First of all, pictures from my homestay are now posted on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178467&id=617471723&l=bfc55f0c4b
This week we visited the Windhoek offices of USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), which has a particularly convenient acronym, since their job is to spend foreign aid money from the United States government. See: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/countries/namibia/index.html It was interesting to get to talk to them to hear about some of the work that they are doing and learn about how they decide what projects get funded (answer: it is mostly determined by congressional earmarks).
This week our group also read a few chapters from Dead Aid (http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Aid-Working-Better-Africa/dp/0374532125/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top). This book argues that foreign aid has been harmful in a number of ways and is in fact responsible for a number of current problems in various African countries. I am convinced by her arguments that foreign aid has, in at least some cases, been quite harmful (or at least not particularly helpful), but I am not convinced that foreign aid is inherently flawed and cannot possibly be helpful, as she seems to argue in the selections we read....
This week, we are traveling to Swakopmund on the Atlantic coast. We'll be visiting a research center, an "export processing zone" (foreign companies get various financial incentives to operate from there), a uranium mine (mining is a big industry in Namibia), and a couple of other programs. We'll also get to do some touristy things like climb a sand dune and go to the beach...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Basic Income Grant
Today, we met with a person from the Basic Income Grant Coalition for Namibia. (http://www.bignam.org/index.html). Namibia has among the highest levels of wealth inequality in the world, with a Gini Coefficient of about .68 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient). The Basic Income Grant is one proposal for trying to address this problem. The plan would be that every person in the country would get 100 Namibian dollars (about 14 US dollars) every month from the government, to be paid for most likely with increased income taxes on the rich. EVERYONE would get the grant, regardless of their existing wealth or income (but wealthy people would end up paying back the grant plus some extra in increased taxes).
The idea is that since many people in the country struggle to pay for food, school fees, medical expenses, etc. on an ongoing basis, this money would allow them to pay for the basics (with the added benefits of less crime--stealing things to pay for food, and more education--since school fees will get paid, etc.). Additionally, there will be much higher demand for various goods (since people can actually afford to pay for things). People can use the money to start small shops and businesses (which would be able to sell things to the people who now actually have some money that they are able to spend), and in the process the new businesses would create an additional source of income for the people running them (and possibly hire additional employees).....who will then have additional income that they can spend elsewhere, etc.
The group advocating for this proposal ran a pilot study for two years in one village, which was extremely successful (over the two years, the town greatly improved its malnutrition rates, crime rates, school attendance rates, etc.). The link above has lots more information about this. I think the Basic Income Grant is a really cool idea, but I'm not yet convinced that it would necessarily work if rolled out on a national level (but it's possible that there is not any additional useful research that could be done short of actually just implementing nationally and seeing if it will work).
My first concern is that this creates huge inflationary pressures on prices for things that people would likely want to try to buy particularly in small shops in various towns that can easily adjust their prices. If you were to draw a circle around most neighborhoods, towns, and villages, there will be a significant net influx of money into the areas (excluding only the few rich neighborhoods). Since there is suddenly lots more money in those areas, prices could rise pretty quickly. Ideally, the added demand would allow new shops to open up and eventually bring down prices, but I'm not sure how long it would take for people to save enough money to start new business (particularly if the cost of doing business is higher because the increase in prices becomes fairly widespread). The worst-case scenario would be that this inflation does end up occurring, and then the government gets politically pressured into pegging the dollar value of the grant to the (now somewhat higher) cost of living, which could cause prices to increase even more, and further increase the cost of living, leading to a vicious cycle of inflation. The argument that the value of the monthly grants should be increased to match the cost of living does actually seem pretty fair (and would certainly be popular), which makes that scenario kind of scary. I haven't studied enough economics to know how likely such a scenario is, but it doesn't seem impossible.
