The Pardee Papers Series

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https://hdl.handle.net/2144/22647

The Pardee Papers is a series of papers that began in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.

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Now showing 1 - 17 of 17

Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa: The need for new paradigms in global health
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2015-12) Olsen, Maia
Cancer is the leading global cause of death, and has been on the rise in low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and worldwide, which are projected to account for roughly 80 percent of global cancer diagnoses by 2030. Much like the inadequate funding and priority-setting that plagued the treatment of HIV/AIDS early in the epidemic, cancer treatment is suffering from a cycle of inaction in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, Maia Olsen, a 2013 Pardee Graduate Summer Fellow, examines the lessons learned from the global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and applies them to the future of political advocacy, funding, and treatment of cancer in the region. Maia Olsen is a Program Manager for the NCD Synergies project at Partners In Health, a policy and advocacy program focused on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries among the poorest populations worldwide. She holds an MPH in International Health from Boston University and a BA in Anthropology and Global Development Studies from Grinnell College.
An uncertain future: youth frustration and the Arab Spring
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2013-04) Mulderig, M. Chloe
Many scholars and media analysts have attributed the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 primarily to the desire for regime change and democracy by citizens in the region. In this paper, M. Chloe Mulderig, a 2011 Pardee Graduate Summer Fellow and Boston University doctoral candidate in anthropology who had done field work in the region, argues that cultural and economic factors preventing youth from obtaining the usual markers along the path to adulthood — quality education, secure employment, marriage and family – played a significant role in the uprisings, and that must be acknowledged. Looking at the situation through an anthropological lens, she maintains that countries that don’t begin to address the issues creating widespread youth frustration face the prospect of long-term continued unrest even as new governments are established.
The future of agriculture in Africa
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2011-08) Gatune Kariuki, Julius
In this paper, 2010 Pardee Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Julius Gatune Kariuki discusses the outlook for the future of agriculture in Africa in light of changing conditions in demographics, climate, global food security, and technology. He argues that the agriculture of Africa today – characterized by low productivity, low levels of technology use, land use issues, and infrastructure weakness – will most certainly be different in the future, but the difference will depend in large part on policy responses to the changing conditions that are already underway. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales.Julius Gatune Kariuki, a native of Kenya, is interested in investigating the drivers of Africa’s possible futures and in understanding what leverage Africa has in shaping desired futures. He has a multidisciplinary background covering engineering, computer science, business administration, and policy analysis. He currently is a policy advisor with the African Centre of Economic Transformation (ACET) in Accra, Ghana. He was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center in 2010. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales.
Africa's technology futures: three scenarios
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2011-07) Swart, Dirk
Technology has critical impacts on the future of nations and regions around the globe, and it can be especially important in developing countries by enabling increased efficiencies and rapid development. This paper uses a scenario planning approach to explore two questions about Sub-Saharan Africa: 1) Can this region be effective at creating, owning, developing, and harnessing homegrown technology, and 2) can it successfully adapt non-African technologies into innovation cycles? The situation today is discussed as a baseline, and the risks of assuming that Africa will take the same trajectory to technological sophistication as the West are noted. Three feasible technology futures are presented and discussed: “Use, don’t own”; “Pockets of innovation”; and “Leapfrogging.” This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. Dirk Swart is a graduate of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and was a Pardee Visiting Graduate Fellow in 2008-2009. He currently works as the Assistant Director of IT for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and is the founder of Wicked Device, an embedded systems laboratory. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. For more information, visit www-staging.bu.edu/pardee/research/.
The global land rush: implications for food, fuel, and the future of development
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2011-05) Nalepa, Rachel
Foreign direct investment in agricultural land in developing countries has escalated dramatically in recent years, attracting the attention of development experts as well as mainstream media outlets around the world. These investments are made specifically to transform arable land into profitable and more productive agricultural enterprises for food and agrofuel stocks for use by the investor countries. Proponents of these land concessions argue that spillover effects like technology transfer and increased employment will jumpstart agricultural productivity in developing states. Critics generally believe that these deals will result in more harm than good, especially in places where land rights are historically contentious or weak. This paper examines the emerging political economy of the global land rush and discusses how insecure tenure rights and poor governance are resulting in adverse short-term effects that call into question whose notion of “development” is being served by these investments.
Coffee, culture, and intellectual property: lessons for Africa from the Ethiopian Fine Coffee Initiative
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-07) Sereke-Brhan, Heran
Energy transitions
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-11) O'Connor, Peter
This paper examines the history of energy transitions in developed countries, primarily the United States, to identify lessons for future energy transitions that are likely to occur or are occurring in developing countries. Its focus is not on high-level policy decisions or actions of major stakeholders, but on the provision of energy services to the population, such as heating, cooling, lighting, mechanical power, and information. Factors that led to the replacement of one fuel by another, or one energy converter by another, are discussed, as are the overall market conditions that lend themselves to energy transitions. The paper also explores instances in which promising new technologies did not spark an energy transition, or in which a resource that appeared to be on its way out found new life.
