High Bills and Kids Are Smarter Than We Think

Technology forms the solution for our problems. That is in one sentence what I think links the readings this week. Whether that technology is innovative and cheap (aka frugal) in GE Models businesses in India, or new technology that opens op access to new streams of information (Beyond voice and Finishing the Job) or old and new technology that enables sustainable ways of living (In the Arabian Desert, A Sustainable City Rises). It is the idea that technology is overall a good thing, instead of the bad thing that it is sometimes considered nowadays. (This idea is very well verbalized by Hans Rosling in his TED talk the Magic Washing Machine)

Personally, I support this view. It was one of the reasons that I studied Mechanical Engineering in my undergrad. However, I also felt that technology alone is not enough. I think a good innovation is a balanced set of innovative technology and smart use social structures. In this post I would like to share an illustrative example:

Source: http://green.camara.ie/business/why-give-to-camara/news/


Yesterday evening I met a professor from CMU at a couchsurfing event (already incredible right?) We started talking and I found out he had started three completely new academic science programs in Gabon. He told me about the completely different culture. He told the following story: The university wanted fast internet for the students. So they bought a very expensive super-fast internet connection for which they had to pay a lot of money per month. Great investment. However, the appointed internet official at the university was a friend of the director. Really friendly guy but he knew absolutely nothing about internet technology. The result: a huge bill, but almost no internet for most of the times. Sometimes they had internet for maybe an hour but than it stopped again. Of course, they tried to change this. But the local culture of appointing friends was just too strong.
The lesson I drew from this: Before looking into more technology, we first need to have a plan on how to deal with this cultural aspect.
- But how? How would you deal with this if you were there?

Secondly, I wanted to make a small remark on an assumption that is made in the article Finishing the Job. The author argues that often you can only use internet if you are literate. As one of the group members of Earn and Learn, I agree with this. As long as it is about adults.
I believe it may work differently for kids. Indian researcer Suguta Mitra started doing simple experiments an reached this conclusion: Children in Rural learn english and learn to use the internet.. by themselves! In groups without a teacher and without any literates. Check it out:



For me, these two examples show that we have to get out of our ivory towers when we are designing or stating advices. But the difficulty is: How to do this when cannot just send everyone to the other side of the planet?
- Do you have suggestions how we could make a more context-aware approach possible?

Can a CCT Program be Applied in the US?

In his post, Evan Haines raised very good points and questions. Evan asked if policymakers could implement Bolsa Familia (BF)-like programs in other countries and if there were potential challenges surrounding BF programs that he missed. I asked myself if a conditional-cash transfer (CCT) program could be implemented to alleviate poverty in the United States. New York City implemented a program similar to Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, but decided to discontinue it because the program only had “modest effects on [the] lives and economic situation” of poor residents in NYC. I will discuss other challenges and issues that create obstacles for CCTs to work in a country like the U.S.

As Tina Rosenberg points out in her article “To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor,” Brazil’s Bolsa Familia program, which gives payments to poor families if they meet certain requirements (e.g. keeping their children in school) succeeded in reducing poverty. Mexico implemented a similar program called Oportunidades and succeeded in reducing poverty as well. Poverty fell from 22 percent to 7 percent in Brazil from 2003 to 2009 and this is attributed to the CCT program. The conditional cash transfer program seems like the perfect solution to drastically reduce poverty, but is it?

In 2007, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg began a CCT program in his city only to discontinue the program three years later. As Julie Bosman points out in her article “City Will Stop Paying the Poor for Good Behavior,” the program only had moderate effects. The program only has significant results increasing the attendance of high school students who met school proficiency standards before entering high school. Those students who didn’t meet proficiency standards as well as elementary and middle school students had “no educational or attendance gains.”  Julie says the report on the NYC’s program was “in line with early results from similar conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America.” It is not known for sure why the program was discontinued, but it could be because it was difficult to fund the program using public funds. Private funds paid for the program and public funds would later be used if the program succeeded. But there are drastic differences between the poor residing in places like New York City and favelas in Brazil.

