The Global Journal

The End of Globalization and Renaissance of The Welfare State

Globalization and its influence on state sovereignty has been undoubtedly a topic of broad discussions and hot debates among academics, experts and policy makers. A popular idea developed recently is “the end of the welfare state” concept echoing that of The End of The History articulated by Francis Fukuyama. The end-of-the-welfare-state advocates usually claim the increasing economic globalization is limiting a number of policy options available to states, which entails a retrenchment of the welfare-state in developed nations. Yet, however clear the standpoint is, no comprehensive and profound explanation is provided on the roots of the phenomenon. Likewise, no policy implications are given based on the analysis of the changing nature of state sovereignty.

The proposed response to the article aims to fill in this gap. I would like to first pick up on the strong elements of the above-mentioned argument. I will then challenge this standpoint by claiming new trends are rising in the world that are anti-globalist in nature. My ultimate argument will be that globalization is in fact coming to a end. The world is entering a new era of post-globalization which could entail renaissance of the welfare-state.

The proponents of “the end of the welfare state” concept assert that capitalism has been changing the nature of state sovereignty. Namely, increasing globalization has undermined the sovereignty of nation-states to enact their own policies. Such limitations come from three main channels – trade and economic integration, financial markets and competition for employment. Furthermore, the neo-liberal ideology has asserted the primacy of the market over everything else, which is manifested via serious cutbacks to the welfare- state. All in all, the state's capacity to fulfil the 'welfare contract' has been undermined in the name of 'competitiveness and economic efficiency'.

The followers of the idea outlined are persuasive about the thesis of globalization-welfare state interrelation in the developed nations. As a rule, there is also an attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the concept of sovereignty. However, a number of important factors are omitted from such analysis, and several terminological confusions are created. All this, in my opinion, decreases the validity of the argument articulated.

As far as terminology is concerned, several remarks can be made. First of all, the concept of globalization is confined to the economic dimension only. There are talks about trade and economic integration, currency devaluation, international competition etc., while other important aspects of globalization are skipped, such as political, national, and cultural. In this regard, such phenomena as supranational entities (EU), transformation of national identities ('global citizenship'), and multiculturalism could be analysed in view of their influence onto the welfare-state. Secondly, the general assertion is the changing nature of sovereignty has led to understanding a nation-state as a 'welfare state'. However, few scholars specify that a welfare-state is a phenomenon of the more developed Western society. In other words, not all nation-states are welfare-states. Such disambiguation is critical in analyzing the ways globalization is affecting the capacity of welfare-states to conduct their policies. Finally, not all definitions are articulated in these discussions, e.g. 'capitalism', 'neo-liberal', 'developed democracies'.

It is the conceptual side of the argument, however, that needs most elaboration in my opinion. Let me explain in detail what can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the topic. I will then conclude my analysis with a counter-argument for the author's thesis, and will reveal the subsequent implications from my argument.

To begin with, the concepts of 'sovereignty' and 'nation-state' need to be analyzed in more detail. The end-of-the-welfare-state advocates tend to demonstrate the shift from 'sovereignty over a state' to 'sovereignty over people'. In both cases it is a state that exercises sovereignty, i.e. we talk about a 'sovereign state'. However, quite a lot in the academic and expert circles are talking rather about the sovereignty of the market, including such scholars as Colin Crouch, Saskia Sassen and Zygmunt Bauman. Thus, Crouch’s main contention is that the key institution of the post-democratic world is the global firm; Saskia Sassen explores economic and corporate citizenship under the hegemony of the world market; Zygmunt Bauman stipulates the sovereignty of a state and nation is being replaced by the sovereignty of the market. Indeed, the traditional national-democratic and social-democratic political model is based on the idea of a state or national sovereignty. Today, in contrast, we can witness the sovereignty of the world market which influences the structure of power, its responsibilities and the state-citizen relationship in every nation-state that ceases to be 'national' and is 'fading away'.

Furthermore, the changing nature of the sovereignty triggers transformation of the nation-state itself. Globalization has weakened the 'national dimension' of nation-states. Today a new type of a state is being constructed all around the globe. This is corporation-state, a candidate for replacing the 'outdated' nation-state that reached its peak of development in the period of 1850-1970's. Corporation-state is an entity of a primarily economic character (vs. political in a nation-state) aimed at minimizing costs and expenses. This is a state that acts as a corporation ruled by the economic effectiveness of the 'survival of the fittest'. The process of constructing such a state is taking place all over the world. It is slower where there is a civil society, a deep religious tradition (especially non-Western one), strong national identity, or where a states has big territory. Where is nothing to confront with, the process is sweeping and even violent.

My second claim to the-end-of-the-welfare-state argumentation is declaring 'a global economic foundation' a root cause for the changing nature of sovereignty and welfare-state. I agree globalization has diminished the sovereign capacity of nation-states for the last thirty years. In my view, however, the main reason for this shift is a deliberate act of the Western elites to dismantle the welfare-state, a process intensified by the end of the Cold War. On the factual side, the decline of 'The Glorious Thirty' (1945-1975) started with abandoning the Bretton Woods system by the US and the 1973 oil crisis. Two years later 'The Crisis of Democracy' report was written by Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki at the request of the Trilateral Commission. This report clearly challenged the social achievements of the working class during 'The Glorious Thirty' period. It stated that further industrial development would entail a rapid growth of the working and middle classes, which could in turn bring about unwanted political forces. Thus, the shift from the policy of welfare-state to the policy of market fundamentalism (or neo-liberalism) was first initiated by Margaret Thatcher in Great in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in the US in 1981. This was accompanied by a decreasing technological progress, growing deindustrialization, and promoting fantasy to replace science fiction with for the mass culture. In other words, an attempt was made to create the 'New Middle Ages'.

Finally, while many talk about "decreasing the size and scope of the welfare state", perhaps the most important outcome of the process is omitted – social inequality. Increase in social inequality has been an alarming world trend lately affecting the US, the EU and the less prosperous countries. A serious structural social change is taking place with the middle class fading away. The social gap is increasing, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Today the growth of GDP and national economies is no longer connected with the growth of well-being of nations, bur rather means increase in revenue of corporations and their top managers. In this regard, 'The New York Times' – a newspaper unlikely to be claimed 'socialist' – declared in one of the recent articles inequality undermines democracy, reporting it 'breeds resentment and political instability, eroding the legitimacy of democratic institutions'.

With all the considerations mentioned above, a question remains open: what happens to globalization? It has been claimed we are witnessing the crisis of the neoliberal model and the US hegemony. Combined with the current global economic crisis, the chances are very likely that globalization will turn drastically into ‘deglobalization’ and ‘regionalization’. And more and more signs are there to indicate the shift is taking place. The current crisis is exceptionally deep and structural, and cannot be resolved without a state interference into economy. In contrast, neo-liberalism hinders the capacity of states to conduct independent policies, and must therefore be reconsidered. The new world economic order will therefore mean decline of neo-liberalism in order to overcome the ongoing crisis. This will inevitably imply re-constructing the welfare-state as healthy, educated and socially-secured population is indispensable for the economic growth.

Let me draw a conclusion at this stage. Unlike the advocates of “the end of the welfare state” concept, who leave an open question on what or who will provide the economic and social rights to citizens, I strongly assert it is crucial to reinforce the welfare-state in order to cope with the challenges of the newly emerging world order. Only a renaissance of the social welfare-state may be a viable alternative to a corporation-state. It is this trend that, optimistically, will make the world economically more stable and politically acceptable.

