majority of citi-
zen diplomats are tourists. But the
number of tourist traveling from
the United States to Russia has
mirrored government-sponsored
exchange. In 2014, the number of
visitors is down 30 to 40 percent,
even in a year that the Sochi Olym-
pics drew thousands of Americans
to Russia. While the number of Rus-
sian visitors has grown over the
past several years, Russians are not
even in the top 20 of nationalities
visiting the United States each year.
And while government involve-
ment is not necessary for citizen
diplomacy, government funding is often a critical enabler for such
programs. Political scientists in both hemispheres will continue
to ponder how U.S.-Russia relations went awry during the past
two decades, but I feel certain that circumstances would be dra-
matically different had people-to-people interactions remained
a U.S. Government priority. After all, it takes a person-to-person
conversation to understand that the term American “exceptional-
ism” translates into Russian as “exclusivnost”—exclusiveness. The
listener hears not “we’ve created something special” but “we’ve
created something you are excluded from.” It becomes easier to
understand how distaste quickly becomes resentment towards a
nation that holds up such an ideology if it’s lost in translation—of
words and experience.
Over the past month, I’ve continued to reflect on my experience
at the Wall. I have thought about those who built it to begin with,
and those who tore it down. The United States and Russia—and
indeed, any world power—are obliged to consider the effects of
their actions in the long term. It is impossible to look at the host
of cancelled programs and the anemic exchange numbers and
not blame shortsightedness towards the importance of public
diplomacy, at least in large part, for where U.S.-Russia relations
stand today.
Twenty-five years—is our collective memory so short? When
governments fail to act, history has shown that individuals can
transcend borders and barriers. Those who remember the darkest
days of the Cold War on both sides of the Wall know that human
relationships were the only hope for a better tomorrow, for the
day the darkness would end.
In a few weeks, the world will celebrate the 25th anniversary of
the opening of the Wall, and people from across Europe—and the
world—will flood the streets of Berlin in celebration. While there
is certainly cause for celebration, there is also good reason to
pause and consider the future. By embracing the culture, friend-
ship, and generosity of another country, perhaps it is possible to
influence others to stop building virtual walls in defense of some
delusional idea of exceptionalism or exclusiveness.
After all, great nations and their people don’t build walls, they
build bridges.
The Berlin Wall divided East and West Germany for 28 years in an effort to eliminate the exchange of ideas, culture, and politics between citi-zens of the Soviet-allied nations.
The old wall was built quickly, in the dead of night, such that the next day, it was impossible
to ignore. This new wall, though invisible to the eye, is no less divisive. It has been erected slowly, brick by brick, many of them placed by
neglect and ignorance, rather than intent.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 33
Net Impact Celebrates Two Decades of
Breaking Boundaries to Repair the World
Three Ways to Break Down Barriers to Positive Net Impact
Twenty-two years ago, a small group of MBAs and entre-
preneurs had a great idea. In the midst of a world where
business was often viewed as an evil force, they dared
to think differently. In the fall of 1993, MBA students from
across the United States came together, united by their vision of
a future where business could mean more than making money.
Georgetown University hosted the first Net Impact Conference,
attracting speakers that included Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s (who
showed up in an ice-cream-stained T-shirt) and Anita Roddick of the
Body Shop. The conference opened the eyes of the 140 students
in attendance to the power of business to improve the world. It
wasn’t the first or the last time that the Net Impact community
would demonstrate its commitment to breaking boundaries.
This fall, the Net Impact community will once again return to
this important theme. In many ways, the boundaries of the early
1990s were more entrenched and complex than those of today—the
very concept of business as a force for good was suspect. While
that debate may live on in some circles, today there is far more
mainstream acceptance, from the C-Suite down, of not just the
ability but the mandate for businesses to drive positive change
in the world.
And yet, while norms have shifted, the boundaries of the 21st
century are less obvious but no less limiting. In the realm of Cor-
porate Social Responsibility (CSR), most of the low-hanging fruit
has been picked. It’s not enough to give away a lot of money, or
tweak a supply chain, or incubate a small social enterprise. The
barriers we are grappling with are global in scope and structur-
ally multi-faceted. What’s more, the stakes are higher than ever;
persistent poverty, global health epidemics, climate change, and
joblessness threaten the lives and livelihoods of billions of people
around the world.
In early November, MBA students and business leaders alike
will have the opportunity to come together at the 2014 Net Impact
Conference in Minneapolis to take on the messy, uncomfort-
able, and controversial—yet inspiring and imperative—challenge
of breaking boundaries once again. Impact leaders across sectors
are embracing three strategies for disruptive change: forging un-
expected alliances, embracing multiple definitions of the truth,
and leaving limits behind to shape creative solutions that can
transform the world.
Liz Maw
ENTERPRISE
2. Put the Truth on TrialTo overcome the limitations of the
status quo, leaders cannot hide behind
publicity and good marketing. They must
embrace the opportunity to dialogue
through differences in a public forum. Last
year, Net Impact welcomed a lively debate
between Exxon Vice President Ken Cohen
and Sierra Club CEO Michael Brune. While
charged at times, the forum helped further
the dialogue on the future of energy. As
conference attendee and sustainability
professional Laura Clise noted, “Leader-
ship is the willingness to participate in
difficult conversations. Dialogue takes
courage on both sides.”
1. Work with the “Enemy”Breaking boundaries often requires being willing to collaborate with
the most unlikely allies, even competitors. Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman
has broken many boundaries with his leadership of the world’s third-
largest consumer packaged goods company, from his emphasis away
from short-term returns to long-term value to his commitment to grap-
pling with the world’s biggest problems. To have a discernible impact on
big issues, Polman knows that he must work with many stakeholders,
including the competition. Says Polman, “What we’re now dealing with
are enormous challenges of poverty or climate change; sustainable growth
in its broadest sense; equality… . That requires a broader level of part-
nerships.” As one example, Unilever is working with marketplace rival
Nestlé on a coalition to convert the global market to natural refrigerants
for display cases. “It needs a tipping point; no individual company can
do that alone,” Polman adds.
Dr. Temple Grandin, who became famous for her achievements in
mathematics, has also embraced the opportunity to work with unex-
pected bedfellows. Because of her high-functioning autism, Grandin
thinks differently than most of us. Grandin has leveraged her keen
ability to think visually, due to her hypersensitivity to noise and other
sensory stimuli, into a unique and monumental career collaborating
with fast-food companies like McDonald’s to improve the conditions of
slaughterhouses. An animal lover working on slaughterhouses? As you
might expect, her work with McDonald’s and others has been decried by
animal activists, yet Grandin has been steady in her conviction to focus
on maximizing animal comfort over lengthening animal lives.
Dr. Temple Grandin, a professor of Animal
Sc iences, co l laborates with McDonald’s
and other food companies to improve
s laughterhouse condit ions.
Last year, Net Impact welcomed a l ive ly debate on the future of
energy between Exxon Vice Pres ident Ken Cohen and S ierra C lub
CEO Michael Brune.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 35
According to a recent Harris poll, Monsanto has one of the
worst reputations in the United States, yet it is also a company
that is deeply engaged with the challenge of how to feed the two
billion people that are projected to join the population of the
planet by 2020. Monsanto executives know their company invites
controversy, and they embrace the opportunity to dialogue with
people who oppose their perspectives. This year, the Net Impact
Conference will provide a forum for Monsanto executive Natalie
DiNicola to debate the future of food with NGO leader M. Jahi
Chappell from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, sharing
their contrasting viewpoints on how to feed the world sustainably.
3. Measure What MattersOverhead spending has been one of
the most commonly used metrics to define
“good” nonprofits by groups like the Bet-
ter Business Bureau, but Dan Pallotta has
begun a revolutionary movement to change
how organizations measure the difference
they make in the world. A decade ago, his
company, Pallotta TeamWorks, was criticized
for overspending on marketing, administra-
tion, and logistics. His critics argued that
such overhead costs cut too deeply into the
potential impact of their charitable contribu-
tions. Too many nonprofits, Pallotta says, are
rewarded for how little they spend instead of
for their results. He suggests that nonprofits
should be evaluated on the basis of their
ambitious goals and measurable impact, not
their overhead spending.
In his now-famous 2013 Ted Talk, pro-
vocatively titled, “The Way We Think About
Charity is Dead Wrong,” Pallotta makes the
point that the outcomes of the charity—in
his case, fundraising hundreds of millions of dollar for AIDS and other health causes—outweigh the need to limit overhead spending
in the nonprofit sector. As a keynote speaker at Net Impact 2014, Dan will ask the social impact community to question long-held
assumptions about the best ways to measure impact and effectiveness.