The problems that poor people face in an urban setting are not the same as those in a rural community. The article in The Economist “Give The Poor Money” does point out that CCTs are less effective in urban areas than rural ones. As the article points out, “the problems of poverty are compounded by violence, drugs, family breakdown and child labor.” These are problems that may not exist in rural communities or that are less of an issue. In New York City, 80 percent of the families that received money through the CCT program were single parent families (Bosman). This might not have been the case in countries like Brazil or Mexico. Family breakdown can make a psychological and economical difference.

The environment and infrastructure where poor people live matters with this type of program. Many Brazilians in poverty reside in favelas and as Evan pointed out, favelas are independent communities with their own infrastructure. If a poor Brazilian family in a favela receives money, the family is more likely to spend the money in local businesses. As I observed during my travel in South America this past summer, communities in South America have several small businesses. Money given to poor families in these communities will more likely be reinvested into the community by supporting these local businesses. In contrast, it is easy to find large corporations or businesses (e.g. Walmart as Evan pointed out) in poor communities in the U.S. The money invested in these large businesses will be less likely to be reinvested back into the community as the funds will transfer out of the community and into the hands of the large business owners.

Public officials also need to consider that while CCT programs succeeded in improving school attendance that doesn't mean students' school performance will necessary improve. Educational problems vary from country to country. A school might not have good teachers and getting more students in school might not result in better academic achievement. There is also the problem that if CCT program are very succesful at increasing school attendance and visits to clinics, that governments will have to meet demands. Public officials need to be able to address effects that could arise from such programs. 

Public administrators and policymakers should also consider the political feasibility of a CCT. In a place like the U.S. where there are already strong public opinions towards welfare, it seems less likely that a nation-wide program like BF can be supported. I would expect a backlash towards a nationwide CCT program in the U.S.  considering the current political environment. Too many skeptics believe that the money given to these poor families would only be used for drug purposes and other bad habits. These skeptics usually have the perception that the families’ bad decisions led them to poverty.  Public attitude as well as legislators’ attitude would need to change for a CCT program to be approved.

How could we adapt a conditional cash transfer program to be more effective and politically feasible in a country like the U.S.? 

Government Intervention for Social Innovation

Should government be responsible for fostering innovation in the social sector through grants and subsidies, or should social entrepreneurs rely on the private sector for raising capital?   This question was brought to mind while reading the Economist article, Lets Hear those Ideas. This article concentrates on the United States' $50 million endowment to the advancement of social innovation. Furthermore, the UK has established a $390 million fund in the form of a social investment bank. With this week's theme of Creating Policies and Ecosystems for Social Innovation, I began thinking of the government's role in the promotion of social innovation.

Broken down by funding dollars by population, the UK government is allocating over $6.00 per capita. The U.S. on the other hand has allocated a mere $0.16 per capita.  However, the fundamental makeup of the government and its intervention with their citizens varies greatly between these two countries. One only has to look at the healthcare system in the UK to realize that the government believes that it is a fundamental right to provide universal healthcare to its citizens.  The United States primarily relies on the private sector for financing healthcare for a majority of its citizens.  Is this the reason why the United States is lagging in delivering financing options to its citizens to spur social innovation in relation to the UK?

How does the rest of Europe fair in terms of fostering social innovation?  Social Innovation Europe is an organization setup by the European Commission and is overlooked by the Social Innovation Exchange (SIE).  Social Innovation Europe is designed to assist social entrepreneurs connect with one another as well as issue reports to educate the public on opportunities for social innovation.

Taken from Social Innovation Europe's "Financing Social Innovation" report (which can be found here)

"Across the world millions of people are creating better ways to tackle some of the most challenging social problems of our times: climate change, chronic disease, social exclusion, and material poverty. Often their ideas come to life through collaborations that cut across the public and private sectors, civil society, and the household. Frequently they make use of new technologies including broadband and mobile communication. Some of their successes are now part of everyday life, from microcredit in rural communities to web platforms linking teachers and learners, as well as banking services using mobile phones, community land trusts, restorative justice programmes, and more. The field of social innovation is now beginning to gather momentum, with significant investment from governments, foundations and business. Over the next few years, it is possible that the ability to support, manage and grow innovations of this kind will become a core competence within governments, businesses, NGOs and foundations."