Also, one thing that was observed in the town doing the pilot study was that people from other places moved to the town once the grants started to be distributed (the newcomers weren't eligible for grants themselves, but being in the town was apparently financially desirable anyway....although its not clear if this was just due to the fact that family relatives who did get the grants were sharing with the newcomers or also whether the town economy was strengthened enough to make it worthwhile to move there simply due to more jobs and opportunities being available due to the presence of the grants). It seems that most of these people moved from nearby towns and rural areas into the particular town. If the basic income grant is rolled out nationally, people wouldn't have any reason to move from town to town to benefit from the grant....however, I can guess that people from other countries (relatives of Namibians, or not) would likely try to move into the country. I don't know whether there would a plan to address this...
Overall, I think it is a really cool idea, and I hope it can be successful. I'm not sure it is possible to know exactly what will happen if it is rolled out nationally without simply just trying to roll it out nationally and seeing what happens. There seems to be a growing consensus that a government-run national basic income grant is inevitable (first of all, many people think it seems like a really good idea...and second of all, getting an extra N$100 every month is, understandably, something that most people will probably support!). I'm curious to see what happens with this....
The idea is that since many people in the country struggle to pay for food, school fees, medical expenses, etc. on an ongoing basis, this money would allow them to pay for the basics (with the added benefits of less crime--stealing things to pay for food, and more education--since school fees will get paid, etc.). Additionally, there will be much higher demand for various goods (since people can actually afford to pay for things). People can use the money to start small shops and businesses (which would be able to sell things to the people who now actually have some money that they are able to spend), and in the process the new businesses would create an additional source of income for the people running them (and possibly hire additional employees).....who will then have additional income that they can spend elsewhere, etc.
The group advocating for this proposal ran a pilot study for two years in one village, which was extremely successful (over the two years, the town greatly improved its malnutrition rates, crime rates, school attendance rates, etc.). The link above has lots more information about this. I think the Basic Income Grant is a really cool idea, but I'm not yet convinced that it would necessarily work if rolled out on a national level (but it's possible that there is not any additional useful research that could be done short of actually just implementing nationally and seeing if it will work).
My first concern is that this creates huge inflationary pressures on prices for things that people would likely want to try to buy particularly in small shops in various towns that can easily adjust their prices. If you were to draw a circle around most neighborhoods, towns, and villages, there will be a significant net influx of money into the areas (excluding only the few rich neighborhoods). Since there is suddenly lots more money in those areas, prices could rise pretty quickly. Ideally, the added demand would allow new shops to open up and eventually bring down prices, but I'm not sure how long it would take for people to save enough money to start new business (particularly if the cost of doing business is higher because the increase in prices becomes fairly widespread). The worst-case scenario would be that this inflation does end up occurring, and then the government gets politically pressured into pegging the dollar value of the grant to the (now somewhat higher) cost of living, which could cause prices to increase even more, and further increase the cost of living, leading to a vicious cycle of inflation. The argument that the value of the monthly grants should be increased to match the cost of living does actually seem pretty fair (and would certainly be popular), which makes that scenario kind of scary. I haven't studied enough economics to know how likely such a scenario is, but it doesn't seem impossible.
Also, one thing that was observed in the town doing the pilot study was that people from other places moved to the town once the grants started to be distributed (the newcomers weren't eligible for grants themselves, but being in the town was apparently financially desirable anyway....although its not clear if this was just due to the fact that family relatives who did get the grants were sharing with the newcomers or also whether the town economy was strengthened enough to make it worthwhile to move there simply due to more jobs and opportunities being available due to the presence of the grants). It seems that most of these people moved from nearby towns and rural areas into the particular town. If the basic income grant is rolled out nationally, people wouldn't have any reason to move from town to town to benefit from the grant....however, I can guess that people from other countries (relatives of Namibians, or not) would likely try to move into the country. I don't know whether there would a plan to address this...
Overall, I think it is a really cool idea, and I hope it can be successful. I'm not sure it is possible to know exactly what will happen if it is rolled out nationally without simply just trying to roll it out nationally and seeing what happens. There seems to be a growing consensus that a government-run national basic income grant is inevitable (first of all, many people think it seems like a really good idea...and second of all, getting an extra N$100 every month is, understandably, something that most people will probably support!). I'm curious to see what happens with this....
