Daniel Esser » danielesser

The World Bank needs a strategic arbiter, not a narcissistic insider

danielesser — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:22:33 +0000

Who is going to be the new World Bank President? For one man and his supporters, there is only one viable candidate for this position: he himself. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, he has laid out his unique set of experience and expertise. Those who dare to cast any doubt are either tackled head-on (see, for instance, the evolving debate in The Nation) or ignored (especially noteworthy when the critic is someone who happens to know the Bank much better than the contender). He also pitches himself against Larry Summers, which, in David Korten’s words, is ”a rock bottom standard.” Besides, it also is a substantively questionable position since both candidates are actually quite similar. Both started out as academic prodigies who, unable to reflect and learn from mistakes, have since placed their bets on top-level political appointments in order to further their career and attain global fame. Both have thus been, for many years, political insiders who are utterly convinced of their intellectual superiority. Both consider the Bank a vehicle to carry out their visions of how global development should “happen.” And both are U.S. citizens. On the flipside, neither of them has a track record of respecting intellectual diversity, brokering agreements between stakeholders while staying on the sideline, or transforming a global organization in ways that would have won them the respect of those working for and those depending on it. But those are the very qualifications that the new World Bank President should bring to the table in order to lead effectively. And it times of rising regional superpowers such as Brazil, India and China, a hue of humility would probably be quite helpful, too.

DGSG pre-conference in New York City: successful pilot of a new interactive format

danielesser — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:34:12 +0000

On Thursday, February 23rd, a diverse crowd of over 30 professors and graduate students gathered at Bar Basso in midtown Manhattan for the 4th AAG Development Geographies Specialty Group’s Pre-Conference. Seven presenters each delivered a seven-minute policy plea on issues ranging from land use and fair trade certification “on the ground” to the management of e-waste, Vietnam’s recent growth and inequality trajectories, and the practice of development as a political process. The group then met for dinner across the street and spent the next two hours debating and networking. Click here for the complete program. The next DGSG Pre-Conference is planned for 2013 in Los Angeles, CA.

Eric Carter's talk on DDT for malaria control (1)

Eric Carter's talk on DDT for malaria control (2)

Mark Graham's pitch on global inequalities of knowledge production (1)

Mark Graham's pitch on global inequalities of knowledge production (2)

New CGD working paper on health aid effectiveness ranks DFID highest, UN low

danielesser — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:02:29 +0000

Building on the growing body of empirical literature on aid effectiveness–including two of my recent publications–Amanda Glassman and Denizhan Duran at the Center for Global Development just published an interesting working paper that achieves two things simultaneously: it provides an excellent overview of the dramatic increase of Development Assistance in Health (DAH) globally during the past decade while also, for the first time as far as I am aware, ranking the individual performance of national as well as multilateral donor agencies in DAH. Echoing some of the findings documented in a recent paper in World Development by Bill Easterly and Claudia Williamson, their analysis uncovers wide variation in both allocative efficiency and DAH agencies’ effectiveness as reliable, transparent and supportive partners for institutional development in recipient countries. The UK’s DFID ranks highest overall, followed by the Dutch and Danish aid agencies. GFATM is the highest-ranked multilateral agency in the sample. Conversely, selected UN agencies (clustered) rank lowest among multilateral organizations. Major bilateral donors such as Japan, Belgium and France also find themselves at the bottom of Glassman’s and Duran’s results.

Why don’t American cities burn?

danielesser — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:16:51 +0000

I recently attended UPenn Prof. Michael Katz’s book talk at the New America Foundation. In Why Don’t American Cities Burn, Katz offers a historical analysis of the systemic and social constraints to violent collective action by minorities in U.S. cities which, Katz argues, result from a set of profound economic and political transformations. Although I found Katz’s three-tiered argument refreshing and generally convincing, I took issue with his focus on inner-city poverty among African-Americans specifically and why, unlike in the 1960s and 1990s, this situation was unlikely to incite major violence missed major aspects of contemporary urban dynamics. As much as racially motivated spatial phenomena have mattered in post-war U.S. urban history–and one clearly find parallels in the urban riots in France–, recent uprisings in London, Seattle, Oakland or Vancouver demonstrate that racial tensions are only one possible trigger. To be fair, Katz published the book prior to the Occupy movement; still, it seems to me that characterizing the U.K. riots primarily as an outbreak of racial tensions misses the point. Unfortunately Katz’s answer to my question [at 1:03:10 of the recording] wasn’t really clear; he stated dissatisfaction with attempts made thus far to explain these riots and that he intended to conduct his own investigation. Let’s hope that race won’t be the sole interpretive lens applied in this effort. Cities are arenas for the staging of social and economic protests writ large, which may or may not reflect racial dimensions.

Join for the 2012 AAG Development Geographies Specialty Group Pre-Conference in New York City

danielesser — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:33:29 +0000

Members and guests of the AAG’s Development Geographies Specialty Group (DGSG) will meet on Thursday, February 23, from 5PM until 8PM in midtown Manhattan for the 2012 DGSG Pre-Conference. Click here for the event poster. Drawing from their own research, 7 presenters will each deliver a 7-minute Policy Plea, followed by open discussion in plenary session. We are reaching out to local non-academic audiences and hope to attract a diverse crowd of scholars and practitioners. There is no conference fee and all are welcome; registered members of the Development Geographies Specialty Group will receive an on-site $10 discount toward their food bill. RSVP is requested by Monday, February 20. Please send a brief message with your name and affiliation to dgsgpreconference(at)gmail.com to confirm your attendance.

