Trends and geometry – false friends?

So, at last Mubarak has resigned, at record time compared to Tunisia. And so the buzz and energy of toppling North African presidents is spreading. Apparently Algeria is protesting as is Bahrain and other places are gearing up.

Commentators, since the days of Tunis, saw their opportunity to “predict” or anticipate the next epicentre of citizen revolt. Some, for example Gideon Rachman of the FT, did, much to his credit, place his bet on Egypt. Others placed their money on Morocco, and others still on Libya, etc. Indeed the majority (perhaps wishfully) anticipated that no other countries would follow the Tunisian route. The trouble with trending, when there is only one real data point, is that it’s incredibly hard. Picture this: a dot on a piece of paper. You can draw endless arrows that start at the centre of that spot and radiate out. So, a single data point is no starting point for a trend. Have a look below for an illustration.

Then along comes Egypt. Anyone following the Twittersphere was achingly aware of what was happening on a blow-by-blow account of events. It was like being in Tahrir square. Or the next best thing to it… So when Egypt came to pass (with a lot of backslapping among Twitteres who had helped the revolution) we also had a second data point. Try again the dot-on-the-page experiment, but now with two dots. The obvious realisation is that there can be only one line that joins up both dots (again see below).

So now we have our trendsetting information: two points that clearly lead in one direction. Pundits immediately looked to other North African countries, and to repressive nations in the middle east (since Egypt is the gateway to the ME). But Egypt can also be the gateway to many other disgruntled nations – or none at all. Sri Lanka could be demanding a regime change. Last time this author checked, not everyone is happy with the president and his family having taken over all the ministerial positions of relevance. Why not Belgium? We all know that for the past eight month this small European country has in fact been without a functioning government. And indeed what about other apparently supine countries where some dissent only is voiced over a drink and as pleasant conversation?

This is not to say that other countries may not mobilise themselves to change their political elite. But it is to say that two events are not enough to make a trend. They may be the beginning but are not the full story and may only lead to punditry. Because the full story may come from countries elsewhere and their tipping point becomes apparent only through much wider investigation and much deeper research. We need to be asking more questions that start with “What if…” and be bold in the way we conclude them.

Below an interesting video on data and trends – over 200 years.

The virtues of non-events: HIV and the airline industry.

… enter the action hero, smashing the bad guys to bits and saving the day! That is what we are celebrating, expecting and hoping for when the situation demands it. Far more effective though, and likely far cheaper, less destructive would be to prevent the situation that demands hero interventions in the first place.

Back in the real world there are plenty of examples analogous to the above. Think of HIV: millions have contracted the virus and progressed to AIDS. Now treatment is required (aka action hero) to ensure survival. This is urgent, necessary and absolutely right. Yet, far more expensive, requires gargantuan efforts and coordination and needs to be sustained indefinitely. A “better”, longer-lasting, more effective and cheaper alternative would have been to prevent the HIV infection in the first place. Again, considering HIV, the treatment versus prevention debate and priority has swung in either direction. The trouble now is that it’s far, far, easier to quantify the number of pills handed to HIV-positive people, than to definitively quantify the number of HIV infections avoided. Plus, non-events are far less headline-grabbing than events.

Another, yet somehow inverse, example is to be found in the airline industry: the event is a terrorist attack, the non-event is the prevention of such breaches. So, the response to the events of Sept 11, 2001 has been a war, new passport regulations, new scanning technology, endless legislation, and on and on. These are also, interestingly, part of the machinery set up to ensure future non-events, yet it feels like the response is still a reaction to the initial attacks. That’s because it is: On an international policy level, where international relationships are made or broken, nothing (or very little) has changed. We still seem to be stuck in a binary world of us and them, in and out, good and bad. This is slowly changing, but not (fast) enough to remove the perceived need of others to resort to blowing airplanes and soft targets to smithereens.

