Two Weeks of Victory for Democracy in Senegal! (Yes, Senegal got a new President.)

By Jennifer Browning, MPA 2013

Poster of President-Elect Macky Sall as people celebrate his victory in Dakar. Benno Bokk Yaakaar means “People United with Hope” in Wolof.

(This is a follow-up to my earlier post I wrote before the elections, on February 26. You can read it here.)

Senegal has had plenty to celebrate in the past two weeks. The Senegalese elected a new President, Macky Sall; the former President Abdoulaye Wade peacefully stepped down and Sall was inaugurated on April 2; and Senegal celebrated its 52^nd Independence Day two days later on April 4. Macky Sall’s election is a victory for the youth and opposition protestors who had mobilized for weeks against a questionable third term bid by President Abdoulaye Wade. With a troubling coup in Mali only a few days before (see my classmate William Vu's post on 14 Points Blog on the coup in Mali here), Senegal once again demonstrated that it is the strong, stable democratic leader of the region.

However, Sall’s victory seemed far from assured before the first round of elections on February 26, 2012. The opposition was sharply divided, so people were unsure about which candidate would finish in the top two with Wade. There was a Princeton connection: opposition candidate Idrissa Seck spent a year at Princeton University as a visiting student. When President Wade failed to win a majority and the election headed into a two-candidate run off, the opposition was able to unite around Macky Sall. Sall won the run off with 68.5% of the vote.

Celebrations erupted around Senegal. This election really does belong to the young generation in Senegal. Young people led in many cases by smart and unapologetically critical rappers and followed by more seasoned opposition leaders had been rallying for almost a year to prevent President Wade from a third term.

This video gives a taste of Senegal’s unique sabar dancing, election euphoria style!

The voting also took place in the sizeable Senegalese diaspora. In Harlem and throughout the U.S., about 10,000 Senegalese people registered to vote. At a conference before the election, Columbia University Professor and head of the U.S. DECENA (Overseas Delegation of the Autonomous National Electoral Committee- Article in French on Diagne's Appointment) Souleymane Bachir Diagne explained that the Senegalese diaspora in the U.S. is much larger than 10,000. However, DECENA had challenges convincing many Senegalese immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, to sign up to vote. Apparently immigrants were worried that they could get into trouble with U.S. immigration authorities by voting.

Another problem voters faced is that while Senegal allows for absentee voting, would-be voters must declare the location where they will vote in advance, which can pose problems if they are not sure where they will be. However, despite these challenges, many Senegalese people did vote in Harlem, and throughout the U.S.

New York City had several polling stations- this is Wadleigh Middle School in Harlem.

I visited the election polling station at Wadleigh Middle School in Harlem during the first round. Along with DECENA staff, candidate representatives were present to observe the election and speak with interested voters. People presented their national ID and voter ID cards and then voted in one of the several first floor rooms. Professor Diagne recognized that requiring two IDs seems overly cumbersome and hopefully will change. I knew one Senegalese friend who did not vote because while he had his national ID card, he had misplaced his voter ID card.

Voting Room at Wadleigh Secondary School in Harlem after a long day. The candidates are featured on cards with their pictures during the first round. In the run-off election, only President Wade, 2^nd from left and Macky Sall, 4^th from left remained. The magenta dye was used to mark people who had voted and reduce risk of election fraud.

A Senegalese voter in Harlem shows his national ID and voter registration ID; both are necessary to vote. His dyed red fingertip marks that he voted.

List of candidates in the first round of elections on February 26, 2012. Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall would win out with 34.8% and 26.6% of the vote, respectively.

Voter registration and identification were not solely problems for the diaspora; President Wade’s government had not made it easy for many first time voters to register. Young adults were more likely to support the opposition, and with a very young population, they were an important factor in this election.

Youssou Ndour’s candidacy was not approved by the Constitutional Court. However, this catapulted him into a position of leadership of the opposition. President Macky Sall named Youssou Ndour his Minister of Culture. What many in the West do not realize is that in addition to being a world music star, Youssou is a very successful businessmen who has re-invested in Senegal, first creating a club where he performs most weekends when in town and then expanding to radio station, television channel, and music studio. While the Senegalese may not have been ready to make him President, they deeply appreciate his dedication to working in Senegal.

Macky Sall (left) and Youssou Ndour (right) at a public concert on April 3, 2012 in Dakar to celebrate President Sall’s inauguration.

Youssou Ndour’s decision to open another media outlet is also indicative of the exploding television outlets in Africa. If people are unsatisfied with the government controlled television coverage, they can simply switch to another channel. This proved very important in Senegal’s elections. In the first major protests against President Wade on June 23, 2011, many television stations actively covered center of events in front of the National Assembly building. However, if viewers had only had access to the RTS (the national television station), they may have believed that instead of the largest protests that their nation had seen in a decade, the main event that day was some renovation of the façade of the National Assembly building because that was all the RTS showed. They never turned their cameras to take footage of the thousands of protestors in front of the Assembly’s gates. In marked contrast, Youssou Ndour’s channel, (Télévision Futurs Médias) like several other private channels, featured breaking news and interviews with the protest’s leaders, ensuring that people were kept informed.

The RTS covers the incoming election results. If viewers wanted a more animated reporting, they had to switch to another channel.

Youssou Ndour may have grabbed headlines when he announced his Presidential bid on his own television station. However, the most influential musicians of election season have been rappers who started the movement “Y en a marre” (“We’ve had enough/ We are fed up”). Many young people in Senegal look up to rappers and hip hop artists who offer a witty critical commentary on society and politics. This activist critique of the status quo is largely absent from the type of music Youssou Ndour pioneered, mbalax.

