"That UN -- I will shut it down"

A gloriously unhinged rant from South Sudan's information Minister. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad (via: Dustin Johnson). 

In remarks yesterday, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Michael Makuei slammed not only the United Nations but also local media houses, East African ceasefire monitors, and Human Rights Watch, which he described as an organization of blood-sucking liars. 

... 

Makuei said he told [Al Jazeera correspondent] Adow that he was "lucky" not to have been imprisoned "like the man in Egypt" -- a reference to Al Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste. 

... 

"We will write to you today, officially, giving you the final warning, because this has been repeating itself -- I have been calling you, your people, your muzungus [i.e., white people] have not been reporting to me, they resist coming to me because they believe that they are UN. Huh? that UN -- I will shut it down," he said. 

... 

"These are people who must make their living by sucking the blood of others," he said of Human Rights Watch. "Mosquitos," added Cabinet Minister Martin Elia, concurring.
"Mosquitos, yes," said Makuei.

New media, new work

So Newsweek has announced that it is closing its print edition, a few days after Alan Rusbridger was forced to deny that the Guardian has similar plans. Andrew Sullivan, who blogs at the Newsweek-owned "Daily Beast" reflects

The shift in my own mind has happened gradually. Even up to a year ago, I was still getting my New York Times every morning on paper, wrapped in blue plastic. Piles of them would sit in my blog-cave, read and half-read, skimmed, and noted. 

Until a couple of years ago, I also read physical books on paper, and then shifted to cheaper, easier, lighter tablet versions. Then it became a hassle to get the physical NYT delivered in Provincetown so I tried a summer of reading it on a tablet. I now read almost everything on my iPad. And as I ramble down the aisle of Amtrak's Acela, I see so many reading from tablets or laptops, with the few newspapers and physical magazines seeming almost quaint, like some giant brick of a mobile phone from the 1980s. Almost no one under 30 is reading them. 

I sympathise. I look at the Guardian website almost every day, but I can't remember the last time that I actually bought a paper copy. Sullivan continues

I also began to wonder what a magazine really is. Can it even exist online? It's a form that's only really been around for three centuries - and it was based on a group of people associating with each other under a single editor and bound together with paper and staples. At The New Republic in the 1990s, I knew intuitively that most people read TRB, the Diarist and the Notebook before they dug into a 12,000 word review of a book on medieval Jewish mysticism. But they were all in it together. You couldn't just buy Kinsley's perky column. It came physically attached to Leon Wieseltier's sun-blocking ego. 

But since every page on the web is now as accessible as every other page, how do you connect writers together with paper and staples, instead of having readers pick individual writers or pieces and ignore the rest? And the connection between writers and photographers and editors is what a magazine is. It defines it - and yet that connection is now close to gone. Around 70 percent of Dish readers have this page bookmarked and come to us directly. (If you read us all the time and haven't, please do). You can't sell bundles anymore.

Which is exactly how I read these days. The Guardian website is basically the only "bundled" media I consume. The rest is a personally selected collage wrapped up in my Google Reader account, consisting of all the important economics, development, and Africa bloggers, academics, with a couple of comics (Dilbert, XKCD), and my favourite Guardian and FT weekend columnists thrown in. This is quite a natural progression, given that it is almost (marginally) costless for me to do this. [Warning: Descent into wild conjecture and ill-thought out theory rapidly approaching]. Coase's theory of the firm bases the existence of companies on the role of transaction costs. As transaction costs external to the firm disappear, so does the reason for the firm. Which leads to an atomised media economy, where individuals are firms.

But I still read the Guardian. I suppose that there is a role for organisations to provide the raw news - the unknown unknowns that I don't know I might be interested in, and thus wouldn't search for or subscribe to. Someone who has a culture and values that I think I can trust. 

What does all of this mean, if anything, for the rest of the economy? In my line of work, we already have a similarly atomised economy. Many consultants are independent, and assemble into temporary teams for specific projects, establishing "mini-firms" that come together for a particular task and then disperse. At present the process of assembling these teams is a costly one. Searching for potential team members for very specialised roles and then assessing their quality is time-consuming. These are Coase's transaction costs, and provide a strong case for the existence of consulting firms - transaction costs can be minimized through a centralized process of quality assessment ("recruitment"), which doesn't have to be repeated for every project. This is also why networking is so important. Diamond, Mortensen, and Pissarides won the Economics Nobel Prize in 2010 for developing new models of "frictional" unemployment, driven by this process of search and matching. So this is a costly process with relevance to the wider economy and significant macroeconomic implications. But this large problem also presents a large opportunity. There are big gains to be made from improving this search and matching process. Already some of the biggest firms in the world are ones in the business of search and information sharing. Whether it be through linkedin or some other kind of online database or network - will further reductions in frictional transaction costs lead to further atomisation of the firm? Presumably there is still a role for a "Guardian" - a multi-purpose provider who can tell you about the unknown unknowns - the things that you wouldn't think to search for to begin with, and whose values and culture you can trust. 