There are plenty of examples in which non-events would be no much more desirable than events. The final one here is perhaps closest to most people: your own health. We have all heard about the risks of heart attacks as we get older. We are also told about the benefits of physical activity over bad heating habits and lounging in chairs. Yet, despite all this information, we fail to implement those simple steps (best if taken at running speed) that will help avoid all sorts of unpleasant plumbing around our heart – or even death. Trouble is that as we are young the risks are low, so we discount the impact of a future event. As we get older the risks loom larger and the efforts needed to avoid the heart-compromising event are also more demanding. When the attack hits, the risk stares us straight in the face and the full machinery of heroic intervention is set in motion – far more expensive than going for a run, no?

Ultimately, we are, as a race, risk averse, perhaps not because we do not want to “take risks” – we do – but because we discount future risks, we are led to champion heroic interventions and because as a “population” we tend to behave differently than as individuals.

We all want change – but do we know what this entails?

“Change” has been a real buzzword for the past couple of years – really since Obama’s election campaign. No need to look up in the Oxford Dictionary – change is a break from the past or from the current ways. So, if we’re not happy with the current status quo we want “change”.

Tunisia has seen major change – its government has been toppled and the president who has ruled for over 23 years has fled the country. Egyptians want “change”, and oust Mubarak – leader for 30 years. Unsurprisingly, Obama is a champion of this change business and wants to usher in a new era for Egypt (and also seeing an opportunity for gaining street cred on Middle East matters – but that’ll be for another entry) and the same is now also pushed by the Europeans.

Do we all know what this “change” looks and feels like once we’re done with the changing and inhabit the world it has created? In Egypt, unlike Tunisia, there are several factions clashing on the streets: the pro- and against-government. Do we really think or hope to understand what each of the people on Tahrir square want, expect, and push for? Ask anyone and their vision for today is clear: remove Mubarak. Ask what their vision is for the end of 2011 and you’ll get a range of different opinions. Ask about 2020 and you’ll get a wildly variable set of expectations and hopes.

What’s really interesting is that every person will push in the direction they most wish to inhabit in the future. And after an experience like Egypt and Tunisia it is clear that change is possible and achievable, so individual agency will run at full throttle.

So, while the actual idea of immediate change can be shared almost universally, the products from that are far less unifying. In a sense talking about “change” in a campaign (and many politicians have adopted this slogan) is a bit of a trick: we all agree that change is needed, yet once change has occurred and we’re down to discussing the nitty-gritty of policy implementation, we’ll observe the sprouting of new camps arguing for new change…

Averages, means and how we are fooled by confidence

The average life expectancy in Europe is, roughly, around 80 years, as opposed to close to 40 in many least developing countries. Does this mean that people in Europe live to 80 and those in the poorest countries to 40? If there is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow does it mean that it will not be sunny? If there is a next-to-nothing chance of winning the lottery, does it imply nobody will play the numbers?

It’s interesting how we are somehow making up our own minds about probability, likelihood and possibility when we are faced with a set of odds. Of course in countries with low life expectancies there are plenty of people who live to 80. It’s just that there are a large share of children who die very young, but once older, the chance of making it to old age are actually pretty great.

Think about this: you live in a country where car insurance is not mandatory. Prior to taking out such insurance you think about your chances of actually getting into an accident: if you’re a cautious driver you are less likely to crash. So, you think, you’ll be extra careful and not take out insurance against a very, very, unlikely event. Farmers think this way too: it’s possible to insure against rare atmospheric events, but that insurance may be so expensive that the savings of not paying may equal or exceed an insurance payout should such a rare event occur.

Of course, people do pay the lottery numbers even though their chances of winning are minuscule. So why do we behave so differently in the face of different odds, chances, data and impressions? We seem to be preferring, in some cases the notion of “possibility” – the chance that a marginal event unfolds – over probability – the possibility that an event of large proportions takes hold. Conversely, we often prefer to pay heed to the possibility of a major probability (i.e. there’s a 70% chance of rain), discounting the less likely alternatives.

