An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: rickz (Flickr)

Proponents of the proposed pipeline from Canada’s Athabasca Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico claim that its construction would create jobs. But while the long-term employment prospects are debatable at best, the resulting long-term economic devastation is far more certain.

The recent decision by the Obama administration to deny a permit for the construction of the pipeline has received much press and been touted as a victory for environmentalists. But as climate activist Bill McKibben and his organization point out, stopping the extraction of the tar sands would be a victory for those far removed from the American environmental movement as well.

McKibben said in an interview with Green Prophet that “Any place that is already living close to the margins is in the greatest danger” when facing climate change.

This means the world’s poorest, already suffering from food shortages and decreased agricultural production, would be hardest hit by this carbon bomb. And scientific consensus backs up McKibben’s view.

Country Ranks, Estimated Percentage of Agricultural Productivity Loss by 2080: Potential Carbon Emissions from Canadian Oil Sands. Photo: Center for Global Development

David Wheeler, senior fellow emeritus of the Center for Global Development, compiled a recent study specifically tying the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands to increased agricultural losses.

Wheeler concluded that “full exploitation of Canada’s oil sands deposit would impose significant agricultural productivity losses on over 3 billion people in the developing world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” He calculates that “combustion of the Alberta deposit would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 99 ppm, or 21.3 percent of the increase already projected to occur by 2100.”

Or, as reputed climate scientist Jim Hansen of NASA put it, tapping the tar sands would be “essentially game over for the climate."

Wheeler's findings show a "game over" scenario in poor rural regions, in particular, predicting agricultural productivity losses of up to nearly 13 percent in Africa and 9 percent in Asia. Wheeler, who also created a ‘Climate Vulnerability Index’ by country, sums up his findings powerfully and succinctly, stating "Put simply, the potential destructive power in Canada’s oil sands exceeds anything modern civilization has witnessed to date."

“This new report puts into stark relief exactly what ‘game over’ looks like: Millions upon millions of starving people across the planet," says 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn.

On the ground, countries projected by Wheeler to see further damaging impacts are already struggling with agricultural losses. Another 350.org co-founder, Phil Aroneanu, told Global Envision that “we have a plethora of anecdotal and story-based thoughts from our organizers around the world” of agricultural devastation and food shortages linked to changing climate patterns.

Drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Sudan, among others, provide some of the most poignant images of climate-related suffering. An Oxfam International report points out that 85 percent of Ethiopians depend directly on agriculture. And as a local farmer told Oxfam, “The rain doesn’t come on time anymore. After we plant, the rain stops just as our crops start to grow. And it begins to rain after the crops have already been ruined.”

And with the projections from scientists like Hansen and Wheeler, Africa’s farmers and communities appear unlikely to recover soon.

While McKibben writes that “Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming,” and Obama’s denial of the Keystone permit may well not kill the project in the long run, the scientific and anecdotal evidence is clear: Vulnerable populations are suffering at the hands of carbon kings already, and tapping the tar sands will exacerbate their problems.

So the Keystone proposal may or may not be dead. But the political discourse around potential job-killing has mostly left out an important aspect: the killing of crops and livelihoods elsewhere in the world.

McKibben has said that extracting Canada’s tar sands would mean lighting the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” For now, at least, that fuse remains unlit.

The departure of skilled workers in the developing world may, contrary to popular belief, do more good than harm. Photo:banoiff (flickr)

When educated professionals depart a developing nation, does greater wealth arrive? Some scholars in the international development community are saying farewell to the notion that the ‘brain drain’ hinders impoverished countries from expanding human capital and increasing the growth rate.

Exit brain drain. Enter brain gain.

The brain drain has long been perceived as a constraint on the progress of developing nations—much-needed doctors, professors, and scientists often abandon their homelands in exchange for better salaries and more comfortable lives in the developed world. However, research indicates that if countries can hit a sweet spot of sending around 20 percent of their talent to other countries, the residual impact of those individual losses will actually spur economic and educational growth at home.