Y en a marre is an ambitious movement that envisions an active citizenry pushing a transformation of Senegalese democracy. Professor Rosalind Fredericks described how Y en a marre even established “esprits” or groups with community discussions in neighborhoods where women and people of all ages participate actively. The rappers often served as spokesmen of the opposition even though they were not running for office. They used media and social network technology to mobilize people, especially youth.

Now that Y en a marre succeeded in thwarting Wade’s grab for a third term, the question is what next. In the past few weeks, cultural organizations have visibly funded several events but surely others outside of the foreign-funded cultural institutions have been organized. I think they are the expression of a real need and desire present in Senegal to celebrate but also to understand what happened and to ensure a future to the movement. As the poster on the left below has scrawled across it, “Résister, c’est le début de la victoire/Resistance is the beginning of victory.” But it is only a beginning.

Posters for events on the election protests. In the left poster, rapper, filmmaker, and intellectual Awadi is featured in a victory pose. At the event, he will speak with Thiat, a leader of Y en a marre and a rapper in the group Keur Gui and other intellectuals.

Macky Sall now has the privilege of being at the helm in a country where his people have laid out a hopeful, ambitious vision of the future. However, he surely also must know that if he falls short, if he too starts to overstep his power, there is a young generation that can mobilize to defend their democracy.

In the U.S., we too have elections approaching. I think my generation here has much to learn from our counterparts in Senegal. For democracy and freedom need vigilance and action. Otherwise, we risk losing it all.

Swift and Proper Action Vital to Mali’s Crisis

By William Vu, MPA 2013

The precipitous turns that the country of Mali and its citizens have experienced over the past two weeks have stood in stark contrast to what has been perceived as a stable democracy in the West African region. It has seeped all the joy that was witnessed by Macky Sall’s democratic yet arduous pathway to power last weekend in Senegal.

The infighting between the Malian government and the army has resulted in a Tuareg rebellion by those from the MNLA to reclaim the northern frontier of Mali as the territory of Azawad. The ranks of rebels had swelled from returning fighters from Libya, and this served as the initial catalyst to this rebellion. As of this post, the rebels have succeeded in claiming the strategic towns of Gao, Kidal, and most recently the well-known, ancient town of Timbuktu, where the military held its biggest garrison.

While some may characterize it as the new “African Spring,” the apparent impetus for the coup was the government’s inability to provide soldiers with sufficient resources and ammunition to meet the rebels in the north. This led to a humiliating defeat for the army and a forced retreat. Escalating tensions finally reached a head between the army and the civilian government, and on March 21, President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) was ousted from power by a military junta. In the interim, stepped Captain Amadou Sanogo.

Ousted President Amadou Toumani Touré

Coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo

At that moment, leaders from all African nations and especially those in the region must have been on the edge of their seats. Although the rebellion had been in full swing for a couple months and reports of soldiers’ complaints against the government had surfaced, the thoughts of a coup would have been far-fetched. Democracy and stability were synonymous with Mali for two decades, a period of time that the track records that countries in the region have failed to emulate (i.e. Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone). It would be a stretch to say democracy was flourishing or that its citizens were completely satisfied with ATT and his government. There were still wide reports of rampant corruption and mismanagement, but relative to the rest of the region, Mali had served as an exemplar.

Furthermore, the presidential election was expected to take place in a little over a month before the coup began, on April 29^th, with ATT expecting to leave office to make way for a new candidate. Such seamless political transitions are an oddity, given several West African leaders’ pre-disposure to extend their terms beyond the limits defined in their constitutions.  Yet with a twist of irony, ATT, who was a military officer himself, would be sacked by the same mechanism that brought him to power two decades earlier, a coup. 

Since Captain Sanogo and the junta have moved into power, the regional bloc of nations, Ecowas and the international community have failed to recognize their legitimacy. They have threatened the junta with financial sanctions, freezing of assets and the closure of land borders. As these sanctions take form, it is likely that their implementation will cripple the economy, especially since the nation’s petrol is imported. There have been reports also that commercial banks are limiting the withdrawal of funds up to $1000, as clients brace for the sanctions.

What might have been conceived as a plot to take over the reins of the government and install a military government has now turned into a chess match, with what concessions Ecowas and the civilian government are willing to offer the junta. Faced with the daily cascade of victories by the Tuaregs and the regional pressure to bow down, Captain Sanogo said on Sunday, that the junta would restore the nation’s constitution, and “organize free, open, and democratic elections” that the military will not participate in. This latter point is central because it is necessary that responsibility be returned to the civilian government. However, the military has still not offered a timeline for departure.

Taureg rebels captured control of major cities in northern Mali following the coup

Map of Mali

In the midst of all this internal turmoil between the President and the military, three discernible things have occurred: (1) The MNLA have gained control of the north, with more citizens likely to be caught in the crossfire as the fighting continues,  (2) the government remains in a state of confusion, (3) and finally the coup and the rebellion will only weaken the government’s ability to deal with the projected food crisis as the hot season approaches.

It is unsure how (1) and (2) will unfold, but it is necessary that the military and civilian government find a swift compromise. Each day that the civilian government and junta fail to find common ground, another day the Tuareg rebellion advances. Assuming that the leaders of the MNLA will not cease fighting unless they gain recognition of their independent homeland, Ecowas and the international community will have to send in reinforcements if they want to preserve the territorial integrity of Mali. Even if the Malian army reconciles its differences with the government, it appears that external military assistance will be necessary given the Malian army’s recent spate of defeats and the MNLA’s unlikeness to compromise. This is a struggle that could last for weeks, if not for months. Hopefully not for years.