Breaking Boundaries to Repair the WorldThis fall, the Net Impact community will once again come together to break boundaries, just as it did more than two decades ago,
in an effort to break the boundaries that prevent change-makers from creating a just and sustainable world. Mandy Yard, a student
attendee at the last two Net Impact conferences, summarized her transformational experience:
“I consider it a mind-blowing, life-changing experience. Not only are you surrounded by friendly, passionate, and knowledgeable
people, but you are also exposed to inspirational and practical tools to increase social impact in any field.”
Dan Pal lot ta has ca l led out the double standard that dr ives our
re lat ionship to char i t ies , arguing that too many nonprof i ts are
rewarded for how l i t t le they spend—not for what they get done.
Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, ‘We kept charity overhead low.’ We want it to read that we changed the world.
-Dan Pallotta
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 436NGC
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The PULSE Volunteer Partnership is GSK’s skills-based 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 CommunitiesEmployees use their professional skills to create positive, sustainable change for non-profit partners and the communities they serve.
Change EmployeesEmployees are challenged to think differently about the world and as a result of the PULSE experience they develop their leadership skills.
Change GSKEmployees bring fresh ideas and new energy back to GSK to activate change in step with global health needs.
At the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit
this summer, Tony Elumelu, one
of Africa’s most successful en-
trepreneurs and philanthropists,
called for a change in the perception of
business in Africa.
“Drugs should not define U.S.-Latin
American relations. Religious conflict
should not define U.S.-Middle East rela-
tions. And natural resources and humani-
tarian assistance alone should not define
U.S.-Africa relations.”
At the invitation of President Obama,
African heads of state and business lead-
ers from across the United States and Af-
rica gathered in Washington, D.C. for the
first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, seeking
to advance a new paradigm for U.S.-Africa
relations.
The first day of the landmark event
was dedicated to the U.S.-Africa Business
Forum which sought to strengthen finan-
cial and trade ties between Africa and the
United States. During the Forum, leading
U.S. corporations announced commercial
partnerships with African entities, and Af-
rican political and business leaders articu-
lated ways in which they believe the future
of the continent’s business sector will be
fundamentally different from in the past.
“In many ways, it was an enormous
‘know your customer’ investment that’s
sure to pay dividends in the coming years,”
said Aubry Hruby, Visiting Fellow at Africa
Center at The Atlantic Council. Less than
three months later, the latest Ebola out-
break threatens to delay this outcome.
Forging a Pathway to Progress
In the blink of an eye, the Summit has
become a distant memory, but one whose
implications are potentially significant.
Since then, others, including The Council
on Foreign Relations and The World Affairs
Council, have weighed in on the progress
achieved by the Summit, celebrating the
way it successfully stimulated a cross-
sector dialogue on U.S.-Africa relations at
the highest levels of government and busi-
ness, brokered new commercial deals, and
shed a national spotlight on sustainable
development issues like the youth bulge,
infrastructure development, and access to
power in sub-Saharan Africa.
Most notably, perhaps, this Summit
marked a deliberate shift away from mod-
els of engagement with Africa that have
traditionally been focused on foreign aid;
“trade, not aid” was among the Summit’s
most common refrains. In 2014, Africa is
home to approximately 1.1 billion people,
a population expected to reach 2.5 billion
over the next fifty years. Its rising middle
class is the fastest growing in the world.
The Obama administration, taking ad-
vantage of the U.S.-Africa spotlight, seized
HAPPENING
Katie Levey
U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Convenes Leaders to Transform a Continent
LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR AFRICA’S FUTURE GROWTH
Photo: Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
HAPPENINGthe opportunity to roll out the Doing Busi-
ness in Africa campaign, announcing a $33
billion funding commitment from the public
and private sectors. This included Coca
Cola’s plans to spend $5 billion in Africa
over the next six years, General Electric’s
commitment of $2 billion dollars in invest-
ment by 2018 to boost infrastructure, ac-
cess to energy, and worker skills, and Fidel-
ity Bank’s award of a $66 million five-year
contract with IBM to build up the bank’s
technology infrastructure in Ghana.
Such appetite for investment is a sign
of change. Yet, the realities of doing busi-
ness in Africa are complex and opaque to
many, a gap that a week of active bilateral
engagement could not bridge. A tapestry of
fifty-four countries with distinct histories,
governments, and languages is as diverse
as it is nuanced; cultures and countries
within Africa are often viewed as “homo-
geneous” by people with little experience
on the continent. Worse, an outbreak of
the particularly virulent Ebola virus in
Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria (now
contained), and Mali and Senegal (one
case) has captured nearly all the media
attention, once more shrouding the entire
African continent in a foggy haze of risk
rather than opportunity.
Ensuring employee health and safety
remains a critical consideration; however,
given an understanding of the vastness of
the continent, there really is no substitute
for being present, with a willingness to
learn. Multinational corporations like The
Dow Chemical Company and General Elec-
tric have recognized that to successfully
enter African markets, a certain degree of
trial and error is necessary. Learning how
development challenges influence the busi-
ness climate and building a foundation of
trust with local leaders took time. During
the Forum, Andrew Liveris, the President,
Chairman, and CEO of The Dow Chemical
Company, admitted to building the com-
pany’s understanding from the ground up.
“We’ve been in Africa for sixty years
and we cut our teeth learning there.”
Liveris shared another key insight: “Big
companies that bring their supply chain
into an Africa market have to face the issue
of how to approach a country’s philosophy
and its culture, and they have to address
poverty.”
In other words, successful intervention,
value co-creation, and sharing in a way
that is appropriate and sustainable for all
players requires understanding the whole
system, first.
Economic Growth Requires Better Systems and Stability
Following the Summit, many pundits
pointed to the fact that, though African
leaders might be eager for foreign invest-
ment, many countries on the continent
pose too high a risk to American corpora-
tions. Some weeks later, The World Affairs
Council convened, “Aftermath of the Sum-
mit: What Next?” a conversation with Her-
man Cohen, Former Ambassador to Gambia
and Senegal, Dr. Raymond Gilpin, a senior
economist at The African Development
Bank and Dr. Daniel Silke, a known expert
on Africa’s political economy. The panel
examined the conditions within African na-
tions that need to be addressed to increase
the number of international and domestic
private investors.
Several key deficits—energy, food, se-
curity, and political stability—must be ad-
dressed by both individual country leaders
and by those trying to assist or invest in
This Summit marked a deliberate shift away from models of engagement with Africa that have traditionally been focused on foreign aid; “trade, not aid” was among the Summit’s most common refrains.
Photo: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Pres ident Barack Obama greets Afr ican leaders pr ior to a group photo dur ing the U.S . -Afr ica Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 39
African countries, in order to enable true
sustainable development.
“To grow, African nations must find a
way to address their economies internally,”
said Ambassador Cohen. “Their leaders
have to address all of these deficits to en-
sure the entrepreneurial spirit can flourish
within each country.”
Cohen, Gilpin, and Silke unanimously
agreed that establishing a foundation of
good governance is critical to achieving
this. Effective government administration
and transparency is fundamental to solving
underlying issues of food security, energy,
and the establishment of peace. Gilpin sug-
gested one approach to establishing good
governance: incentivize coordi-
nating mechanism such as cen-
tral national banks that interface
with local finance institutions
and neighboring countries, al-
lowing African nations to become
more responsive to their citizens
and international investors alike.
Perception Influences Investment
While private investors agree
that addressing development
challenges like food security,
governance, and energy is a
critical foundation for investment, social
impact is not the only priority. Investors
must also believe in the opportunity. In
comparison with the tremendous com-
mitments of financial capital, perception
shifts—changes in how investors perceive
value—are a subtler form of transformation.
During the Summit, African and U.S.
leaders acknowledged outdated stereo-
types of Africa as a place of only aid, pover-
ty, and corruption, and ways in which these
misperceptions have historically discour-
aged U.S. private sector engagement on the
continent. A recent EY study acknowledged
the distortion caused by this perception
gap. According to this study, nearly 90 per-
cent of companies with business opera-
tions in Africa view it as the most attractive
region for expansion. Strikingly, over half
of the companies not currently operating
in sub-Saharan Africa view it as the least
attractive place to do business worldwide.
Unfortunately, the Ebola crisis likely only
contributes to this perception.
However, what may appear from the
outside to be a barrier can, in actuality,
present a shared value market opportunity,
if a company has the cultural mind-set to
embrace it. Strive Masiyiwa, Founder and
Chairman of Econet Wireless, emphasized
the business opportunities of market fail-
ures, pointing to how lack of education
infrastructure offers new opportunities to
companies willing to go the distance.