But how? One way is through remittances, cash transfers from an individual in one country to another elsewhere. Take Ghana, for example. Some figures place remittance levels at $400 million per year, on par with the country's two biggest exports, cocoa and gold, which account for 25 percent of the foreign exchange earnings of the nation. To put this figure in perspective, in previous years Ghana has received around $650 million in foreign aid. Compared to other developing nations, that's low—in some, “remittances are more than double the amount of foreign aid,” as reported by Foreign Policy.

Furthermore, remittances can withstand the tests of natural disasters, and political and economic crises. Chances are an economic and political collapse in Egypt would deter foreign investment but encourage a migrant to increase his or her monetary givings to Egyptian relatives. Now those are derivatives Fannie and Freddie should have bet on.

Much of the new economic activity happening in African countries like Ghana are catalyzed by residents who have traveled or lived in developed countries. New York University professor William Easterly refers to this as “brain circulation,” that is, the movement of ideas and investments from educated professionals between their homes and the West.

Often, brain drainers will eventually return to their country of origin or maintain residency both abroad and at home. Not only do these individuals in turn support the economic development of their hometowns, but they also inspire members of the community to invest in education. According to Easterly, most students are motivated by the idea of living abroad, noting that “if this prospect is closed tightly, this may have an effect on the effort levels of students in the system, and therefore the quality of the graduates of the school system.”

Additionally, travel expands capital horizons. Robert Guest notes in Foreign Policy that “countries trade more with countries from which they have received immigrants.” A migrant living in the UK might inform his sister in Somalia that there is demand in his city for a specific talent she may have the skill sets to provide. Diaspora thus encourages a fluidity of ideas, innovations, and supplies and demands between often disconnected parts of the world.

Investing money abroad can be the best way to bring more of it home. Brainpower may work that way, too.

Young Portuguese congregate in a park in Lisbon. Photo: Erik Mandell for MercyCorps

Amid its ongoing financial crisis, Portugal’s prime minister has a surprising message for his country’s struggling residents: leave.

It’s just one example of Portugal looking to emerging markets for relief as power dynamics of international economic relationships change.

Conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho suggested that moving to Portuguese-speaking countries and former colonies such as Brazil and Angola could be an alternative for young Portuguese hit hard by unemployment, according to IPS news. Coelho’s suggestion specifically focused on teachers, saying that other places could provide better job markets for educators. But the Prime Minister’s suggestion is being met with criticism, including from the governments of his imagined receiving countries for Portuguese emigrants.

Brazil and Angola both shot down this suggestion quickly, stating that they had no need for teachers from Portugal, IPS reports. Ana Maria Gomes, a leader of Portugal’s opposition Socialist Party, also criticized Coelho, saying "that is the last thing a prime minister should say... because no matter how complicated things are, we can and must pull out of this.”

Yet given recent economic trends, it makes sense that a struggling European country like Portugal might consider unorthodox solutions.

Brazil, the world’s largest Portuguese-speaking country, recently surpassed Great Britain to become the world’s sixth largest economy, reports The Guardian. Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) described Brazil’s economic rise as part of a larger trend. He told The Guardian that "Brazil has beaten the European countries at soccer for a long time, but beating them at economics is a new phenomenon. Our world economic league table shows how the economic map is changing, with Asian countries and commodity-producing economies climbing up the league while we in Europe fall back."

This global shift of economic power, evident in Brazil’s rapid growth, is seen elsewhere as well. The emerging power of the so-called BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) has been widely recognized for a while now, with trade in manufactured and resource-based commodities fueling the rapid growth. And the global financial and Euro-zone crises have accelerated the divide in growth between emerging economies and traditional economic powers.

Including the BRIC countries, 19 of the 30 predicted largest economies by 2050 are currently emerging markets, according to HSBC. And Project Syndicate reports that changing patterns of innovation and research and development will further fuel this shift, pointing out that in 2000 so-called developed countries only accounted for 76 percent of global R&D, down from 95 percent in 1990.