(3) Finally, the event that might cause the biggest crisis is the projected food shortage. Some 13 million people in the Sahel region are facing food insecurity in 2012 as poor rains and locust attacks led to a drop in cereal production of 25 percent. Furthermore, over 200,000 people have been displaced since January with many fleeing to neighboring countries. With the conflict, the disruption of local and cross-border food markets have limited food supplies and increased prices, and it is expected that the lives and livelihoods of 3.5 million Malians were to be affected – even before the coup unfolded. Instability in the region will only aggravate the food insecurity. It is imperative that humanitarian aid continues to be ensured and that it reaches the north where the fighting is occurring. If not the stockpiles of dead bodies from starvation might dwarf those killed in any conflict.

As I periodically refresh my computer’s browser, my sense of optimism that a quick resolution between the military and the civilian government remains cautious. In no case is timing more of the essence, as the government and military not only have to deal with the Tuareg rebellion, but the impending food crisis. My thoughts drift not only to the soldier who steps upon the battlefield, but the mother who heads to the market and finds that food prices have increased beyond her budget. Thus, I can only hope that the actors in this show will make the proper decisions and soon…

Will Senegal Get a New President? An Analysis of the February 2012 Elections

By Jennifer Browning, MPA

Senegal’s elections are today. After months of mass protests against the current President Abdoulaye Wade’s candidacy, election day has finally arrived, amidst great anticipation and uncertainty. Many people are worried that President Wade, who is at least 85 years old, will win a controversial third term and worse, use his next term to install his son, Karim Wade. I am going to Harlem soon where there is a large Senegalese diaspora to follow news on the RTS (Radio Télévision Sénégalaise) and other Senegalese channels if available.

As is often stated, Senegal is the only country in West Africa that has had uninterrupted elections without military rule since Independence. It is considered by the international community to be a stable democracy that has escaped the fate of its neighbors.

Above, President Abdoulaye Wade, Feb. 23, 2012, approximately 85 years old.

And regional instability is a fact. I lived and worked in Senegal for three years until returning to the U.S. for graduate school last July 2011. During one nine month period (August 2008- March 2009), three of the five countries bordering Senegal experienced a coup. The fourth (internal) neighbor, The Gambia, has been ruled since 1994 by a dictator.

Senegal’s democracy stands in stark contrast to this trajectory. Senegal has achieved political stability, almost too much one could argue. For the first forty years, Senegal had only two different Presidents, Léopold Sédar Senghor followed by Abdou Diouf who both were part of the Socialist Party. Wade, leader of the Socialist Democratic Party, was the first opposition leader to be elected President in 2000. Despite the lack of power sharing in its first forty years, Senegal’s democracy stands as a great achievement post-colonialism in West Africa. Here we will not explore the possible contributions by the international community to some of this history of instability. Rather I want to focus on how the protests in Senegal have shown the importance of Senegalese people’s agency and commitment to democracy.

In late spring 2011, President Wade attempted to amend the constitution in a flagrant attempt to facilitate his victory today. He wanted to lower the percentage it would take to win the first round of the election (to win easily over a divided opposition) and create a Vice Presidency position (people worried for his son). On June 23, 2011, the biggest protests in a decade occurred in front of National Assembly in downtown Dakar and accompanied to a lesser extent, in cities throughout the country. The protests were successful in forcing Wade to withdraw his reform. They marked a turning point, and suddenly most radios and television stations aired aggressive critiques of Wade.

Protests on June 23, 2011 in Dakar against Wade’s proposed constitutional amendments.

I liked what candidate (and former longtime Minister of Foreign Affairs under Wade) Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said on a television interview I saw while visiting Senegal in early January 2012. To paraphrase loosely from my memory, Gadio stated, “June 23 has shown that Senegal can handle its own problems. Senegal does not need the international community to solve its domestic problems.” Certainly, the protesters handled the threat to their constitution with a mass mobilization and succeeded in forcing Wade to back down from the constitutional amendment.

Equally interesting, rappers have played a crucial role in the resistance against Wade. Senegal has one of the world’s most important hip hop scenes, and nothing mobilizes the youth in Senegal like smart, politically charged rap. A contingent of rappers formed the group “Y en a marre” or “We’ve had enough/We are fed up” to protest Wade’s candidacy and to call for voter registration and citizen participation in the elections. While this group along with M23, the Movement of the 23rd of June, have been very successful at mobilizing huge protests and using social and traditional media to get out their views, they do not officially endorse a candidate in the opposition.

Y en a marre rappers and protesters in Dakar.

A major obstacle to their movement has been the divided opposition. The protesters agree that Wade has to go, but there is no agreement on who should replace him. At a panel I attended at Columbia University a couple of weeks ago, Professor Mamadou Diouf highlighted three leading candidates Moustapha Niasse (who was a former strongman of the Socialist Party), Idrissa Seck (current Mayor of Thies and former Prime Minister under Wade for the Social Democratic Party (PDS)), and Macky Sall (who followed Idrissa Seck as Prime Minister under Wade).