“Fifty percent of African children aren’t
in school,” Masiyiwa said. “There is no time
to wait for the brick and mortar. We have to
invest in the technology we have today to
provide education for our children.”
This kind of need—and market demand—
is a remarkable opportunity for technology
and network companies like IBM and Intel,
both of whom have significant business
investments and social initiatives to help
address these issues, with shared value
at their core. To fully make the most of
these opportunities, companies must em-
brace a change in mind-set, abandoning
outdated assumptions and historical con-
texts in order to adopt a more realistic view
of what constitutes an opportunity—from
both a realistic assessment of threats and
opportunities.
Change Requires Capital Investment and Human Resolve
During the Summit, many remarked at
the apparent delay in the Administration
realizing the need for greater U.S. engage-
ment with Africa. “Too little too late?”
some wondered, but most African lead-
ers agreed: “Better late than never.” As
growth accelerates in many countries in
Africa, opportunities for investment only
continue to multiply, and most are excited
by the willingness of American corporations
to commit to future investment. Foreign
investment in African economies is fore-
casted to reach a record $80 billion in 2014,
with many American companies leading
the way.
Financial capital alone,
however, is insufficient. This
fact has been all too evident in
the repeated failure of foreign
assistance to translate into its
intended benefits for commu-
nities. Progress requires capital
investment and human resolve
on the part of private sector in-
vestors and African governments
alike. It requires financial capi-
tal coupled with a willingness to
stretch beyond the barriers that
exist today. A new paradigm requires that
investors adjust their approach to market
entry and reframe the notion of “develop-
ment deficits.” It also demands a deep
commitment from African governments to
address the deficits that create barriers to
greater economic alignment and partner-
ship.
Three months since the Summit over-
took Washington, the conversation has all
but disappeared from view and the pub-
lic discourse on Africa has been entirely
overshadowed by the threat of Ebola. Who
now is responsible for advancing the com-
mitments made during the Summit? The
conversation on doing business in Africa
has diminished, but the need is greater
than ever. And with great need comes great
potential for opportunity and growth.
Financial capital alone, however, is insufficient. This fact has been all too evident in the repeated
failure of foreign assistance to translate into its intended benefits for communities. Progress requires capital investment and human resolve
on the part of private sector investors and African governments.
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Sp
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Inaugural Symantec Service Corps team: Arequipa, Peru
February – March, 2014
10 employees
4 weeks
3 NGO partners
Learn more at www.symantecservicecorps.com
Copyright © 2014 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec logo, and Norton are U.S. registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation.
new_global_citizen_8.5x11_r2.indd 1 7/14/14 12:44 PM
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JUMPSTART YOUR CAREER WITH LEAN METHOD
Use Lean Startup Principles to Discover your Dream Career and Lead Positive Change
Mark Horoszowski
“BE MORE INNOVATIVE. STOP WASTING PEOPLE’S TIME. BE MORE SUCCESSFUL.”
These are the words of Eric Ries, who in 2011 fundamentally changed
the way organizations foster innovation when he published The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Cre-ate Radically Successful Businesses. The premise of his book, and the
successful businesses he highlights, is that effective leaders understand
that their assumptions are often wrong, but by “getting out of the build-
ing and testing ideas and assumptions,” they can more economically
understand what will (or won’t) work before investing too much in de-
velopment. The Lean Startup approach is not only relevant to startups
and established enterprises, but also provides an invaluable method
for individuals to test their professional convictions and career choices.
Just as a startup should avoid spending years developing a product that
nobody wants, every professional should avoid wasting time preparing
for a career that they won’t enjoy.
More than ever before, it’s vital that we follow this advice. Organiza-
tions both large and small, for and non-profit, are reporting a massive
leadership gap. According to the World Economic Form, one of the lead-
LEADERSHIP
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 442NGC
ing barriers to progress for social impact organization is a lack
of access to quality talent. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, said it
best: “There are only three measurements that tell you nearly
everything you need to know about your organization’s overall
performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and
cash flow. It goes without saying that no company, small or
large, can win over the long run without energized employees
who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.”
Employees Are Not Engaged, Not Even in Social Impact Organizations
The biggest driver of employee dissatisfaction in their career
is a lack of engagement. Many employers know this, and yet
struggle to address it. Unfortunately, few working professionals,
even those employed by mission-based organizations, report
that they like their jobs. According to the Gallup-Purdue Index
report, only 39 percent of employees are engaged by their jobs.
Another study from Opportunity Knocks highlights that, in addi-
tion to mission, “nonprofit employees want to work in a place
where they can advance and develop skills” and that “45 percent
of employees are planning on leaving their current employer”
because they don’t feel engaged in their work, meaning that
they don’t find satisfaction in their day-to-day workload or their
long-term efforts.
Mission isn’t enough to keep you engaged. Finding a career
that makes a difference requires more than a job that makes
the world a better place.
The Three Drivers of Career EngagementRegardless of their employment arrangement, research has
shown that employees consistently emphasize three drivers of
satisfaction:
• Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service
of something larger than ourselves
• Autonomy: The desire to direct our own lives
• Mastery: The urge to get better and better at something
that matters
However, thought leaders agree that the biggest determinant
of an employee’s ability to activate these three drivers is direct
management, and a manager’s—and company’s—ability to com-
municate with their employees. While many people find them-
selves in roles that don’t engage them, job seekers confront a
moment of incredible opportunity. By conducting an intentional
and structured career search, many people can find greater en-
joyment at work while also joining or leading high-performing
teams that can create even greater impact.
Use Lean Startup Principles to Find a Career That Will Engage You
The biggest barrier to career satisfaction is not finding your
dream job, but in understanding what your dream job actually is.
The Lean Startup method has inspired a process of career discov-
ery that can allow you to invalidate your assumptions about your
career pursuit in three easy steps: 1) Learn, 2) Reflect, 3) Refine.
Step 1: LearnConduct more research about the jobs you’ve considered and
organizations you want to work for. Your assumptions about them
might be wrong, and you need to test those before committing
energy and resources to getting it.
First, find people that work in your dream role and target
organizations, and ask them to join you for a hot beverage of
their choice or a virtual chat via Skype, Hangout, or phone.
Second, once you have an opportunity to engage, ask smart
questions that uncover the truth about their careers and work-
places. Track these in a spreadsheet so you can truly understand
this audience. Use the chart in Figure 1. to get started.
As you interview people, ask questions that can elicit factual
responses, not opinion. This may very well be the hardest part,
so Figure 2. provides a couple of thought-starters to help frame
questions.
Step 2: ReflectTo help find a better match, continue to understand your
own strengths and motivations. Work hard to find a better idea
of causes that motivate you, skills you enjoy learning, and your
preferred work environment.
Next, learn more about your motivations and talents: Take
the assessment from Imperative, Gallup Strengthsfinder, or the
PwC Personal Brand Workbook.
Then, explore the skills you most enjoy learning: Volunteer
your real skills with social impact organizations. Find a local,
pro-bono position with Catchafire or Taproot, or take a vacation,
sabbatical, or career break and do it through an organization
like MovingWorlds.org, TechnoServe, or MBAs Without Borders.
Reflect on the work environment you like the most: First, ask
yourself: “When in the past were you most engaged at work…
and what type of team environment were you in?” Then ask your
former co-workers, peers, friends, and family a simple question:
“What is the team structure in which you think I will thrive?”
Learn
Reflect
Refine
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 444NGC
If you want to learn if… ASK DON’T ASK
someone likes their job… On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to
recommend your company to a friend?Do you like your job?
an employer promotes
autonomy…How often do you report to management? Do you feel micromanaged?
your skills are needed at your
dream employer/role…
What are the key skills that this employer
measures in its annual employee review?Does this employer value [skill name] ?
an employer is living a bigger
“mission”...
What do beneficiaries say about your
organization and its work? What is your company’s mission?
No role will be perfect for you out of the box. The real trick to
refining your career comes with open and honest communication
with your manager to continue to evolve your role so it supports
your purpose, mastery, and autonomy. However, even before
taking the position, when a manager conducts an employee
reference on you, you should ask to do the same to his or her
employees to make sure your manager is right for you.
While it might be new to negotiate with your manager about
this, keep in mind the following: If you become disengaged, you
are likely to deliver lower quality work, and ultimately will most
likely leave that company. In which case, trying to replace you
is much more challenging and costly: Remember the words of
Timothy Clark “Highly engaged employees make the customer
experience. Disengaged employees break it.”
As you make, test, and refine your assumptions about your
career, use the MovingWorlds Validation Board to document your
discovery process.