The Long Arm of the National Security-Communications Industry Complex

This is a story about more than just the national security implications of government surveillance, but it begins there.

The New York Times reported in a front page story earlier this month that the Central Intelligence Agency is paying AT&T in excess of $10 million annually for information from the company’s telephone records, including the international calls of U.S. citizens. The article pointed out that this work "is conducted under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders compelling the company to participate, according to officials." The story adds yet another chapter to the still-unfolding revelations about National Security Agency surveillance. Every week seems to bring new reports about the close and almost seamless ties that bind the several intelligence agencies to the huge telecom and broadband companies that bestride our nation’s communications infrastructure.

When I became a Member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2001, I assumed I would be privy to at least a credible amount of information about what the companies under FCC oversight were doing behind the scenes. My expectations went unfulfilled.

Did I expect the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information to be shared with me? No, I did not. But would it have been helpful for me to know more about how the industry executives who visited me on a whole range of non-national security communications industry issues were at the same time working hand-in-glove with the White House and these secretive agencies on a far more intimate and confidential basis than I was? Yes, absolutely.

Warnings about various special interest-government complexes hearken back to President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech wherein he warned of the dangers that the military-industrial complex held for democratic government. Historians consider Ike’s admonition as a high-point of his Presidency. Since that speech almost 53 years ago, the influence of special interests and corporate power has only grown -- at the White House, in Congress, and among the federal agencies.

Maybe I’m a slow learner, or maybe I just wasn’t supposed to know, but it finally dawned on me that the CEOs and top management who came calling on me at the FCC were far better informed and connected than I was -- because their companies were the ones running these sensitive monitoring and surveillance operations in behalf of the national security agencies. It was, very often, their workers and their technologies that drove the process. Meanwhile, industry leaders themselves served on such influential but hush-hush boards as The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

As I began to grasp the power of these huge companies to leverage their influence on non-national security matters, I also began to understand that my influence as a Commissioner at an independent federal agency was more limited than I had thought. In a lengthy July 25, 2013 article in the National Journal, Chief Correspondent Michael Hirsh traced in considerable detail how our nation’s leading telecom and tech companies supported -- and even helped create -- the “surveillance state.” It is, of course, a story going back long before Iraq and Afghanistan to the days of World War II, and it’s the stuff of a thriller novel -- except it’s not that entertaining.

Hirsh tells how the NSA became an influential voice in the evolution of our communications systems, becoming a “major presence” in such seemingly non-defense decisions as industry mergers and consolidations. But these transactions weren’t “non-defense” to the intelligence agencies. On the contrary, it was easier and more efficient for the agencies to deal with huge industry players where the number of decision-makers was narrowed and where the sheer power of size helped get the national security job done.

It wasn’t news to me that these huge companies wielded far-reaching power all across Washington. I just didn’t realize how much power until I had been there a while. Then I began to think: what difference does it make if one or two Commissioners at the FCC don’t approve of a pending merger between telecom giants? (And, goodness knows, there are plenty of such transactions!) I conjured up images of a national security agency meeting at the White House and someone saying, “This guy Copps down at the FCC is opposed to this merger.” And I could envision a White House or national security type saying, “So what? These companies are working with us on all kinds of secret projects, and that takes precedence over any Commissioner’s worries about diminishing competition in communications or about consumer protection.”

And so the consolidation bazaar rolls on, companies continue to merge, and we find ourselves in a world wherein a few dominant players drive the last spikes into the coffin of competition. I am not arguing that national security concerns alone brought us to this point; there are plenty of other reasons that Big Telecom wants to grow even bigger. I am saying that both parties to this national security-communications industry complex derived great benefits (in their eyes) from this partnership. I am saying the tentacles of this cooperative enterprise reach widely and deeply into many aspects of our national life. And I am saying the American people need to know more -- much more -- about this.

We can argue the pros and cons of national security surveillance, and it is a debate worth having. But this debate needs to be informed by facts. Maybe we can’t have all the facts in all their detail, but certainly we need more than we presently possess. There is a point where national security depends upon secrecy. There is also a point where national security depends upon sunlight. The balance is sadly out-of-whack right now, and we are paying the price in the loss of government credibility both at home and abroad.

Finally, we need to conduct this discussion in a broader context because it is part of even larger issues. Every day brings non-national security revelations about companies developing and deploying new ways to invade our personal space, capture every available fact about our daily lives and habits, and share them for purely commercial benefit. This is not an issue separate from what I have been discussing in this piece. And, as deeply troubling as the privacy and consumer issues are, the implications for democracy are just as severe. Open communications are a prerequisite of self-government. Any short-circuiting of this openness diminishes the ability of free people to chart their own democratic future.

[The Benton Foundation publishes articles penned by Commissioner Copps each month for our Digital Beat Blog.]

Good Governance on the Ground in Ethiopia

The concept good governance emerged as a development agenda by World Bank twenty years ago. The 1989 World Bank study, “Sub-Saharan Africa – from Crisis to Sustainable Growth” (1), indicated good governance as a public service that is efficient, a judicial system that is reliable, and an administration that is accountable to the public. In its 1992 report entitled “Governance and Development”(2), the Bank defined good governance as “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development”.

Further in the 1994, the “Governance: The World Bank’s Experience” (3) report identified four elements of good governance: Public-sector management, Accountability, Legal framework for development, and Transparency and information. On the other hand, the Asian Development Bank (4) stated Accountability, Participation, Predictability and Transparency as basic elements of good governance. The African Development Bank and African Development Fund (5) on their part came with Accountability, Transparency, Combating corruption, Participation Legal and judicial reform in support of good governance in the continent. UNDP ‘s policy document, “Governance for Sustainable Human Development” (6), listed Participation, Rule of law, Transparency, Consensus orientation, Equity, Effectiveness and efficiency, Accountability and Strategic vision as essential characteristics of good governance. Furthermore, authors like Graham, Amos and Plumptre (7) tried to set five principles of good governance for the 21st century. These include legitimacy and voice, direction, performance, accountability and fairness, and linked them with the UNDP’s features of good governance. Common to all are accountability, transparency, participation, reliable judicial and legal system and the rest are somehow mutually inclusive.

The Twelve Ethical principles in Ethiopian civil Service have stemmed from the aforementioned lists of good governance constituents. Decentralization, public-private partnership, and other change management models have been echoed for years. However, the practice on the ground remains an area of scrutiny.