News of the rise of emerging economies isn’t new, but these figures pose a problem for struggling countries like Portugal. And the trend of turning to emerging countries for financial assistance signals a rebalancing of power likely to last.

Coehlo’s suggestion for emigration coincides with news that the Chinese state-owned Three Gorges Corporation bought 21 percent of Portugal’s largest power producer from the debt-burdened government, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The largest-ever Chinese investment in Europe further illustrates Portugal’s precarious situation. As another Chinese state-owned enterprise, China State Grid Corporation, bids on purchasing Lisbon’s national power grid operator, Portugal shows its willingness to sell assets to emerging economies to stay afloat.

“The European economy needs blood, but not in the form of a transfusion,” said Wang Yiming, a senior Chinese economic policymaker. “We need to create new blood by promoting investment.” In other words, China doesn't want to simply loan cash to the West. But it’s willing to invest in concrete assets.

Wang’s statement demonstrates China’s view of itself as an economic savior. If troubled countries have assets to sell, emerging economies are willing and able to buy.

So China is buying shares of Portugal’s utilities, and Brazil doesn’t want its unemployed emigrants. The Portuguese example shows that emerging economies now have more choices when it comes to global economic relationships.

Five hundred years after Portuguese landed in Brazil, have the colonial winds reversed? Maybe not entirely, but emerging economies now have a comparatively better hand to play. And for countries like Portugal, the game of economic power is no longer stacked so strongly in their favor.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

Download the full size image. Courtesy Mercy Corps.

During the lifecycle of a Haitian mango, a lot can go wrong.

By the time it reaches the U.S., it's a lucky little mango if it hasn't been packaged poorly, bruised and squished, harvested at the wrong time, ravaged by insects and decimated by poor weather. In all likelihood, it's probably been thrown out along the way, never to make it.

For the large international supermarkets and businesses that buy mangoes (think Whole Foods and Coca-Cola's Odwalla brand), this is just the cost of doing business. It happens to some degree with every perishable product—particularly fruit—and it's no cause to shed tears.

But for Haitian farmers, that cost of doing business may actually cost them their business.

Nonprofit development organizations are in tune to the plight of the small-scale farmer and have identified a few key moments in the mango lifecycle where value can be added (see Mercy Corps' "Farm to Market" infographic above). On the other side of the coin, companies like Coca-Cola want to ensure the mango supply chain is intact, because it's difficult to make Mango Lime-Aid juice without mangoes. Both have poured money and expertise into helping mango farmers succeed.

It's not too far of a stretch to say that improving the incomes of small-scale farmers can improve the long-term prospects of a country like Haiti, devastated and slow to recover.
The spotlight on Haiti may dim over time, but the mango is definitely finding a juicy role for itself in the story.

Reliance on quality produce from Africa prompted Albert Heijn to undertake aid projects. Photo: Erik Mandell for MercyCorps

A Dutch company looks to combine international aid with corporate profit, according to allAfrica.com.

The supermarket chain Albert Heijn is funding and conducting development projects in Africa, including constructing water systems in Ghana, farmer training programs in South Africa, and expanded schooling in Kenya. But the company doesn’t claim that its efforts are based in charity. "It's very much business-driven. It bears almost no resemblance to charity or good causes," says Henri Zondag, chair of the Albert Heijn foundation.

Albert Heijn supermarkets rely heavily on quality produce from Africa, and the idea is that healthier, happier and better-educated suppliers make trade relationships more productive. The Dutch government is a player in this arrangement too, encouraging business-sector participation in cooperative development relationships and economic benefits for the Netherlands. The government hopes that “making a profit can be a great incentive for [development] projects.” The company envisions projects that forge partnerships that lead to greater profit. If both are correct, in the long term all parties involved could win.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

A flourishing economy has enabled many Chinese citizens to climb the socio-economic ranks. Photo:xiaming (flickr)

The spirit of 1989’s Tiananmen Square is alive in China, except the swarm of charged students has been replaced by a disgruntled, expanding middle class.