Step 3. Refine
Organization Name
Mission Roles That Match
Your Skills Communication
Styles Team Structures
Key Factors in Yearly Reviews
Management Styles
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 45
More Than Just Validating AssumptionsAsk the founders of any successful startup and they will be
the first to tell you that the only reason they are in business is
because they took time to understand their customers. In fact,
many of the early people they interviewed to better understand
their assumptions likely became their first customers.
Finding your dream career isn’t easy, but this process is the
first step in the right direction. And while the work might seem
exhausting—finding people, interviewing them, reflecting, sharing
with an advisor—here is the bright side: In the process, you’ll build
your own network that will likely lead to your next job.
More importantly, finding purpose, autonomy, and mastery is
about contributing your knowledge, passion, and work to filling
the talent gap and making the world a better place. As Howard
Thurman puts it:
“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come
alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people
who have come alive.”
For access to an editable version of the previously mentioned files, visit the Finding Your For-Impact Career resource page on MovingWorlds.org, which includes tips on how to interview people, sample email templates, and starter scripts.
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credit-suisse.com/microfinance
Li Xiaoyan and her husband, Han Dongdong, first opened their barbecue restaurant in Inner Mongolia in 2009. With a microloan from Credit Suisse partner Accion’s affiliate in China, Li and Han have been working to grow the business, which helps them support their family and save for the future.
Credit Suisse: Linking the top with the base of the income pyramid.
More opportunities for microentrepreneurs.
Unless otherwise specified, the term “Credit Suisse” is the global marketing brand name for the investment banking, asset management and private banking services offered by Credit Suisse Group subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide. Each legal entity in Credit Suisse Group is subject to distinct regulatory requirements and certain products and services may not be available in all jurisdictions or to all client types. There is no intention to offer products and services in countries or jurisdictions where such offer would be unlawful under the relevant domestic law. These are examples of the benefits of microloan programs and are not intended to show the results all would achieve.
18034_210x280_Microfinance_asi_e.indd 1 08.10.12 15:38
S p o n s o r e d C o n t e n t
Who doesn’t love a victory lap?
This fall, during the third week of September,
the who’s who of international development gath-
ered in New York to extol all the good that has been
done for the world in the past year. This year, the celebration was
especially jubilant, as it marked the achievements of the past 15
years of work towards the Millennium Development Goals—the
infamous MDGs.
The Social Good Summit kicked off the week with panels and
short talks design to inspire a global dialogue on #2030NOW, the
Clinton Global Initiative convened the ultra-influential in its usual
style, and the UN General Assembly provided an opportunity for
national leaders of all stripes to celebrate their country’s progress
towards meeting their individual goals. The victory lap commenced,
and it was glorious.
Amidst all the celebration, it’s sometimes hard not to be
cynical. Certainly those who gather have the best intentions, and
many individuals and organizations have indeed worked hard
to improve lives. At the same time, the parade of dinners and
receptions at some of New York’s finest venues contrasts starkly
with the endless discussions of extreme poverty and inequality.
In past years, my cynicism has quickly turned to optimism as
I glimpsed the many innovations underway that have the ability
to eliminate the world’s most egregious social challenges. I have
been inspired to learn more, and to do more. This year, though, as
I attended multiple events focused on the MDGs, I found myself
utterly disappointed with the analysis and discussion of both what
has been achieved, and what issues future goals must address.
What’s more, my subsequent discovery of a flawed framework of
impact evaluation—taking 1990 as the MDGs’ comparative mea-
surement point—lends a degree of deception to the celebration
I could not ignore.
How did we get to be here?In 2000, the UN member states affirmed the Millennium Dec-
laration, solidifying a set of development targets that every UN
member country would work to address over the following 15
years. A year later, these targets became the eight Millennium
Development Goals:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Global partnership for development
Three Lessons From This Year’s Celebration of the Millennium Development Goals
Deirdre White
Photo: The United Nations (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The Danger Victory
Laps
of
HAPPENINGBy design, the MDGs had no strategic plan or associated bud-
get, working under the expectation that countries, companies,
and NGOs alike would come together organically to focus on these
goals. To the UN’s credit, the goals have fostered progress on this
front, bringing myriad players together to at least participate in
the same conversation. For that fact alone, MDGs should claim
some degree of success.
That said, at nearly every discussion session, speech, or re-
ception I attended during UNGA week this fall, the MDGs were at
the top of the agenda, with laudatory comments about the inter-
national development community’s achievements against these
goals. While statistics consistently presented do clearly show solid
improvements across many indicators—halving extreme poverty,
achieving universal primary education, reducing HIV infection— I
found myself repeatedly wondering what was behind the data.
On the United Nation’s website, the most readily available prog-
ress report is a color-coded chart that tells the reader very little.
For more information, the reader is referred to an MDG-specific
page where one can find the MDG 500-day countdown video. The
video is titled Millennium Development Goals 2014, What does the data tell us? It is presented with the following explanation:
“This video, prepared by UNSD, provides a snapshot of what has
been achieved and what needs to be done to reach the MDGs.”
The first achievement: 700 million people have been lifted
out of poverty. Using Indonesia as an example, the UN claims
a 70 percent reduction in the population living under $1.25 per
day, a drop from 54 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2011, a truly
impressive, and significant transformation.
The problem here is that, while the UN selected 1990 as a
baseline year for most of the targets, the MDGs were only endorsed
in 2001. In other words, MDG reporting calculates progress that
dates back more than a decade before the goals were enacted.
From 1990 to 2003, the number of people living on less than $1.25
per day in Indonesia was reduced by half—from 54 percent to
roughly 27 percent, making the improvement from 2003 to 2011
only 11 percentage points. Likewise, the video claims near victory
on reducing the number of underweight children. The Bangladesh
example provided shows a decline in this number from 62 percent
in 1990 to 37 percent in 2011, but the decline between 2001 and
2011 is far less substantial, and nearly flat from 2006 to 2011.
Thankfully, an encouraging example from Cambodia shows a clear
and significant decline in infant mortality from 2001 to 2011. And
the reduction in HIV incidence from 2001 to 2012 is astounding.
Regardless, the pattern of the data presented continues in this
way, implying that the MDGs are responsible for the bulk of the
progress. An accompanying written report provides a deeper look
at the data, but also largely in the 1990 to 2012 comparison frame.
Ironically, featured adjacent to the video on the site is the
following statement:
“Reliable and robust data are critical for devising appropri-
ate policies and interventions for the achievement of the MDGs
Deirdre White
MDG reporting calculates progress that dates back
more than a decade before the goals were enacted.
Graphic: The United Nations
T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n | F a l l 2 0 1 4 NGC 49
and for holding governments and the international community
accountable.”
I could not agree more with that sentiment. Unfortunately,
neither the report nor the video significantly contribute to the
ability to make policy or hold anyone accountable.
Where are we going?An enormous amount of research is required to meaningfully
evaluate the headway that has been made. At a time when the
world is considering the targets for the next 15 years—what will
become the Sustainable Development Goals—the lack of compre-
hensive analysis of what contributed to success (or lack thereof)
is alarming.
Looking ahead to 2015, three lessons can help guide greater
measurement and impact in the years to come.
1. RECOGNIZE THAT DATA IS REQUIRED TO MEANINGFULLY ASSESS INTERVENTIONS AND RESEARCH IS REQUIRED TO GENERATE IT.
Those who are in positions of leadership on global progress—
heads of development agencies, such as Rajiv Shah (USAID) and
Justine Greening (DfID), foundation luminaries such as Bill Gates
and Bill Clinton, and leaders of non-profit and for-profit develop-
ment implementing organizations alike—have an obligation to hold
data and claims of achievement up to a higher level of scrutiny.
All those engaged in these efforts must invest in understanding
what effect, if any, the Millennium Development Goals, and the
associated interventions, have had on the progress made over
the past 15 years. That understanding, however uncomfortable,
must provide the foundations for the targets that will be set by
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
2. LEARN WHAT WORKS, AND WHAT DOESN’T, MAKE DOCU-MENTATION PUBLICLY AVAILABLE, AND RECOGNIZE AND REWARD THOSE WITH THE COURAGE TO DO SO.
It’s no surprise that leaders in international development are
taking a victory lap, claiming success for progress that the UN’s
own data shows was, in many cases, steadily happening prior to
the enactment of the MDGs. Anything less than that brings on a
wrath that leads to reduced funding and prevents any additional
forward movement. However, claiming achievement even where
the progress slowed after the enactment of the MDGs, is not only
intellectually dishonest, it’s not helpful in future planning.
New leaders in poverty reduction, such as the Poverty Action
Lab, are actively working to use scientific methods to test the
efficacy of discrete interventions. Such evaluation is worth the
time and funding required, providing an opportunity to forgo the
wasteful, subjective investments of the past in favor of scaling
effective interventions that actually make a difference. Esther
Duflo’s TED talk in 2010 presents a compelling argument on why
the right approach to evaluation is so valuable.