Sub-Saharan Africa at a crossroads: a quantitative analysis of regional development
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-05) Tyler, Zachary C.; Gopal, Sucharita
Sub-Saharan Africa is at a crossroads of development. Despite a quarter of a century of economic reforms propagated by national policies and international financial agencies and institutions, sub-Saharan Africa is still lagging in development. In this paper, the authors adopt two techniques using both qualitative (e.g. governance) and quantitative factors (e.g., GDP) to examine regional patterns of development in sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, they examine and analyze similarities and differences among the countries in this region using a multivariate statistical technique, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and a unsupervised neural network called Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Map (SOM) to cluster levels of development. PCA serves as a tool for determining regional patterns while SOM is more useful for determining continental patterns in development. Both PCA and SOM results show a “developed” cluster in Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Gabon). SOM exhibits a cluster of least developed countries in southern Western Africa and western Central Africa. The results demonstrate that the applied techniques are highly effective to compress multidimensional qualitative and quantitative data sets to extract relevant information about development from a policy perspective. Our analysis indicates the significance of governance variables in some clusters while a combination of variables explains other regional clusters. Zachary Tyler works for a consulting firm in Massachusetts that conducts program evaluations for energy efficiency programs, and he continues to work on statistical and geospatial analyses of human development issues. In 2010, he will receive a master’s degree in energy and environmental analysis from Boston University. Sucharita Gopal is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Geography and Environment and a member of the Cognitive & Neural Systems (CNS) Technology Lab at Boston University. She teaches and conducts research in geographical information systems (GIS), spatial analysis and modeling, and remote sensing for environmental and public health applications. Her recent research includes the development of a marin integrated decision analysis system (MIDAS) for Belize, Panama, and Massachusetts, and a post-disaster geospatial risk model for Haiti. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. For more information, visit www-staging.bu.edu/pardee/research/.
Narcotics trafficking in West Africa: a governance challenge
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-03) McGuire, Peter L.
West Africa is one of the most impoverished, underdeveloped, and instability-prone regions in the world. Many of the nation-states in the region are empirically weak: they lack the capacity to deliver public goods and services to their citizens, do not claim effective control over their territories, are marked by high levels of official corruption and are plagued by political instability and violent conflict. Since 2004, the region has faced an unprecedented surge in illicit narcotics (primarily cocaine) trafficking, raising fears within the international community that foreign (largely South American) trafficking groups would engender escalated corruption and violence across the region. This paper examines the effect that the surge in narcotics trafficking has had on governance and security in the region, paying particular attention to the experience of Guinea-Bissau and neighboring Republic of Guinea (Guinea-Conakry), two West African states that have been particularly affected by the illicit trade. The central argument presented is that narcotics trafficking is only one facet of the overall challenge of state weakness and fragility in the region. The profound weakness of many West African states has enabled foreign trafficking groups to develop West Africa into an entrepôt for cocaine destined for the large and profitable European market, sometimes with the active facilitation of high-level state actors. Thus, simply implementing counter-narcotics initiatives in the region will have a limited impact without a long-term commitment to strengthening state capacity, improving political transparency and accountability, and tackling poverty alleviation and underdevelopment. Without addressing the root issues that allowed for the penetration of trafficking groups into the states of the region in the first place, West Africa will remain susceptible to similar situations in the future, undermining the region’s nascent progress in the realms of governance, security and development. Peter L. McGuire graduated from Boston University in 2010 with a master’s degree in International Relations, with a certificate in African Studies. His current research interests include armed conflict, political corruption, and state failure in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter wrote “Narcotics Trafficking in West Africa: A Governance Challenge” while he was a 2009 Pardee Center Graduate Summer Fellow. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. For more information, visit www-staging.bu.edu/pardee/research.
