poverty

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October 22, 2012 | 2:26 PM | By  | 

Nathan Myhrvold: Patent Troll, Inventor and now Global Do-Gooder | 

When folks talk about Nathan Myhrvold, they seldom use muted terms.

Tom Paulson

Nathan Myhrvold, speaking at Social Innovations Fast Pitch 2012

The former chief technologist for Microsoft is a close associate of Bill Gates and now CEO of a business, Intellectual Ventures, which some say holds more patents (about 40,000) than any other company in the United States.

I wanted to talk to Myhrvold about his recent ventures into philanthropy, into humanitarianism, which his firm has dubbed its “Global Good” project.

But first, I should disclose that I once worked for Nathan as one of a number of assisting writers on his mega-cookbook Modernist Cuisine. I helped write the meat chapter. (We sometimes argued over the words. He was difficult, I would say. He might say the same about me. But I think we’re all happy with the book.)

I should also note Myhrvold is frequently accused of being a patent troll — meaning he and his firm buy up patents and then use them to, uh, encourage (some use different words) other companies to pay them royalties or licensing fees. Here’s one such recent news post on GigaOm that talks about the Bellevue-based firm “bleeding billions from creative companies” using threats of litigation and disguised “shell companies.”

The writer goes on to say Myhrvold runs a ‘dark empire’ that stalks its victims! Is this Lord of the Rings or something? Like I said, he does tend to provoke strong feelings.

Myhrvold also provokes strong praise. He is frequently described as a master inventor in his own right, a brilliant polymath, an accomplished paleontologist (as this New Yorker profile noted) and, of course, a gourmet chef.

But the Nathan Myhrvold I’m most interested in is a fairly new one — Nathan the humanitarian technologist. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Science, Intellectual Ventures, malaria, Nathan Myhrvold, patents, philanthropy, poverty, technology
October 15, 2012 | 10:00 AM | By  | 

Non-review of book ‘Spillover’ and the threat of deadly red herrings | 

Flickr, JudyGr

The risk of red herrings

I have always loved the work of David Quammen, someone I would describe as a science adventure writer. Quammen was in Seattle recently to promote his new book about the animal-human disease connection, Spillover. It’s getting good reviews, such as in Time magazine and the New York Times.

This is a non-review of Quammen’s book because I haven’t read it and missed the lecture.

My purpose here is only to use Quammen’s book tour to point out the risk of deadly red herrings. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Justice, David Quammen, infectious disease, poverty, zoonotic diseases
May 9, 2012 | 10:36 AM | By  | 

Will new, positive findings allow Jeffrey Sachs to stop shouting back at the critics? | 

Columbia University

Jeff Sachs

The renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs, now director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, seems to irritate people — which also seems to prompt his critics to engage in vitriolic attacks of his efforts to combat global poverty and inequity.

The debates centered around Sachs remind me of some of the people I’d meet as a boy attending church, those folks who would argue angrily, endlessly and insultingly over fundamental disagreements about how best to love thy neighbor.

Whatever one may think about Sachs’ methodology or personality, can’t we all at least agree he has done a lot to promote the causes of global health, social justice and equity? For one, Sachs helped craft the Millennium Development Goals — which, if imperfect, gave the world a strategy for improving global health, reducing poverty and improving the lives of the poor worldwide.

One of Sachs’ biggest projects today is known as the Millennium Villages Project. Not surprisingly, it has been pilloried by many aid experts who say there is no evidence the project does any good.

Well, according to The Guardian, there is now evidence of good from Sachs’ Millennium Villages Project:

Death rates among children under five at the Millennium Villages – set up in Africa to demonstrate what is possible if health, education, agriculture and other development needs are tackled simultaneously – have fallen by a third in three years compared with similar communities, according to the project’s first results.

Sachs, in characteristic form, explodes all over the media with these positive findings to announce a breakthrough in the Huffington Post and to suggest, for CNN, that these results show that we can finally achieve “the dream of health for all, even the poorest of the poor… (This) can become a reality because of recent breakthroughs in technology and health systems.”

A bit over the top, yes, but that’s just the way Jeff likes to talk. You need to keep in mind he started on his campaign against poverty and the diseases of poverty back in the days when, well, hardly anybody gave a damn. He had to shout. And he’s still shouting.

So now, finally, he has some data to back his claims up and can maybe stop shouting.

Or maybe not. As Nature News notes, the findings aren’t likely to stop the critics:

“The core of the problem is lack of transparency and careful, independent analysis,” says Michael Clemens, a migration and development researcher at the Center for Global Development, an independent research institution in Washington DC.

The aid blogger Roving Bandit notes that even if child mortality declined in the Millennium Villages, the project itself found no statistical impr0vements in poverty, nutrition, education or other child health indices.

So I guess, no, the answer appears to be the shouting is likely to continue.