Here are few not-good governance practices in Ethiopia

Where the Federal Audit General’s three or more consecutive years report ranked education sector among the top as very poor in managing public finance, but schools and universities have faced shortage of education facilities and citizens’ are crying for quality education; on the other hand Speaker of House of the parliament and top government officials are defending that it does not mean a corruption;

- Where bribery, extortion, favoritism, or nepotism in selecting teachers for promotion, upgrading, or grants; fraud to obtain teaching jobs; capture of recruitment by groups with vested interests; fraud in certification (transcripts and certificates) —risks are high;

- Where your literacy and numeracy program with whatsoever name like Integrated Functional Adult Education (IFAE) found to be astray and indeed evaluated as downsides of the sector for the last three or so years but millions left illiterate;

- Where some classrooms in the inner city of Addis are left empty but children in the peripheral areas either attend school on shift bases or have never been to school; when it is seldom possible for the government to ensure national curriculum implementation and support educational institutions to prepare citizens’ in line with the education policy objectives;

- Where the drafted education law is downplayed for unknown reasons; and unlike Republic of South Africa’s education and finance ministers, ours are not being taken to court over poor standards at schools. But, startlingly promoted to the level of deputy PM;

- Where Ethiopian Telecommunication downsized its employee size and employed “letter” economics in its naming (from 26 to 12 letters of Ethiotelecom) without any significant improvements in the service; working under exacerbating connectivity problem that is found to be a bottleneck in the business and others activities; contradicting with e-governance principles; negatively affected career of those who were laid off and their families;

- Where the sole electricity supplier corporation always emphasizes on transformation capacity related problems for frequent power interruption; and labels the citizens government “dependent” (tebakinet), but too late to respond to the poor quality procurement of equipments;

- Where the state enterprises like regional water works and construction have been gripped in corrupt acts and the projects (Borena, Addis Ababa Zuria, Fentale, Didesa area etc) ceased or left planned; but millions are thirsty, food insecure;

- Where the civil service cannot address dissatisfactions in the pay scales; whereas sector officials’ willingness alone makes things to happen rather than research based reform via thorough scrutiny and job grading. Where some government organizations (Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority (ERCA), Technical and Vocational Education, Training Center of competency, Ministry of Urban Construction and Development...) have made a pay reform, others have been prohibited the vertical and horizontal career growth;

- Where one of the major state revenue source— custom tax subject to swindle by merchants and ERCA employees and officials; where the current corruption scandal in the ERCA divulges the futility of salary increment as a corruption prevention instrument;

- Where government officials are driving the latest Toyota models; villas and other accommodations valued in millions of birr are provided and indeed awaiting after their post; but urging public participation in development activities, telling us budget deficit; citizens are fighting to death on the worsening situation of urban transportation (even in areas off light train project); Where you as a “citizen” are told to give up a month salary for the second round to finance Grand Millennium Dam Project, but consulted only on payment period (a monthly salary in how many years?) than let you participate on the amount you afford;

- Where the food item and other consumption goods price hike, but the regulatory measures intensifying than resolving the problem; when the consumers’ right protection and consumers’ cooperatives cannot stabilize the market;

- Where grievances related to quality service provision fall on deaf ears, but traditional denunciation and self denunciation have been taking place in government offices without any value addition or often worsening the situation;

Finally, wrap up with what Camilla Louise Bjerkli concluded after a 7-year (2004-2011) thorough investigation of urban environmental governance in Addis Ababa which likely holds true for other sectors: “As long as the culture within [the] city administration and its political control persist and as long as this political control dominates the relationship between the city administration and civil society it is most likely that there will not be any improvements in the city... It is critical that the Ethiopian government be willing to genuinely commit to the policies it has adopted and to change its ways of asserting control.”

Notes

1. World Bank, 1989. Sub-Saharan Africa – from Crisis to Sustainable Growth: A Long Term Perspective study. The World Bank, Washington DC

2. World Bank, 1992. Governance and Development. The World Bank, Washington DC

3. World Bank, 1994. Governance: the World Bank’s Experience. The World Bank, Washington DC

4. Asian Development Bank (AsDB), 1995. Governance: Sound Development Management. http://www.asianlii.org/asia/other/ADBLPRes/1997/1.pdf accessed 4/3/2013

5. African Development Bank & African Development Fund Bank Group Policy on Good Governance. November 1999 http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Policy-Documents/21-EN-Bank_Group_Policy_on_Good_Governance.pdf accessed date 10/3/2013

6. UNDP, 1997. Governance for Sustainable Human Development http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lebanon/254/cheema.htm accessed date 13 /3/2013

7. John Graham, Bruce Amos and Tim Plumptre, 2003. Principles for Good Governance in the 21st Century Policy Brief No.15. Institute of Governance

8. Camilla Louise Bjerkli, 2013. Governance on the Ground: A Study of Solid Waste Management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37(4):1273–87 July 2013 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2013.01214.x/pdf

The Digital Wake-up Call Europe and Asia Cannot Ignore

After Europe, the « Snowden » revelations virus is now spreading to Asia. Like their European counterparts, Asian governments are discovering the extent of the digital surveillance put in place by the American NSA. When they meet in New Delhi on November 11, European and Asian foreign ministers cannot ignore Washington’s digital wake-up call.

For once, the incoming annual Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM) ministerial conference can make a difference. Expected to convene in New Delhi, India, on November 11 and 12, foreign ministers of the 51 Asian and European countries involved in this forum created in 1996 may have a shared outrage to debate.

The subject of this diplomatic anger is the extensive digital spying network put in place by the United States and revealed by the now Moscow-based NSA leaker Edward Snowden. On October 24-25 in Brussels, the documents he released, proving that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's electronic communications were intercepted, dominated discussions at the European Union (EU) leaders’ summit. And now, it is Asia's turn to experience such a digital storm: China and South East Asian countries have loudly protested after new revelations about Washington's secret electronic data collection program in their part of the world.

When they meet in New Delhi, ASEM foreign ministers will have a choice. Either they remain officially silent on this common issue, to avoid reopening a delicate rift on privacy, security, and citizen's electronic rights between Asia and Europe, or they face the music and admit the blunt reality: in today's digital world, in the shadow of American Internet giant corporations, time has come to address, at both a bilateral and a multilateral level, the strategic question of Internet governance and data protection.

Interestingly, part of the preparatory work to such a crucial discussion has already been done. This subject of extensive US data interceptions and the current impossibility for countries to protect their digital sovereignty by and large dominated the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Bali, Indonesia, 21-25 October. This coincidence is telling in itself: while European leaders in Brussels were feeling somewhat betrayed by the extent of the Obama administration’s spying apparatus, digital experts and stakeholders from around the globe were gathered in Indonesia's most famous resort island to exchange ideas on the best way to achieve a correct balance between digital freedom, digital sovereignty, and cyber security.

The IGF was never supposed to make decisions or to draft formal conclusions. But what came up out of dozens of panels in Bali was telling. Asia and Europe are now bumping into the very same digital wall. With immense quantities of Asian data being stored on US servers, and with hundreds of millions of Asian consumers hooked on Google, Apple, Yahoo !, or Microsoft, the East is equally threatened by the over-arching American digital empire. Most Asian « dragons » and « tigers » have no means of protecting the digital assets of their citizens and institutions; they shall take this diplomatic and economic digital wake-up call seriously. Data is not only a public and an individual asset to be protected; it is the oil of the digital business and the key to future profitability for thousands of companies and start-ups all over the East. No single country can be left to control it alone.

The similarities end there. If the ASEM meeting has the courage to address this issue, cultural differences will certainly surface. In Asia, the group often remains above the individual, and Asian states are still reluctant to modify their internal security acts. In addition, some countries may not want to reopen this freedom vs. security debate, especially at a time when wars on terrorism and religious fundamentalism continue to rage throughout South-East Asia.

Another difference is that Europeans and Asians have diverging commercial interests in this digital economy. In Asia, American Internet giants are either welcomed or kept at bay by openly protectionist legislation. The debate in this part of the world is not to replace or to emasculate Silicon Valley’s offspring, but to protect the huge regional digital market, and eventually to make lucrative commercial transpacific deals with the US mastodons. With thriving digital economies, countries like Singapore and Korea are already positioning themselves as competitive and safe destinations for data storage. Business comes first. Digital security breaches may be seen as acceptable collateral damage.

