European bureaucracy, xenophobes and a bit of hope
Posted: February 20, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dutch, eastern europeans, extreme right, Holland, members of the european parliament Leave a comment »To make the long story short, “A heated row has erupted in the Netherlands over a website by the Freedom Party (PVV), which invites Dutch nationals to lodge their complaints about Central and Eastern Europeans living in the country, the BBC’s Anna Holligan in The Hague reports.”
The website eventually logged a lot of complaints, some of them legitimate, most of them definitively not having to do with the extremist discourse of the right-wing party that is having a strong word to say in the Dutch parliament. Read the rest of this entry »
Megalopolis to-be
Posted: February 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment »I love fiction. Science fiction.
In my view, the future of nations, countries and cities is shaping now slowly, and no matter what big events occur in a given geographical area, this is what it’s gonna be. Read the rest of this entry »
Why I cannot be a baker anymore
Posted: February 9, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: corner bakery 1 Comment »or
Capitalism, corporatism and all the rest
or
Why it is not easy to get our simple lives back easily.
I live in France, is a small village next to the Swiss border of Geneva that used to be a small stone houses village where Voltaire spent his last seven years, in his mansion of the hill. What a bucolic place, one would say. Well, now Ferney is a sleeping little town for Geneva commuters, called frontaliers. Sleep on one side of the border, work and entertain on the other side.
How any Large Organization can think as a startup
Posted: February 2, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I came across How Any Company Can Think Like A Startup and it inspired me for a parralel with the non-profit world.
For the sake of the example I will look in the next 2 posts at thetwo extremes: at one end grasroot organizations (in a future post) that often play the role of startups in local development, and at the oposite end UN bodies, both described below:
Common wisdom states that startups are hothouses for creativity and innovation, while large corporations are too jammed up with bureaucracy and hierarchy to push the envelope and arrive at new solutions. Read the rest of this entry »
New Global Strategy
Posted: December 16, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I received on this blog address an email dated December 7th, 2011, signed Russ, reproduced below without any comment.
I too see the need to move beyond capitalism. However first let me suggest the simplest answer to your question of why it has to be that way is very simply that this is the way the atoms formed at the creation of the Universe. However much they’d like to it seems quite probable to me that human beings don’t have an opt out from the laws of physics and consequently this is the way the world was always going to be. It’s a simple approach, I obviously can’t prove it’s correct but I do think everyone should at least run with the concept for a bit and see how it works for them.
As usual I’m not short on thoughts and ideas and so I’ve documented what I think seems a reasonable way forward given where we are. The basic idea is that it should be relatively easy to come up with a structured form of crowdsourcing to create a credible global strategy. I’m also floating the idea of the 80/20 rule or 2020 vision of trying to get global life expectancy to 80 by 2020 as a possible headline objective. Social networking can grow quickly and so could a global decision making approach and if it reaches credible levels of participation then it could have develope a surprising amount of shared power very quickly.
Hopefully this provides you with some food for thought – do with it as you see fit.
Regards
Russ
Attschement: globalstrategyv3
Libya and International Development morality
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: International development | Tags: Aid, EU, International Development, morality, Trade Leave a comment »I just came across some texts and declarations that make me see all these International Development efforts in a more clearle – and raise some serious morality questions.
On October 21st, the French Defense Minister, GérardLonguet declared for Le Monde that France will try to play a principal role in the fledgeling new Libya and that the new leadership from Tripoli know that they owe France a lot. In plain words: we helped you to get rid of Gaddafi, it is now time to pay us back. Obviously, not in thank-you letters or cultural interchanges, but in oil contracts.
15O – United for Global Change, Geneva
Posted: October 15, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Geneva, Indignados, occupywallstreet, street protests Leave a comment »I’ve been invited to shoot the participants at the global 15O protest day, here in Geneva.
I’ve seen a crowd of maximum 500 people, mostly youngsters, mostly from the Spanish movement of the Indignados.
I do support their cause, I think that we live wonderful time of increased civic participation, due to various reasons but in essence the same: the big discrepancy between the global production of goods and services and their distribution, even within rich societies (Business Insider shows today four charts in this sense). Read the rest of this entry »
15O Geneva
Posted: October 15, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
15O Geneva, a set on Flickr.
Aid Funding – Make your aid transparent
Posted: October 6, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I’ve been in and out international development business for around 10 years; I’ve seen good and bad, good value on money and huge waste of resources.
We all hear from time to time about pledges for funds, about insufficient money and their devastating effect and how much more life’s we would save with the extra dollars.
And I do not refer here to those emergencies fund that need to be mobilized in no-time for hazards or wars.I mean long-term funding that is made available by various, clear and “transparent“ mechanisms to funding entities and implementing agencies. Read the rest of this entry »
The real looters
Posted: September 14, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: looting 1 Comment »Over the last days, I came across an avalanche of articles, on blogs and mainstream media, trying to classify, explain and predict all manifestations of social tension, from the Arab spring to the London riots.
Most of the authors agree that two factors lead both advanced and advancing societies to social revolts: increased unemployment and poverty resulted from the prolonged financial crisis combined with the opportunity for self-organization driven by new media and devices; many authors rushed to call them “Wikirevolutions“, Twitter revolutions, Facebook protests etc.