Monday, June 21, 2010
Today
Today my group met with one of the Deputy Directors of the National Planning Commission for Namibia. This is the agency that is tasked with planning for what kinds of development projects the government should emphasize in the short and long term. They created "Vision 2030," an ideal for what the country will be like in the year 2030. We read some of this document in class, but it was nicely summarized by our presenter as: "basically, by 2030, we want to live like you guys [referring to the Americans in the room], whatever that means."
As a sidenote, it is interesting to be in a country that is so new (~20 years since independence) and which has such a small population (~2 million) so the scale is so small that people and institutions that are extremelly influential on the national level are relatively easily accessible...
Back to national development: it is actually a very interesting question regarding development as to what being "more developed" actually should mean. In many cases, the answer seems to end up being to try to make the institutions and culture of [insert country here] more like the institutions and culture of the US....which is a little strange since the US doesn't tend to rank at the top of such things such as life satisfaction. Apparently, instead of judging its own success by how much its GDP has increased, the country of Bhutan has instead started measuring its "Gross National Happiness (GNH)." (See http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/).
Coincidentally, today's TED talk is related: http://www.ted.com/talks/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html
As mentioned in that talk, I think that a country that is helping people move up Maslow's Hierachy is indeed making development "progress," whether or not GDP is increasing....
As a sidenote, it is interesting to be in a country that is so new (~20 years since independence) and which has such a small population (~2 million) so the scale is so small that people and institutions that are extremelly influential on the national level are relatively easily accessible...
Back to national development: it is actually a very interesting question regarding development as to what being "more developed" actually should mean. In many cases, the answer seems to end up being to try to make the institutions and culture of [insert country here] more like the institutions and culture of the US....which is a little strange since the US doesn't tend to rank at the top of such things such as life satisfaction. Apparently, instead of judging its own success by how much its GDP has increased, the country of Bhutan has instead started measuring its "Gross National Happiness (GNH)." (See http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/).
Coincidentally, today's TED talk is related: http://www.ted.com/talks/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html
As mentioned in that talk, I think that a country that is helping people move up Maslow's Hierachy is indeed making development "progress," whether or not GDP is increasing....
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Back from my homestay!
I just got back from my 10-day homestay. I was staying with a woman named Rosie, Rosie's son Mavin (in his 20's), Rosie's daughter Maggie, and Maggie's daughter Rosinha (6 years old). I work at my internship every weekday (except Tuesday when I have classes), so I spent evenings and weekends with the family.
We ate lots of rice, with onions and other veggies, potatoes, fruit and lots of meat. I also got to eat pap, a fluffy tastless white food kind of similar to mashed potatoes, but with a more solid structure....I'm not exactly sure what it is made out of.
We watched lots of TV including lots of World Cup games (which are on at approx 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. every day here). I think the commentary at halftime on NBC ("Namibian Broadcasting Company) is funny. We also watched lots of evening "soapies," various daily shows from around the world. A few originate in South Africa--those are interesting because the characters sometimes switch between Afrikans and English within a single conversation (there are always English subtitles). There are other soapies from a few central/south American countries--dubbed into English.
There are lots of ads for cell phones on TV. There are two main competing cell phone companies in Namibia, one of which, MTC--"Make The Connection", has a much larger market share. The way people typically use cell phones is to buy prepaid time on little blue cards which have a code they can call in to "recharge" their phones. These cards are for sale everywhere in stores and from street vendors. There are also a number of special offers that can be paid for with a bit of extra money. Both major cell phone companies are currently running nearly identical ads in which two different people are simulataneously making similar calls on both networks with the price on one side ticking up as the person talks while the price on the other side stays at zero for the whole call (the other company airing the exact opposite ad). It seems that both are actually could be correct depending on who the people in either ad are calling ("10 best friends", "anyone within using a particular network," etc.). Lots of people have cell phones here--texting ("SMSing") is done frequently. The "Grandma" in my host family even has a cell phone....althought she claims to only sort of know how to make and receive simple calls ......this sounds like my Grandma!
Last Sunday I got to go to church with Rosie, which was a very interesting experience, considering that I am definitely not a born-again Christian. The vast majority of the country identifies as Christian. The church was relatively far away from the house, and the church sent a covered pickup truck to pick up several of the people (including us) since the other vehicle they had planned to send had broken down--a bunch of very dressed up people riding to church in the bad of a pickup truck! The service itself was almost entirely in Afrikans, so I didn't really understand much of what was happening....