Inadvertently, an economic boom has resounded with cries for change.

2011 has been an exceptionally rough year for government officials trying to maintain social complacency across China’s far-reaching borders. Perhaps inspired by the Arab Spring, Chinese civilians took to the streets in February to enact their own “Jasmine Revolution” (taken from the Tunisian movement of the same name), demanding greater accountability and transparency from their current one-party system. At least 54 activists, including lawyers and intellectuals, were arrested, and, the New York Times reports, the term “jasmine” was blocked on internet search engines. In recent months, labor strikes have swept the People’s Republic, resulting in street rallies filled with middle class voices expressing their frustrations with meager wages and unhealthy work conditions.

However, the butterfly effect of protests—originating from the Arab Spring and expanding into the Occupy Wall Street movements—reaches beyond income inequality. Much of the Chinese middle class will no longer play the passive bystander to haphazard industrialization. On July 23rd, a high speed train collision, killing 40 passengers, moved government-backed news broadcasters to risk publicly questioning the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to provide the public with safe, accessible infrastructures.

In early August, more than 12,000 people converged in the city of Dalian to stop the re-opening of a paraxylene plant (a toxic chemical used to make polyester) after a storm had exposed citizens to chemicals known to cause leukemia and birth defects. The plant’s closure provided a significant win for the protesters—the government agreed to the shutdown despite a reported $1.5 billion invested in the industry.

In a land where censorship and submissiveness are ingrained in the cultural psyche, why are so many compelled to take a stand now? It’s a complex question, but part of the explanation lies in the problem itself: the rise of China’s economy.

Globalization, specifically global export trade, has upshot China into a leading economic powerhouse. Now the fulcrum of production in the globalized world, many Chinese workers are finally transitioning from poor to middle class (defined by The Brookings Institution as households that spend $10 per person daily).

By 2015, the Brookings Institution estimates that for the first time in 300 years, "the number of Asian middle class consumers will equal the number in Europe and North America. By 2021, on present trends, there could be more than 2 billion Asians in middle class households. In China alone, there could be over 670 million middle class consumers, compared with only perhaps 150 million today.”

The Chinese Communist Party has come to rely on the middle class for support; in the past they have served as a relatively quiet buffer between a populous but powerless poor class and a power-driven rich minority. The Economist observes that China has “kept themselves to themselves as a result of the implicit social contract offered by the Communist Party: you let us rule and we will let you get rich.”

China's middle class wants to renegotiate this contract, demanding more environmental and wellness security from their political leaders. “As many previously poor people adopt middle-class lifestyles in the decades ahead,” Brookings researchers observe, “they may find themselves not only consuming more but also more forcefully advocating for less pollution and lower emissions.” In other words, more money means more demands.

If the party chooses to reinvest its money into the people’s pockets through increased incomes, subsidized health care, lowered taxes, and environmental protection, the middle class is expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years. However, one only needs to look back at China’s Great Leap Forward to see that blind fixation on economic prowess can result in a neglected, damaged social sector. Looks like China will need to take a middle-road approach if it hopes to flourish.

An informal worker sells mobile phones from a street stand. Photo: MikeBlyth (Flickr)

A man selling toys on Sao Paulo’s streets, a woman grilling fish in crowded markets of Lagos and a handbag maker in Guangzhou might not seem to have much in common. But they are all part of the global informal economy, now estimated to be worth about $10 trillion a year.

Economic exchanges that are not taxed, monitored, or included in GDP measurements make up the informal sector. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, more than half the workers in the world make their living this way.

Journalist Robert Neuwirth details the lives and challenges of informal workers in his new book, Stealth of Nations. Speaking of the $10 trillion estimate, Neuwirth says "That's an astounding figure because what it means, basically, is that if the informal economy was combined in one country, it would be the second-largest economy on Earth, rivaling the United States economy."