This report also highlights the various funding platforms established throughout the European market solely for financing social innovation programs. Furthermore, this report states that over $100 million is being allocated specifically for micro-financing efforts.

Even small countries such as Serbia has set up a fund for social innovation. Although it has only allocated $6 million to this social innovation fund, the Serbian government has taken on the responsibility to foster such growth.

Should the United States' government start taking hints from Europe in order to set up a robust social innovation fund? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding YES. Social innovation is often times cost prohibitive, with the rewards not always being financial.  Helping citizens to lead healthy, productive lives should be the role of government. Why not allocate a small percentage of GDP to set up a fund so that social entrepreneurs can start doing the work where government is failing to do so?

Welfare vs Conditional Cash Transfer

Welfare has always been a hot button topic. There is a negative association with welfare participants in the United States because many people believe that individuals/families on welfare are taking advantage of the system and looking for handouts without having to work hard for their money. Of course, this stereotype is not true and many welfare recipients work very hard and are simply not able to make ends meet due to other environmental factors including lack of education, health services, and unemployment. Many ideas have been pushed around and signed into law to try and reform welfare in order to help families get out of poverty instead of simply depending on welfare for their income needs. One example is the policy that many states have adopted to require welfare recipients to search, apply, and participate in employment. Problem is, many jobs that are available for undereducated and skilled workers (which make up most of welfare recipients) are minimum wage and cannot support a family. The result is that families continue to cycle in and out of welfare. Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs can be the solution America has been looking for to break the poverty cycle. We just have to give them a chance.

According to To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor by Tina Roseberg, CCT programs have greatly reduced poverty in third world countries by distributing unrestricted cash on a conditional basis. The conditions are in the categories of education, health, and employment. The result is that families are not just better off financially, but they increase their own human capital, which leads to a better future for the children and help bring families out of poverty permanently.  CCT’s sound like a no-brainer, so why are they not in the United States?

In 2007, New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg initiated a CCT program in select communities and planned on a three-year pilot program with continuous evaluation through MDRC. In 2010, MDRC reported its first results. Results showed that families did receive a short-term benefit of financial relief (not unlike welfare), but there was only marginally improvement in areas of education, health, and employment, which is the whole purpose of a CCT program. At the end of the three years, Mayor Bloomberg decided not to continue the program.

(More information at www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/fastfocus/pdfs/FF5-2010.pdf)

New York is currently the only state to have tried CCT’s. I believe the United States have not given this program a good enough chance. With so much evidence of improvement in undeveloped countries, it is obvious that CCT’s work. It is true that these programs can be more effort (and perhaps money) than traditional welfare, but investing in people now results in future generations having a better chance at a good education, career, family, etc. These human capital changes don’t happen overnight and they need more than three years to develop. The bottom line is both traditional welfare and CCT’s relieve people of immediate financial burdens, but CCT’s can turn welfare participants into contributing members of society. I say we give it another try for a longer time with a bigger population in a variety of geographic locations. We don’t have anything to lose, but a whole lot to gain.

Zindagi Trust-Geting Paid to Study...

It was heartening to the read the methods employed by Bolsa Familia and Opurtunidades in Brazil and Mexico respectively.  I was particularly impressed by the work done with regards to how the monthly payments translated into better levels of education. I would like to use this blog to highlight a similar initiative in Pakistan, with the only difference being that its primary aim is to improve education levels directly. The program is aptly titled “Paid to Learn” and is run under the auspices of the Zindagi Trust, a nonprofit welfare organization. The project is the brainchild of Pakistani pop star Shehzad Roy.

The program works by paying every child a set rate of around Rs. 20 every day.  In return the children have to attend school regularly and submit homework on time. Any indiscipline with regard to behavior or tardiness results in the payment for the day being held back. The program specifically targets primary education for children who are working in the slums of Pakistan. The program rewards the top students of the program with a scholarship for continuing education. The idea is to substitute child labor with education. The curriculum is based on an accelerated program with an emphasis on math, science, social sciences, English and Urdu.

