It’s Not Too Late: 2011′s Top 5 Posts

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2011 was a year of continued transitions, trials and triumphs. As a consequence of all this, I did not get to blog as much as I wanted to. WordPress’ handy end of year summary reminded me that I only posted 9 updates last year. Moreover, my older material on policy and evaluation seems to be the more popular!

Growing traffic to this space and the enquiries that it has generated demonstrates that there is a definite interest in research and how people and organisations can use evidence to enhance the impact of their work. Additionally, given the changes in technology, rapidly shifting public sentiments and consumer behaviour, I think the business of research is changing in ways that many of our research professionals, and those that consume research, have failed to adequately respond to. I am going to take a bigger chunk out of this trend in 2012.

Without further delay, the best of 2011:

1. #Jptweetup Remixed: The Tweetheart Tweetup – The Jamaica Pegasus’ social media leadership was an important event last year.

2. A Friend’s View of Egypt: From the Inside – A friend’s understanding of what is happening in is homeland.

3. Your Money eZine Business Summit 2011: Key Takeaways – Some great lessons from seasoned business people.

4. My Coffee Obsession, Act 1, #eatjamaican – What the title of the post says.

5. We Cannot Go On Like This – Worrying human capital trends for Jamaica as the youngest and brightest feel their future lies elsewhere.

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Wishing all my readers a productive year full of fun, meaningful work.

We Cannot Go On Like This

What kind of society are we creating when the future of the society, young people, feel that there is no future for them in that society?

That is what I was asking myself when I read the Observer’s article pointing out that most young Jamaicans want to leave to improve their quality of life.  The main take away message is that when asked about their prospects in a number of traditional destinations for Jamaicans, a consistent majority of respondents felt that they would have better life chances if they left our shores.

A number of things stood out about the article. I am surprised that the numbers that think they would be better abroad are not far higher. This could be because although prospects are not great here, an increasing number of Jamaicans know that life overseas is not easy and comes with its own set of distinct challenges. Additionally, Jamaicans are some of the most robustly patriotic people in the world. I would have been far happier with the article if the writer made some attempt to seriously grapple with what such a large number of young people wanting to leave means. Surely it an indicator of deep, societal dysfunction.

Some of the sentiments of one of the officials on hand also intrigued me:

She went on to say that the survey has provided interesting and critical data about Jamaican youths and shows how best the country and government, including her agency can engage its young people and cater to their current needs.

It annoys me no end when news articles or speakers on the nightly news make claims that they do not go on to substantiate with evidence. Sorry, I’m a researcher. I have not seen the survey, so I can’t comment on the contents. But I would be surprised if a survey (especially in isolation) was used to determine how to engage our young people. And if the spates of violence in schools, constant Ananda Alerts and often troubling exam results don’t tell you that our young people need help and spur genuine change, then I am not sure a survey is going to do it. Surveys are very good at tracking long-term socioeconomic trends and less good at developing effective means for addressing pressing social problems. Participatory assessment and planning approaches exist. However, if our government cannot see that it needs to develop genuine partnerships with the successful ‘big people’ of the diaspora, how are they going to do it with disenfranchised, frustrated youth as their partners?

By now you know I like to throw numbers at you.

 

Figure 2 is taken from the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief 4 and illustrates that quite a high proportion of our tertiary graduates leave. More generally, the Caribbean has the second highest proportion of tertiary graduates which emigrate. Sub-Saharan Africa takes the gold medal in this unhappy contest. What is the impact of such a tremendous loss of human capital on institutional development? Continue reading

Is Non Ideological Analysis Dead?

The boogie man is coming to get you. Or, rather, boogie men. They come in numbers and they don’t do gender diversity.

I am really quite astonished by the focus and tone of much of the writing on international affairs. Have they all took pointers from Fox News? I don’t believe that Foreign Policy is any worse than the other magazines which occupy its market segment. It’s just that a friend who knows that I like the publication bought me a copy. Just take a good look at the title page above. WOW. FP styles itself as ‘a magazine of ideas.’ For quite some time it was, but what I read was could be described as the National Enquirer with a load of ‘bad governance porn.’

The most egregious offender is the ‘Postcards from Hell’ sideshow slideshow. I am not sure if the point of this presentation is to illustrate that poor countries have profound governance problems? It is here where the Western triumphalist logic really revs its engine. I say its an ideology. And an old one at that. Simply put its West = best. Lets call everything different deficient. Read the captions under the very sensationalist photos.

The compilers not only piled every bad regime into their list, but failed to understand what a failed state is. Iran and North Korea are not failed states. They are rogue states that are quite successful in maintaining order through repression. A third year undergraduate could understand the difference. So why can’t FP? I wonder if they know Bill Clarke? A very wise professor of mine said that if you can apply your analytical category to everything, then it means nothing. This intervention, with its moralistic overtones (see the ‘Hell’ reference), reeks of ideological condemnation. Continue reading