Educational Pathways - for People - for Nations

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This blog, despite good advice to the contrary, has a wide and varied focus. Although it deals with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, that gives it 8 separate topics to write about. It also writes about a variety of approaches to those 8 Goals and the various organizations around the world implementing those approaches.

One approach particularly appreciated by this blog, though not dealt with enough, is education. Below are some links oriented to education gathered over time. These show both the tremendous challenges that must be overcome and the efforts that have been and are being made. They also show the impact that these efforts can have on the broader world stage.

OneWorld South Asia Home

Diigo tags: oneworld, education, mdg, mdgs

Education is the backbone of national development and is widely accepted as an instrument of social change. India has been an active partner in the worldwide movement for education for All that began in 1990 in Jomtien followed by Millennium development goals. The important issues which need immediate attention to achieve MDG targets in Education are as follow.[these issues can be updated]

• Talibans in madrasas trying to carve jihadis out of kids
• World Bank study spells out Bhutan's education woes
• India's missing think tanks
  

China’s higher education transformation | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

Diigo tags: China, economics, globalization, trade

Unlike most developing economies, China’s educational policy focuses on upgrading higher education. This column summarises the major transformation occurring in China – including nearly a quintupling in enrolments – and highlights its implications for the global economy.

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com

By 2010, China will have more Ph.D. scientists and engineers than the United States. These professionals are not fundamentally a threat. To the contrary, they are creators, whose ideas are likely to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, not just the business elites. The more access the Chinese have to American and other markets, the more they can afford higher education and the greater their incentive to innovate.

Diigo tags: marginalrevolution, globalization, trade, economics

There is a natural tendency to compare China and India in their economic policies and more specifically their approaches to meeting the Millennium Development Goals. They have each made amazing strides in improving their national economic standing though how well they have done internally is still a matter of concern both externally and internally to each country. The new Human Development Index statistical update which was released on December 18, 2008, (in which China, India and the United States went down compared to 2005) puts China at 94 and India at 132. A future post may take a look at how each country is doing regarding Millennium Development Goal No. 2. Universal Education.

Related Posts:

• Human Development - The Measurement of Human Endeavors

• Getting the Dragon and the Elephant to work together

• Next Year's Blogging Action Day - Getting an early start

• Learning how kids teach themselves, then get out of the way

Human Development - The Measurement of Human Endeavors

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The Human Development concept

Human Development is a development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means —if a very important one —of enlarging people’s choices.

Human Development Reports

One instrument for the measurement of such efforts are the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Reports. The reports provide not only a measurement of success, they also provide the motive for such efforts.

Eradicating poverty everywhere is more than a moral imperative - it is a practical possibility. That is the most important message of the Human Development Report 1997. The world has the resources and the know-how to create a poverty-free world in less than a generation.

Human Development Index and Human Poverty Index

There is a choice about the type of metric that could be used Human Development Index or HDI, "an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy,literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide." versus Human Poverty Index , "a measure of the extent to which people in a country are not benefitting from development". Although both are important and should be used, this post will focus on the Human Development Index.

"(T)he HDI is a pathway for researchers into the wide variety of more detailed measures contained in the Human Development Reports."

Wikipedia provides a List of countries by Human Development Index, the table below provides a historical perspective from 1975 to 2005 of a selected set of countries.

Rank (2005)	Country	1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2005
12	United States	0.870	0.890	0.904	0.919	0.931	0.942	0.951
63	Malaysia	0.619	0.662	0.696	0.725	0.763	0.790	0.811
70	Brazil	0.649	0.685	0.700	0.723	0.753	0.789	0.800
81	China	0.530	0.559	0.595	0.634	0.691	0.732	0.777
128	India	0.419	0.450	0.487	0.521	0.551	0.578	0.619

The new Statistical Update was released on December 18, 2008, and compiled on the basis of data from 2006. According to the new data, the United States, China and India have gone down in HDI and ranking, Malaysia and Brazil went up in HDI but stayed the same ranking.

15	▼ (3)	United States	▼ 0.950
63	▬(0)	Malaysia	▲ 0.823
70	▬ (0)	Brazil	▲ 0.807
94	▼(13)	China	▼ 0.762
132	▼ (4)	India	▼ 0.609

We should not see measurement as a limitation. It is what we are measuring that needs to be examined. Below is a 2007 video from TED featuring Hans Rosling of GapMinder, who amazes his audience with his statistical presentations. One conclusion of his measurements is that countries that look first to the welfare of their people will have a better and more sustainable economic ascendancy. The current economic global crisis created by the pursuit of wealth, for wealth, by the wealthy has reversed and further threatened any previous gains. The response should not be to stop but to apply the paradigm put forward by Hans Rosling to the global community.

