Millennium Development Goals
Overcoming a dilemma: building a bridge
In my last post I wrote about a dilemma I faced. Come too far to stop, but not enough backing to start running on 12 December 2012. It was a real dilemma. I had been training hard to make this journey possible since early 2010. Many false starts, many injuries, but not yet enough of what I needed to begin the journey.
The journey involves a stunt. I will run 10 sub-marathons each of 24 km each in 10 cities across 10 countries all inside of one month. The stunt is to open a conversation about how might we use our networks to help reduce child mortality within the context of the Millennium Development Goals.
Every time I had delayed the start in the past was a difficult decision. I felt as though people who were supporting me would be disappointed, I felt the embarrassment of having to change plans from what I said I would achieve, I felt the difficulty of needing to refocus my mind to a new set of dates.
The good thing was that many people really did help me with some good advice when I shared this last dilemma. Their advice: take your time if you need it, get it right, find some space to rest your mind and get clear on what you are wanting to achieve.
So, to those people who have been a great support, I just want to say thank you.
The new start date for running is 24 February 2013. The dates I had earlier outlined will obviously need to be shifted, but that gives us an opportunity. Through the ‘Supporters Passport’ I have sent to those people who have helped me, we now have a straw man of the concept which we can build upon.
And there are some good opportunities emerging:
- ‘Conversation Partners’ have now been identified to help with the journey.
- A significant partner is likely to help to frame the experience. More on that opportunity shortly I hope!
- Just over three months from now until I start running, so much better time to build the conversation before running.
- Running outside of the Christmas break so can build a more focused conversation.
- Looking at a launch party on 31 January 2013, with a very good MC agreeing to help out on the night. More on that shortly!
- Some good performers also agreeing to help out at the launch event!
It is regrettable to delay, but in this case it helps to build a stronger conversation. Building a bridge over a dilemma. That is what is most beneficial to the outcome, and that is what is most important.
One of the outcomes is the definition of a Three Year Plan. The run will now take place at the beginning of that Three Year Plan. We will be living it out as the plan unfolds. Every decision we make has real consequences.
Thanks to everyone for joining the journey. We welcome many more to come with us if you are not already on board.
Over the coming months, I will be asking for your advice. Looking forward to hearing from you!
On the Horns of a Dilemma: Come Too Far to Stop; Not Enough Support to Go
The great and hard-charging American Civil War leader, General Sherman, spoke about putting his enemies on the horns of a dilemma. Confront them with a decision where either option is at their peril. Have you ever been in one of those sticky situations? Come too far to stop, but not having enough enough resources to proceed. Maybe you know what I am talking about.
I am not talking about the time you waited on the phone for two hours while the help-desk had you on hold. You really needed to take that call, but after hearing you were next in line your phone battery was about to give out, and you had a pressing engagement to attend. Waited too long to stop, but not enough capacity to see it through until the end. The classic case of what to do?
I am addressing something of a bigger dimension in this post.
In May 2010, I decided that I would open a conversation about poverty and the Millennium Development Goals through a stunt I called the 10 City Bridge Run which was a global endurance challenge where I would run 10 sub-marathons each of 24 km in 10 cities across 10 countries all inside of one month. In hindsight, often my efforts have been clumsy and crude- there was always room for improvement. It is the most painful form of progress. Bon Scott knew about this when he sang the rock anthem “It’s a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)”.
I look back on this period where I have sought to partner with quite a number of ‘not-for-profit’ organisations to undertake this journey on their behalf, but was met with words of encouragement but closed doors. “Not in line with our messaging or our fundraising objectives”. So much for wanting to change the world whatever it takes.
Looking back, I see an inexact definition of what I had hoped to achieve often to source of this rejection. I reread the weekly updates I produced for my first supporters, and cringe at my naivety. That was all part of the journey. I don’t know there was necessarily a shortcut past that earlier point of unsophistication. In the process, although it has been extremely difficult and challenging, I have learnt a huge amount about the issue and also importantly about myself. Mostly importantly, is that now I have good clarity of where I am heading. The question is, will I achieve enough support to deliver? That is largely up to you.