Even with the probability of, say, a train arriving on time 95% of journeys, there is a 5% chance of it running late or not arriving at all. So how do you manage this difference? In small or marginal matters this is of small or no consequence. However, if we try to develop scenarios and think about the future, that marginal 5% may materialise, amplify and make a huge difference. Of course our minds turn to Tunisia here. For years the country has progressed without major incidents, so it was safe to say that its chances of stability were perhaps 99.5%. Eventually that 0.5% became 100% and set the country on a totally new path. Following Tunisia there was talk of other north African countries following a similar fate. The media and leaders quickly reassured us that there was no such chance. Of course in our minds that 0.5% in, say, Egypt skyrocketed to 10%. And the rest is history.

This illustrates that just because the likelihood of an event is tiny it cannot be ignored. If it is believed that a small likelihood is still plausible it ought to be treated with the same seriousness as if it had a 50% chance – because it can quickly go that way. And when it does, it would be really good to have thought of this beforehand.

Who are marginalised groups and why we should include them in development practice

If you have been active in any kind of development work, practice, research, consulting, you will have come across the “marginalised groups”, “most-at-risk populations” and other similarly defined groupings of individuals. Let it be clear – I think that the various acronyms and definitions are themselves quite questionable and can at times be unhelpful.

Nevertheless the so-called marginalised groups are those effectively excluded from decision-making processes and their needs for development are not taken into account. This is wrong for several reasons.

First, development for the majority is, in principle, not wrong. After all, development practice is generally most concerned with improving the livelihoods of vast swathes of a country or a population before the same can be done for the few individuals who “fall through the cracks”. But is this not the very same reason for which some of the current development challenges exist? Entire countries have fallen through the cracks… Today’s social justice approach means justice for all, not just the majority – and these are achievable objectives.

Second, let’s think about the public health reality. Think about HIV for example. There are groups in some countries (i.e. men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, and many many more) who are excluded from policies benefiting the wider public – in some cases there are laws against MSM. Now, excluding people who are at risk of infection promotes the creation of “pools” within which a virus continues to exist. And replicate. And mutate. And eventually, once the virus has been eliminated from the general population, it is still present in the at risk population. The experience with HIV has shown that there is mixing between marginalised and general populations: this has been the basis for the spectacular global spread of the virus. So, as long as pools persist in marginalised groups, the risk for re-infection of the wider population remains real. Put differently, the wider population is only as protected from HIV as the marginalised groups are.

Here’s a twist, though. Who are the marginalised or at-risk populations? Conventional wisdom creates images of these groups in our minds. But there’s a problem with that: do we know whether marginalised or at-risk groups remain the same over time? Are we overlooking some groups because they are closer to the mainstream than we think – and yet they are excluded? Again, using HIV as an example: truckers are some of the at-risk groups. But are they “universally” at risk in all countries? Are there countries where in fact “electricians” are at-risk? Research has provided evidence of police in various developing countries being highly at risk because they take advantage of sex workers who. The police are not exactly marginalised, yet they are at-risk, and unless that’s recognised, we may transfer the virus via this group back to the main population – the majority we have attempted to rid of HIV, but failed to pay attention to the at-risk and marginalised groups.

That’s why marginalised groups be included in development policy.

How about a few scenarios for Tunisia? Finding Freedom?

The dust has apparently still not settled in Tunisia and the violence continues. Ben Ali’s family members are being arrested and their homes forensically examined, revealing abundant jewellery and other extravagances average Tunisians were unable to afford (evidently reminiscent of the fall of Saddam, so there’s an ongoing image creation campaign). To most outsiders, the governance situation in Tunisia did come as a surprise in December 2010. The violence continues because part of the newly forming government includes cronies and loyalists from the Ben Ali days. To be  fair, one cannot expect a full month of violence to simply disappear overnight – after all the initial demands were much meeker than the final results bear out: removing the President was not on the agenda of the early protests. So now, grievances mount – because they can. It suddenly has become apparent that given the right environment, anything is possible.