Several opposition candidates, most famously the international music star, Youssou Ndour, were not allowed to run in the controversial decision by the Constitutional Court, who also issued a decision that Wade could run for a third term. I want to emphasize that the exclusion of Youssou Ndour’s candidacy has probably made him more important than if he had been allowed to run. I was in Senegal when he announced his decision to seek the Presidency early January 2012. While his declaration made international headlines, my impression was that most people take him seriously as a musician but not as a candidate. They often cited that he little formal schooling and therefore not qualified. However, his exclusion from being a candidate has made him an even more vocal critic and visible participant in the mass protests.

Youssou Ndour at a protest in Dakar where he was injured.

The constitutional court decision on January 27, 2012 that allowed Wade to seek a third term has been highly criticized by the opposition. However, Awadi, a leading rapper and intellectual in Senegal, may have found the most clever way of mocking the legality of President Wade’s candidacy. At the end of his new music video, Mame Boye, if you scroll to minute 2:46, Awadi creates a parody of the ataya tea drinking custom to criticize Wade’s bid for a third term. After meals in Senegal, people drink Mauritanian mint tea, ataya. In this highly ritualized tradition, you are offered a first cup of tea which is more bitter and then as the tea cooks down more, you are offered a second cup of tea which is sweeter.

For those that do not speak French, I will try to translate what unfolds...

In Awadi’s video, we have an old man (representing Wade) next to a younger, paler man (representing Karim whose mother is French and who speaks little Wolof, the dominant African language in Senegal). Wade asks for a second cup of tea, but the other young men making the ataya point out that he already drank his second cup. They then point to the “ataya constitution” that the old man has posted on the wall, clearly limiting everyone to two cups. Wade insists that he did not get a second cup, prompting a young man asks if he is losing his memory (a reference to his advanced age). So Wade finally asks for a third cup. When they refuse, he takes down the constitution and stands on it, saying, “Fine, I said only two; well, I take it back” referring to when he at one time said he would only stand for two terms. The ending caption says that “any resemblance to actual persons or events was entirely on purpose and not accidental. And that what is coming next [i.e. the elections] should really be watched.”

Awadi also mocks Wade’s attempt to install Karim in power by having Wade say when he learned that Karim bought the real Mauritanian tea, “ I will tell your mom that you did a good job./ Je dirais a ta maman que tu as bien travaillé.” In reality, Wade uttered this now famous phrase when praising Karim for his mdirection in organizing the Organization of the Islamic Conference meetings in Dakar in March 2008. The management of the OIC meetings was later criticized as being corrupt.

Local elections setback for presidential succession plans.

Despite the strong and highly mediatized protests by Y en a marre, M23, and other opposition groups, many people will vote for Wade. There have also been large protests in favor of Wade, although some people claim that Wade pays these supporters to show up. But Wade does have many legitimate supporters, and faced with a divided opposition, people may choose the evil that they know rather than the one they do not.

However, I believe though that if elections are transparent today, no candidate will get a majority and elections will thus advance to a second round with just two candidates, Wade and an opposition candidate. This may give the opposition the unity it has been lacking around one candidate.

I don’t want to see the hope broken for youth who have protested in this movement and tried to take charge of their democracy. I want what I want for my own country, that we believe the system can still be changed and we act to change it.

I’m off to Harlem.

Testing Treatments: Building a culture of evidence in public policy

Brett Keller, MPA

Back in September the New York Times reported on an unexpected finding from a clinical trial: “A promising but expensive device to prop open blocked arteries in the brain in the hope of preventing disabling or fatal strokes failed in a rigorous study.” Many promising medical innovations fall short when they finally reach clinical trials, but this story was unusual because the stents had already been approved by the FDA under a so-called humanitarian exemption. The FDA approved the stents to reduce the risk of stroke, but those who received it had twice as many strokes.

How did this happen? The Times chronicled experts’ puzzlement: “Researchers said the device seemed as if it should work.” And Joseph Broderick, a prominent neurologist, is quoted as saying “Quite frankly, the results were a surprise.” Researchers are delving into this case to discover why the stent failed, but policymakers from all fields should take it as a valuable lesson. This is one more argument for testing policies whenever possible: not only does expert opinion sometimes get things wrong, but without good data there is often no way to really know when they are right.

Similar lessons can be gleaned from the history of surgical response to breast cancer. In The Emperor of All Maladies (2010), a new history of cancer, oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles the history of such failed interventions as the radical mastectomy. Over a period of decades this brutal procedure – removing the breasts, lymph nodes, and much of the chest muscles – became the tool of choice for surgeons treating breast cancer. In the 1970s rigorous trials comparing radical mastectomy to more limited procedures showed that this terribly disfiguring procedure did not in fact help patients live longer at all. Some surgeons refused to believe the evidence – to believe it would have required them to acknowledge the harm they had done. But eventually the radical mastectomy fell from favor; today it is quite rare. Many similar stories are included in a free e-book titled Testing Treatments (2011).

As a society we’ve come to accept that medical devices should be tested by the most rigorous and neutral means possible, because the stakes are life and death for all of us. Thousands of people faced with deadly illnesses volunteer for clinical trials every year. Some of them survive while others do not, but as a society we are better off when we know what actually works. For every downside, like the delay of a promising treatment until evidence is gathered properly, there is an upside – something we otherwise would have thought is a good idea is revealed not to be helpful at all.

Under normal circumstances most new drugs are weeded out as they face a gauntlet of tests for safety and efficacy required before FDA licensure. The stories of the humanitarian-exemption stent and the radical mastectomy are different because these procedures became more widely used before there was rigorous evidence that they helped, though in both cases there were plenty of anecdotes, case studies, and small or non-controlled studies that made it look like they did. This haphazard, post-hoc testing is analogous to how policy in many other fields, from welfare and education, is developed. Many public policy decisions have considerable impacts on our livelihoods, education, and health. Why are we note similarly outraged by poor standards of evidence that leads to poor outcomes in other fields?