In late August 2010, I commenced what was my first attempt at crowdfunding. It was successful to a point, and the response from friends who backed me was a huge encouragement. Enough to get me started, not enough to achieve completion. I had undertaken a similar event in 2009 which I funded myself in its entirety, and while that was a worthwhile journey it was financially a bad decision. I ended up after the 2009 journey wiser and richer in experience, but emotionally and physically exhausted. Even encouragement has its limits.
I continued to look for an opportunity to start this journey in 2010, acknowledging the prudent precondition of needing sufficient funds to begin. Two years ago this week, I finally relented that it would not be possible to commence running in 2010 knowing that I was not going to raise enough money to complete the journey at that time. Besides not raising the money, my body was broken from overtraining and I was unable to run at that time even to catch a bus. It was probably a period of another five months before I was running again, and then only very gently as I began my recovery.
Last year, I looked for further opportunity to commence the journey. Nothing bore fruit. I had received just over $6,000 by early 2011 from my crowdfunding efforts, and took my responsibility seriously towards delivering on the expectation that I had set.
Which brought me to September of 2012 part way through my recent crowdfunding round. A good friend from the cut-and-thrust world of business who was a lot older and experienced than me, gave me some advice over coffee about leadership: “When you are the leader, and faced with a difficult situation, you need to weigh up the situation. If it is beyond you, then walk away. People will understand.”
What was I to do? Delay was not really a solution. Delay by how long? Weeks, months, years? The problem is the real deadline looming outside of my control: the 2015 expiration of the Millennium Development Goals. Besides this, every day close to 20,000 children will die mostly from five largely preventable causes. It really is crunch time.
There is a fine line between the expressions ‘Don’t die wondering’ and ‘To Dream The Impossible Dream’. What on earth are we to make of a character like Don Quixote?
That Moment of Your Quixotic Realisation. Been there before? Overcommitted to chasing windmills? Boxing at shadows? Or is it really a credible exercise in changing the game, and in the process inspiring others? Yes, we love to remember the quotes by Steve Jobs (“Here’s to the Crazy Ones”), and others like that. My sense is that there is a moment of irrationality where the feeling of the ‘inner Don Quixote’ emerging needs to be stamped out, and remembered that it is just the discomfort of working towards something that is just a little further out of reach than anticipated.
I remember doing some work for a company in the Pilbera back in 2007. Postered onto every office of that organisation were the company values which included: “Never ever give up”. Failure will occur, but failure is not the end of the journey. It is simply an operational pause, and time to grip up your resolve to work out how to reach your objective.
There have been plenty of times over the last two and a half years of gut-wrenching uncertainty. There is a lot to be said for partnership and working in teams. Everything has to start somewhere. Before a team became a team, it was a collection of individuals.
In just over a month, I will go on a journey and smash myself. There are better ways to open a conversation. Perhaps more sensible ways too. The question is though, is the situation of child mortality not so pressing that it deserves us giving everything an opportunity? I am not doing this for your entertainment. Please join me on this journey- let me do the heavy lifting, but we all need to join the conversation.
Elvis had it half right. We need a little more action, but also a little more conversation. Come on and satisfy me by sponsoring this initiative. You can do that for the cost of a meal at this link: www.pozible.com/lifebridge. Thanks for your support.
10.24 Reflections on the United Nations
24 October was ‘United Nations Day’, commemorating the anniversary when the UN Charter came into effect in 1945. The UN is a large organisation. Massive, in fact.
John Bolton was appointed as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 by President Bush. The position is also known as the United States Permanent Representative the the United Nations. His criticism of the United nations made this a surprise appointment to many, where he had earlier openly shared his strong views which were often critical of the organisation. In 1994, he said:
…there is no United Nations… there is an international community that occassionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests, and when we can get others to go along.