Soon after the ASEM ministerial conference in New Delhi, the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecom World Conference will take place on November 20-23 in Bangkok, Thailand. Thousands of experts and key players in the digital world and regulating bodies (from governments to UN organizations) will again debate this global digital deadlock, even if very few stakeholders are in favor of seeing the ITU play a bigger role.

As the NSA ball continues to roll, ASEM countries have an opportunity to make their voices heard. The confrontational path taken initially by Brazil vis à vis the United States - though it advocated a more conciliatory approach during the IGF in Bali - demonstrates that a lot is at stake. For a forum too often in search of a meaning, the choice to remain silent would be a very wrong signal addressed to digital enterprises and citizens from Asia and Europe. END

An international correspondent for the Swiss daily Le Temps, Richard Werly is an associate fellow of the EU Centre in Singapore and DiploFoundation in Geneva.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

When is Prime Time?

When open source started, techies revolutionized not just the info tech space but also some of the rules of doing business and providing services and products to customers. In other words, they transformed economics.

In the last decade, technology in general and information technology more specifically has not only given jaw dropping sci-fi style gadgets and Daily Prophet like interfaces but has also broken some long standing rules about how much businesses can charge for what and how. Dis intermediation is one outcome of this open source culture, but for some industries its more than dis intermediation, it is changing the production process, delivery mechanism and consumption patterns.

Some prominent examples of this in a snapshot are:

Music sharing for free that challenged the Music industry’s business model ending up with Apple’s I-tunes as the model of choice.

Hollywood’s traditional distribution methods are being challenged, with the likes of Netflix rapidly becoming the new way of delivering programming and film content.

Tailored and on demand news and information sharing by platforms like Zite and Slate etc. which send push through multimedia articles and domain specific content to readers from a wide variety of sources.

Kick-starter and Bit coins and a whole range of financial alternatives and financing models being currently tested and tried successfully that are seriously challenging an already brow-beaten financial services industry.

These technologies are powerful, seriously powerful things. Open source culture and now crowd sourcing have become ubiquitous. As open source allows many people to use available technologies to create and sell their products at low prices, there is considerable competition in things like gaming and entertainment and information, which means that the mechanics of charging customers have changed. Crowd sourcing in finance not only allows people to raise funds for an invention or a project without having to borrow or go to a major financial institution or a rich uncle but also allows producers to understand what products have a market. The customer is involved right from the start. The click is certainly mightier than the brick. The most significant revolutions and ‘regime changes’ that have happened in recent years started on social media, the famous social media led uprising in Tunisia followed by the Arab Spring being a case in point.

There’s been talk for a long time of how social media will change advertising, but most social media companies had so far failed to really tap into this. This too is now however set to change with social media companies’ especially Facebook’s Advertising and boosting options offering very powerful advertising options to businesses. This is a big threat to traditional broadcast media advertising. With targeted, referral based and cheaper alternatives available, small businesses, start-ups and individuals can reach the right psychographic and demographic across the globe without spending too much. Competition for advertising revenues coupled with cheap and free information and news that is delivered through multiple sources into our inboxes, hand-held or palm tops and soon into our sunglasses (think Google Glass), its about time broadcast and broadsheet media really considered their options and business approach going forward.

Alongside these seismic changes in access and distribution, there are dramatic developments in data visualization, information presentation, graphics and analytics. All these mean that not merely the messenger but the message is changing. While good journalism, creative writing, talented music composition and content creation is valuable and will perhaps always remain so, the tools of producing content, the mechanism of expressing an opinion and the very means of production and laws of economics and sociology are changing. While it will take academics years to perhaps piece together all the elements of this puzzle if at all they ever completely understand its implications, there is some very insightful work that has already been done by some academics viz Chris Anderson, Ethan Zuckerman, Robert Fisk etc. to name a few.

While we wait to get a grasp of what really is the true and lasting impact of these developments, there are things that media professionals can already do to better reflect and adapt to these changes. To start with, creating more interactive, creative content and deploying newer design elements and graphics and incorporating crowd-sourced content into mainstream reporting is essential. Too often one sees publications take a puritanical and conservative attitude to these inevitable changes. These are incredible opportunities for serious journalism to deliver hard-hitting and meaningful content. Up-skilling journalists to deploying these technologies while expressing themselves is another aspect of journalism that needs far greater attention. Rather than hire techies to work separately and journalists to continue in the traditional way, the two need to work together to develop stories and present them. Matrix structures for reporting as opposed to the classic approach of journalists chasing stories and analysts working separately to bolster the views and news with statistics may not be the most efficient way of telling a story anymore. How can a journalist for instance report on a news story accurately only through interviews and on ground observation, when multiple developments and aggregate actions of people influencing the story are being tracked through algorithms and when the key actors themselves are acting online and impacting developments on ground. A 3 dimensional news experience presented in simple formats while conveying all the complexity that goes into a situation is a tractable challenge with the aid of these technologies. One sees television studios transformed into many a different type of data visualization sets during elections for instance. While that is a start, it needs to be incorporated in everyday media interactions. While software is becoming increasingly available and simpler for everyone to use and design their presentation and analysis, media companies need to embrace this head on and explore the possibilities to the fullest degree as they happen. Like gaming and other industries, engaging customers now comes before asking them to pay. The model therefore needs a rethink. This needs to be a media revolution as much as it is a technological one.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

The Future of Nanotechnology in Warfare

In April this year, the US Navy announced the deployment of a laser weapon on the USS Ponce. The YouTube image they posted at the same time demonstrates how effective it is to damage an unmanned aerial vehicle. The image might have excited some sci-fi movie fans around the world, envisioning the arrival of futuristic weapons, like 'phasers' familiar to 'Trekkies'. It is expected that these laser weapons will be more widely deployed with the aim to strengthen defence capabilities against missiles, artillery and mortars.

The revelation of a laser weapon was not unexpected. Indeed, the history of the pursuit of laser weapons is as old as the nuclear arms race during the Cold War. The idea of laser weapons was already hinted as a potential counter-strike onto a nuclear ballistic missile. Although the technical details of the laser weapon announced for deployment is kept secret, there is little doubt that the rapid development of nanotechnologies over the last decade has enabled significant improvement of different components of the solid state laser system that makes it deployable as a weapon.

A greater excitement may be forthcoming with the prospect of further fine-tuning of the laser technology to provide a wider range of tactical options - like a weapon that can be set for 'stun' up to 'kill'. Even the existing laser weapon the US Navy announced for deployment has the ability of limiting the damage to the targeted aircraft, rather than destroying it like with a missile. Ethicists may envision the arrival of a more humane warfare in the near future where a less lethal force will always be used prior to lethal means.

The law currently does not require such gradual application of force. However, it could well be adopted as government policy for a specific operation from political or ethical considerations. Interestingly, though, the law may oblige soldiers not to use such less lethal means if there is a chance of civilian casualties, for example, as a result of disabling an aircraft that then clashes into a town.