Community targeting for povery reduction: lessons from developing countries
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-02) Yusuf, Moeed
This paper analyzes the efficacy of the community-based targeting approach as a means of identifying the poor in anti-poverty programs. It examines the performance of 30 community-targeted programs in developing countries, both in terms of the technique used to identify beneficiaries as well as broader targeting “design” issues such as targeting criteria, monitoring, transparency, accountability, elite capture, and corruption. This paper is intended to be a timely contribution to ongoing policy debate on poverty targeting in which community-based approaches are enjoying growing support. Community-targeted interventions have tremendous potential to benefit the poor; the technique is undoubtedly preferable to universal poverty programs whose benefits are thinly spread across the entire population. Moreover, robust, program-specific design protocols are seen as critical success-inducing factors; monitoring, transparency, and accountability have a strong positive correlation with targeting performance, while elite capture – defined as the ability of a handful of individuals to hijack the beneficiary selection or benefit transfer process – and corruption are negatively correlated. Further, community targeting is better attuned to communities where societal tensions and extreme disparity are not a preexisting concern and where there is no known tendency towards cultural exclusion based on criteria not linked to poverty levels. On the other hand, the technique is not suited to situations where poverty reduction impacts are strictly dependent on following stipulated criteria. Communities inevitably digress from the criteria, and any efforts to check this tendency offsets the potential benefit from allowing them to use local knowledge. Community targeting is also no recommended for programs where aggregation of poverty data is a high priority, such as programs that seek to create national or regional poverty rankings.
Linking climate knowledge and decisions: humanitarian challenges
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2009-12) Suarez, Pablo
Future atmospheric conditions are increasingly predictable as a result of scientific and technological advances. From short-term storm forecasts to long-term climate trends, humanitarian organizations now have an unprecedented ability to anticipate threats to people at risk. At the same time, vulnerability patterns are shifting as a result of ongoing processes such as urbanization and the AIDS pandemic, which present complex and dynamic interactions with climate risks. The future looks different: more natural hazards combined with new vulnerabilities will continue to increase the workload of already overstretched humanitarian organizations. Against this background, the complexity and range of possible humanitarian decisions is rapidly expanding, owing to progress in technologies to obtain, process, communicate, and use relevant information, as well as new financial instruments, trends in academic institutions and other promising developments. Humanitarian organizations are adapting to new climate risks, vulnerability patterns, and decision capacity. Yet, regrettably, their efforts seem to be outpaced by the changing threats and opportunities. In order to reduce this gap, it will not be enough to simply train existing staff on new tools, or expand the staff and volunteer base: the humanitarian sector needs to fundamentally restructure its relationship to knowledge-based entities that can rapidly absorb and act upon the increasingly reliable information about changing risks. This will require not just partnering with key stakeholders, but essentially reconfiguring decision-making processes. Many of the potentially catastrophic climate-related disasters could be managed by the humanitarian sector through adequate monitoring of key system variables, and a systematic approach for preparing to act in response to the many plausible early signs of problems.
Global aging: emerging challenges
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2009-08) Crampton, Alexandra
Aging policy frameworks were devised during a demographic and economic context in which population aging seemed confined to wealthy nations. These countries could afford retirement policies that supported older workers, decreased unemployment among younger workers, and decreased family pressure to provide old age care. This calculation was based in part on failure to anticipate three demographic trends: continual decline in fertility below replacement rate, continual gains in longevity, and the rise of population aging in poor and “under-developed” countries. These three trends now fuel a sense of crisis. In the global North, there is fear that increasing numbers of older adults will deplete state pension and health care systems. In the global South, the fear is that population aging coupled with family breakdown” requires such state intervention. Natural disaster metaphors, such as “agequake” and “age-tsunami,” illustrate fears of a “graying globe” in which population aging implies population decay and economic destruction. Yet, global aging trends develop over decades and are not easily reversed. Longer-range trends can be addressed through revising policy frameworks to incorporate how growing old is moving from global exception to expectation. Alexandra Crampton was a 2008–2009 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University. Her scholarship and teaching bring an anthropological perspective to theoretical and practical questions on aging, social welfare policy, social work practice, negotiation, and alternative dispute resolution. She has presented her work for the American Anthropological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, the Council on Social Work Education, and the Society for Social Work Research. She holds a joint PhD in Social Work and Anthropology from the University of Michigan.
Managing hazardous chemicals: longer-range challenges
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2009-03) Selin, Henrik
Improving global chemicals management is a significant sustainable development issue, involving many longer-range challenges. This paper examines some of these challenges. It begins by describing hazardous chemicals as a longer-range problem. This is followed by an outline of the global policy framework for managing hazardous chemicals. Next, the paper discusses four sets of management challenges for better environmental and human health protection: 1) Enhancing ratification and implementation of existing regulations; 2) Expanding risk assessments and controls; 3) Improving management capacity and raising awareness; and 4) Minimizing generation of hazardous chemicals and wastes. Furthermore, the paper argues that the adoption of more proactive and precautionary policies and management approaches is ultimately needed to achieve necessary environmental and human health protection standards. While some such policy and regulatory changes are under way in the European Union and other regions, they are not yet sufficiently reflected in international law.