And then in 2005, he famously remarked:
The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.
Unsurprisingly, he was also highly critical of the Millennium Development Goals. Looking at it from his perspective, this is understandable: it was always a target full of rhetoric and seemingly unachievable, so what was the point of exhausting resources for a measure that was simply beyond reach?
The other side of the coin is to take a pragmatic approach that argues that it is more than just a matter of idealistic and wishful thinking, but that an aspirational goal is worth striving towards. We might fall short, but in the process how much can we achieve?
I was responsible for monitoring much of our correspondence with the United Nations when I was in the Army at the time that John Bolton was the US Permanent Representative. Like others, I was amused at his blunt delivery which put a lot of noses out of joint. Years earlier, I recalled how there was in fact a lot of inefficiency in the United Nations that was plainly obvious when I was deployed to East Timor as part of the broader UN force.
Now we stand at the end of a moment of truth as it were. The next three years will be telling, and will reflect any momentum generated over the last short period. It is also a window that can be influenced through new ideas, even though a short period.
The question would be, how able is the UN really about to respond to such opportunities? Was Bolton right? Is a quarter of the UN just a waste of space?
I chose to look at 10.24 as more than just an anniversary. To me it is a personal goal I have set: to run 10 sub-marathons each of 24 km. By doing this, I aim to stimulate a conversation that will take place in Seoul on 24 January 2013 asking how might be use our networks to reduce child mortality.
We need people like Bolton. His unyielding cynicism is an important part in generating the creative tension we need to make change happen. But you also need people to push people like Bolton a little harder and show that change is possible.
Will you join me and be one of those people? Please join me on this journey. Support me at www.pozible.com/lifebridge to make a difference.
10 Reasons to Care
Franklin D. Roosevelt argued “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little“.
Bill Shore in his book The Cathedral Within writes: “The paradox of our time is that while wealth is being created at unprecedented levels, it is not reaching those in greatest need. If anything, it has created a complacency, a comfort with the status quo, an assumption that a rising tide will lift all boats.” The tragedy is that prosperity masks extreme poverty. This is why bridges are necessary – as much as for us to see what needs exist as much as for those who need help.
Is it worth asking whether we have have gone too far in the commodifying ‘doing good’ such that we see charity as a noun (an organisation) and not as it should be regarded which is a verb (the action of helping others in preference to our own needs)?
Citizen engagement is the new philanthropy. Philanthropy is not necessarily only in the giving of money. Civil society is the difference that makes a difference. We should return to philanthropy’s original meaning as ‘love of humankind’. We have a lot more we can each contribute through our time and talents.
There are no shortage of problems in our lives and in the world. Caring about one problem does not need to occur at the exclusion of others as well. Consider that building a bridge to improve the lives of millions can enrich our own lives through serving the needs of others far outweighing any cost to ourselves.
The need to address child mortality ought to be self-evident to us all. Caring for those people on the planet who have no voice, choice or influence on where and when they are born into extreme disadvantage. Just in case you need further argument, here are 10 reasons why we should care:
- Decent thing to do. Caring for other humans on the planet who are in need.
- Humanitarian intervention. It is wrong to allow suffering when it is within our ability to prevent it occurring at no disadvantage to ourselves.
- Avoids population crisis. All evidence shows that a reduction of child mortality also reduces birth rate, which also reduces the potential of an unsustainable population size in the coming decades.
- Improved environment. Many deaths are caused from simple reasons such as poor water supply and sanitation. To reduce child mortality requires an improvement to disgraceful environmental conditions.
- Preventing disease epidemics. Malaria remains one of the largest killers of children across the world. Improved prevention of disease leads to reduced child mortality. Vigilance against epidemics far worse than malaria is important for everyone.
- Maternal health. 350,000 women will die in labor each year, with most of these deaths occurring in the region defined as sub-Saharan Africa. Reducing child mortality leads to a reduction in birth rate, which lessens pressure on already inadequate medical services and leads to an improvement in maternal health.