So, where might all this lead to?

As we always maintain: the future is fundamentally uncertain. So, while we bear witness to the last few weeks in Tunisia, this is no guide to the future. Let’s speculate around a few scenarios.

1. Newfound freedoms?

Tunisians throughout the country rejoice in the departure of their repressive and corrupt leader. Street parties celebrate a new era of openness, opportunity, transparency and power of the people. This is what democracy means and this is what it has achieved. The achievement has been reached through brute force and has illustrated that even the most hardened of dictators has a “best before” date, which is set by the people’s determination. The immediate aftermath of Ben Ali’s departure has not resulted in universal agreement about who should be in charge. It has also not meant that jobs are suddenly created for the overabundant young people with education – and a taste for change. So, over time, the new dispensation appears not so promising any more. What’s clear is that change can be forced, grievances can be expressed and so long as there are no jobs, some have developed a taste for demonstrating.

Demonstrations may become the order of the day and constantly undermine any real progress. This draws out years and hampers a consolidation of politics, policies and the labour market. Such a reality is not so much about an inability to agree, as it is about an overabundance of options and an impossibility to decide in the vacuum left by a strong autocratic ruler. The main sources of international funding, from the EU, are turned off in an attempt to over-compensate for its blindness during the Ben Ali days. Jobs end up not getting created and the country, despite its freedom, potential opportunity and liberty fails to capitalise on the Herculean effort of removing a dictator.

2. New freedoms… really?

Removal of a dictator throws the political field wide open – really wide. Though opposition parties existed, their ability to perform and run a country were dashed by a strong ruler. So, new challenges and opportunities allround. Though members from the opposition parties were present on the streets, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the political vacuum presents opportunities not only for the formal parties registered during the Ben Ali days. Battle-hardened civil leaders who made up the front lines (or directed the crowds from the back) got a taste for politics, power and success. They know what it takes to lead crowds. They also know how fickle the position of a leader can be. They know how to protect themselves and my take few risks of being ousted themselves.

As struggle between ideologies and parties ensues and results in a battle for power where only the fittest survives. Incidentally, this battle may not be bloody or apparent at first, but may change and become more physical over time. Crowds can be mobilised, leaders can be ousted and he who rules with a strong will – and fist – will come out on top. Plus ca change…

3. Found new Freedom!

This may be a slogan written by students and workers alike! A new coalition government is wildly successful in stabilising the country, promoting business and competition, and, crucially, gains the economic support from the EU as a means of helping the people of Tunisia, not propping up a leader. The transition will take time but ultimately nobody is interested in returning to a life of Ben Ali days, nor having to wreak havoc on the streets of Tunis. Tunisia is finally becoming the country the majority of the world thought it was: forward-looking, emancipated, dynamic and a real partner to Europe and the Mediterranean countries.

 

Let us know your thoughts about the future of Tunisia: info@ScenarioDevelopment.com

Incredible how quickly countries change – what set them off?

Lately a lot of changes have been happening across many countries. Open a paper and you’ll read about riots in Tunis, returns of former dictators in Haiti, countries facing bankruptcy (i.e. Ireland, Greece, etc…).

All these are events that display the apex of a chain of events: the president has been ousted in Tunisia and 23 years of political and other repression comes (apparently, hopefully) to an end. However, these are the endstates of a long series of interlocking realities and events that unfold over time. Malcolm Gladwell talked about the “Tipping Point”, that moment in time at which an event sets off a new direction from which is impossible to reverse. In the case of Tunisia, the tipping point was the poor fellow who had his fruit stall confiscated and later set himself on fire in protest. This was an extreme event, but was it recognisable as a tipping point at the time? Who would have predicted that Ben Ali would be ousted after a month of rioting? Evidently all the ingredients (high unemployment, significant corruption, general frustration with government handling of the crisis, high proportion of the population under 25, and on) were present, but was it clear or inevitable to everyone that it would wind up this way?

This is the burning question: do we recognise a tipping point when we see one?