The laser weapon is not the only armory that benefits from the rapid development of nanotechnology. There are scientists who are working to create Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, which undoubtedly attracts obvious military interests, or what is called 'nano air vehicles' - the prototype 'Hummingbird' developed by the US DARPA could be further miniaturized into a small insect-like combat vehicle. The use of nanotechnology thus enables existing weapon technologies - such as stealth, precision-guided munitions and UAVs - to evolve into their ultimate form. It will provide soldiers with the ultimate protection of invisibility during combat operations or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities. Commanders will be able to assassinate the target anytime, from anywhere, with mechanical precision without a margin of error.

Using those 'smart weapons' will certainly help reduce, or even completely avoid, civilian casualties. In that sense, future warfare may well be expected to become more humane. But at the same time, the ability to kill someone without facing that individual and without giving him or her any chance of survival may test where our human conscience stands. Already, the US targeted killing policy has caused controversies over its legal, political and ethical implications, and on 31 May this year, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Christof Heyns, recommended a moratorium on lethal autonomous robotics.

The greater protection of force - by using UAVs, cyber or invisibility cloak - means also that the political costs traditionally associated with the resort to force in foreign territories will be significantly reduced. The use of these new technologies enable disguised forms of attacks, which make it difficult for victim states, particularly the technologically inferior, to identify where the attacks originate from with certainty. The implicated allegations recently made by the US against Chinese authorities for their involvement in cyber attacks are testimony to this technical challenge. A consequence is that the technologically advanced will find it attractive to choose discreet means to deploy military forces in order to achieve their political objectives without risking warfare.

However, the widespread introduction of nanotechnology into weaponry may not end with this familiar, simplistic picture of military asymmetry between the technologically advanced and the less advanced. Nanotechnology is not a difficult technology to acquire. Indeed, many less developed states and emerging economies such as Mexico, Thailand, India and Iran are investing heavily on nanotechnology industries. China is also one of the leading states in nanotechnological developments.

There is no clear indication as to the extent these investments are poured into weapons development. The challenge for them would rather be acquisition of the existing weapons technologies, like stealth, laser and robotic technologies, with which applications of nanotechnology need to be combined. But at the same time, these countries are not bound by the same resource constraints as the major weapons producers, such as large-scale infrastructure and manufacturing contracts. In that sense, emerging economies could take advantage of a greater flexibility in developing entirely new armament manufacturing capabilities that effectively incorporate latest nanotechnological innovations and developments.

Nanotechnology may thus serve as a potential 'game changer' in the military landscape. One of the major factors that are currently hindering military applications of nanotechnology is the pre-existing military mindset. Weapons development is driven, in large part, by the current operational needs, rather than future operational possibilities. Nanotechnology is like a transistor - it in itself does not do any good nor harm, but the application of nanotechnology and their integration into a larger system produce novel functions and effects.

It is expected that nanotechnology will soon be found in many consumer products, which will accelerate the pace of military applications of nanotechnology in both technologically advanced and less advanced states. Utilizing nanotechnology to advance military capabilities to ultimate forms - in precision strikes or cloaking technology - may prompt us to reconsider how warfare should be defined or should be fought. The 'United Federation of Planets' in the world of Star Trek made a conscious decision not to develop or use cloaking technology, perhaps a reflection of Gene Roddenberry's philosophy of what the future space warfare should look like. It may be that we are only standing at the verge of this philosophical debate to reconsider the fundamental meaning of warfare and the need for a modern version of the chivalric code.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

Photo: reserved

Theatrics surrounding the Uttarakhand Tragedy

In India, tragic incidents have always been marked by theatrics and drama by the political class much to the chagrin of those who suffer at its hands. The mass tragedy caused by the Uttarakhand floods didn’t spared our eminent politicians from trying to hog the limelight in this hour of heart rending tragedy. Be it be the lackadaisical approach of the Uttarakhand Chief Minister who was busy scheduling his Switzerland itinerary or the way Narendra Modi ( our much hailed NaMo ) campaigned for his Gujarat model even while he had gone to visit the flood affected areas . Also the goof up which his PR agency made while announcing that he flew down 15,000 Gujaratis from Uttarakhand on his own. The overenthusiastic Indian media didn’t even cared to check the veracity of the statement and publicized it even more quite zealously. It was quite late that an Article published in TOI made sense enough to rubbish such outrageous claims. Narendra Modi’s offer to help by giving away his helicopters and to build Kedarnath Temple was also shown the door by the Uttarakhand Chief Minister.

Then when Narendra Modi left then we had a famous duel between TDP & Congress leaders of Andhra Pradesh who wanted the victims to fly with them. This is not yet over, the biggest one is yet to come . While till now we kept on talking about how these parties tried to hog the limelight, the biggest of these public gimmicks was done by none other than Sonia Gandhi who waited 72 crucial hours while the survivors died out of hunger and lack of water to ‘flag off’ the trucks carrying relief materials after Rahul Gandhi returned from his Spain trip. This was shambolic and a shining example of the ebbs to which politicians have fallen in modern India that they kept on delaying it so as to gain some brownie points in the eyes of the common public. I am starkly critical of all these incidents as they yet again proved that Politics is a selfish ‘business’ in India and is yet to rise above petty things even in hours of crisis . In the face of this tragedy, the man who disappointed the most was Uttarakhand CM- Vijay Bahuguna. He was busy alleging the centre that it didn’t had any mechanism to deal with such catastrophe rather than taking the blame on himself as to how around 67,000 tourists were allowed in the region even when Metrological Department has issued several warnings. His counter allegations and refusal to accept Narendra Modi’s help of over two dozen helicopters and his offer to help reconstruct Kedarnath Temple was met with widespread angst. However, it can be argued that Modi’s intent was also to gain brownie points by doing this and hence he publicised this quite openly.

Rescue operations by the Army Personnels .

Heroism was in vogue among politicians amidst the rising number of people who were dying and were being rescued at Ground Zero by the real heroes of this tragedy – i.e., the Army personnel who helped them selflessly to ensure that they were rescued safely. Congress MLA from MP Sanjay Pathak claimed that he saved some passengers through his helicopter and this led to almost a stampede at the Dehradun Airport with every politician lining up his aircraft so as to ‘claim’ that he ‘saved’ x number of people. All this was happening when there were not even centres to keep track and information of all the missing people in the tragedy .

I am not a pessimist but my optimism has lost in colour by the incidents that I saw in this hour of crisis. While some leaders were shedding crocodile tears over the issue, they had done less to ensure that more problems do not further arise due to it. Much of the Relief work was even stopped when Sonia Gandhi and PM Manmohan Singh were taking an aerial survey of the flood affected areas, quite ensconced in their private luxury jet while people were dying due to hunger. It’s such a shame that while Politics was supposed to be a noble profession to serve the society, it has rather become a selfish and profitable business in the present scenario in the World’s Largest Democracy.

The Rescue operation is over by now and many people are still missing and are trapped within the debris. This tragic incident exposed the vulnerability of our Disaster management Techniques and made a mockery of all the grand claims that the Govt. had made post the 2004 Tsunami which had killed 11,000 people in India. The estimated death toll is expected to touch 3,000 at least with more than that people still missing. Vijay Bahuguna , Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi are mere names , the thing which we need to cleanse the most is the standard at which politics is done in India . While Politicians keep on denying their obligations and continue their blame game , it’s the life of the common man that suffers the most .