- Female education. There is a direct relationship between birth rate, child mortality and female education. Improving female education, which remains at outrageously unacceptable low levels in many countries, results in the reduction of birth rate and child mortality through better care of babies.
- Extremist views. We can only imagine the impact a high child mortality must have in creating a sense of injustice, creating a ripe potential to be exploited by extremist and radical militant groups. This is a time bomb we must diffuse more out of compassion than through a pursuit of our own security.
- Moral responsibility through mining and trade. Many mining interests take place in some of the resource rich countries that ironically experience among the highest rates of poverty. Mining companies are businesses, not charities, but it could be argued that it is in their shareholders direct interests to ensure the best conditions exist for business operations through sound civil order.
- Partnerships. Reducing child mortality requires closer partnerships, which generate other benefits for us all.
Let the dataset change your mindset. This is a question of urgency. We can influence child mortality, but it will require action and not just talk.
Why the G20?
The G20 Toronto Summit Declaration from June earlier this year stated:
We recognize that 2010 marks an important year for development issues. The September 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) High Level Plenary will be a crucial opportunity to reaffirm the global development agenda and global partnership, to agree on actions for all to achieve the MDGs by 2015, and to reaffirm our respective commitments to assist the poorest countries.
In this regard it is important to work with Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to make them active participants in and beneficiaries of the global economic system. Accordingly we thank Turkey for its decision to host the 4th United Nations Conference on the LDCs in June 2011.
Narrowing the development gap and reducing poverty are integral to our broader objective of achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth and ensuring a more robust and resilient global economy for all. In this regard, we agree to establish a Working Group on Development and mandate it to elaborate, consistent with the G-20’s focus on measures to promote economic growth and resilience, a development agenda and multi-year action plans to be adopted at the Seoul Summit.
The G20 as a representative body has the ability and political will to make global change happen very quickly, if it chooses to do so. But to do so requires effort and participation from us.
The Government remains resolute
What did Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Foreign Minister, have to say when he gave a strongly worded speech last week on extreme poverty? Thanks to my mate Luke who forwarded me this link.
I was really pleased to hear the framework through which the Australian Government is operating. Here are a few of the points worth mentioning:
- Bi-partisan support.
- A recognition that “the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) hang in the balance”
- Focus on increasing aid effectiveness.
Policy is the vehicle through which a government can exercise influence on issues like this. It can be crude and slow in delivery at times. Kevin Rudd indicated that the government is looking for ideas in how to always improve and have greater impact- that is a good offer which should be responded to in good faith when the performance of the government appears frustratingly less than what could be achieved.
This is the reason for the 10 City Bridge Run. Governments need the input of people to make a difference. Howls of protest serve a limited purpose, just as does long and unremarkable petitions which lobby for change. The 10 City Bridge Run seeks to create a ‘pictorial petition’ comprising of 24,000 photographs of ‘human bridges’ to be sent to all leaders of the G20 members states. The petition will applaud the resolute spirit of each government to achieve the MDG, and recognise the decisions that will be made at the G20 Summit in Seoul, and importantly appeal for change that ensures together we influence a reduction on child mortality before 2015.
The petition started with an idea. It is emergent and still needs work. It is at this point in time still in design. You can help. Please contribute to the crowdsourcing questions that will be articulated later tonight. Only by acting together will this initiative be able to achieve impact.
Kevin Rudd closed with a noteworthy reminder, leaving aside statistics and policy:
Let us not forget that we are talking about people who are part of our common humanity.
20 Days to Go: Why the G20?
The G20 Summit in Seoul commences on 11 November. So too does the 10 City Bridge Run.
But why the G20? Isn’t that only about banking and a talk-fest among world leaders?
The 10 City Bridge Run forms a bridge conceptually between the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (in particular MDG 4: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate) and the leadership of the 20 largest economies (19 countries plus the European Union).