Parents are contacted and their permission is sought before enrolling any children in the program as in Pakistan the biggest proponents of child labor are the parents themselves. The parents normally have large families of up to six children all with only a few years age difference between the kids themselves. This means that the eldest child has to “grow up” very quickly to aid with the household income and can be earning on the streets as quick as his/her eighth birthday. The “Paid to Learn” program promises a fixed income and the hope of a better future through education but to the concerned parents the current income normally matters much more than future prospects. The program has up to 2800 children in it at one time out of which at least a 1000 graduate each year. More information can be found at http://www.zindagitrust.org/index.php.

In Mexico and Brazil poverty as a whole has been scaled back by targeting purchasing power directly, with better education as a spillover. It seems however though that this approach has been more successful than the ZIndagi Trust in Pakistan even though over here the sole target is better education. The basic difference it seems to be is funding; in Pakistan the work is being done on a non-profit basis and is heavily reliant on donors whereas in the Latin American countries the program has government support. The question is, if both programs had government support or rather the same endowment, then which one would have more of a benefit to society? The program that targets better education directly or as an after effect?

Measuring impact and observing the new

This week’s theme – Creating Policies and Ecosystems for Social Innovation deals heavily with the options for supporting and generating programs in social innovation. Many of the articles highlight the importance of the non-profit sector in many of the most innovative programs and projects to date.  While I appreciate this shout out, it seems obvious that this would be the case – many social innovations are born out of need and many non-profits lack the resources to follow a ‘typical’ process. Time, money and other resources are limited; you do what you can with what you have. Often, this leads you down a path of creativity and therefore toward innovative discoveries that deal with social issues. While I still believe credit should be given where it’s due, I also don’t think this is something particularly new – just something that has only recently been branded. As we discussed in some of the earlier lectures, many of the most innovative solutions of their day are nothing more than moments of common sense and acceptance today.

Additionally, because of the attention to this new approach, there is also now the enhanced focus on evaluating all of the time and efforts that go into these programs, especially as more models emerge that look to create ventures with a mission. While most can agree that public funds should go to social programs that work and not to those that don’t, it is an issue to determine which programs work and who gets to decide.

I found an article that discusses just this and the consensus is that those who set out to evaluate these programs fall into 2 categories – experimentalists and inclusionists. While merits of both are presented, there is an unfilled need to determine the common ground.Research and experience are valid methods to gather data in order to make informed decisions. But by nature, social innovations are varied across the board so can comparisons be made to each other and are we working toward a simple evaluation template that becomes a standard measure.

My question this week is: If we agree all experimental, observed, researched and experienced data is important, how is value placed on each type as a way to measure one social innovation against another? And then, how does this translate in terms of monetary and public support?

Broader Evidence for Bigger Impact - Lisbeth Schorr

Community based Initiatives and CCTs

This week’s readings focus on how policy makers can drive innovative solutions to society’s problems without investing precious time and money into it themselves. They can offer individuals incentives for a futuristic approach via prizes, implement structures to promote non-profits to come up with replicable and sustainable solutions, allocate government funding and support to social innovation research etc. The readings cite successful examples that have not only achieved optimal results but have also been replicated by numerous countries, such as Brazil’s Bosla Familia, Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, and America’s Teach for America. However, while all of that is necessary and commendable, the literature concentrates on individualistic approaches and ignores the effect of collective communal thinking for a common problem.

The Small Grants Programme (run by the United Nations Development Programme) and funded by the Global Environments Facility (GEF) is a platform that invites solutions from a community, with regard to community specific problems. Sabah, Malaysia faced an issue of sea turtle by-catch in commercial fisheries. On one hand, the incidental capture at sea by mechanized fisheries was the biggest threat to sea turtles (that are on IUCN’s Red List). On the other hand, livelihoods of fishermen needed to be taken into account. Through dialog and consensus, local fishermen determined an ‘average daily catch’ and started to use Turtle excluder devices (TEDs) that excluded turtles from fishing nets, but not at the exclusion of catches. Many parts of the world have seen turtle by-catch decrease by 97% in trawl fishing fleets since adopting

TED technology.