A recent example from New York City helps illustrate how helpful good evidence can be in shaping policy. A few years ago Mayor Michael Bloomberg rolled out a massive program that seemed to make a lot of sense: pay teachers bonuses based on their students’ performance. The common sense proposal was hailed as “transcendent” and gained the support of the teachers’ union. It cost $75 million, and it didn’t work. How do we know? The program was designed from the beginning as a pilot where schools were randomly assigned to the program or to a control group, and the research showing that the program had no effect on outcomes was subsequently published. What would have happened if this policy had been put in place without an effective evaluation plan? In all likelihood New York officials would now be touting its success at conferences and urging other cites to implement similar programs. Instead it was quietly shelved. That this particular program did not have the intended effect is disappointing, but it is much better than if we believed it worked and continued on unaware.

The pros and cons of randomized trials have been discussed here on 14 Points before – see recent posts by Jake Velker and Shawn Powers. The cases I presented here are ones where the results were not “no-brainers” at all, and without systematic evaluation bad policies would have been or tragically were put in place. While good evidence does not have to come from randomized trials, there are still many areas where they are underused. In areas where they are feasible (i.e. not macroeconomics) such evidence should be the norm, and those who implement policies with great optimism but without planning for thoughtful evaluation should be panned. Even without random assignment of the treatment, the best policy evaluations should involve a serious attempt to estimate the counterfactual: what would have happened in the absence of the intervention. Moving beyond arguments over specific programs and whether they work, policymakers can move us towards better outcomes by creating a culture where strong evidence is valued. After all, the clinical trial as we know it in medicine is a 20th century innovation; it hasn’t always been this way.

A Self-Defense Mission Abroad: Enhancing Japanese peacekeeping forces in South Sudan and beyond

Atsuko Tsuda, MPA


This January, about 300 Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces (JGSDF) will arrive in South Sudan to join the ongoing United Nations Peacekeeping Operation (PKO) there. Security challenges are mounting in this newborn country; accordingly, local leaders as well as their international friends face daunting tasks. Stepping up to face these challenges head-on, Japan can turn this PKO mission into a pivotal opportunity to further advance its commitment to peace and stability in the region and to make headway in synergizing the 3Ds – diplomacy, development, and defense – in its foreign policy.

Two months after Japan established diplomatic relations with South Sudan on July 9th, newly-minted Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced Japan’s new commitments to South Sudan at his debut at the UN General Assembly. As a start, Japan sent two JGSDF personnel as staff officers of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) Headquarters in November at the UN’s request. Japan is now preparing to dispatch JGSDF’s engineering unit to Juba, the capital, next year. These efforts are commendable and the government should continue to expand its defense commitment in South Sudan and around the world.

Dispatching more defense forces is an excellent opportunity for Japan to further contribute internationally by combining two areas in which it already excels – Official Development Assistance (ODA) and PKOs. JICA, Japan’s aid implementation organization, has an outstanding presence in South Sudan and has long been contributing to nation-building in the country. But as impressive as Japanese diplomacy and development currently is, expanding its defense efforts could create true co-equal synergies across these components of international assistance.

Japan’s Self Defense Force (SDF) has a high reputation both inside and outside Japan. Domestically, SDF increased its public support through its work following the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, and it played a critical role during this year’s natural disaster in the Tohoku area. Regarding international cooperation, the SDF is renowned for its fine-tuned and local-oriented approach, and its engineering units in particular have received special commendation. The technical training provided by Japan’s engineering units is highly regarded and the units are well-known for their diligence and politeness. SDF units have been sent to PKOs in Cambodia, Timor-Leste (East Timor), the Golan Heights, Haiti, and Mozambique.

Granted, in Japan there are legitimate concerns about sending an expanded contingent of SDF to South Sudan. SDF’s operations are constrained by the Constitution – which renounces the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes – and other relevant laws. The 1992 law on Peacekeeping Operations prohibits “the use of force” and constrains the use of small weapons to the minimum: Self-Defense officials may use stipulated weapons “within the limits judged reasonably necessary according to the circumstances, when reasonable grounds are found for the unavoidable necessity to protect the lives of others or prevent bodily harm to themselves, other SDF Personnel or Corps Personnel who are with them on the scene, or individuals who have come under their control during the performance of duties” (emphasis mine).

Let me paint you a picture as to what this truly means at the operational level. Suppose SDF personnel are facing a heavily-armed group. There is an imminent threat, but they are not allowed to fire immediately. Instead, they have to follow a four-level procedure: oral warning, warning shots, point-blank shots, and only then, finally, sharpshooting.

Yet despite the constraints that the SDF bears, Japan has been seeking to extend its support in the areas of nation-building and PKOs wherever possible. This is a welcome development and should be continued. On the whole, the Japanese public supports Japan’s contribution to PKOs; a public opinion poll conducted last year shows more than 85% of respondents supported the idea that Japan’s cooperation to PKOs should increase or at least remain at the current level. The international community also expects further contributions from Japan, not only because it is the third largest economy but also because of its good work.