3. DEVELOP A WHOLE-SYSTEMS APPROACH TO A FEW KEY CHALLENGES.
The international development community generally silos its
interventions—projects are focused on health or economic growth,
water or food security, good governance or the environment.
But these are not stand-alone challenges—they are necessarily
intertwined. It makes sense that large agencies need a defined
structure, and the creation of pillars is understandable; however,
the paucity of collaboration, or even conversation, across divisions
within the same agency, let alone across multiple organizations,
hinders the ability to analyze and learn from one another. Bet-
ter knowledge sharing within and among industry players would
foster better problem-solving given the complex ecosystems that
must be considered in any intervention. Perhaps with a com-
monly developed understanding—even a commonly developed
understanding of assumptions—it would become easier to respect
the relative contributions of different players, hold appropriate
people to account, and reduce the culture of territorialism that can
pervade such institutions. While the results of the transformation
remain to be seen, Dr. Jim Kim, the President of the World Bank,
has begun to lead the way towards this way of thinking with the
reorganization of that influential institution.
~
The aforementioned MDG video was transparent on the topic
of the herculean work that remains—1 in 8 people on this planet
still suffer from chronic hunger, 748 million still use water from an
unimproved source, 800 women die each day from complications
related to pregnancy or childbirth, and only 30 percent of those
who need anti-retroviral drugs are receiving them. But without an
analytical and honest evaluation of the progress to date—and the
correlation of that progress with interventions—then it is difficult
to believe that significant progress can be made towards combat-
ting the serious challenges still ahead.
At the end of the day, goals are effective motivators, some-
thing to strive for, that can yield both failure and success. It is
only through clear goals and candid assessment that the best
practices—of business, development, and individual life—can be
uncovered. Creating a culture of “rah-rah” celebration aids the
cause by raising the visibility of the ongoing efforts to achieve
these ambitious targets, but it also sacrifices the opportunities
for learning and improvement along the way. As the who’s who of
international development faces the launch of the SDGs and the
15 years of work that are to follow, practitioners face a reflection
point of learning within the community. I hope that with a com-
mitment to testing, documenting, and sharing success and failure,
the next decade of UN General Assembly weeks can become an
opportunity to learn, grow, and innovate as much as to celebrate
the great work this community has achieved together.
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S p o n s o r e d C o n t e n t
At John Deere, we recognize that communities form the foundation of society, and that strong communities provide greater opportunities for lasting health and prosperity for all.
That’s why John Deere supports programs to improve communities around the world, including the impoverished villages near our manufacturing facility in Pune, India. The Village Improvement Program increases access to quality education for children, provides vocational training to young adults, and helps women start their own businesses. As well, the program is helping improve basic amenities in the villages, including sanitation, roads and health care.
Investing in our communities is one more way John Deere is becoming a catalyst for positive change in the world.
Empowering Communities
tion planning and market research, and
develop a framework for considering new
clients.” While these business approaches
are typical for most well-established com-
panies, such practices can be the difference
between whether a new business will suc-
cessfully scale, or fail.
EY’s Vantage Program works with non-
profit Endeavor to pair EY employees with
high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging
markets. Linda and Onuwa’s assignments
are just two examples of the many ways
EY and Endeavor have collaborated through
the EY Vantage Program over the past 10
years. The union, established in 2005, pro-
vides a strong example of how two such
organizations—one for-profit and the other
non-profit—can work together to achieve
common goals.
Specifically, the Vantage Program yields
significant two-way benefits. First, access
to EY staff enables Endeavor to be more
successful in helping local entrepreneurs
build their businesses. This in turn benefits
EY, most visibly by stimulating a local, de-
veloping economy and driving future de-
mand for additional services. In essence,
a rising tide floats all boats.
But EY and its employees also benefit
by gaining experience in emerging markets.
In fact, such volunteers almost invariably
describe the experience as one of, if not
the most significant and meaningful in their
entire careers. As Onuwa explains:
“Professionally, I enhanced my cul-
tural awareness, improved my manage-
ment skills, and was pushed outside of
my comfort zone. I also managed to learn
enough Portuguese to get by, developed
some lifelong friendships, and built my
network outside of the United States. The
experience overall has been priceless to my
career development and was easily some
of the best seven weeks of my professional
and personal life. I encourage other com-
panies to explore creating an International
Corporate Volunteer program to help their
employees develop leadership skills, rela-
tionships in emerging markets, and a global
mind-set.”
The collaboration has been so success-
ful that the Vantage program, which started
in the Americas, has led to a broader global
Deborah K . Holmes COLLABORATION BETWEEN ENDEAVOR AND EY YIELDS LESSONS ON HOW VOLUNTEERING DRIVES SOCIAL IMPACT
F ive Strategies for Effect ive Volunteer A l l iances
After almost 20 years as a success-
ful leader in marketing and com-
munications, Linda Whalen, the
Brand and External Communica-
tions Leader for EY’s West region, decided
to do something different. She took on a
two-month assignment in Chile helping to
refine the marketing strategy and plan for
Buscalibre.com, an e-commerce portal. For
Linda, the experience was eye opening.
“It helped me to expand my interna-
tional business and cultural awareness.”
And, the Chilean enterprise obtained the
benefit of world-class consulting services
at no cost.
Onuwa Uzor, a senior manager in EY’s
Transaction Advisory Services practice in At-
lanta, spent seven weeks in Brazil support-
ing Pixel Labs, a developer of interactive
cosmetic technology solutions for point of
sale and online channels. He helped Pixel’s
management team better understand their
needs while developing sustainable solu-
tions for growth and success.
“Although I had never worked in a start-
up environment or in Brazil before, I was
able to outline best practices for produc-
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GLOBAL PRO BONOrelationship between Endeavor and EY, pav-
ing the way for more cooperation across
the globe.
Collaborations between the private
and social sectors can often accomplish
remarkable things, and they are even more
effective when a company encourages its
employees to engage directly with a social
sector organization. Yet, finding an organi-
zation with which sustained collaboration
is both feasible and productive can be more
difficult than it might seem. Getting things
right requires a foundation of mutual un-
derstanding, shared values and objectives,
and a commitment to sustained engage-
ment. For the corporations, this means tak-
ing the lead to make sure the partnership
is mutually beneficial in the long term.
In practice, EY’s collaboration with
Endeavor demonstrates that effective vol-
unteer programs depend on sustainable
partnerships with social-sector organiza-
tions that are able to operate anywhere in
the world, and effectively extend the com-
pany’s commitment to sustainable social
impact. Like any marriage of time, values,
and resources, the EY/Endeavor alliance is
founded on five key tenets. These include
ensuring both parties have common values,
a shared core focus for the collaboration, a
clearly defined mission and corresponding
objectives, a clear understanding about re-
spective capabilities (and responsibilities),
and of course, an ongoing willingness to
review, refine, and improve the operations
and outcomes of the partnership.
1 ENSURE COMMON VALUES AMONG PARTNERS
Each organization needs to closely ex-
amine the other to ensure alignment of
values and objectives. Both organizations
must be confident of a low likelihood of
culturally- or mission-driven conflicts or
surprises down the road that could severely
compromise the relationship. Perhaps the
not-for-profit could potentially become in-
volved in initiatives that could harm the
reputation of the corporation or otherwise
reduce the willingness of its employees
to associate or volunteer. Get to know the
organization, worldwide, and if any or-
ganizational activity generates cause for
concern then the relationship is probably
not worth pursuing.
2 ALIGN PARTNERS BASED ON A CORE FOCUS
Part of this “getting to know you” phase
should also include significant efforts by
the corporation to make certain the core
focus of the partnership is clearly under-
stood. The most hard-hitting and success-
ful partnerships tend to be constituted to
address a particular set of challenges for a
EY Vantage Advisor, Linda Whalen, collaborates with Buscalibre.com colleagues while on assignment in Chile.
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clearly defined set of recipients. One thing
to avoid is a case where a social sector
organization, anxious to secure funding
or associate with a highly visible corpora-
tion, becomes willing to significantly alter
its raison d’être. Such alliances may seem
initially appealing, but over time tend to
garner less attention from the host orga-
nization, and thus underperform or fail.
3 FORMALIZE THE MISSION AND ITS MEASUREMENT
The sponsoring corporation and the so-
cial sector organization should establish a
clear vision of what they want to accom-
plish together. How, specifically, do the or-
ganizations intend to collaborate? What are
the specific mission objectives, and how
will progress against objectives be mea-
sured? What resources will be provided by
each, when, and where? To be successful,
partners must work toward clearly defined
milestones and metrics.
