Aid Watch Rerun: African leaders advise Bono on reform of U2

Bono thanks Commission chairman Nelson Mandela for the Report

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Over the holidays, we’ll be publishing reruns of some of our posts from the first 2 years of Aid Watch. This?post?originally ran on November 23, 2009.

An expert commission of African leaders today announced their plan for comprehensive reform of music band U2. Saying that U2’s rock had lost touch with its African roots, the commission called for urgent measures to halt U2’s slide towards impending crisis.

“Our youth today are imperiled by low quality music,” said Commission chairman Nelson Mandela. “We will be lending African musicians to U2 to try to refurbish their sound to satisfy the urgent and growing needs for diversionary entertainment at a time of crisis in the global music and financial sectors.”

Concerns about U2 have been growing in Africa for a while. One Western aid blogger testified to the Commission that his teenage kids found U2’s music “cheesy.” The Mandela Commission proposed that U2 follow a series of steps to recover its Edge:

1) Hire African consultants to analyze U2’s “poverty of music trap”

2) Prepare a Band-owned and Commission-approved Comprehensive U2 Reform Strategy Design (CURSD)

3) Undertake a rehabilitation tour of African capitals to field-test and ground-truth proposed reforms

4) Subject all songs to randomized experiments in which the effect on wellbeing of control and treatment groups is rigorously assessed.

Mandela expressed optimism that the Commission’s report and proposed reforms had come in time to stave off terminal crisis in U2, and restore its effectiveness in the 80s arena rock field.

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West African bank cuts off Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo

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African export success: finding the needle when you’re not sure which haystack

Export success in Africa is a matter of finding a rare Big Hit, with the added complication that it won’t stay a hit, and that in a few years you will need a new Big Hit.

This from a new NBER working paper by Ariell Reshef (U. Va.) and myself. We also tell some stories of the individual successes, some of which involve the local government.

The news is not that Africa is different from the rest of the world in this, but that it’s?the same.

This unstable uncertainty?holds regardless of whether you include or exclude oil, minerals, and other export commodities. And so does the concentration of success — the top-ranked non-commodity export is 23 times larger than the 10th ranked export.

The stereotype of African countries as unchanging mono-exporters based on some unchanging natural endowment just turns out to be…wrong.

Coping with such remarkably high and unstable uncertainty (the “unknown unknowns”)?as to what will be a hit?seems like an a priori case for a lot of decentralized, highly motivated seekers and experimenters. We don’t exclude ANY possible government involvement — at the very least, governments need to be nimble to adjust regulations and infrastructure to support any new success that comes along from private entrepreneurs.

In sum,?we think?there is just as much a role for entrepreneurs in Africa, and just as little role for centralized and systematic?government industrial policy, as in the rest of the world.

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African export success: finding the needle when you’re not sure which haystack

Export success in Africa is a matter of finding a rare Big Hit, with the added complication that it won’t stay a hit, and that in a few years you will need a new Big Hit.

This from a new NBER working paper by Ariell Reshef (U. Va.) and myself. We also tell some stories of the individual successes, some of which involve the local government.

The news is not that Africa is different from the rest of the world in this, but that it’s?the same.

This unstable uncertainty?holds regardless of whether you include or exclude oil, minerals, and other export commodities. And so does the concentration of success — the top-ranked non-commodity export is 23 times larger than the 10th ranked export.

The stereotype of African countries as unchanging mono-exporters based on some unchanging natural endowment just turns out to be…wrong.

Coping with such remarkably high and unstable uncertainty (the “unknown unknowns”)?as to what will be a hit?seems like an a priori case for a lot of decentralized, highly motivated seekers and experimenters. We don’t exclude ANY possible government involvement — at the very least, governments need to be nimble to adjust regulations and infrastructure to support any new success that comes along from private entrepreneurs.

In sum,?we think?there is just as much a role for entrepreneurs in Africa, and just as little role for centralized and systematic?government industrial policy, as in the rest of the world.

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South African escapes pirates, but 2 crew captured

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The European Union anti-piracy naval force says a South African yachtsman has escaped a pirate attack off Somalia’s coast but that two of his crew were kidnapped.

The EU Naval Force said Monday that pirates had overtaken a yacht called the Floreal with three people on board. A French warship located the yacht Saturday, but when a team approached the boat shots were fired.

The naval force says on Sunday the yacht ran aground near Somalia and the South African skipper refused to leave his vessel, but the pirates took the two other crew with them as hostages.

A spokesman, Lt. Col. Per Klingvall, said officials can’t yet release the nationalities of the two crew. The South African skipper is safely on board an EU Naval Force warship.

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The fate of African intellectual - a moral fable

Once again, there are two major land: Donorlandia and Africa. Donorlandia had many intellectuals who was of the view-based solutions for Africa, which has received much attention in Donorlandia media. Some African intellectuals has received as much, or even all, such attention when they spoke of their own land.

The intellectuals of the Donorlandia could work for major universities, or think-tanks or aid agencies.More aid agencies and charitable foundations often give non-cha?nes-Secretary of funding for independent intellectuals in focus groups or universities who worked on Africa, or created new centres of research on African independent African .Intellectuels had small African universities private cash or focus groups, and they received little non-cha?nes attached funding agencies help Donorlandia or charitable foundations.

The main option for African intellectuals was working for agencies, where they are not independent, Declaration of non-African patterns, and where their prospects Insider on Africa were rarely appreciated. Independent African intellectuals who have criticized the aid agencies have been vilified and marginalized.

Donorlandia intellectuals conducted individual aid or African research projects. The intellectuals of Africa could work for these projects or studies or research centres, but they have little hope that their knowledge about the local culture or conditions is met or reflected in the projects and the études.Projets, studies or research centres run by independent African intellectuals have not received funding agencies help or charitable foundations.

Some African intellectuals best left Africa and became independent in major universities or research Donorlandia think - tanks .but aid agencies and charitable foundations excluded from these African intellectuals of major projects or research, due to fears of mind poorly known as the brain drain.

Donorlandia gave once so international scholarships to encourage even more intellectuals in other lands as America Latina - so that later, these intellectuals were now politics and treated as equal with the agencies help en America Latina.But the fear of the brain drain had paralyzed the support organizations and charitable foundations in Africa later and there is little or no international scholarships to encourage African intellectuals.

Courageously, African intellectuals have persisted in unfavourable conditions, suggest that a day much more of them may also be independent, that one day they may conduct their own projects, think tanks and research centers, one day they can have those comments on their own continent and receive the attention that they deserve.

Editorial Note: this fable is based on numerous informal discussions, I have had for many years with African intellectuals, who, for obvious reasons, do not want their names used during the rare exception) j. ' uses the literary form of a fable precisely because of this restriction, which means that none of the statements may be vérifiées.Si it resonates with you the reader, then perhaps certains.Si this is not the case, then do not hesitate to disappear due to lack of verifiable evidence.

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