There are three UN peacekeeping operations between the two Sudanese republics: UNAMID in Darfur, UNISFA in Abyei, and UNMISS in South Sudan. This not only represents the war-torn history of the two countries but also the attention granted to it by the international community. Although Juba is relatively calm, the border area is still haunted by a possibility of a full-scale war. Therefore, while an ever-growing presence of SDF may be good both for Japan and South Sudan, given the security concerns and the Japanese forces’ severe restrictions, a careful examination of some clauses of the Japanese PKO Act may be necessary to truly fulfill its higher mission.

Atsuko Tsuda is a foreign service officer for the government of Japan. This piece represents the personal observations and opinions of the author. It does not reflect the views, nor represent an official position, of the government of Japan.

The World’s Only Secretariat for Philanthropy

Heather Lord, MPP ’11

Dan Hymowitz

In America, the debate lumbers on about the best way to coordinate the philanthropic sector and the US government. Meanwhile, one post-conflict West African country has jumped right in – the Liberia Philanthropy Secretariat is the fruit of collaboration between recently-reelected President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and private foundations. It is the world’s only national government office dedicated to engaging private philanthropy.

THE SCOOP

Launched in April 2009, the Secretariat is a five-person unit housed in the Liberian president’s office, co-financed by six philanthropic organizations.

THE MISSION

Expand and improve philanthropic commitment to Liberia.

THE BREAKDOWN

1) Is a government Philanthropy Secretariat a good idea?

Early on, some foundations worried that the Secretariat might become a bureaucratic barrier hindering direct impact funding in Liberia. However, after nearly three years of operation, philanthropist feedback indicates that the Secretariat has proven itself a valuable “on the ground” matchmaker, helping donors connect to trustworthy government and nonprofit contacts, information, and grantees. From the Liberian perspective, the Secretariat has increased philanthropic support and built capacity for entrepreneurial Liberian organizations addressing pressing social problems in their communities.

2) What have some achievements and challenges been so far?

Achievements: Increased funding, network leverage, donor satisfaction, grantee empowerment

The Secretariat has facilitated an estimated US$16.4 million in philanthropic giving. But impact is about more than just money – it’s about making connections, identifying and empowering good partners, and developing ideas for social change. The Secretariat has helped facilitate grants from 13 first-time grantmakers in Liberia. Some family foundations say the Secretariat inspired their giving because they know their investments are effectively contributing to priority, high-impact projects. The Secretariat has also engaged the Liberian government and civil society in an educational dialogue about philanthropy, how it works, and how it might help Liberians create long-term, equitable prosperity.

Challenges: Donor coordination, managing expectations

The Secretariat has tried to foster collaboration between foundations and increase philanthropic alignment with Liberia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. They’ve had some success with strategic alignment but struggled with intra-foundation collaboration, due in part to the diversity of Liberia’s philanthropic partners. Additionally, local nonprofits had difficulty meeting donor expectations in the face of significant post-conflict human resource and infrastructure challenges (e.g. limited access to roads, computers, internet) and lack of experience with philanthropic practices (e.g. writing grant proposals, generating self-assessment metrics). While there has been progress, patience and flexibility remain essential on all sides.

Solar flashlights in a community in Grand Bassa County, Liberia.

3) Is the Secretariat a viable model for other countries?

As donors and governments in other countries consider a Philanthropy Secretariat or similar coordination mechanism, there are a few pre-conditions which may increase chances of success:

• significant external foundation interest
• appetite from at least a few key government officials to engage foundations
• a senior government official “champion” with credibility in government and donor communities and a sophisticated understanding of philanthropy
• some level of mutual trust between philanthropists and the government

THE BOTTOM LINE
The world’s only Secretariat for Philanthropy has been a promising experiment for donors and for Liberia. It is worth keeping an eye on it and exploring what this model might provide in other countries.

Heather Lord is a philanthropic strategy consultant and authors the blog www.PhilanthroMeme.com. Dan Hymowitz is a former program manager for the Liberia Philanthropy Secretariat. A version of this article was published earlier this month by the Council on Foundations RE:Philanthropy blog, and is accessible here.

A Real Remedy for Youth Unemployment in Saudi Arabia: Scrap "Saudization" and emphasize employment education

Mary Svenstrup, MPA


The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been relatively unaffected by the Arab Awakening. So far, the government has been able to maintain stability by cracking down on protests while simultaneously providing generous handouts to appease its citizens. Saudi youth, however, are growing increasingly dissatisfied with their government because they cannot find employment. And as recently seen in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, a dissatisfied youth population has proven to be an important factor contributing to instability – and, ultimately, regime change.

Employment has significant cultural implications in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world: it is an essential prerequisite for marriage and transition to adulthood. Without employment, youth are stuck in social purgatory, feeling restless and unsuccessful. Yet Saudi Arabia has the highest youth unemployment rate in the Middle East and North Africa region excluding Iraq.

The Saudi government’s answer to youth unemployment is “Saudization,” a policy that sets employment requirements for Saudi nationals. This policy has been ineffective because it does nothing to address the underlying issue that Saudi graduates do not have the skills demanded by private companies. Furthermore, this policy disincentivizes non-hydrocarbon sector growth, which is critical to create more jobs in the Kingdom. The Saudi government should scrap Saudization and instead focus on education that will build skills for employment.

Structural Barriers to Employment in Saudi Arabia
Saudization is an artificial employment requirement that does not address the structural problems with the Saudi economy that contribute to youth unemployment, such as an overreliance on the hydrocarbon sector, a constantly growing social transfer system, and insufficient private sector growth.