4 CLEARLY DEFINE RESPECTIVE CAPABILITIES
Any organizational relationship built on
employee involvement demands a realis-
tic understanding of what the company’s
people can provide within the partnership.
Successful pairings begin with the com-
pany taking the time to help the organiza-
tion understand the skills and knowledge
likely participants possess and what sorts
of tasks they can accomplish. This should
also include realistic scene-setting and un-
derstanding around the structure of the
workdays, work weeks, and work years.
It is vital that the two organizations
are honest and open about what each is
truly “good” at providing. Talking openly
about skills and resources, together, the
two groups can coordinate to better design
the overall program, develop realistic job
descriptions, and more optimally manage
workflow.
Cultural and resourcing gaps can ham-
per the relationship. Workers from the
corporation, for example, are likely accus-
tomed to receiving rapid responses to calls,
emails, or even tweets. Those from the host
organization, however, may come from a
less time-obsessed culture or otherwise op-
erate under significant resource constraints
and may resent pressure for immediate
or even same-day responses. Committed
collaborators will be honest about such
differences and, through communication,
find effective workarounds.
5CONTINUOUSLY REVIEW, REFINE AND IMPROVE
Successful partnerships foster open
communication and ongoing reflection,
both formal and informal. Informally, lead-
ers from both groups should speak openly,
being honest about what’s working, what’s
marginal, and what is so aggravating it
could inhibit the mission. Formally, the
collaboration should be working toward
specific short-term and long-term metrics.
In addition, many such teams also rely
on tools, such as shareholder satisfaction
surveys, to get a clearer assessment of
the state of the collaboration. If the two
organizations are not open and honest with
one another, the relationship can suffer
as a result.
Successful part-nerships foster open communication and ongoing reflection, both formal and infor-mal.
Finding the right long-term fit
EY’s collaboration with Endeavor, via the
EY Vantage Program, has developed over
the past 10 years on the basis of the above
traits, but these are by no means the only
drivers of success. For example, opportu-
nities to add to one another’s strengths
outside of any core mission can also arise.
A corporation, for example, might be well-
positioned to provide invaluable services
and insight to a social sector organization
in the form of anything from web design
and function to stronger HR strategies or
management structure.
The bottom line is that if the two or-
ganizations are right for one another, the
relationship has a strong chance of bearing
fruit beyond expectations. But it is only
through strong initial due diligence that the
two will find the right fit. In the case of EY
and Endeavor, a decade later, the union is
still going strong. As Endeavor co-founder
and CEO Linda Rottenberg explains, “We
focus on revolutionizing entrepreneurship
in emerging and growth markets.” Together
with EY, “we are helping to unleash the
tremendous social and economic value of
high-impact entrepreneurs.” The collabora-
tion, says Linda, “will be bearing fruit for
generations to come.”
EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of EY.
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S p o n s o r e d C o n t e n t
THE JOINT INITIATIVE FOR VILLAGE ADVANCEMENT TESTS MODELS FOR EFFECTIVE DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL INDIA
Maggie DeLorme
DEFINING “GOOD” DEVELOPMENT
What makes a development
project successful? I ask
myself this question each
day I spend designing and
managing projects. Development certainly
isn’t easy, or perfect. As a social science,
it is inexact, subjective, and ever-evolving,
striving for objective measurement in im-
perfect, variable-ridden environments. How
can one rely on data to indicate success in
what is at its beginning and end a human
experience, intervention, or endeavor?
As foreign aid passes the quarter and
half-century marks in some countries,
we practitioners must become ever more
mindful of our presence, and the effects
thereof. Although investment varies from
project to project, monitoring and evalua-
tion is widely accepted as a fundamental
pillar of effective development. In their
2013 annual letter, Bill and Melinda Gates
re-emphasized the importance of measure-
ment in the global efforts to improve the
human condition.
Unlike profit generation in the business
world, the “bottom line” of development is
less straight-forward. Standards of success
are predicated on a subjective selection of
inherently imperfect data, making “good”
development nearly impossible to define.
In project management, success is often
considered the accomplishment of a spe-
cific goal within a designated time frame.
When these are self-selected, proper goal-
setting and measurement tools become
all the more necessary to minimize con-
firmation and self-reporting bias. Shifting
an indicator from number of toilets built
to number of toilets used, for example,
can have tremendous implications on the
focus and direction of a project. Toilets
abandoned and in disrepair several years
after construction are an avoidable repeat
investment. Dissemination of all data—the
good, the bad, and the ugly— is critical for
avoiding these kinds of duplications.
Depth Before Breadth
The Joint Initiative for Village Advance-
ment, or “JIVA” as it is known, has sought
to develop metrics that will inform the ef-
fectiveness and sustainability of its inte-
grated approach. This multi-year commu-
nity development program, funded by the
John Deere Foundation, aims to improve
the lives of those residing in three rural
villages in Rajasthan, India. The program
employs a multi-sector approach focused
on three priorities: agriculture and income
security, education, and small-scale infra-
structure.
In a country of 1.2 billion people, a
smaller, three-village investment may raise
some eyebrows. Significant development
efforts typically span broad geographies.
By reaching more beneficiaries, the theo-
ry is that projects will scale more quickly
and have a greater social impact. Yet these
projects are often designed by officials or
experts seated far from the communities
they are aiming to serve. In India, more
than two-thirds of the population lives in
rural areas. With languages, customs, social
structures, natural resources, and avail-
able services often changing in any given
fifteen-mile radius, shouldn’t approaches
to its rural development be equally diverse
and varied?
Earlier this year, Nate Clark, Vice Presi-
dent of The John Deere Foundation, high-
lighted the importance of JIVA’s partner-
ships to its participatory approach in the
first installment of this series. The project
model depends heavily on the expertise
and resources of its partners to success-
fully execute a multi-sector approach. JIVA’s
local NGO partner, Jatan Sansthan, has been
actively engaged since the project’s be-
ginning and serves as the basis for the
John Deere Foundation and PYXERA Global’s
long-term exit strategy.
A Commitment to Measurement
Beyond developing a foundation of
partnership for long-term sustainability,
the JIVA team remains deeply committed
to quantitatively evaluating not just the
outputs, but more importantly the impacts
of its interventions. Following a needs as-
sessment in 2012 that informed the overall
program design, a census baseline study
was conducted six months later to validate
previous findings and provide a baseline
for comparison over the next five years.
Two years later, the early results are en-
couraging.
In less than eight months, 100 percent
of village drop-outs were enrolled in JIVA’s
after-school tutoring program, 60 percent
were reintegrated into government schools,
and 71 percent of those reintegrated were
attending class regularly. Children from
castes historically ostracized and living on
the outskirts of villages enrolled in school
for the first time. A year later, several of
these students now rank among the top-
five performers in their class.
Due to JIVA’s relatively short duration,
addressing complex, long-standing social
challenges is not an explicit focus area. Yet
with a participatory, systematic approach, it
is impossible to ignore their omnipresence
in everyday village life. Shayari Bagariya,
a teacher in the JIVA after-school program,
remarked on the changes she witnessed
in her students over the last year, “I used
to teach only to Bagariyas, who are my
caste. Gradually, change has happened
and all children have started calling me
teacher. They even take water from me
now. People from other castes do not like
to take things from the hands of Bagari-
yas. Now [Bagariya and other children] sit
together like brothers and sisters in the
JIVA after-school tutoring program.” A small
but tremendous step forward, this kind of
change is atypical to see in the given time
frame. Solid impact analysis over time
will enable us to learn the implications of
this change for both the JIVA villages and
similar future efforts.
In agriculture, demonstration plot yields
increased by 34.5 percent and 48.1 percent
for sorghum and maize, respectively. More
than 70 percent of farmers participating in
demonstration plot trainings adopted one
or more improved agricultural practices
before the completion of the first cropping
season. Contrary to Everett Rogers’ Diffu-
sion of Innovations Theory, the risk-taking
behavior of these ‘innovators’ and ‘early
adopters’—who, in theory, account for only
16 percent of the population—was not cor-
related to social status or financial liquidity.
Village contribution to community in-
frastructure work, such as school toilets
and classroom repairs, has totaled more
than $6,000—a staggering amount for those
living on less than a dollar a day. Local
contracting and hiring for JIVA’s infrastruc-
ture–related construction resulted in 9,479
hired person days, in addition to the 40
full- and part-time jobs generated by JIVA.
Continuous Self-Reflection and Learning
In the face of positive outcomes, it is
easy to gloss over failures. Yet, recogniz-
ing shortfall in performance is essential
to course correction, and therefore must
be a focus of any effective monitoring and
evaluation effort. Continuous self-evalua-
tion allows JIVA to identify and troubleshoot
issues early and adapt to the local context.