With innovative relationships and global supply chains, many entrepreneurs are thriving and prefer to stay ‘off the books.’ In Lagos, Nigeria, where 80 percent of the workforce is employed informally, locals call it the ‘economy of resourcefulness’. Street vendors grill fish caught in Europe and sell mobile phones smuggled from China.

Some entrepreneurs earn enough to travel out of Nigeria to purchase products to sell back home. "When you journey to the train station [in Guangzhou, China], you feel like you're in Africa because there's so many Africans located there,” Neuwirth says. “Africans have embedded themselves in society there in very direct ways, and there's a huge [informal] back channel of trade in China and Africa.”

The global scope of the informal economy is staggering. Governments and corporations are noticing traditionally ignored channels for revenue production. A market court in Lagos allows for the settlement of disputes between informal sellers and buyers. And, writes Marc Levinson in his review of Neuwirth's book in The Wall Street Journal, "In Morocco, the consumer-goods giant Procter & Gamble has built an entire network of wholesalers and agents and subagents to sell diapers and soap through merchants in villages so remote that they have no retail stores." Such relationships could indicate a trend in bridging the divide between formal and informal economies.

As informal workers integrate their business globally, many are torn between a desire for added security of infrastructure and support, and the solutions they’ve established. Certainly not all aspire to move into the formal sector with its complications of taxation and regulation.

With such a large magnitude, it’s impossible to ignore the importance of informal exchanges to society's economic survival. Workers continue to forge paths to prosperity through entrepreneurial solutions. For many, that means operating outside the law.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

The European Central Bank looms large over the Euro debt crisis. Photo: soumit (flickr)

As Europe attempts to thwart a broader global recession, it is facing what many economists refer to as a trilemma, and poorer countries could be the victims.

A financial trilemma is comprised of three goals that policy makers try to achieve: (1) a stable/fixed exchange rate; (2) an economy open to international flows of capital; and (3) a sound monetary policy to stabilize the economy.

Here's the catch: In reality you can only achieve two of these goals, not all three.

In 1999, the Eurozone decided to give up the third goal, independent monetary policy. In exchange, they enjoy a common currency across 17 member nations and the freedom to exchange money and goods across borders. Though the European Central Bank creates monetary and fiscal policy for the European Union, each member nation relinquishes its own control.

This becomes an issue when a country gets into financial trouble and must defer to the European Central Bank or greater European Union. This was recently evidenced with the bailout and continuing debt problems in Greece.

Potential for problems arise due to our ever globalized, interconnected world. Eurozone policies are far-reaching, extending their grasp to neighboring emerging markets dependent on foreign dollars. With austerity measures becoming the norm, lenders are avoiding risk and could cut foreign lending in favor of keeping business in their own backyard. The Economist references a speech by the Financial Stability Board head, Mark Carney, in which he warned about the damage if the European bank were to deleverage on the world economy.

Many emerging economies in Eastern Europe depend on both foreign aid and outside investment. If the Eurozone's financial well runs dry the effect will ripple throughout Eastern Europe, even the U.S. Poorer E.U. members worry that they'll emerge the victims. French president Nicolas Sarkozy rocked the political world after his comments at a University of Strasbourg debate on November 8, where he described a proposal for a two-speed Europe, presumably divided between richer and poorer nations.

What part does the European Central Bank (ECB) play in this? That’s the question everyone is asking. Similar to the U.S. Federal Reserve, the ECB has the power and leverage to swoop in and bail out E.U. members on the brink of collapse. They are hesitating, however. Germany feels the ECB should step in only as a last resort. Many policymakers in Germany believe that the current crisis is forcing reform and thus serving a purpose, as recently expressed in The New York Times.

With optimism waning on debt solutions for the U.S. and abroad, tensions mount and consensus becomes imperative. Politics need to be set aside before any sort of real dialogue can exist. Will the E.U. decide on a two-speed Europe? Will any countries abandon the Euro? The implications for emerging markets are considerable; several outcomes could result in global recession.