Whether any of this makes any sense, and what the implications of this are for youth unemployment, well, you tell me.

Sex and social media

"Conversations about the use of social media bear more than a passing resemblance to teenage chat about sex -we’re all talking about it, a few of us are doing it and even fewer of us are doing it well."

On using social media for Think Tank communications. God knows what kind of traffic that headline is going to get me.

Africa is a Country: Foreign Investment Edition (Branding Africa)

The BBC World Service is holding a radio debate this evening live from Kampala on whether Africa's image is prejudiced. This is part of growing media attention to efforts to try and "rebrand" Africa with some positive news stories, to provide a counter-balance to the typical land of rape and lions coverage.

The folks at Africa is a Country have some legitimate concerns, approvingly quoting Linda Polgreen;

What is more insulting than the idea of “positive news” from Africa? As if the continent was a dull witted child in need of encouragement.

Obviously my role in this debate is to point out some economic evidence, so here is Elizabeth Asiedu, "On the Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment to Developing Countries: Is Africa Different?"

Countries in SSA have on the average received less FDI than countries in other regions by virtue of their geographical location-there is a negative effect on FDI for being an African country. The negative and significant estimated coefficient of the Africa dummy suggests that there may be an adverse regional effect for SSA. There are two plausible explanations for this. First, the continent is perceived as being inherently risky. This perception of Africa is supported by the empirical evidence of Haque, Nelson, and Mathieson (2000), who find that commercial risk-rating agencies often rate African countries as riskier than warranted by the fundamentals. Second, due to lack of knowledge about the countries in the continent, investment decisions are often not guided by country-specific conditions but rather based on inferences from the environment of neighbouring countries. Thus, to some extent, foreign investors evaluate African countries as if the countries in the continent constitute "one big country."

So after controlling for the main determinants of foreign investment; including openness to trade, infrastructure, and average returns to capital, sub-Saharan African countries still have FDI/GDP ratios 1.3% lower than comparable countries. Which is pretty substantial. Now - these kind of cross-country statistical regressions are not incredibly reliable, because you only have about 200 countries to work with, which isn't an enormous sample, and there are lots of things that we can't measure which might be screwing with the results. There is a cross-country regression which shows that penis length causes economic growth. But the results are still suggestive, plausible, consistent with qualitative impressions, and interesting.

Does anyone know any more up to date research on this?

And finally, if we were to believe these results - they make a pretty strong case for more of that tacky "brand Africa" PR. Now I'm a Bill Hicks fan, but what if we need some tacky marketing to change the world for the better?

Why Rwanda is like Apple?

Andrew Mwenda, who has been fierce advocate for democracy in Uganda, seems to be quite a big fan of Kagame;

Rwanda/Kagame has been branded by its achievements as a successful case of post conflict reconstruction. The more the positive Rwanda brand has grown, the more it has attracted opportunistic groups that want to ride on it to enhance their own brand. By attacking an attractive brand, you are able to generate attention to your own brand. Human rights groups therefore have little incentive to focus on some obscure - even though murderous regime like Equatorial Guinea - because it will not make them visible in the human rights advocacy market. 

Assume you have a consumer protection advocacy organization and you want to build your global brand. It does not give you sufficient visibility if you focus your campaign on some obscure company called Filiopa Cranta (what a difficult name!) that manufactures drugs and sells them in the rural areas of Papua New Guinea. However, if you can pitch your case against GloxoSmithKline, Novartis or better still Microsoft or Apple, you are likely to attract a lot of attention even if your case is weak. 

Rwanda’s greatest asset in this war is actually the people of Rwanda whom these groups claim to speak for. In all opinion surveys by the most respectable polling organizations like Gallup Poll and World Values Survey, Rwandans say they feel free to speak, associate and express themselves by a margin of 85% - as good as one finds in democracies like Norway and Sweden. It will be humbling to see the advocates for freedom in Rwanda being told by ordinary Rwandans that they are actually free.

South Sudan Emerging

The Revolution WILL be Televised

I was just thinking the last few days about how I should write something about Acemoglu & Robinson’s theory of revolution and how it applies to the Middle East.

Well Tim Harford got there first, and probably does a much better job than I would have:

What kind of concessions should protesters look for? According to the economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, who have built a detailed series of game-theoretic models of political transition, the answer is: ones that cannot be easily undone. Tunisia’s Ben Ali will surely not return, but already activists are concerned that democratic reforms may not be entrenched, and have returned to the streets to protest. Mubarak may be Egypt’s past, but Egypt’s future is unclear.

A fresh constitution, civil rights, and credible elections are all ways of safeguarding the gains so far. The revolutionary protesters are right to insist on them; it would hardly be a surprise to see feet being dragged by those who profited from the status quo.