The trick is this: recognise a tipping point when it happens – not when, some time later, you see its effects!

The earthquake in Haiti was another tipping point for a great many events – who would have guessed that almost precisely one year afterwards Jean-Claude Duvalier would return to Haiti. His return may be another tipping point. For what? There is plenty speculation and time will show. However, the prize lies not in political punditry but in an ability to view the events within the wider contexts and make sense of each event as it unfolds. Scenarios do help in this respect because they are based on information provided by expert observers of the situation.

So, let us know when you see a tipping point!

We’re giving it a go with our Fast Forward series. Now working on Rwanda Fast Forward and Sri Lanka Fast Forward. Both attempt to identify core issues that will shape the countries over the long term. Have a look on www.ScenarioDevelopment.com/Fast-Forward

A primer… in one minute: what are scenarios?

Scenarios are compelling and plausible descriptions of possible futures. They are not predictions but are a means of exploring what might happen. Once we accept that the future is uncertain, and might develop into a range of outcomes, we are also in a better position to understand change as it occurs.

This is helpful because it prepares us to anticipate the potential impacts of this change. Much better than to respond with a knee jerk because compelled to “so something – anything!”

So there it is. Building scenarios is useful and the more diverse the groups and people who contribute to their development, the better the product. Give it a try!

Chicken-egg-chicken: education-job-stability-education-job…

So, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? the job or national security? Or, to rephrase, can state stability be achieved by promoting gainful employment for the youths who might other wise take up weapons and destroy a country? Or conversely: does stability first need to be reached before jobs can do the rest?

Throw education into the mix and you’ve got a heady solution of molecules that need to fall into place at the right time to create the right product.

Thinking about the long term is about getting the mix and the sequence right. But there is no “right” or “wrong” in that either sequence, and even a combination of sequences, may get you to your objective.

Education is, generally and allround, a good thing: it gets people to commit to their future, opens their minds and horizons, and is a first step towards achieving one’s dreams and ambitions. It’s also a first step toward potential employment. Repeat this process for each young person and – tadaa – done! Trouble is that unless there is a minimum of stability, education cannot happen, nor can the formal sector function efficiently enough to grow and employ people. So, a modicum of stability is needed and hey presto, you have young people enrolling in schools and universities and so forth. But hang on, how do we achieve this stability….? So you see, it IS a chicken and egg story. It’s circular and self perpetuating – one cannot work without the other, so everything has to be done at once, in a coordinated fashion. That’s why this business is so tough!

Climate change – a new challenge for Africa?

Global meetings and negotiations around climate change and how to regulate it come and go. Sometimes things are achieved, other times they are not. Generally the big loser is the climate, but that is a different issue. What’s of importance is that Africa has, it would appear, coalesced into a common position. This position is that some $100 billion annually should be sent its way as a means of reparation for climate-induced damages. At present, of course, the wealthy nations are more interested in talking in the tens (three tens) of billions. Whether or not that money materialises and is additional remains to be seen.

Another thing that remains to be seen is whether climate change actually presents new issues for Africa. We understand that climate change will displace people, erode land, dry it up, cause poverty and unemployment and much much more. This, though, sounds like a list that has already been compiled over that past decades. So, the important point here is that climate change may in fact not add anything new – it really exacerbates existing problems. So the challenge for the future becomes one of how climate change and the additional funds can be utilised to make a dent into the challenges faced by each country and continent-wide. Are leaders already today negotiating among themselves how this new chest of monies is to be allocated? Who gets what and how much? is that money going towards the long term and how can they ensure that climate change impacts are mitigated?

Finally, as an afterthought, how can Africa benefit from the green economy? Though it is understandable that economically advanced countries have relied on fossil fuels to grow their wealth, and hence low income countries are tempted to do the same – how can this be avoided? After all, if we are interested in reducing climate change and its impacts, it seems counterintuitive for low income countries to base their growth models on the very molecules that threaten their citizen’s livelihoods and survival.