This is just one example of many. Community based initiatives can be great problem solvers as they alleviate the problem of information asymmetry, and by engagement, the people of the area are better disposed to adopt the new innovation, thus making the technology more impactful. Thus, it might be worth the policy maker’s time to also encourage communal thinking and engage them when developing solutions.

This is not to say that the incentivizing approaches mentioned in the articles are not worth pursuing. However, I am wary of the conditional cash transfers programs that have become famous in much of Latin America and are now spreading to Asia. Firstly, the amount of grants is not sufficient to meet the long-term needs of the poor- to measure ‘poverty’ quantitatively against a line that does not take into account the quality of their lives, and the fact that these grants are the only thing that sustains them from day to day, is not a fair measure of their condition. This brings us to my second critique: these grants are not sustainable. What happens when the money runs out? In case of funding shortfall or donor pull out due to political reasons, this program is doomed to fail. How long can the donors be expected to keep paying? If the goal is to take a certain percentage of people out of poverty through these CCTs, they will plunge back into poverty the minute these grants stop. Thirdly, these CCTs do not invest in human capital, in the form of skills and education, and do not spur entrepreneurship. Just doling out money is incentive enough for able people to stay home and feed off this welfare program. In doing so, the overall productivity of the economy decreases.

Thus, a time limit is important for all CCTs and the above questions make it imperative that a country envisions a broad Development Strategy that incorporates a CCT program, and not vice versa. 

Which Cause to Fund?

           As I might have mentioned in previous posts, I come from a performing arts background. The more theatres I intern with the more I develop an inner grading system about how effective I think each organization is in meeting its goal. While profitability is certainly a necessary and welcome trait for a theatre to have, it ultimately should not define a theatre’s existence. In my mind, any theatre, like any nonprofit, that strives to complete an important mission and can prove its effectiveness with the audiences it serves deserves and should receive all the necessary support it needs to be sustained. However, if efficient structures of funding are not in place to serve these organizations, then such nonprofits will be able to effectively carry out their missions because their energies will constantly be exhausted figuring out how to cut costs and get by.

             As evidenced by the Presidential debate last night, in this country there is an ongoing conversation about how much of a role government can and should play in supporting the nonprofit (or “third”) sector.  I believe that, in a sense, the 2008 recession was a hidden blessing for innovators and forward-thinking nonprofits because the tightening of purse strings created a need for the development of tools and standards that measure the effectiveness of a method or program in correlation to the social need it addresses. I definitely think that certain nonprofits that cannot provide these deliverables should be weeded out by natural competition in our society. Since the President is currently being scrutinized for our country’s trillion-dollar debt, his administration needs to support programs and initiatives that truly can have profound benefits on our society. However, it is becoming harder and harder to discern black from white, especially in the medical field.

            I have been thinking about this topic in relation to my group project, which involves finding revenue streams to fund the effort to eradicate polio in Pakistan. Throughout this process, I have learned that politics can be as detrimental to an innovative cause as money. Ultimately, with these constraints, it is impossible to devise a perfectly infallible method for analyzing the effectiveness of nonprofits and, more so, worthy social causes that deserve priority treatment. For example, The New York Times article on grants awarded to innovators mentions that “patents reward innovators with a period of monopoly control over their invention. This means that there is very little incentive to pursue innovations that don’t promise to be lucrative.”[i] The article goes on to mention that innovations for various rare diseases are put on the back burner mostly because there isn’t enough profit to be made in curing them.

            Thus, in my mind I am struggling over what separates polio (a disease nearly eradicated across the globe) from Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome, a rare inherited disorder that affects about one in 380,000 live births all across the world.[ii] Both diseases have devastating effects on the human body (both physically and neurologically). I suppose that polio epidemics over one hundred years ago put the disease in the limelight, while Lesch-Nyhan is not contagious. I am not claiming that one disease is worse than the other. I have met many people with Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome and knew one person who suffered from polio while an infant (my great aunt). I wish innovation do more to help both causes, but I suppose if politicians are not well informed about such issue and get tied up in partisan battles, they ultimately are not able to enact legislation that would support the efforts to cure these horrible diseases.