Managing Director of the IMF Christine Lagarde meets China's Vice Premier Wang Qishan, Beijing, China. Photo: International Monetary Fund (flickr)

The global financial crisis has shaken up the international seating chart, and China may be vying for a better spot.

Though China was one of the International Monetary Fund’s original members, that invitation to the table didn’t mean it had a voice in the conversation. But last year, the World Bank and IMF both moved the country to third place. While the move changes the pecking order for Germany, the UK and France, traditional leaders, it matches China’s increasing position in the world economy with voting power.

Now, we wait to learn whether China will use its power to ease the Eurozone crisis. The IMF, typically the lender of last resort for sovereign states, needs more capital to provide the kind of liquidity Europe needs. China has that liquidity. In loaning to the IMF to play middleman, China can keep itself out of European politics, while keeping world economies - and important European trading partners - humming.

China’s funds would go far. Just last week, the New York Times reported, the IMF offered an additional short-term credit to “bystanders” - member nations feeling the “contagion" of regional and global default. One tool is a “precautionary and liquidity” credit line that would help countries approved by the Fund as having sound economic policies to meet short-term payments. The other new tool combines emergency disaster and post-conflict relief under a new rapid-financing instrument, which can now also be used after exogenous shocks like global financial crises.

The announcement immediately reversed earlier market slides the same day, showing the move boosted investor confidence, according to the Times. But if even a few countries take up the IMF on its offer, its account will soon run dry.

If that happens, China and its ocean of cash will be waiting. The country has shown signs that it’s at least willing to play, but it remains to be seen what rules it will follow. With Western economies looking increasingly desperate, China has the opportunity to play tough. Its decision could relieve the global economy, but it could also help put a new country at the head of the table.

PepsiCo and Cambridge University recently unveiled the i-crop, a web-based system that could reduce agricultural water waste by 50 percent. Photo:zekasaur (flickr)

This article was republished in The Christian Science Monitor.

"More Bounce to the Ounce.” In the 1950’s, it was a cola slogan; thanks to a new partnership with Cambridge University, it could become the catch phrase of PepsiCo’s i-crop, a web based program that helps farmers reduce water waste.

Here’s how it works: data systems collect information on local weather conditions, farming activity, and soil moisture from underground probes and compiles them online. With a few keystrokes, farmers can eliminate the guessing games about water consumption, resulting in more precise and environmentally-friendly farming. In October, PepsiCo publicly announced its goal of reducing carbon emissions and water usage from their largest UK farms by 50 percent in five years. So far i-crop is testing well: preliminary reports from 22 farms in the UK show farmers have achieved 90 percent efficiency in water usage.

"Farming is in the DNA of our business - we rely on fresh produce everyday," said Richard Evans, President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland, according to PR Newswire. "Finding ways to produce more food with less environmental impact is essential to our future." He added, "i-crop has the potential to revolutionize the way we farm, enabling our farmers to save costs and [reduce] water and carbon consumption, while at the same time improving their yields.”

PepsiCo’s potential to revolutionize water efficiencies in farming is sizable. Netting approximately $43.3 billion annually and employing more than a quarter million people, PepsiCo is the second largest food and beverage business in the world.

Ever enjoyed Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Lay's, Gatorade, Tropicana, 7Up, Doritos, Lipton Teas, Quaker Oats, Cheetos, Ruffles, Aquafina, Tostitos, Sierra Mist, or Fritos? If the i-crop can deliver as hoped, those products will soon be made with less water waste than most competitive grocery items (and who doesn’t want something positive to hold onto after downing a bag of Cheetos?).

Although the i-crop is only accessible to UK farmers, PepsiCo hopes to introduce its technology to farms in India, China, Mexico, and Australia by 2012. However, speculation about i-crop’s availability has raised some eyebrows and provoked the question: Will the i-crop technology, owned privately by PepsiCo, be withheld from those who most need it?