- Shashank Saurav

Accreditation: NGOs Journey towards Excellence

Introduction

The accountability of not-for-profit organizations has been the subject of substantial debate and analysis. Today, NGO and voluntary sector are unorganised and unregulated and its credibility is in question. Many people, institutions and donors have raised questions about NGOs functioning, governance and accountability. It is a challenge for donors, government and others to regulate and ensure accountability. The accreditation process is one such initiative in this direction. The initiatives taken by the government and other agencies such as Credibility Alliance in this area may help organisations in addressing above concerns. The paper highlights the Leadership Development and Organization Effectiveness programme initiatives in this area to address this challenge which can be achieved through leadership and management inputs and training to NGOs executives.

Credibility Alliance

The Credibility Alliance (CA) is a consortium of voluntary organisations committed towards enhancing the accountability and transparency in the voluntary sector through good governance. It is an initiative of NGOs, donors and other stakeholders to develop basic, minimum and desirable norms which are basic standards of governance to ensure the transparency and accountability of an organisation. It has developed an accreditation system based on the norms to strengthen and enhance the legitimacy and the credibility of an individual organisation. Credibility Alliance norms are available at http://www.credibilityalliance.org/home/norms.php.

Accreditation process

The accreditation process comprises three steps, self-assessment, assessor’s assessment, and accreditation. The CA reviews organisation self-assessment report to ensure that information and documents have been duly provided as per CA guidelines. This is followed by assessor’s physical verification, review of operational and financial aspects of the NGO functioning and discussion with NGO personnel. The assessment team also interview beneficiaries and other key stakeholders, if necessary also conduct interviews and meetings with current and past donors in order to have a better idea about the authenticity of the NGO. Based on its assessment, the CA accredits organisation for the minimum and desirable norms certifying organisation’s credentials.

Accreditation: Journey towards excellence

Many NGOs believe that an accreditation process helps in developing the system and organisational development. Under the Leadership Development and Organisation Effectiveness (LDOE) programme[1], NGO executives of ten participating organisations attended the executive leadership programme. The focus of the programme was improving leadership and governance, strengthening organisational effectiveness and enhancing sustainability through addressing organisational viability, financial continuity, programme effectiveness and enduring impact. As part of the programme, these organisations applied for CA accreditation. Many participants reported that the process was helpful and enriching for their organisational development. Mr. Shibaji Mandal of KGVK reports that ‘the ideas shared in LDOE programme on governance issue led to a radical improvement in the Governing Body functioning and operations, with clearly defined processes, roles and responsibility of its members. This led to the fact that KGVK became the first NGO in Jharkhand to have been accredited under ‘Desirable Norms’ category from Credibility Alliance, a level that stresses on several parameters of competence related to the Governing Board functions. In fact, LDOE program has been a precursor to the assessment done by CA subsequently’. Mr. Murari Choudhury, Executive Director of NEEDS says that 'the change process requires commitment, skills and the right environment to do it. LDOE showed us a roadmap about how to look at the issues of organizational effectiveness and engage the team in an aligned format. As a result of LDOE participation, NEEDS is governed by its transparent written policies of HR, finance, diversity and inclusion, child protection, internal control system and so on'. The case of Integrated Development Foundation (IDF) is a good example of accreditation and organisational development.

Case Study: Integrated Development Foundation

The Integrated Development Foundation (IDF) is twenty year old community based organisation (an NGO) working in Bihar and Jharkhand to ensure better quality of life to the poorest and deprived sections of the community with a special focus on women and children through different sectoral interventions such as women empowerment, livelihood, health, leadership development, and reproductive and sexual health, etc. The organisation has several social development programmes and a few networks. Various UN, national and international donor agencies and government support IDF programmes. Its strength lies in community mobilization, capacity building and backward forward linkages while its weak areas relate to organizational sustainability and retention of HR.

IDF has been a professionally managed organisation with good community base and rapport with the target groups. In its twenty years of journey the organisation has done well and its growth chart is impressive. Nevertheless, their focus was more towards mobilising programmes and project and its implementation and less on organisational development. Considering new challenges, government regulation and donors demand, IDF feels that it needs to develop strategies to periodically review its performance to achieve excellence.

LDOE programme was an opportunity for the organisation to work in this direction. LDOE programme led IDF not only to focus on their immediate needs and challenges but on future challenges also such as the sustainability of the programme, staff retention and organisational development. Now IDF assesses its strength and weaknesses periodically and is aware of its weak areas and working towards strengthening the same. The organisation went for the Credibility Alliance accreditation first time under the LDOE programme and was awarded accreditation for desirable norms.

IDF believes that accreditation has helped in building brand, credibility, confidence and governance of the organization. The accreditation process helped the organisation to do the internal assessment of its functioning, governance system, develop various policies and system in the organisation. Many organisations have policies and system but the important question is its compliance. The accreditation process helps to comply and develop a transparent system within the organisation. It also brings value and credibility to the organisation and creates moral pressure on the organisation to maintain norms and standards in place. Mr. Babul Prasad, Chairman, Integrated Development Foundation reports that "after the accreditation, the organization adopted measures to attain excellence in its overall governance and operation system. Initially, the journey began with decentralization and autonomy processes within the organization. It further reviewed and refined its human resource manual, account manual and vision document according to the feedback from the members, staff and external bodies. This process has been really useful and effective for IDF". Mr. Anand Shekhar, Ex-Regional Manager, WaterAid and Team Leader, at NRMC, Executing Agency, Global Sanitation Fund in India who supported the IDF says that, "I have noticed improvements in governance arrangements at IDF. The entire team gets together in the planning and execution of activities and is well aware of the financial allocations made for the program. Decentralised decision making, investing in the collective understanding of attainable under the program are welcome changes in the organization. This has helped the IDF expand its presence and take multi-locational programmes thereby providing it an opportunity to make a difference in lives of increased number of people".

Conclusion

The Credibility Alliance accreditation process is definitely a certification system but it focuses on empowering the organisation to achieve excellence. It helps and gives ample opportunity to the organisation to systemise, organise, develop, and comply minimum standard and desirable norms. The Integrated Development Foundation was having norms and policies earlier too, but it was not complying with it. The accreditation process helped the organization not only to comply those norms, but to develop, update and review their existing policies and norms as well. The Credibility Alliance accreditation helps organisations in ensuring transparency within and outside the organisation, mobilising resources, donor support and brand building. Although, the assessment system is not very rigorous, many organisations believe that accreditation process is relevant and required. Other organisations should also go through such accreditation process to improve, assess and ensure standards within their organisation.

Acknowledgement: The author would like to thank Prof. Jay Satia, Ms. Moi Lee Liow and all NGOs who have been part of excellence assessment. Author acknowledges the support of the project on Leadership Development and Organizational Effectiveness (LDOE) from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation under which this work was done.

[1] LDOE programme was implemented by the International Council on Management of Population Programme (ICOMP), Malaysia and Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), Ranchi supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

(Photo © Integrated Development Foundation)

Superbugs, Humans And The G8: A Global Reckoning

Let's ask the G8 to consider the case of Ms. D.

She was a mother of six, her youngest child two years old. She caught a cold on a Sunday. The cold weakened her and led to a bacterial pneumonia. It was 1943, and the world was busy making war. Ms. D stood at the threshold of the antibiotic era. But she never crossed it: her pneumonia killed her, efficiently, by Thursday.