For example, the after-school program had
great early success in enrolling the majority
of village children within two months and
getting drop-out students back in school.
Yet month after month, many students’
test scores remained stagnant in all three
villages. By re-evaluating different indica-
tors such as school attendance and parent
engagement, JIVA was able to isolate the
“pull” effect some students, mainly drop-
outs, were having on their peers and re-
structured the program accordingly. Shortly
thereafter, student test scores improved
markedly.
JIVA also struggled with public percep-
tion and ownership in the beginning. Ini-
tially viewed by villagers as an opportunity
for free services, project staff received end-
less requests for hand-outs the first few
months of operations. Understanding the
risk this posed to long-term ownership and
sustainability, JIVA quickly decided that all
infrastructure work would be contingent
upon village participation and monetary
contribution. Less than a year later, villag-
ers now take an active role in the plan-
ning and execution of infrastructure im-
provements, creating Village Development
Committees to monitor construction and
manage community funds.
IMPACT & INNOVATION
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Neeta Kumawat, JIVA Field Coordinator and a village resident,
described the transformation she’s seen in the villagers’ percep-
tion of JIVA’s work: “Earlier, people thought improving the villages
was the job of JIVA and that they would do the work in any case.
Now, after working for a year, there is a change in the villagers’
perspective of JIVA. Now they understand that it is not JIVA’s duty,
but it is their own responsibility.”
Evaluating a community’s development is no easy task. There
are innumerable confounding variables and symbiotic relation-
ships, and causation can never be definitively proven. But sys-
temic change requires systematic interventions. JIVA’s integrated
approach recognizes that each stakeholder plays multiple, inter-
active roles in a community’s growth. A female farmer attending
agricultural trainings is also a mother of a child enrolled in the
after-school program and a wife of a carpenter building classroom
desks. Evaluating a system holistically allows the project to intro-
duce activities based on each sector’s unique and complementary
developmental opportunities. With more than seventy different
indicators that can be disaggregated by various socio-demographic
variables, JIVA strives to piece together potential correlations and
track the effects of its interventions.
Setting the Bar for “Good” Development
In some ways, JIVA is akin to thousands of projects, past and
present, around the world. It is not the first time implementers
have attempted to marry a multi-sector approach with locally-
driven solutions, emphasizing partnerships, a mid-term duration
paired with a long-term focus, robust monitoring and evaluation,
and flexibility to innovate and adapt to local situations. But it is
among a rarer few that have attempted all of these factors si-
multaneously at a micro, village level where correlation is easier
to gauge.
Less than two years in, the project’s early results are impres-
sive. Yet many questions remain unanswered. Which aspects of
JIVA’s model are most important? Are they mutually inclusive?
Is the model replicable? Is it sustainable? The answers to all of
these questions will help determine whether or not carrying out
the project in a few villages can have broader impact. As the
John Deere Foundation and PYXERA Global seek to build on JIVA’s
encouraging early results and identify opportunities to test the
model’s scale, replication, and impact elsewhere, the answers to
these questions are critical.
So, what makes a development project successful? In the
absence of definitive criteria, examples of the alternative come
quickly to mind. Indeed, sharing missteps is important for the
success of future programs, but success is not the opposite of
failure. Understanding what doesn’t work is equally as important
as understanding what does. Lessons learned from projects like
JIVA can help shape the expectations of future initiatives and test
innovations at scale. With better goals and measurement thereof,
practitioners can better evaluate the industry’s progress, where
success means one day becoming obsolete.
A J IVA f ie ld coordinator leads an af terschool tutor ing c lass with students in Morra v i l lage.
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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.
MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS MAY COME OUT OF THE LAB.BUT THEY BEGIN IN THE 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
MerckAd_Lab_Full_Clr.indd 1 12/20/12 12:44 PM
PARTNERSHIP IS THE FINEST FORM OF FLATTERY
Amanda MacArthur
“PARTNERSHIP” IS TO RELATIONSHIPS WHAT “VANILLA” IS TO ICE CREAM.
It has been so overused, in many cases
with no real definition. A previously
useful word has fallen prey to what
some might call “the jargon curse.”
Much too often the term partnership is
deployed in support of a relationship that
does not reflect the true intent behind the
definition: “A relationship between indi-
viduals or groups that is characterized by
mutual cooperation and responsibility, as
for the achievement of a specified goal.”
The key to “partnerships” is mutuality—mu-
tual respect, mutual responsibility, mutual
accountability, for a shared goal.
Too often, however, relationships that
are actually hierarchical—vendor-supplier
or donor-beneficiary—are labeled “partner-
ships,” without the authentic engagement
that recognizes the expertise and capa-
bilities of both organizations to make the
whole greater than the sum of its parts.
At PYXERA Global, where authentic partner-
ship is at the organization’s very core, the
apparent trivialization through jargon has
been a concern. It was a real pleasure,
then, to join a panel at the Commit!Forum
in New York City, with Deborah Holmes
from EY and Gina Tesla from IBM, to speak
about the changing nature of partnerships
and how they can evolve from a manage-
ment construct to a more active ongoing
approach to engagement.
Both EY’s Vantage program and IBM’s
Corporate Service Corps are prime examples
of programs that engage NGOs with specific
expertise in emerging and frontier markets.
Commit!Forum Encourages Authentic Partnership for Social Change
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HAPPENINGSFor its Vantage program, EY partners with
Endeavor, a global nonprofit, to find the
best and the brightest entrepreneurs in
Latin America in need of free consulting
assistance from EY associates. Similarly,
IBM deploys 500 employees a year through
its Corporate Service Corps, providing IBM
employees an important leadership devel-
opment opportunity while simultaneously
building the capacity of organizations in
growth markets. IBM partners with four
NGOs, including PYXERA Global, to identify
the best projects and to support the par-
ticipating employees during their four-week
assignments.
Both IBM and EY initially identified the
very tactical need for local support “on the
ground,” and reached out to organizations
that could help. But this quickly devel-
oped into more strategic relationships. The
two companies highlighted the need for
open dialogue between partners, creating
a “we” mind-set with their partner NGOs,
and developing a communication strategy
that tells the story of their partnership in
a way that speaks to the minds as well as
the hearts of stakeholders—both inside and
outside the company.
The Joint Initiative for Village Advance-
ment (JIVA), is another example of part-
nership. Born primarily of a philanthropic
engagement with John Deere, the program
in rural Rajasthan, India, now has a stra-
tegic and egalitarian structure in which no
one partner is more important than the
other, contributing to improvement in ag-
riculture, education, and infrastructure in
an integrated and impactful manner.
After two days at the Commit!Forum, a
theme emerged around partnership. People
were eager to restore the term to its origi-
nal meaning, ensuring that CSR partner-
ships are strategic, impactful and, perhaps
most importantly, authentic. Sessions such
as a plenary between The Nature Conser-
vancy, Unilever, and The Mosaic Company
highlighted how their partnership, Field To
Market® brings together the many stake-
holders in an agricultural value chain, in-
cluding the conservation community, to
identify strategies for improving the supply
chain across the sector and limiting waste.
In the not-so-distant past, a partnership
between a major conservation organization
and a fertilizer company would have been
unthinkable. Yet, these are the very part-
nerships that will drive solutions to com-
plex challenges, such as feeding the world’s
seven billion people while maintaining the
sanctity of the world’s ecosystem.
Authenticity, however, is not limited to
describing partnership. It also describes
reputation, and in this regard, CVS Health
was the highlight of this year’s Forum. Pres-
ident and CEO Larry Merlo discussed the
company’s decision to stop selling tobacco
products in their retail stores, a decision
that could potentially cost them $2 billion
in revenue. How much is a mission worth?
CVS decided: about $2 billion.
CVS is dedicated to providing an inte-
grated approach to healthcare for the Amer-
ican consumer and selling tobacco products
was in direct conflict with that goal. As an
integral part of many communities and
the first, and sometimes only, access to
healthcare professionals that many people
have, CVS made a strategic—perhaps even
heroic—decision to authentically live into
their values. There is no finer example of
corporate social responsibility than putting
the health of your customers ahead of the
health of your bottom line.
In today’s hyper-connected world,
where consumers have more choices than
ever before and loyalty is defined by Sun-
day’s coupon circulator, being authentically
engaged in the community can make the
difference between positive and negative
earnings reports. It is no longer enough for
companies to simply donate to a cause;
rather they must contribute to a cause in
an authentic way. Such a contribution can
manifest itself in myriad ways: through the
expertise of their employees, as companies
like EY and IBM have done, or through a
partnership that can mutually create and
implement a joint vision like PYXERA Global
and John Deere. When companies ensure
that their core business decisions reflect
their mission, they embrace the opportu-
nity to demonstrate how authentic partner-
ship can move off the jargon bandwagon
and into the real world.