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[i] Rosenberg, Tina. “Prizes With an Eye Toward the Future.” The New York Times. February 29, 2012. www.opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

[ii] Genetics Home Reference. “Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome.” Date Accessed: 10/4/12. Website: www.ghr.nlm.nih.gov 

Government: No Longer A Necessary Evil

Recent decades in most developing countries have given rise to an outlook that the government is "but a necessary evil", though the phrase itself dates back centuries. However, with the emergence of a new sector - the social sector - has pulled the government as a key player into the ring of solving social issues, as discussed in Jolin's article in Center for American Progress. Incidentally, policymaking to support social innovation was my topic last week.

The above diagram succinctly shows us all the participants in Social Innovation. Let's take a look at what each has to bring to the ecosystem:

• Schools/University provide ideas and talent needed to build solutions
• Private Sector, sometimes, provides capital or incentive (in the form of prizes)
• Culture decides what type of solutions are required
• Government?

To support the collective efforts of educational institutions, the private sector and local culture, Government should act as an enabler that encourages social innovation both financially and policy-wise. Numerous social enterprises have come far enough to solve centuries-old social problems with little to no support from governments. If only policymakers stepped in now, at this time when social entrepreneurship is witnessing global growth, and created regulations favorable to those organizations with a mission to tackle our earth's problems, the results will not only multiply but also motivate new entrants to pursue similar goals.

A new trend has already begun in government funding, such as social impact bonds and social finance. In addition to adopting new financing models, the policymaking bodies should innovate in terms of policies themselves. For instance, revising tax codes is one great way to start. Another way is to hook up potential social innovations with corporate's CSR wings and offer subsidies on their mainstream businesses.

This way, while governments are busy handling matters like diplomacy, terrorism and law enforcement, social entrepreneurs will get busy solving the more pressing social problems, most of which are unseen or unknown to many of us.

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty- Breaking the Conflict Trap

In the New York Times article, To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor, I was especially struck by the line, "The elegant idea behind conditional cash transfers is to combat poverty today while breaking the cycle of poverty for tomorrow." I have done a lot of reading by international development scholar Paul Collier during my undergraduate and graduate studies, and he refers to a similar "cycle of poverty" when describing the relationship between civil war and development. Collier describes a "conflict trap", which is essentially a cycle in which if development fails somewhere, the economy takes a big hit, which puts that country at risk for having longer and more civil wars. The connection that I found between these two concepts is that both can be seen as slow processes. That is, both conditional cash transfers and aid for post conflict reconstruction are more useful when looking to impact future generations as opposed to remedying the current state.

As noted in the NY Times article, the conditional cash transfers have a criteria in which the families receiving the aid have to fulfill a certain set of requirements. It is clear that there are a variety of levels of poverty- between extreme poverty and simply lower class/poor. Ideally, these cash transfers should be able to lift people out from all levels of poverty. However, I am interested in knowing more about whether there is a point on the poverty spectrum in which conditional cash transfers would be more effective than other levels of poverty. In some cases of extreme poverty, it might be unrealistic to expect that the receivers can meet all of the requirements immediately. Instead, direct aid might be more effective until they are able to lift themselves up to a level in which they can be more effective with their payments.

One idea that differentiates Collier from other international theorists is that he puts an emphasis on is helping countries that are not simply poor, but that are in a situation in which the economy is not growing. In other words, if a country does not experienced sustained growth, aid should be put towards development opportunities there. The strategy behind conditional cash transfers is to protect poor households by making the receivers accountable for their actions. Based on Collier’s argument to focus on the poorest of the poor, is it too early to use conditional cash transfers for the people in these nations? Should reconstruction and infrastructure development come first when attempting to help countries suffering from the after effects of civil war? Perhaps the two should happen at the same time in an effort to promote sustainable development for rebuilding post-conflict societies.

It is clear that the efficacy of both Collier’s ideas and conditional cash transfers will need to be evaluated over a long period of time. In any case, helping the lowest level of poverty will be a slow job for generations, one that will require lifting people out of extreme poverty while simultaneously equipping them with the necessary means towards being self-sustainable. I would like to pose the question of what level of poverty would benefit most from conditional cash transfers? Is there a point in which direct aid for reconstruction is more crucial than equipping society with the necessary skills for success?