Australian culture - checklist

Have been given something of a cultural checklist to work through on the trip:

Films (Rotten Tomatoes scores in brackets) - mention to Craig
Mad Max (95%)
Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom (95%)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (91%)
Crocodile Dundee (88%)
Rabbit-proof fence (88%)
Gallipoli (81%)
Romper stomper (80%)

Music
AC/DC, INXS, Silverchair, Kylie (not much to go on, then...)

Food/drink (largely thanks to Simone)
Dimsims
Big M's
Lemon bitters
Golden gaytime
Snags
Tim-tam slam
Goon juice
Twisty's

Animalia:
Cane toads, and the necessary koalas, kangaroos, parrots and platypus.

Blood Alcohol Data

Prompted by tighter alcohol restrictions in Australia, given 0.08% alcohol is the UK legal limit (80mg/100ml), it's good to see the data on what each drink will do to a person of my body mass.

Essentially:
- people of all sizes digest 0.015% per hour
- 1 pint of beer corresponds to ~0.04/0.05% (less effect for fatties, more effect for women of same weight)

So - in Australia, one pint every 3 hours is the upper limit.

Some lessons from OU MSc Development Management - Places Visited (Bangladesh)

Bangladesh visit - November 2009

Bangladesh - visited Nov 2009  I enjoyed a comfortable office life for my short time in Dhaka, and saw micocredit really working in the villages.  That said, also the tight press of bodies lining the roads, stringy rickshaw-pullers, and a lack of women in the traffic-choked city; in the country my food poisoning was desperate!

History/Economy/Society: Despite independence from Pakistan in 1971, 60% of the population remain landless, (cf ~30% UK), including the vast majority of women.  Water quality is a big problem (Weil's disease, diarrhoeal bacteria in water courses), and latrine usage only 16% in rural areas.  Fertility rate has dropped to 2.2 (from 7 in the 1970s).  Healthcare remains private, but education is free to 18.  Most workers in the largest industry (garments) are women - but with wages as low as $0.15 per hour.  There are 16.3m microcredit borrowers excluding Grameen (which has another 8m) i.e. about 5% of the population.  Transport infrastructure remains poor, and the quality of education is also very poor (high dropout rate).

ODA: $89bn since 1971.  Gradual increase in HDI underpinned by birth control, microcredit, agricultural efficiency (up 3x since 1971), anti-poverty social safety nets (12% of govt spending), and largely the power of the huge NGO BRAC, which has made strides for the population in health, education and other areas.  Bangladesh is a bit of a benchmark for good NGO work.

Some lessons from OU MSc Development Management - Places Visited (Ghana)

Ghana visit - spring/summer 2000

Ghana - visited Apr-Aug 2000  Vivid recollections of hip-life music, muslim drivers + ablutions, colourful batik makers; but polio, beaches w/open sewage, animal cruelty: tiny crocodile on show in an oil can, and kids without schools to go to.

Economy/History: First half of the colonial period 1867-1902 significant conflict between Ashanti and colonists, which previously had included Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Danish, Portuguese and British.  From then till independence in 1957 was initially a traditional export-oriented colonial economy (gold, ores, timber, ivory and later significantly cocoa), with legislative councils in the cities (Accra, Cape Coast, Sekondi), and tribal chiefs with absolute power backed by the colonists in the regions.  Post-independence, the economy suffered at the whims of the markets, experiencing no per-capita growth between 1960 and 2000.  Recent industrialisation, oil finds, automotive and digital manufacturing have pulled the country forward, with consistent rapid growth since 2000.

Social: Since 2003, pay-before-care 'cash and carry' healthcare was replaced by basic universal health coverage, provided by a tax-funded national health insurance scheme.  Since the 1980s, education up to age 14 has been free (though school meals and uniform paid for).  2012 election manifestos sought to provide free education including ancilliary costs up to age 18.

ODA: Broadly ineffective 1960-2000, despite $21bn aid (1960-2000) and $15bn aid (2000-2010), and a current debt of $11bn.  Growth was significantly hindered by the structural adjustment conditions on loans from 1988-, leading to unemployment and health sector cutbacks.  NGOs were enacting projects in many areas: WASH, HIV, education projects, environment, transport, agriculture, public sector reform.  Unclear what influence these had on the country.

Some lessons from OU MSc Development Management - Interventions

1) 'International Development' with its modern meaning came about since the mid 1950s, following post-war Marshall Plan reconstruction, intensive trade with the African colonies and decolonialisation.  It's really a post-colonial phenomenon.

2) Microcredit may well be on the wane.  Drop in # of borrowers shown in India between 2010 and 2012 and both Roodman, 2011, and Duvendack et al, 2011 indicate that there is no consistent concomitant reduction in poverty from microcredit programmes.  It's particularly difficult to find annual spend ODA figures for investment in microcredit - there is at least $6bn in revolving microfinance funds, and Grameen indicate an asset base of >$1bn. 


3) While there were competing capitalist and communist models post-WW2, MSc has a clear message - 'capitalism has won'.  Mainstream social development interventions exist in a paradigm of 'ameliorating the disordered faults of progress' (Cowen & Shenton, 1996).  

4) 'The Sphere Project' provides minimum standards for humanitarian intervention, very widely used.  The UN 'cluster approach' provides an administrative framework within which to co-ordinate intervention, with various agencies taking the lead of, for example, shelter (IFRC) or WASH (UNICEF).

5) Logframes form the standard basis for application for development donor funding.

6) The right-based approach underpins much practice by development NGOs - building the capacity of beneficiaries to realise their 'inalienable' rights (such as those broadly agreed upon under international law). This is broad enough to be widely accepted, although it involves educating individuals about their rights and may cause problems for donors looking for immediate social welfare outputs.

Some lessons from OU MSc (Development Management) - Macroeconomics

1) Since WW2, there was an increase in GDP per capita inequality between states and within states up until about 1990 (Milanovic, 2012).  Since the 1990s this continues within states, but is reversing between states.  More recent HDI measures (literacy, health, wealth) indicate that global HDI figures have consistently improved between 1990 and 2012 (UNDP, 2000 p.12)

2) Negative GDP growth seen in sub-Saharan Africa in 1970s ('debt-led growth' following OPEC crisis) and 1980s ('lost decade').  Similar, if slightly less pronounced trends seen in India and Bangladesh.

3) Most MDGs have moved nearly to the success criteria between 1990 and 2015, key sub-measure exceptions being carbon emissions (climate change), clean water availability

4) Should be noted that global measures give a helpful overview but national/regional/local distinctions are much more important for intervention.  Unless, of course, you're implementing macroeconomic interventions, which seem just as heinously complex as implementing UK macroeconomic interventions.

5) Recent significant African progress in HDI-esque index (including GDP) seen in Angola, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique.  Continued progress in Brazil/India/China; and the Asian tigers (Singapore, Taiwan, HongKong, South Korea) have recovered the late 1990s slump to a repeat of rapid growth

Ethical labelling and CSR

ODI have written a critical piece which includes a review of the Fairtrade and Rainforest Concern labels - includes some consideration about the challenges a plethora of labelling poses by time-poor consumers
Is a gap in the market for a 'good for development' label?

Interesting look at CSR from McDonalds' point of view - the McLibel campaigners' commentary from the 1980s/1990s.  Clearcutting and union-busting seems less common these days.
McDonald's detailed global CSR site

Another interesting take from the tobacco giant - even the CSR pages seem grey and rather sickly
British American Tobacco CSR pages