Saudi Arabia’s economy is largely based on petroleum, but the hydrocarbon sector is not a reliable source of job creation. Oil and gas comprise about 45% of fiscal revenues, 55% of GDP, and 90% of export revenue – yet, the national oil company employs less than 1% of Saudi labor force. The hydrocarbon sector does create a source of revenues for the government’s generous social transfer programs; these programs, however, may not be sustainable, crowed out other social expenditures, and most of all, do nothing to address unemployment. As an example, in lieu of real social reforms, the Saudi government introduced new fiscal initiatives on February 23 and March 18, 2011 to quell domestic protests. Although these types of social transfers may help to immediately pacify the population, the IMF notes that these programs will require oil prices sustained higher than $90 per barrel for the next several years. That may not be sustainable and puts a huge burden on the Saudi government to control oil prices.

Given the problems created by reliance on the hydrocarbon sector for employment, the non-hydrocarbon sector of the Saudi economy is critical. This sector, however, has not been able to create enough jobs for Saudis. Over the next five years, the IMF estimates that private sector non-oil GDP will need to grow by 7.5% annually to create a sufficient number of employment opportunities for the domestic population. While Saudization addresses the issue that most private sector jobs are being allocated to more qualified expatriate workers, the policy increases the operating costs of private companies in the Kingdom, thereby reducing incentives for investment and hindering non-hydrocarbon growth. For example, a recent equity research report by EFG Hermes suggested that Saudi companies will meet Saudization requirements in the near term by hiring more Saudis rather than reducing the number of expatriates, given the skills mismatches of Saudi workers. Basically, companies are being forced to increase personnel costs simply to satisfy a legislative mandate.

Furthermore, both the appeasement tax and Saudization may have a feedback loop creating more pressure on the government. As Saudis become wealthier and more connected to the rest of the world, their expectations for employment and inclusion in the economy will continue grow. Higher expectations combined with growing dissatisfaction with unfulfilling employment opportunities will further increase the government’s cost of appeasement. Therefore, creating sustainable economic opportunities for its citizens will mitigate the long-run fiscal burden of providing appeasement handouts and remove the need for Saudization, as long as Saudis have the skills necessary to be competitive employees.

Education for Employment
The underlying cause of youth unemployment is that, even with a postsecondary degree, Saudi graduates lack the right skills for jobs in a modern, knowledge-based economy. The Saudi education system itself has flaws, but a main problem is that students choose to study subjects that have no direct linkages to labor markets. For example, in 2008, 40% of university students in Saudi Arabia were concentrating in arts and humanities (versus averages of 20% and 17% in Asia and Latin America, respectively), while only 24% chose to study science or engineering. Furthermore, there is a social stigma against technical and vocational training, and any type of university degree, even one that is very unlikely to lead to employment, is socially viewed as superior.

To reduce youth unemployment—and the risk of social instability in the Kingdom—the government ought to at least address skills mismatches by orienting the education system toward private sector employment opportunities. Ideally, Saudi Arabia should scrap Saudization and instead focus on making their graduates competitive employees. Forcing graduates to compete for jobs will ensure that they choose education tracks that are conducive to employment. Additionally, technical and vocational programs should be associated with prestigious universities and fellowships, which would alleviate some of the social stigma of choosing this track. Lastly, the government should adopt a national quality assurance framework to regulate private education companies doing business in the Kingdom to ensure that degrees and certificates are uniform across the country. These changes, paired with continued investments in upgrading the overall education sector, should help to link skill-based post-secondary education with employment opportunities.

Encouraging youth to select education for employment will result in more qualified workers that will naturally increase the demand for Saudi workers and ultimately reduce the cost of doing business in the country. The government and the royal family should act quickly on this issue, for their own sake and for the sake of the growing youth population in their kingdom.

Empowering Evaluation: Looking beyond the numbers

Elizabeth Hoody, MPA

As a former grant-maker, I was glad to see that 14 Points talked about the challenge of evaluating anti-domestic violence work in a post by Payal Hathi last May. In my own experiences working in a women’s rights foundation, I saw just how difficult it can be to quantify the impact of women’s rights organizing in numerical terms. While numbers can tell an important story (such as how many young women receive sexual and reproductive health education), they often leave out what for me is most compelling about a group’s work. This might be the reflections of an individual young woman who now feels that she can talk to her partner about contraceptives or the story of a group of girls who decided to form their own anti-trafficking student organization after participating in a prevention workshop. So while there are many valid and pressing questions about how to “get the numbers right” in program evaluation, my bigger concern these days is how to evaluate impact beyond the numbers…and then again how to aggregate and share this type of evaluation in a way that donors, policymakers, and peer organizations can easily understand.

In the past year, I have come across several creative examples of evaluation strategies that do attempt to move beyond the numbers. Many of these strategies attempt to articulate, verbally or visually, the systemic impact of an organization’s work. One example is a map that was released by the Global Fund for Women just this past week, which captures the Fund’s impact around the world using bright spots. In the Global Fund’s words, this map “explores where a relationship between Global Fund for Women and grantee groups is more likely to yield a higher movement building impact.” While the map does rely on a series of numerical indicators, the visual analysis tells a bigger story about the collective impact of Global Fund for Women grants on women’s rights movements around the world.

The second example is the Gender At Work Framework, which “helps organizations see their work from new perspectives by combining best practices in organizational development with feminist thought.” One tool that the framework uses is a graph where civil society organizations can plot the different types of social changes they are addressing through their work. The graph places the continuum of “individual versus systemic” change on vertical axis and “formal vs. informal” changes on the horizontal axis, resulting in four quadrants of change:

• Women’s access to resources (quadrant I)
• Women’s and men’s consciousness (quadrant II)
• Informal cultural norms and exclusionary practices (quadrant III)
• Formal institutions, laws, and policies (quadrant IV).