Brain Pickings editor Maria Popova argues that owning such coveted technological rights will put PepsiCo in the middle of an often tense relationship between profiteering and humanitarianism. “The technology is currently only available to PepsiCo-affiliated growers, which raises interesting questions about the relationship between corporate interests and social good in innovation, as well as bespeaking the disconnect between the value of open-source software and the fact that the best-funded research initiatives, most competent scientists and highest-grade technology tend to be subsidized by private corporations.”

If, how, and with whom PepsiCo shares i-crop technology has yet to be determined. In any case, PepsiCo has taken corporate social responsibility by the horns, hopefully luring other influential corporations to recognize that being green is achievable. "Every Generation Refreshes the World," Pespi ads claim. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that PepsiCo can do so for the next generation’s water supply.

Calls to make changes to our international financial system are being heard. Will they be listened to? Photo: itspaulkelly (Flickr)

Mass unemployment, an overwhelming sense of unfairness and a loss of hope need no translation. Even without written demands, the sentiments of Occupy Wall Street have been interpreted through similar protests in 941 cities in 82 countries - and counting.

Global leaders are taking note. And they agree: A lot has gone wrong in the banking sector. While the basic purpose of the financial sector must remain intact, it’s gotten off track. After all, we still need a secure place to store our money, we still need credit and loans, and advice on how to grow our nest eggs. We need banks.

Can we hit the reset button?

The global financial crisis we’re in is incredibly complicated, and it’s not going away soon. And sadly, there’s no reset button. But changes are needed and changes are happening.

In forthcoming posts, we’ll explore the origins of the crisis, key players, innovative solutions, how the decisions made by developed world financial sectors affect the global poor, how local protests affect global politics, and where we go from here. And we hope to hear your thoughts, too.

Our Series Begins:

An historical look at "too big to fail," in four acts:

•      Act 1: The battle over the lessons of the Great Depression.
•      Act 2: The first bailout leads to the next, and the next.
•      Act 3: The value and perils of deregulation.
•      Act 4: Banking crises go global.

Surrounded by financial chaos, developing nations start throwing up barricades

For China, flush with cash, the financial crisis may mean political opportunity

Europe's financial troubles worry its neighbors

Amid financial crisis, China is the new champion for carbon reduction

East Africa seeks to learn from the Eurozone's mistakes

A new model for Middle East economic practices starts with Tunisia, Libya

Bank transfer day: A symbolic move

Related Past Posts:

Microfinance and the Economic Crisis: What to Believe?

A Triple Threat: Food, Fuel and Financial Crises in the Developing World

One Big Deal

The IMF Boosts Financial Aid to Poor Countries

Rural China Could Gain from Financial Crisis

Goodbye Piggy Banks, Hello Working ATMs: Why the Middle East May be More Sheltered from the Global Financial Crisis

Social Workers Getting to the Root of Debt

Like any extremely successful idea, the world's most widely-cited statistic has drawn a lot of critics—starting with its creator and continuing to big thinkers of the moment.

But nobody would dispute that today, gross domestic product (GDP) remains the king of indicators, an all-purpose way of estimating how things are going. And even though GDP can be faulted for assigning zero value to many important tasks—cooking dinner for your family, for example—it's a nuanced piece of social science.

Planet Money, NPR's extraordinarily earnest explanatory economics program, launched a video series at Slate V this week that breaks down the details, advantages and shortcomings of GDP. It's perfect for anyone who wants to know what economists mean when they talk about "growth."

Women tending sweet potato crops in Tanzania. Photo: The Gates Foundation (Flickr)

Sometimes one class is all it takes. One Maasai woman, recently selected for a course on potato seed farming, is now shipping seed by the ton.

Christine Nashuru lives in the southwestern region of the Rift Valley Province in Kenya in a traditional Maasai community. Cultural barriers and poverty blocked her access to formal education. Like other women in her community, she tried her hand at farming, but the results were less than spectacular. Until recently.