This fa l l , CVS Heal th made the monumental dec is ion to stop sel l ing
tobacco products at i ts CVS/pharmacy locat ions across the country.
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BOOK EXCERPT
THE MVPS OF SELF-REGULATION
Self-regulation is the mechanism for
countering the emotional triggers and
distractions that tend to undermine our
psychological needs for autonomy, related-
ness, and competence (ARC). People need
high-quality self-regulation to help man-
age their workplace experiences if they
ever hope to have an optimal motivational
outlook. Three potent techniques promote
high-quality self-regulation—mindfulness,
values, and purpose. These are the MVPs
of self-regulation.
Mindfulness: The first MVP of self-regu-
lation Mindfulness is noticing—being aware
and attuned to what is happening in the
present moment without judgment or an
automatic reaction. It is a state of being but
is also a skill that requires development
through practice and patience.
People express mindless reactions dif-
ferently. Some convey anger, frustration,
or self-righteous indignation by yelling,
ranting, or bullying and others by going
silent, being passive-aggressive, or avoid-
ing the person or situation that seems most
responsible for thwarting their psychologi-
cal needs.
When we are not mindful, we tend to
react with typical behavior patterns—many
of which we are born with or have acquired
unconsciously through life experience—or
uncontrolled emotions when we feel
• We are pressured or lack control
over a person or situation (an ab-
sence of autonomy)
• A person or organization has dis-
appointed us or let us down (an
absence of relatedness)
• We don’t have the ability to cope
effectively with the person or situ-
ation (an absence of competence)
Mindfulness, however, provides a view
of reality without the filters, self-centered
thoughts, and historical conditioning that
tint your outlook.
When people are not in control of their
reactions, their lack of mindfulness reflects
low-quality self-regulation. The result is
one of the three suboptimal motivational
outlooks:
• Disinterested—People disengage
because they are overwhelmed
but not thoughtfully or through
conscious choice; they are unable
to link the activity with values or
anything meaningful.
• External—They revel in the power
they exert, stimulated by their sta-
tus over others or controlled by an
external reward or incentive.
• Imposed—They feel they have no
other choices and there is only one
way of dealing with the situation.
Ironically, suboptimal energy can be
addictive. It is also exhausting. The rush
of adrenaline generated through self-righ-
teous indignation, the heat of anger, the
thrill of the kill in intense competition—
they can all fuel a person like junk food.
Whether the energy is expressed more
inwardly through passive aggression and
silent disengagement or more outwardly
through frustration or impatience, consider
this: the only way to sustain the negative
energy is to continue being mad, infuriated,
and disappointed in whoever or whatever
sparked the negativity in the first place.
Sustaining negative energy requires fueling
negative energy. It is no way to live.
My wish for people as they explore
mindfulness is to discover how subopti-
mal motivational outlook energy pales in
comparison to the energy generated in an
optimal motivational outlook.
Mindfulness and ARC are directly linked.
The high-quality self-regulation that comes
from mindfulness is highly relevant to a
person’s motivational outlook. Kirk Warren
Brown, a leading mindfulness researcher,
reports on how mindfulness links to a di-
rect experience of psychological needs. In
other words, when people are mindful, it is
almost impossible for them not to experi-
ence ARC. The neuroscience of mindful-
ness is fascinating. Brain scans show that
mindfulness and the experience of ARC
activate the same part of your brain. The
more mindful you are, the more likely you
are to satisfy your psychological needs.
A space exists between what is hap-
pening to you and the way you react to it.
Mindfulness is that space. This is where
you can choose how to respond.
When a person is mindful, she experi-
ences a heightened sense of autonomy
because she is not controlled by her own
Motivation: it’s not something you can do for people. It’s something the best leaders enable individuals to find for themselves.
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potentially misconstrued and misaligned
self-concept based on irrelevant past ex-
periences. In this mindful state, a person
is better able to experience relatedness
because she can be genuinely concerned
about another person without self-serving
interpretations or prejudice. Mindfulness
also enhances her competence because
without the knee-jerk response, she has
options for making more appropriate choic-
es—she is better able to navigate and mas-
ter whatever situation she finds herself in.
When people are mired in their preju-
diced version of reality, they have fewer
options for coping with that reality.
VALUES: THE SECOND MVP OF SELF-REGULATION
Values are premeditated, cognitive stan-
dards of what a person considers good
or bad, worse, better, or best. Values are
enduring beliefs a person has chosen to
accept as guidelines for how he works—and
lives his life.
Values are at the heart of high-quality
self-regulation, yet most individuals have
not explored their own work-related values.
I find this ironic. If you stop people in the
hallway at work and ask them to list their
organization’s values, purpose, or mission
statement, chances are they will come
close. Today, promoting organizational val-
ues and purpose is an accepted business
practice. This is a good thing. However,
we cannot stop there. Individuals need to
identify, develop, clarify, declare, and op-
erationalize their own work-related values
and purpose—and then determine how they
align with the organization’s values.
Employees with clarified values are
more likely to experience high-quality
self-regulation despite inevitable workplace
demands and challenges. But therein lies
the problem. First, people need to have de-
veloped values! If values are mechanisms
for change and good decision making,
shouldn’t all individuals in the organization
have clarity about their own values—and
how they align, or not, with the organiza-
tion’s?
Developing workplace values for your-
self and with your people is worth the in-
vestment of time. Linking developed values
to a challenging task, goal, or situation
activates a shift between a suboptimal mo-
tivational outlook and optimal motivational
outlook.
A developed value is freely chosen
from alternatives, with an understanding
of the consequences of the alternatives. It
is prized and cherished. It is acted upon
over time. An intriguing aspect of values is
that developing them tends to be a mindful
process that reflects not only what we need
to flourish but what others need as well.
Acting upon developed values helps us sat-
isfy our psychological needs. To guide your
people’s shift to an optimal motivational
outlook, help them self-regulate by linking
assigned tasks, goals, or projects to their
developed values. For you to do that, your
people need to have developed values—and
to have you as a good role model.
PURPOSE: THE THIRD MVP OF SELF-REGULATION
Purpose is a deep and meaningful rea-
son for doing something. Purpose is acting
with a noble intention—when your actions
are infused with social significance.
As consultant and author Dr. Charles
Garfield drove over the San Francisco–Oak-
land Bay Bridge on his way to work, he
heard loud music coming from the tollbooth
he was about to enter. He rolled down his
window to pay his toll and found a dancing
tollbooth operator. “I’m having a party,” the
operator declared. Dr. Garfield drove away
more joyful than he did most mornings and
realized he had just experienced a peak-
performing tollbooth operator.
Intrigued, Dr. Garfield followed up and
discovered that the young man’s purpose
in life was to be a dancer. His coworkers
described their booths as “vertical coffins,”
but this young man saw it as a stage for
performing and his job as an opportunity
to dance. He developed a philosophy about
his job, created an environment to support
his vision, and happened to entertain those
he served. Research on peak performers
confirms what you might suspect about
people who attain high levels of success
and sustain it over time. Peak perform-
ers are not goal driven. Peak performers
are values based and inspired by a noble
purpose.
The danger of drive is that it distracts
people from what really makes them dance.
People are more likely to meet or exceed
expectations when they pursue goals
within a context of a meaningful purpose.
If, for some reason, the dancing tollbooth
operator were failing to achieve his goals
of collecting correct fees and preventing
backups on the bridge, as his manager, you
would know the root of the problem: His
work-related role, values, and purpose are
not synched. However, odds are that this
peak performer is achieving both your goals
for him and his personal, purpose-based
goals for himself.
Employees who have clarified their
personal values and vision and integrated
them with their organization’s stated values
and vision are likely to be living, working,
and even dancing purposefully.
Most organizations have a vision, mis-
sion, or purpose statement, but few em-
ployees have one for their work- related
role. This is a lost opportunity and a shame.
Without a noble purpose, what is entic-
ing employees away from the daily bom-
bardment of junk foods? Without a higher
cause or sense of meaning, why give up
those French fries or wait for the promised
marshmallow?
Collaborate with your employees to find
alignment between their perception of their
role-related values and purpose and your
perception. Come to conclusions together
that meet both their needs and those of the
organization. Acting with a noble purpose
reflects the highest-quality self-regulation.
Printed from the book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging, by Susan
Fowler with the permission of Berrett-Koheler Publishers 2014. www.bkconnection.com
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