Related posts: The Ledger of Human Development - Accounting For Change

Memo to Obama Transition Team and World Re: Environmental To-do List

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I am a a member of the group Eco20/20 at Diigo.com. The most prolific member of that group is Energy Net. Below are just some of the links he has made available recently. These are the ones I thought had a particular tie in with the Millennium Development Goal 7. Environmental Sustainability.

• Eco-Report to Obama Transition Team - Add comment Diigo Tags: energy energy.news ecology
• Gore's Poznań speech is online: "We cannot negotiate with the facts." - Add comment Diigo Tags: energy energy.news climatechange gore
  
• Old Coal Mines Adapted to Generate Geothermal Energy - Add comment Diigo Tags: energy energy.news geothermal coal
  
• Green Car Congress: Report: China to Put 60,000 New Energy Vehicles Into Trials in 11 Cities - Add comment Diigo Tags: energy energy.news cars
  
• Climate Control: Germany Reaches Kyoto Emissions Commitments - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Add comment Diigo Tags: energy energy.news kyoto germany climatechange
  
  

None Of Us Is Insulated From the Tumult

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Unfortunately, the news about the world economy is not getting any better, but perhaps there is a silver lining for the longer term if we can turn modern capitalism from uber-consumption and use it to create economic opportunities for others. The lowering of the developed world, closer to that of its poorer neighbors, could perhaps make leaders realize that in a profoundly interconnect world pursuing world wide avarice and leaving even one nation to poverty risks us all. It is a proposal that will have hordes saying can't be, shouldn't and won't be done, but the word for today is Believe.

ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS / WORLD BUSINESS | October 7, 2008 Emerging Markets Find They Aren't Insulated From the Tumult

Emerging markets took one of their biggest collective tumbles in a decade as stock markets from Mexico to Indonesia to Russia were gripped by fears of a collapse.

Many of the world's fastest-growing economies thought they had insulated themselves from problems in the developed world. But economists said that simultaneous turmoil in Europe and the United States was too much to bear. "The potential of a global recession is awakening emerging markets that they will be hit stronger than we thought before," said Alfredo Coutiño, a senior economist at Moody's, the credit rating agency.

Blogging sites listed under Millennium Bloggers with Minds of Their Own provide relevant insight into the issues and endeavor to provide pathways to solutions or at least coping strategies.

• Center for Global Development

  CGD Development Update: Experts Urge IMF to Include Developing Countries in Re-Write of Financial Rules -
• 
  
• “Bob Zoellick seems to have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the unsettled global economic situation and a lame duck U.S. president to open the way for overdue reform of the World Bank to give developing countries greater voice,” she said. “He’s right: more fully engaging rising Asia and other emerging markets at the bank will strengthen the bank’s role in solving urgent global problems. I hope that the leadership of the IMF will follow suit and find ways to ensure that China, India and other key countries are at the table during the re-write of global financial rules.”

• 8 hours ago

• 
  Global Issues

  Global financial crisis - The global financial crisis having started in wealthy countries is being felt around the world. Rich country governments rush to bail out failing institutions.
• Selected sub-sections from the article:
  

• The financial crisis and the developing world
  1. Asia and the financial crisis
  2. Africa and the financial crisis
  3. Latin America and the financial crisis
• 
  
• 2 days ago
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  Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Blog

  Can we move from a risk framework to an opportunities framework in international development? - There is lots to say about risk analysis. Global or Local? Long-term or short-term? Financial or social? There is lots to say, too, about the implications.
• 
  
• In thinking about the future of international development, under the rubric of our ‘What’s Next?’ theme, I’ve found it very useful to make use of risk management frameworks, like the global risks analysis pioneered by the World Economic Forum. An example of what they do is pasted in below, taken from the Global Risks 2008 Report.
• Wednesday, October 01, 2008 2:44 PM by Simon Maxwell

Millennium Project Late Start

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This blog is in actuality a learning tool for myself, I am simply making it available to others who are also interested in learning about the same issues. I had gathered a good deal of resources before starting this blog. Those resources helped me find yet more resources on the web including Rav Casley Gera's African Development for the Completely Bloody Ignorant. Rav not only provides even more resources, he does a good job of putting those resources into context. I already blogged (re-blogged?) on Rav's latest post.

In one of his earlier posts, he wrote on Millennium Project: Getting Started. I am going to skip the depressing parts of his post and go to the crux.

The goals remain the most comprehensive and internationally supported development framework ever agreed. So even if 2015 is unachievable, aiming for 2017 seems better than giving up.