This is what the G20 agreed upon following the last meeting held in Toronto in June this year under the heading of ‘Development’:
We recognize that 2010 marks an important year for development issues. The September 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) High Level Plenary will be a crucial opportunity to reaffirm the global development agenda and global partnership, to agree on actions for all to achieve the MDGs by 2015, and to reaffirm our respective commitments to assist the poorest countries.
In this regard it is important to work with Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to make them active participants in and beneficiaries of the global economic system. Accordingly we thank Turkey for its decision to host the 4th United Nations Conference on the LDCs in June 2011.
Narrowing the development gap and reducing poverty are integral to our broader objective of achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth and ensuring a more robust and resilient global economy for all. In this regard, we agree to establish a Working Group on Development and mandate it to elaborate, consistent with the G-20’s focus on measures to promote economic growth and resilience, a development agenda and multi-year action plans to be adopted at the Seoul Summit.
The website foe the Working Group opens a blank page. I want that to change.
The methodology used by the 10 City Bridge Run is about raising awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to influence extreme poverty. It involves:
- Observing
- Listening
- Bridge building
- Petitioning
- Doing
- Asking institutions what action they took after making public statements
- Learning
Join me on this journey. It is not a spectator sport.
Did the Government Let Us Down?
Tom Bland from Oaktree made this comment last week:
Last week, Kevin Rudd committed $210 million of Australian money towards the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. The global community coughed up a total of $11.7 billion.
Let’s not make excuses, or pretend that this is enough money – the reality is that it’s simply not good enough. The Global Fund needed $13 billion to even keep doing what it’s already doing. It needed $17 billion if it was to meet future needs, and $20 billion if it was to adequately help achieve the MDGs and end mother-child transmission of HIV. Australia’s fair share was $500 million – and we didn’t even get half that.
I wonder how Australia made that calculation- the $210 dollars? I wonder whether Australia actually have a ‘fair share’ to contribute?
When is the point reached where ‘enough money’ is given? Who decides? And if the Australian Government did fall short, who did they let down- us, the United Nations, those who have yet to be infected with HIV/AIDS. TB, Malaria or Measles?
Why didn’t the Global Fund just cut out the inevitable disappointment from government and lean on a few ‘rich’ people, as Peter Singer suggests in his book The Life You Can Save?
And if we are all surprised at the government giving less than half of what their ‘fare share’ ought to have been, what the hell was going on in New York during the high-level conference about the Millennium Development Goals which was addressed by Kevin Rudd and monitored in New York by Oaktree?
Who was to blame for the other $6.3 billion deficit where the Global Fund fell short? Fair shake of the sauce bottle!
I think there is more to this than complaining over a ‘fair share’ of money being paid to the Global Fund. What was achieved at the United Nations Conference in September? Is this report from Tom Bland the first signs of blame toward government and the United Nations as we approach 2015?
How should we now respond? Giving money to make up the shortfall?
Absurdity of Focusing on Outputs- Does Aid Matter?
Injustice and oppression is at the heart of poverty. Ultimately, collective action and social activism is key to making a difference rather than billions of dollars of money.
This would be a summary that I would make from attending the City of Sydney event last night focusing on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Three excellent speakers presented thoughtful and engaging addresses followed by a short time of question and answer.
The speakers were:
- Prof. Stuart Rees, Director Sydney Peace Foundation
- Steve Killelea, Founder Global Peace Index
- Mark McPeak, Director Childfund Australia
There was a general consensus of the reality that the MDG won’t be met by 2015. These were aspirational goals from the outset in 2000. Nobody really expected success, and progress that has been achieved should be celebrated.
Good points were made:
- MDG have proved a good tool for cooperation and focus
- Success in the MDG is influenced by the bias in figures resulting in progress in India and China
One concern is the degree to which money that has been pledged hasn’t been received. Of the US$25 billion pledged to Africa from the G8 Countries, only 40% has been received. Who then do we blame for lack of progress in Africa, for the best of death that extended across sub-Saharan Africa? I don’t think it is as easy as to say: “It is the fault of the rich countries. They all should have given more.” Would that really have solved the problem?