Now consider the case of Mr. S, a twenty-eight year-old software engineer. Seventy years after the death of Ms. D, he planned an adventure vacation in North Africa. While there, he was involved in a bus accident. His lower legs were crushed, resulting in several open fractures. He was airlifted to his home country, Switzerland, but not before spending three days in a Cairo intensive care unit. By the time he arrived in Switzerland, several "superbugs" had nested and were growing happily in his leg bones; two of them were fully resistant to all known antibiotics save colistin. Colistin is an old drug that had all but vanished during the antibiotic era's golden years: it is rapidly toxic to the kidneys and nerves. Mr. S would need continuously high levels of this toxic drug in his blood for at least half a year to reach the bacteria in his broken bones; this would almost certainly lead to the death of both kidneys. So he was offered a choice by his physicians: try to save the legs--with a high chance of going on kidney dialysis for the rest of a shortened life at the age of 28, and an unknown chance of actually curing the infection--or amputate the legs before the infection spread to the rest of his body and killed him.

Mr. S chose a double leg amputation. He lived.

Both of these patients serve as "book ends" to the golden era of antibiotics. Both are real. There are differences, of course. Ms. D's generation lived with stories like hers. In the battle of Medicine vs. Fate, the balance of power lay firmly on the side of Fate. In our generation, however, we have believed that Medicine can shape and change Fate, because for us it always did. The younger among us have seen only the vaccine, not the deadly and deforming disease: few doctors under the age of sixty have ever encountered a case of measles. We have taken the antimicrobial, and within a few days, our only worry became remembering to swallow the pills-not having to take leave of our children before they were old enough to remember us. It is never easy to accept the abrupt end of a young life, and the loss of Ms. D still reverberates in the covered-but open-wounds of her children, seventy years on. But it may be harder for our generation to accept these sudden disappearances of life and limb--to witness this alteration in the balance of power--because we never questioned Medicine's superiority.

We need to, though. There have been no successful discoveries of new classes of antibiotics since 1987. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned the public of a four-fold increase in one group of "nightmare bacteria" known by doctors as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in just one decade; up to half of patients who get CRE bloodstream infections die.

The G8 Summit taking place now in Northern Ireland has rightly prioritized global antimicrobial resistance as a "major health security challenge of the twenty-first century." Science ministers of the eight countries are calling for intensive international collaboration to achieve the concrete goals of (1) avoiding the misuse of remaining antibiotics and (2) streamlining and facilitating the development of new antibiotics as well as (3) rapid diagnostics to accelerate the identification and treatment of these resistant organisms before they spread to others.

The key element to the success of such initiatives is of course international collaboration. Microbes have been globalized along with the rest of the world. In the history of the planet, there has never been such rapid and distant microbial spread. Thanks to mass travel, Dengue (also known as "break-bone fever") has returned to the U.S. and may soon become endemic in some states. The West Nile virus, never before seen in the western hemisphere, also arrived by plane and rapidly spread across the nation. CRE, the nightmare bacteria, were first identified in the US in 2001; they have now been reported in all but seven of the fifty states. Data sharing among international infection control experts, institutions, and the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries is essential. Facilitating the exchange of ideas for novel measures to combat the global threat of antimicrobial resistance is also essential.

Here in Geneva, will start in a few days the second biennial conference of the International Consortium for Prevention and Infection Control, made up of physicians, nurses, scientists and other personnel who have dedicated their lives to infection control in humans. From June 25th through the 28th, over 1,200 experts from eighty-four countries will gather to exchange ideas, strategies and local outcomes of recent and ongoing studies. What worked--and what didn't--will be discussed and scrutinized. Concrete strategies will be argued and debated; those that pass these tests will be laid down for further development and implementation. In these three days, the seedlings of international collaborative efforts--from laboratory experiments to multicenter clinical studies, both observational and interventional--will be planted.

Though we never knew her, we would like to think that Ms. D would be happy. Mr. S recently told us that he was.

From 25-28 June, over 1,000 world experts in the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections will gather in Geneva for the 2nd International Conference on Prevention & Infection Control (ICPIC). Over the next two weeks, The Global Journal will showcase the inspiring stories behind the vital work being done to reduce the global burden of this preventable public health challenge.

Request the Special ICPIC Edition of The Global Journal.

Importance Of Bioenergy Should Not Be Underestimated

Over the next decade millions of tonnes of biomass will burn in power stations across Europe. But if we are not careful many of the benefits of using biomass could also go up in smoke. This has polarised opinion and caused criticism from NGO’s. Dr. Matthew Aylott from Bioeconomy Consultants NNFCC argues that, while concerns shouldn’t be ignored, they do not reflect the reality.

The abundance of biomass makes it one of the world's most important sources of renewable energy. But this resource is not evenly spread. The UK for example produces relatively small volumes of biomass but growing demand is resulting in a sharp increase in wood imports from countries like the US and Canada. In fact the UK is now one of the world’s largest importers of biomass. The meteroic growth of the UK biomass industry has been made possible by the public subsidies available to bioenergy generators. This has understandably led to intense scrutiny of biomass to ensure it not only delivers greenhouse gas savings but does so in a way that offers taxpayers value for money.

And this scrutiny is unlikely to diminish if predictions on the future use of biomass are correct. According to research funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) we are only at the tip of the iceberg. DECC claim that bioenergy could deliver up to 11 per cent of the UK's primary energy demand by 2020 (1) and will continue to play an important role in energy production until at least 2050 (2).

The use of biomass in energy production is, however, faced with three key criticisms. Firstly, it is expensive compared to other forms of low carbon energy. Secondly, it drives up the cost of wood used in other markets, like manufacturing and construction. And finally, it does not deliver greenhouse gas savings over meaningful timescales relevant to climate change targets.

If we take a worst case scenario then one or more of these statements may be true but when managed sustainably, biomass is an essential part of the portfolio of renewable energy technologies; delivering low cost, low carbon heat and power that can help reverse the decline in the global forestry sector.

The true cost of biomass

A study by ARUP for the UK Government in 2011 (3) – which NNFCC contributed evidence to – found that co-firing biomass in coal-fired power stations is among the cheapest forms of renewable energy. At scales, greater than 20MW biomass co-firing was found to cost around £167,000/MW with an operating cost of £30,000/MW/yr.

This makes co-firing biomass far cheaper than many other forms of renewable energy, such as wind and solar. For example, a 5MW wind turbine has a capital cost of around £1,524,000/MW and an operating cost of £57,000/MW/yr.

Incentives for bio-energy production are also likely to have wider economic benefits, such as investment and jobs in the UK. NNFCC estimates suggest that the biomass heat and power sector (excluding the manufacture of new equipment) could employ 50,000 people in the UK by 2020 (4).

The UK has already seen significant new investment in biomass handling facilities at major ports. In March 2013, Associated British Ports announced it was investing £100 million in new wood pellet handling facilities at the Ports of Immingham, Hull and Goole to support the conversion of Drax – the UK's largest power station – to run off 50 per cent biomass. The project will create over 200 new jobs.

However, if subsidies for bio-energy production were to increase the cost of wood and push other industries out of the UK, we could see a net loss in jobs. The panel industry-led 'Stop Burning Our Trees' campaign quotes unpublished research from consultants Pöyry, stating that energy production creates 2 man-hours of work per tonne of timber used, while making panels, joinery products and paper creates 178 man-hours of work per tonne of timber (5).