FILED UNDER: Basics, child mortality, Jeffrey Sachs, millennium development goals, poverty
November 21, 2011 | 9:30 AM | By  | 

10 reasons why Rwanda can’t be described in a sound-bite | 

I’ve just returned from a whirlwind fact-finding tour of Rwanda with the International Reporting Project. I can now report with great confidence that these Rwandan school children are enjoying themselves:

Beyond that, I have to admit I am still trying to process the experience. Rwanda is a tough country to get a handle on. Here are some reasons why:

1. Rwanda has been ranked by the World Bank as one of the best countries in Africa, or anywhere, for doing business.

2. Rwanda has been ranked by Reporters Without Borders as one of the worst countries in the world for free speech and media independence.

3. Transparency International has ranked Rwanda as having low rates of corruption and one of the best records in East Africa specifically for cracking down on bribery.

4. Rwanda’s political system is frequently ranked as not free and de facto one-party rule. As the U.S. State Department notes, President Paul Kagame won 93 percent of the 2010 vote in a “peaceful and orderly election” — preceded by assassinations, terror attacks, closure of two newspapers and the disqualification of opposition candidates.

5. Rwanda has seen some of the most consistent economic growth anywhere in the world, averaging a 7 percent annual increase in GDP since 2005. Here’s a chart.

6. Poverty rates are high in Rwanda, with nearly half the population living in extreme poverty, according to the United Nations Development Program.

7. The government of Rwanda wants to transform this tiny nation into the Singapore of East Africa, a knowledge-based economy and financial hub for the region. Yet nine out of ten Rwandans are subsistence farmers, many of them semi-literate or with only primary school level education. Many depend upon foreign food aid, according to USAID.

8. Rwanda today has the highest percentage of women, a majority, holding elected office of any country in the world. In the 1994 genocide, sexual violence was at an all-time high with an estimated 250,000 women raped (and often murdered).

9. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Sub-Saharan Africa but most of the 11 million people live in rural areas and the country, whether seen up close or from space, is still very green.

10. Because of the 1994 genocide, it is against the law in Rwanda to identify yourself as an ethnic Tutsi or Hutu. Yet the (Tutsi-dominated) government recently required that the tragedy be described as the “genocide of the Tutsis.”

FILED UNDER: Basics, economy, freedom, media, poverty, Rwanda
September 21, 2011 | 4:37 AM | By  | 

Paul Farmer explains why global health has to first focus on poverty | 

I caught up with physician-activist Paul Farmer at the Clinton Global Initiative, the other big meeting in New York full of heads of state, celebs and bigwigs.

Farmer, the inspiring and controversial cyclist-celeb Lance Armstrong and others have joined in the clarion call to expand the global health agenda to include all the big killers (as per the UN meeting on chronic disease). Here’s more on Armstrong’s pitch.

I asked Farmer why he thought it necessary for his organization, Partners in Health, to emphasize that the UN focus not just on disease, but on diseases of poverty:

 

 

FILED UNDER: Health, Politics, Lance Armstrong, Paul Farmer, poverty, UN Week
August 11, 2011 | 10:36 AM | By  | 

Millions still facing starvation in Horn of Africa, some blame U.N. | 

By Oxfam East Africa, Wikimedia Creative Commons photo

Women and children refugees of the famine waiting to enter Dadaab camp in Kenya.

Today, relief agencies are saying there are some 12 million people in the Horn of Africa in danger of starving as a result of drought, exacerbated by conflict in Somalia.

As the famine crisis continues to worsen, it’s hard to know where to begin with its story. The U.S. today announced $17 million in new U.S. aid for the region, over 1,000 Somali refugees per day continue to arrive at Kenya camps, piracy is hampering delivery of relief supplies to Somalia and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talked with rock star Bono about the need for increased aid efforts.

Another interesting, and revealing, story angle comes from the Inter Press Service News Agency, pointing much of the blame for the famine at the United Nations for not putting more effort into long-term development programs across the region.

Gustavo Capdevila, writing for IPS, described a bleak situation:

(See ways to donate at end of this story.)

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Politics, Africa, aid, famine, poverty, Somalia, United Nations
July 12, 2011 | 9:56 AM | By  | 

Good news: 28 countries escape poverty trap | 

Flickr, Stuck in Customs

Progress is like a river

The Guardian reports on new data indicating we are making progress against poverty:

Remember the poverty trap? Countries stuck in destitution because of weak institutions put in place by colonial overlords, or becausse of climates that foster disease, or geographies that limit access to global markets, or simply by the fact that poverty is overwhelmingly self-perpetuating. Apparently the trap can be escaped.

Zambia and Ghana are specifically celebrated in the article as having risen rapidly from “low-income” toward “middle-income” status, according to new World Bank country classifications.

Low-income means countries in which people make less than $1,005 per year (why that extra $5?). Lower middle-income countries where people make between $1,006 and $3,975 per year and upper middle-income countries are those where people make $3,976 and $12,275 annually.

So what’s the behind this rapid progress? The authors provide three key perspectives:

1. Foreign aid, public and private investments to poor countries actually work.

2. The World Bank country criteria may not be measuring poverty accurately since many of those people living in poverty live in middle-income countries.

3. Fighting poverty is becoming increasingly a matter of domestic politics, a recognition of and public intolerance for inequity.

 

FILED UNDER: Basics, Ghana, low-income countries, poverty, World Bank, Zambia