About.com and Good Generation posts on Kara’s and my World Development article

danielesser — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:58:59 +0000

A colleague (thanks, John!) just alerted me that Joanne Fritz, in a recent post on About.com, included a really neat discussion of Kara’s and my recent article in World Development as “Food For Thought“. Thien Nguyen-Trung also covered the piece and posted an excellent summary and comments on his blog, Good Generation.

Course evaluations posted

danielesser — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:47:27 +0000

I just posted the most recent student evaluations of my teaching (SETs). Many thanks to all students who took the time to submit feedback! I am happy about the overall scores received (6.06/7 and 6.09/7, respectively) although they are slightly lower than in the previous Fall term. I am committed to hopefully once again achieving my “typical” scores (which usually range between 6.2/7 and 6.7/7) upon resuming teaching after my current research leave.

Research in progress: your input is welcome

danielesser — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:10:12 +0000

It has been almost exactly a year since I last posted. As one can probably guess, it’s been a busy year… But now that I’ve begun a semester-long research leave I am determined to resume my online activity. To begin with, I hope to receive additional comments on my co-authored article in World Development which I wrote together with Kara Keating Bench. The Stanford Social Innovation Review recently posted some encouraging commentary on it and it would be great to get more feedback, especially since I am pondering a funding proposal in support of a research project focusing on intra-organizational decision-making.

I also hope to use this website to solicit feedback on ongoing research projects as well. Aafreen Kidwai and I have a working paper on funding patterns of multilateral aid agencies toward urban poverty reduction projects which we plan to submit for formal review soon. There are still some kinks in it so I’ll post the revised draft in a couple of weeks.

I also recently gave a talk on Chinese investments in African cities. The data are shaky (the usual challenge confronting research on Chinese foreign affairs) not only because of murky sources but also because it is tough to pin down what exactly is an urban project… but the presentation triggered such an enthusiastic reaction that I’ve decided to share the slides here. Any comments on the findings, as well as suggestions on how to solidify the data, are most welcome.

I am going to post additional working papers in the coming weeks.

DW interview on QDDR: no blueprint for other countries

danielesser — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:22:51 +0000

DW Deutsche Welle (the “German BBC”) recently interviewed me on the State Department’s First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). Professor James Davis at St. Gallen University, Switzerland and I were asked to comment on whether the mainstreaming of development policy into diplomacy is an approach that other countries should consider as well. What a neat opportunity to share my “concern about the QDDR as a blueprint [since] ‘we know from scores of failures in development policy in the past 30 years that blueprint approaches have never really worked. What have worked are localized approaches. [...] Ultimately what distinguished [many] European countries in the global development arena, namely the independence of development policy from foreign policy, is going to be washed out.’” The critical point is that this would likely hamper aid effectiveness provided that the ultimate goal really is to alleviate suffering as opposed to championing particularistic policy agendas. Read the complete article here.

How the World Bank Institute spin-doctors urban development

danielesser — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:16:48 +0000

In June, I attended a new event format launched by the World Bank Institute (WBI). The Innovative Cities: Global Dialogue brings together mayors, corporate interests, some fig-leaf activists and a large number of Bank staffers (and presumably academic researchers as well, though I saw very few) to discuss urban development challenges and opportunities. UN-Habitat and the Bank’s own Cities Alliance have been organizing similar gigs for years, so WBI is a little late… but better late than never.

I just finished watching the short clip on the event produced by WBI and circulated among participants earlier today. I am aghast… the Dialogue that I went to in June produced few new substantive insights. It did not, for instance, shed much light on concrete success factors to truly sustainable (triple bottom line?) partnerships. Nor did it raise the critical question to what extent, if at all, these can be generalized across regions. And what about urban democracies versus corporate machine politics?

Instead, almost all of the hand-picked panelists proclaimed ubiquitous urban win-win scenarios. Except for some of the mayors (thankfully!) and, if I recall correctly, two comments from the floor, speakers eclipsed the trade-offs inherent in urban economic growth–especially in the poorest countries that the Bank is allegedly so concerned about–by assiduously ignoring a wealth of empirical studies documenting challenges faced by urban micro initiatives that campaign for more equitable access to social services, some of which result directly from the elitist quest for “economic growth” (or is this now being used as a politically more digestible proxy for employment generation?).

During lunch break, I heard several critical voices whose concerns are echoed in my critique above. I was also approached by a fellow with a video camera who asked me for a 30-second statement on the morning session. I told him that my comments would not be too charming and that he might want to seek out more benevolent interviewees. No, he replied, critical perspectives were “exactly what [we] want to hear” in order to “produce a more balanced documentation.” Needless to say, I guess, that for some strange reason they aren’t featured in the clip.

All in all, an opportunity missed. Or maybe not: lunch was great. And economic growth, WBI-type, rules.