This, however, assumes that we are limited by the amount of low quality wood available and that the two industries cannot exist simultaneously. In contrast, evidence shows that both markets are still growing and forest production is increasing to meet this demand (6).

Impact on wood prices

If heat and power generators are incentivised to use biomass then this could artificially drive up the price of wood for other industries. This could have a negative impact on manufacturers and consumers.

The UK Wood Panel Industries Federation states that “the high price that energy companies are able to pay for UK trees may eventually mean it's uneconomic to make things with wood in this country. The factories that produce kitchens, windows, wardrobes, chipboards, building panels and many other useful things may have to move abroad, to places where costs are lower.”

There is also the concern that in cost-competitive markets, wood may be substituted for cheaper alternatives like plastic (7) and further research is needed on the environmental impact of substituting wood for other materials in manufacturing.

But it remains unclear what impact, if any, bioenergy is having on the price of wood used in other industries. It is certainly true that the price of wood in general has risen above inflation over the last decade and this has coincided with the growth of bioenergy in the developed world. However, it is very difficult and potentially misleading to link the two.

In regions where bioenergy generation is subsidised, like Europe, the price generators can pay for wood remains lower than that the average price payable in other industrial roundwood markets (8). Bioenergy generators cannot afford the high quality wood demanded by other industries, like furniture or construction industries. In many cases without a bioenergy industry there would not be demand for the low quality feedstocks, such as diseased or damaged wood.

However, in supply-limited markets that require lower quality wood there may be greater competition with bioenergy generators, which could influence price. This again works on the assumption that we are limited by the amount of wood available.

Worldwide demand for industrial roundwood – i.e. non-fuel wood – is predicted to increase from 1668 million m3 in 2005 to 2165 million m3 by 2020 (6). The FAO predict that this increased demand will be met by increased production in areas like Europe and East Asia – where production is estimated to grow by 2 to 3 per cent per year up to 2020. And large bioenergy markets, like Europe and North America, are expected to remain net exporters of industrial roundwood up to 2020 and beyond.

In fact, industrial roundwood markets could benefit from the growing bioenergy sector, both economically and from a carbon sequestration viewpoint. Bringing neglected woodland back into management and actively managing forests to produce both useful timber products and biomass for heat and power production can increase carbon stocks and make forests more economically productive (9).

Greenhouse gas emissions from biomass

Biomass is not as carbon dense as fuel made from fossilised plant material (i.e. coal or gas) - so you need more of it to produce the same amount of power. For every megawatt-hour of electricity generated, biomass will initially release up to twice as much carbon dioxide as coal and up to four times as much as gas. But unlike coal or gas, we can re-absorb this carbon dioxide in just a few years by replacing the trees we cut down or thinning forests to make them more productive.

The time it takes for a new plant to absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that was released during the harvest, transport and combustion of the felled plant is called the 'carbon payback' rate. This is important when considering the environmental benefits of using biomass.

Calculating this rate requires a life cycle assessment which takes into account all of the contributing factors to carbon dioxide emissions across the entire biomass supply chain. The rate varies according to the type of biomass being used.

Biomass that has come to the end of its life, such as inedible food residues, will rot if left to decompose naturally and release methane and carbon dioxide – both greenhouse gases. Similarly, forests tend to decline after a number of years and start producing more deadwood. This deadwood will decompose on the forest floor, again releasing methane and carbon dioxide.

If we manage forests by taking out thinnings and deadwood, we can improve productivity, prevent the release of greenhouse gases and create a feedstock for bioenergy generation. But there will also be emissions associated with the harvest and transportation of the wood, which must be paid off. Research tells us that the carbon payback from forest thinnings used in energy production can be as little as four years (10; 11; 12; 13). However, we are limited by the accessibility and availability of forest thinnings.

As we start producing bioenergy on a larger scale some NGO’s believe that the use of whole trees will increase. They argue that this will result in longer and less palatable carbon payback periods from bioenergy. Research (10; 14) suggests that it may take 40 years or more to payback the carbon released when using whole trees in electricity generation.

But what is an acceptable carbon payback period? This is a crucial political question. Europe has 2020 and 2050 emissions targets to meet and if we don’t see an emissions reduction from substituting coal or gas with biomass until after 2050 some will argue we shouldn't be using whole trees to generate electricity and should instead stick to using 'cleaner' alternatives. However, this oversimplifies a more complex picture.

A typical wind turbine can take around three months (15) to payback the carbon used or disturbed in its construction, while a solar photovoltaic panel has a carbon payback period of up to two and a half years (16). On the face of it wind and solar would seem to have an environmental advantage over biomass. However, wind and solar are intermittent and can't be used to meet peak or base-load power demands, unlike biomass.

Hydro-electric can be used in peak and base-load power production, while nuclear can also deliver base-load power, but each of these technologies faces considerable planning and cost barriers that are likely to stunt their future growth.

Without biomass our only alternative would be to use more coal, oil and gas to meet peak and base-load power demands; dwindling sources of energy whose carbon payback rates are not measured in decades but are instead measured in millennia.

The importance of bioenergy simply cannot be underestimated. We need to move away from single issue politics and look at the bigger picture, by considering the broader benefits and implications of utilising a diverse portfolio of renewable energy sources, including biomass.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

Photo © DR

References

(1) DECC. 2012. UK Bioenergy Strategy. Download at: www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/bio-energy/5142-bioenergy-strategy-.pdf

(2) DECC. 2010. 2050 Pathways Analysis. Download at: www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/What%20we%20do/A%20low%20carbon%20UK/2050/216-2050-pathways-analysis-report.pdf

(3) ARUP. 2011. Review of the generation costs and deployment potential of renewable electricity technologies in the UK. Download at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/147863/3237-cons-ro-banding-arup-report.pdf

(4) NNFCC. 2012. UK jobs in the bioenergy sectors by 2020, NNFCC 11-025. Download at: www.nnfcc.co.uk/tools/uk-jobs-in-the-bioenergy-sectors-by-2020-nnfcc-11-025

(5) Pöyry. Download at: www.stopburningourtrees.org/why_its_wrong.html

(6) FAO. 2009. State of the World's Forests. Download at: http://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/i0350e/i0350e.pdf

(7) The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. 2012. Dirtier than coal? Why Government plans to subsidise burning trees are bad for the planet. 2012. Download at: www.rspb.org.uk/Images/biomass_report_tcm9-326672.pdf

(8) FAOStat. 2012. Forestry Production and Trade. Download at: http://faostat.fao.org

(9) Sedjo R and Tian X. 2012. Does Wood Bioenergy Increase Carbon Stocks in Forests? Journal of Forestry, Vol. 110, pp. 304-311. Download at: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/saf/jof/2012/00000110/00000006/art00005

(10) McKechnie J, et al. 2011. Forest Bioenergy or Forest Carbon? Assessing Trade-Offs in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Wood-Based Fuels.Environ, Sci. Technol., Vol. 45, pp. 789-795. Download at: www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/McKechnie-et-al-EST-2010.pdf

(11) Manomet. 2010. Biomass Sustainability and Carbon Policy Study. Download at: www.manomet.org/sites/manomet.org/files/Manomet_Biomass_Report_Full_LoRez.pdf

(12) Repo A, Tuomi M and Liski, J. 2010. Indirect Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Producing Bioenergy from Forest Harvest Residues. Global Change Biology Bioenergy, Vol. 3, pp. 107-115.

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