This is were my skeptical, fledgeling, libertarian sympathies get mixed with my usual progressive views. I don't believe that governments are going to succeed or even make a true effort to accomplish the millennium development goals. What will be accomplished is greater awareness of the need of the goals and the failure of existing governments to act. I have far greater faith in an increase in social-entrepreneurship in the world by private citizens and organizations. The term non-governmental organization (NGO) seems inane to me. That will not stop me though from supporting positive approaches to bringing the Millennium Development Goals about. Rav tries to look on the bright side and so shall I. Truth is that, despite being positive, Rav also puts forward a pragmatic, dare I say, business-like view of what needs to be accomplished.

So let's pretend that, a little behind schedule, the world is now eager and ready to fund and support the UNMP's recommendations. Where do we start?

1. Every developing country that wants to be eligible for support should prepare an MDG-focussed poverty reduction strategy, a plan to achieve the goals complete with precise costings and measurements of the aid required.
2. Fast-track countries, that are most suitable to receive support, should be identified (more on this below).
3. International agencies should immediately begin working with poor countries to train thousands of teachers, doctors, planning professionals, engineers, and "village specialists" in health, agriculture, forestry, road maintenance and other basic skills. This is to ensure that once infrastructure projects such as new schools and hospitals begin, they aren't messed up by lack of staff, as has often been the case in the past.
4. The "quick wins", cheap interventions proven to be effective, should be implemented in all as widely as possible. It would take just two years, the report argues, to distribute anti-malaria bed nets to all at-risk African children.
5. Middle-income countries like China and South Africa, while they have their own poverty issues, should also be invited to join the coalition working towards the goals for poor countries. While their ability to contribute financially may be limited, they can offer expertise, training and certain key cheap materials - for example, China produces artemisinin, a key ingredient of anti-malaria medicine. (p50-55)

Each of these can be explored more deeply, as can the five separate systems that Rav provides that have recently assessed poor countries' governance and economic policies according to fairly strict standards. I am only going to focus on one though for this post.

• The US' Millennium Challenge Account, an aid initiative launched by the Bush administration which has some of the highest standards , with just 19 of Africa's 54 countries having so far qualified, including Ghana, Mozambique and Niger.

Because it wouldn't be fair to depend on Rav for all the links, here is one to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. It is the government corporation responsible for using the business-like approach to implementing the millennium development goals for the United States. What is of note to my progressive leanings is that this was started by the current Bush Administration, but when I read about it in the press names like Madeleine Albright and Ben Affleck pop-up. This needs to be studies more. What is more notable is the lack of support from Congress. Another resource of this blog is the the Center for Global Development who provides a couple of reports on the subject, Senate Takes Earlier MCC Haircut to Full Out Decapitation and Responsible Appropriation? Another Look at the Senate's MCA Slashing all posted by Sheila Herrling.

Getting the Dragon and the Elephant to work together

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China and India in some ways hold both the promise and challenge of the Millennium Development Goals to a far greater degree than any other countries. They face the challenge of fulfilling the promise for their own people, but they are also developing the economic viability on their own to bring it about. The 8th millennium development goal calls for Global Partnership. Turan Khanna's book calls for global partnership between these two raising economic powers.

CII Karnataka via India Press Release wrote a review on 7/18/08 on Tarun Khanna's book BILLIONS OF ENTREPRENEURS. The author is a Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School.

For the first time since the rise of Western capitalism, entrepreneurs in China and India can ignore New York and London—and still build companies worth billions. Thanks to social and economic revolutions, Asia has captured the best minds and money from all around the world. Billions of Entrepreneurs is a compelling account of how China and India are reshaping business, politics and society around the world.

Tarun said China and India are radically different –one was top down and the other bottom – up. "How they will complement each other when they have two different political and cultural systems is a question to analyse and understand. "

India is argumentative; China is about force. If a road has to be laid, it is laid. In India; you'd have a hundred disputes. But we have to work around these," Tarun said.But Kiran Mazumdar – Shaw said India and China must work together. "How when we have different systems do we turn partners in growth? I reason that we are competing when it comes to marketing and manufacturing, but a great opportunity lies in research. How do we synergise when we are countries with a vast cultural divide? Source: Press release distribution via India PRwire

Another perspective on the book is taken by the Harvard Gazette - Economies in Asia: The dragon vs. the elephant. Quoting Tarun:

"I think there's a lot of truth to the characterization by most mainstream Americans and American social scientists that China is winning the 'race,' whatever that means," says HBS professor Tarun Khanna.

But Khanna, who's spent some years comparing the economic development of these two emerging nations and is at work on a book on the subject, cautions that while China has successfully leveraged its governmental structure to attract the foreign companies fueling its manufacturing boom, India's indigenous entrepreneurship is thriving in a way that cannot be ignored.

CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry led and industry managed organisation, playing a proactive role in India's development process.