The problem in this respect really is the grand statements that are made by political leaderships of such countries followed by no delivery of the money to back it up.
Consider this figure cited: that the fiscal stimulus over the last 18 months given to banks exceeds the total amount of aid given to Africa ever. Fair? Reasonable? Complex.
Mark McPeak raised an interesting point about the absurdity of focusing on outputs. Using the example of solving hunger, he argued that if on 1 January 2015 every food vender made sandwiches on that day and we then distributed them globally, we would have ‘solved’ hunger…. Yes, but for how long.
Hunger. There are other needs we all need than just the next meal. The next meal is important, but there is more needs to life than are measured by such outcomes.
Stuart Rees made a good point that when organisations had little money from grants and aid, people would cooperate like mad. Now with so much competition for funding, brand and messaging have become all important. Time to step back from the commodification of ‘doing good’.
The evening ended on a positive note. This is a contested space. It is up to us to fix it. There will be more problems and challenges to face in the future. Let’s start by developing a better understanding the ‘other’ which is an essential step of making the world a better place for all.
Please support this through sponsoring the 10 City Bridge Run for $24.
Millennium Development Goals- Gap Too Wide for 2015?
Among the 64 countries with high child mortality rates (defined as 40 or more deaths per 1,000 live births), only 9 are on track to meet the MDG target on child survival. The highest rates of child mortality continue to be found in sub- Saharan Africa.
Over the last week I have reviewed the first six of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The news isn’t great- there is a consideration gap to be achieved before 2015, and in some areas it would seem like an impossibility.
This isn’t a case of just providing more aid, or political leaders reinforcing policy, or better management of process. In many cases, the environmental and circumstantial nature of the situation is so diabolical and complex it needs change across generations not years.
Tonight at the City of Sydney talk on the MDG I will be listening to hear what people have to say about this. I am more concerned about what happens in 2016 and beyond. I remain sceptical of the benefit that came from the high-level United Nations (UN) conference on the MDG last month. Why was so much money spent travelling there? Was everyone who attended needed in New York? Why did we hear nothing about a fall-back plan should the likely scenario of failure to meet these goals eventuate?
I dread to think that 2015 will be just like another UN conference held last year in Copenhagen. Dashed hopes and wasted opportunity.
Here is the shortfall noting the significant areas:
- Decline in employment since the global financial crisis.
- Hunger has worsened with the decline in employment.
- One in four children in the ‘developing world’ remain underweight. Twice as likely to be the case in rural areas.
- Hopes dim for universal education by 2015, especially among girls.
- Women continue to fall victim of ‘more vulnerable forms of employment’.
- Child deaths are falling but not quick enough to reach the target.
- Gains in measles at risk to insufficient fund to eradicate the disease.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia cause more than half of under-five deaths (these are all preventable diseases)
- More than 350,000 women die annually from complications during pregnancy or childbirth, almost all of them — 99 per cent — in developing countries.
- The maternal mortality rate is declining only slowly, even though the vast majority of deaths are avoidable.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman’s maternal mortality risk is 1 in 30, compared to 1 in 5,600 in developed regions.
- Every year, more than 1 million children are left motherless. Children who have lost their mothers are up to 10 times more likely to die prematurely than those who have not.
- Adolescent birth rates remain unacceptably high.
- Poor education about contraception remains at a troubling level.
- HIV remains the leading cause of death among reproductive-age women worldwide.
- An estimated 33.4 million people were living with HIV in 2008, two thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Malaria kills a child in the world every 45 seconds. Close to 90 per cent of malaria deaths occur in Africa, where it accounts for a fifth of childhood mortality.
Is this a gap too wide to cross before 2015? Is this the wrong question to ask, and should it be framed in a different light?
I’ll review this tomorrow after attending the City of Sydney talk.
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