Beyond GDP: the need for new measures of progress
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2009-01) Costanza, Robert; Posner, Stephen; Talberth, John
This paper is a call for better indicators of human well-being in nations around the world. We critique the inappropriate use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of national well-being, something for which it was never designed. We also question the idea that economic growth is always synonymous with improved well-being. Useful measures of progress and well-being must be measures of the degree to which society’s goals (i.e., to sustainably provide basic human needs for food, shelter, freedom, participation, etc.) are met, rather than measures of the mere volume of marketed economic activity, which is only one means to that end. Various alternatives and complements to GDP are discussed in terms of their motives, objectives, and limitations. Some of these are revised measures of economic activity while others measure changes in community capital—natural, social, human, and built—in an attempt to measure the extent to which development is using up the principle of community capital rather than living off its interest. We conclude that much useful work has been done; many of the alternative indicators have been used successfully in various levels of community planning. But the continued misuse of GDP as a measure of well-being necessitates an immediate, aggressive, and ongoing campaign to change the indicators that decision makers are using to guide policies and evaluate progress. We need indicators that promote truly sustainable development—development that improves the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of the supporting ecosystems. We end with a call for consensus on appropriate new measures of progress toward this new social goal.
21st century trade agreements: implications for long-run development policy
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2008-09) Thrasher, Rachel Denae; Gallagher, Kevin
This paper examines the extent to which the emerging world trading regime leaves nations the “policy space” to deploy effective policy for long-run diversification and development and the extent to which there is a convergence of such policy space under global and regional trade regimes. We examine the economic theory of trade and long-run growth and underscore the fact that traditional theories lose luster in the presence of the need for long-run dynamic comparative advantages and when market failures are rife. We then review a “toolbox” of policies that have been deployed by developed and developing countries past and present to kick-start diversity and development with the hope of achieving longrun growth. Next, we examine the extent to which rules under the World Trade Organization (WTO), trade agreements between the European Union (EU) and developing countries, trade agreements between the United States (US) and developing countries, and those among developing countries (South-South, or S-S, agreements) allow for the use of such policies. We demonstrate that there is a great divergence among trade regimes over this question. While S-S agreements provide ample policy space for industrial development, the WTO and EU agreements largely represent the middle of the spectrum in terms of constraining policy space choices. On the far end, opposite S-S agreements, US agreements place considerably more constraints by binding parties both broadly and deeply in their trade commitments. Rachel Denae Thrasher holds a master’s degree in International Relations and a law degree, both from Boston University, and she is a Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Her recent research has focused on policy issues related to regional trade agreements, multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and on global forests governance. Kevin P. Gallagher is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations and Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, both at Boston University. He is also a fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. He has written extensively on trade and global development. Also see related publication The Future of the WTO, by Kevin Gallagher.
Does nuclear energy have a future?
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2008-11) Yusuf, Moeed
Nuclear energy optimists suggest that a nuclear renaissance is under way. However, beyond such claims there is little objective analysis that corroborates the positive outlook. In fact, literature on nuclear energy is highly polarized, with much of the debate being situated within the ideological and normative realms. This paper moves away from the what we should to the what is likely in order to present a realistic projection of the potential for the increased development of nuclear energy over the next two to three decades. It examines the relative importance of the key determinant factors likely to affect the future of nuclear power in a cost-benefit framework. The factors examined include economic competitiveness, concern for climate change, safety and security issues related to nuclear technology, public perception about the energy source, and the quest for energy security. This analysis suggests that nuclear energy is likely to remain economically uncompetitive and investment-starved over the projected period. Public perceptions, both in the developed and developing world, are also likely to become increasingly wary. Measures required to improve the popular sentiment–better safety and security–would increase costs substantially without guaranteeing positive transformation in the outlook. This is especially true as the proliferation risks present a virtually insurmountable barrier. These impediments would overshadow nuclear power’s merit in terms of carbon emission reductions as well as its partial attractiveness in terms of reducing energy vulnerability of countries. Moeed Yusuf is a Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University and a doctoral candidate and Teaching Fellow in the BU Political Science Department. He is also a Research Fellow at Strategic and Economic Policy Research, Pakistan. His research interests focus on strategic and development issues related to South Asia. This paper was inspired by his recent research (for the Brookings Institution) that documented the trend in projections about nuclear proliferation since the beginning of the Cold War.
The future of space exploration and human development
(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2008-08) Kalam, A.P.J. Abdul
This paper – the first in a new series of research and foresight papers, titled “The Pardee Papers”, is based on the keynote address by the then President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, at the 2007 Pardee Center conference on The Future of Space Exploration. The paper concludes that: “Our space vision for the next 50 years has to consolidate these benefits [of the past] and expand them further to address crucial issues faced by humanity in energy, environment, water, and minerals. Above all, we have to keep upper most in our mind the need for an alternate habitat for the human race in our solar system. The crucial mission for the global space community is to realize a dramatic reduction in the cost of access to space.” Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is one of the world’s leading space scientists, the moving force behind India’s nuclear program, and former President of India.

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