The International Potato Center (CIP) selected Nashuru to take part in a course that taught more efficient potato-farming practices. Traditionally, potato seeds require about seven generations to maximize yields. CIP taught Nashuru and others how to maximize in just three generations. In 2010, she sold 10.3 tons of potato seeds, and this year she hopes to top 80 tons.

Reducing the amount of time it takes to maximize yields means lower production costs and more flexibility to experiment with different varieties and tactics. CIP’s campaign has increased the yields of 15,000 farmers in East Africa by 20 percent. These farmers’ incomes are increasing, and so are the food stocks of their communities.

This campaign is targeted towards those with little education. The less-educated are prevented from reaching their full potential to help themselves and their communities. CIP is looking to change that by showing that one way to fill stomachs is to fill minds.

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

Gap opens in Shanghai. Photo by kreep (flickr)

What would happen if you took off every article of clothing not made in America? asks ABC at New York’s Grand Central Station (video).
_____

Gap is betting big on China, announcing plans to triple its retail stores there by the end of 2012, reports the Associated Press. But in doing so, the chain will directly compete with its own Chinese suppliers, which for years have been sharpening their teeth making cheap knockoffs of the popular clothing.

Gap is not the only global brand to jump on what they hope will emerge as the next massive consumer class. Apple, Nike, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Walmart have all positioned themselves to profit from China's nouveau riche. Despite these expectations, the New York Times reports that China’s consumer spending has actually plummeted in the last decade as a portion of the overall economy, to about 35 percent of gross domestic product, from about 45 percent - the lowest percentage for any big economy anywhere in the world.

The remarkable growth the nation has seen has not translated into fruits for middle class families, but rather state-run banks, government-backed corporations and the affluent few with connections, says Carl E. Walter, a former JP Morgan executive who is co-author of “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise.” Worse yet, low-wage workers who make the clothing sold in stores like Gap simply can’t afford the finished goods. Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal visited a new Gap store in Shanghai recently; the most striking thing he found about the store was how empty it was. Sales of global “brands” come mainly in the form of the counterfeits and knockoffs sold at busy outdoor markets.

The New York Times suggests the “state capitalism” that’s fueled much of China’s growth must be dismantled before ordinary Chinese citizens will start feeling flush enough to buy Gap’s ‘nostalgic’ 1969 jeans - even the made-for-China version. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao asserts that the government is ready to make some of those changes. Until then, hedge your bets.

Mobile phones are increasingly important throughout the developing world. Photo: ICT4D.at (flickr)

Around the world, mobile phone technology is being touted as a life changing path from poverty to prosperity. Instant price data from global markets, mobile banking, credit card transfers on the go, mobile classrooms, remote-control irrigation and even apps that repel mosquitoes are just a few of the ways that mobile phone technology is leading the fight against poverty. But, for the world's rush of new mobile phone users, there's just one problem. Where to plug in and charge?

As mobile technology continues to advance and build pathways out of poverty for many in the developing world, answers to the charging issues are popping up in the developed world.

University of Wisconsin researchers are developing a new technology that could charge mobile phones by harvesting the kinetic energy that humans create when walking, said the BBC. In Kenya, the solution is bicycles. Inventor Pascal Katana and students from University of Nairobi have made this simple, popular mode of transportation into much more. The energy from cycling simultaneously charges mobile phones for a start-up cost of only 350 Kenyan shillings, or $4. And in a few years, a mobile phone or laptop user may be able to recharge by simply pointing the device at the sun, says NPR.

Ideas like these can be a big help in developing countries, where the ever-increasing abilities of mobile phones are in great demand. Nearly 60 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa use mobile phones, according to a 2010 study by Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti. A mobile phone acts as much more than a tool for communication — it strengthens the relationship between impoverished people and global markets and creates new business opportunities for local communities.

To gain access to these income boosting business opportunities, mobile phone technology will be a crucial tool moving forward. And both accessible and affordable ways to charge the devices will be instrumental in poverty alleviation. Check out the video below to see how these opportunities are coming about as the power is flipped on — or, in this case, cranked.