My host "sister" works a Windhoek Central Hospital in the oncology ward. I got to spend a day last week watching the world cup with all of the patients (they all crowded into a common room to watch the game. That was fun!
I have a bunch of pictures from the week. I'll try to post them on Facebook tonight....the internet is very slow, so it will take many hours...I'll try to let them start uploading overnight...we'll see how that works.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
update
This week, we had our first development class. It seems like it will be a good course, and I'm looking forward to the next class next week (the class meets for 4 hours every Tuesday).
The rest of the days each week, I am working at Physically Active Youth (PAY) which is an afterschool program which does academic, athletic, life skills, and community service stuff with the students. 10th and 12th graders in Namibia take exams that allow them to progress to additional schooling.... I'm working with the 10th-12th graders in the program on their math skills.
Tomorrow we are leaving to do homestays for 10 days. I'm very excited!
The rest of the days each week, I am working at Physically Active Youth (PAY) which is an afterschool program which does academic, athletic, life skills, and community service stuff with the students. 10th and 12th graders in Namibia take exams that allow them to progress to additional schooling.... I'm working with the 10th-12th graders in the program on their math skills.
Tomorrow we are leaving to do homestays for 10 days. I'm very excited!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
First few days
I just finished my second full day here. Over the last few days, we have done a bunch of orientation stuff including taking a driving tour of the different areas of Windhoek and observing the (significant) economic inequality between different neighborhoods. We have also had the opportunity to walk around a bit downtown and explore various landmarks, parks, markets, and malls.
This morning a few of us met with one of the leaders of the SWAPO Youth League. SWAPO is the party that was very active in Namibia's liberation struggle (Namibia gained independence from South Africa ~20 years ago) and SWAPO is currently the ruling party in the government. SWAPO is the only major party in the country, but there are a large number of (much) smaller parties (actually, the Supreme Court is currently in the process of deciding whether SWAPO "stole" the recent election, as the smaller parties have accused...the man we talked to was confident that the court would find no wrong-doing).
There is a hostel/restaurant/bar across the street from our house. The group went there today. For pretty much the first time since I have arrived, I saw people of different races socializing with each other. Even though (de-jure) apartheid ended ~20 years ago, there is a still a large separation between people of different races so much so that in some neighborhoods, it is rare to see anyone of a non-majority race for that area.
In other news, the most difficult cultural adjustment so far (at least for me) is trying to overcome the instinct to move to the right when approaching someone who is walking towards me along a sidewalk or hallway...people seem to move to the left, which makes sense when considering that driving is on the left--also, the correct escalator is always on the left as well....
There is an interesting post on NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof's blog today by a former study abroad student in Ghana.....not directly related to my program, but still interesting: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/malaria-a-students-firsthand-account/
This morning a few of us met with one of the leaders of the SWAPO Youth League. SWAPO is the party that was very active in Namibia's liberation struggle (Namibia gained independence from South Africa ~20 years ago) and SWAPO is currently the ruling party in the government. SWAPO is the only major party in the country, but there are a large number of (much) smaller parties (actually, the Supreme Court is currently in the process of deciding whether SWAPO "stole" the recent election, as the smaller parties have accused...the man we talked to was confident that the court would find no wrong-doing).
There is a hostel/restaurant/bar across the street from our house. The group went there today. For pretty much the first time since I have arrived, I saw people of different races socializing with each other. Even though (de-jure) apartheid ended ~20 years ago, there is a still a large separation between people of different races so much so that in some neighborhoods, it is rare to see anyone of a non-majority race for that area.
In other news, the most difficult cultural adjustment so far (at least for me) is trying to overcome the instinct to move to the right when approaching someone who is walking towards me along a sidewalk or hallway...people seem to move to the left, which makes sense when considering that driving is on the left--also, the correct escalator is always on the left as well....
There is an interesting post on NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof's blog today by a former study abroad student in Ghana.....not directly related to my program, but still interesting: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/malaria-a-students-firsthand-account/
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