Women’s organizations use the tool to visually represent the changes that they are trying to impact through their work. The graph is also a good indicator of what programs will be easier to quantitatively evaluate (such as programs that work for specific policy changes) and those that will be difficult to track through traditional metrics (how do you measure changes in men’s and women’s consciousness?).

What I like most about the Gender At Work Framework is that it encourages grassroots organizations to define evaluation framework themselves at the beginning of their planning processes. When this happens, evaluation shifts from being a chore for donors to being an effective way of tracking and reflecting on an organization’s progress towards its goals. In my personal, unquantifiable opinion, the resulting story more often than not contains richer analysis, more honest reflections, and genuine learning.

For the past year, I have been working on the Advisory Committee of FRIDA – The Young Feminist Fund, which is a newly formed foundation that is run for and by young feminist activists. As FRIDA prepares for its first grant-making round, these questions about evaluation are on my mind. How do we tell our story to our first funders and how do we empower the first FRIDA grantees to take ownership over evaluation of their work? Can we be accountable and collaborative in evaluation? As a starting point, we are planning to develop the first grant evaluation process in partnership with FRIDA’s first round of grantees. As we begin to hash out exactly what the process will look like, I am grateful for these new tools that push us towards more creative, dynamic ways of articulating our goals, visions, and impacts.

21st Century Slavery: The scourge of human trafficking and how we can fight it

Elina Sarkisova, MPA

Human trafficking, although not a new phenomenon, has experienced exceptional growth in the last quarter of the 20th century, becoming one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world. According to the State Department, an estimated 600,0000 to 800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders each year, the majority being women and children. When accounting for internal trafficking, the number of victims jumps to 12.3 million. Most states have taken steps, both on an individual and collective level, to try to reverse this trend; most noticeably in the form of international legal instruments and national laws aimed at migration controls, crime prevention, and victims’ assistance programs. However, these efforts have proved largely ineffective and are even to blame, in some circumstances, for making matters worse.

Why human trafficking is on the rise
The competing and often conflicting forces of globalization and national sovereignty help explain the increase in the overall volume of human trafficking. While globalization has brought about unprecedented opportunities for economic growth and prosperity, the results of economic liberalization (a key feature of globalization) have been mixed for developing countries. The swift spread of free markets has led to increased levels of inequality both within and between states and widespread economic instability, thus fostering strong “push” factors in migrants’ countries of origin. Meanwhile, increased demand for cheap labor in developed countries (characterized by a growing ratio of elderly to working-age people), declining birth rates, and high cost of labor, fosters strong “pull” factors.

On the other hand, governments have stepped up efforts to limit the movement of people across their borders, even when such policies are highly inconsistent with national labor market demands. This is usually the result of strong societal resistance to immigration and/or political pressures. Such restrictive immigration policies have the effect of increasing undocumented migration flows. However, trafficking flourishes where an additional factor is present: few opportunities to overcome barriers to illegal migration without the help of a third party. Most trafficking cases start out as voluntary transactions between a potential migrant and a smuggler – an exchange that is usually initiated by the migrant. However, the situation quickly deteriorates upon arrival at the destination country, where the victim often finds himself in a situation of forced labor.

National responses to human trafficking and why they haven’t worked
States tend to perceive human trafficking through the lens of national security, best addressed through migration controls, crime prevention and victims’ assistance programs. The United States, for instance, has increased border control enforcement along its 2,000-mile border with Mexico over the last two decades. However, strong migratory pressures render such efforts useless at best and counterproductive at worst, contributing to an increasing death toll in the border area and driving increasing numbers of economic migrants to seek the services of unscrupulous migration intermediaries intent on exploiting the gap between labor supply and demand. Law enforcement (e.g. police raids) has also become a key tool in countries’ toolbox for combating human trafficking. However, such efforts simply drive the trade further underground, where victims become more and more isolated and vulnerable to abuse, especially in the case of prostitution. Lastly, while some countries have initiated victims’ assistance programs, efforts have largely been limited to “rescue” operations that offer little in the way of long-term solutions and conditional assistance programs that overlook underlying incentives.

A way forward
The human security framework can offer a new, more useful way of conceptualizing an old problem – namely, from the standpoint of the driving forces behind the trade, the mechanisms that facilitate the trade, and the threat that such a trade poses to society. Broadly, policy response should focus on prevention (targeting underlying causes of supply and demand specific to each country), prosecution (law enforcement), and protection (victim assistance programs). Policy options should include, at a minimum:

• Women, children, and minority empowerment programs: Past projects aimed at the economic empowerment of women have, for instance, tended to be components of broader economic development programs rather than anti-trafficking strategies. Efforts need to be streamlined and incorporated into a broader anti-trafficking strategy.

• Immigration reforms: Destination countries should create temporary guest worker programs, perhaps in a more targeted way than some countries have already done, as part of a broader anti-trafficking agenda.

• Anti-corruption programs among border patrol officials: Trafficking would not be as widespread were it not for the help of corrupt government officials, especially in border patrol areas, who are complicit in this trade.

In the end, improving the track record of international anti-trafficking programs will require both structural changes in the manner in which the issue is conceptualized by states and operational changes in the manner in which programs are implemented. Only then could we realistically attempt to end this scourge of the 21st century.