It is intriguing to view events in the Middle East through this game-theoretic lens. For example, Saudi Arabia’s “royal gift” of $35bn does not seem to have satisfied activists in the kingdom. That makes sense: gifts can be withdrawn. If a dictatorial government can vent the revolutionary head of steam for a while, then the momentum for reform may be dissipated for many years - especially if the ringleaders are rounded up while all is quiet.

The one thing he touches on but does not quite make explicit is the importance of television. The trouble with revolution is that you have to solve a massive coordination problem in order to get everyone out onto the streets at the same time. Nobody wants to be the first one to the party and have to make awkward small-talk with the hosts. Better to arrive when things are in full-swing.

Much has been hyped about the role of Twitter and Facebook, but it seems to me that the real driving force has been the ready news of martyrs, accompanied by moving images, live evidence of the mass crowds out there, and the proven impact shown by the departure of Ben Ali and Mobarak. It was television, not Facebook, that did this.

In the words of the rather prescient-looking Charles Kenny:

Forget Twitter and Facebook, Google and the Kindle. Forget the latest sleek iGadget. Television is still the most influential medium around…

TV is having a positive impact on the lives of billions worldwide, and as the spread of mobile TV, video cameras and YouTube democratize both access and content, it will become an even greater force for humbling tyrannical governments

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Addendum:

In the course of finding that Charles Kenny quote, I came across this marvellous paper on the economics of Baywatch.

"aid and Baywatch may have about same value [to people in dev countries]"

Too Many Blogs to Read?

Yeah me too. So you might want to give Barometer Intel a try:

we scour the blogosphere on a daily basis for news, analysis and commentary on current events so that you don’t have to. We then select the most interesting, informative and incisive pieces and feature them on our webpage. In doing so, we aim to bring the best of the blogosphere to the widest possible audience, raise the profile of bloggers with talent and integrity, and expose our readers to compelling, independent voices from around the world.

All directed by a bunch of smart cool international development-types.

"The East African" African President's Index

Bashir comes in second-bottom. I wonder how Salva Kiir will do in next year's edition?

HT: John Ashworth

A Sudan Blog by Sudanese

This struggling life continued until one morning in 2005 I heard my friends ululating and shouting. It was breaking news that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement had signed a final peace deal the National Congress Party. I couldn't believe my ears. I had to ask a friend what the BBC was saying, and he told me - so then I knew it was true. My family and friends got together. It called for celebration; at least now we had hope for the future.

In the last five years of peace, my family has been transformed, from living in mud huts to now staying in a place with a corrugated iron roof. And I'm at university studying IT.

That is Morri Francis, a student and radio presenter writing in the Guardian. He is also blogging along with other Southerners at CAFOD.

Just in case you were concerned about media freedom in Uganda….

The ruling National Resistance Movement has concluded its primaries, in an exercise that was shambolic and the true antithesis of popular democracy.

Election theft, violence, manipulation, intimidation and avarice are NRM’s “winning” strategy, which saw them they effectively used in the past two elections. Now Uganda is stuck with shameless leaders who will lie and tell cynical jokes at their own rape on democracy.

From the East African, my favourite newspaper in Africa.

An argument I’ve heard Paul Collier make in the past is that small countries don’t have a large enough market for specialised business/economics reporting, and so have weak accountability on economic policy. The East African, part of the Kenyan Nation Media Group, tackles this problem by covering the EAC states Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi, plus bits of Eastern DRC, Somalia, and Southern Sudan, a combined population of about 150 million people.

They also have an awesome cartoonist. Here is Gado on the catholic church. Dark.

UN Security Council reduces growth, democracy, and press freedom

Compared to countries not on the Security Council, countries on the Security Council experienced lower economic growth, became less democratic, and were less friendly to the press for several years after being elected to their two-year term. This pattern was largely confined to nondemocratic regimes and casts doubt on the wisdom of providing generous aid to such regimes.

Bueno de Mesquita, B. & Smith, A., “The Pernicious Consequences of UN Security Council Membership,” Journal of Conflict Resolution (forthcoming).

via Kevin Lewis at Boston.com

Analogue Blogger goes Digital

Sadly here comes more evidence of the usefulness of twitter. White African notes that the Blackboard blogger of Monrovia, a guy who writes the news on a big blackboard for people who can't afford newspapers, now has an actual online blog. Awesome! Here's the link.

In other cool media news, I've just discovered that The Citizen, probably the best (offline) English-language Southern Sudanese newspaper, seems to be building a new office directly opposite the Ministry of Finance. Now I'm just waiting for the website. How about a link-up with the online-only Sudan Tribune?

There was also a great discussion on the World Service about Tolo TV the other day, Afghanistan's most popular private-owned TV station. Although they are downplaying it for obvious reasons, the station was created with seed capital from USAID, and is now hosting Presidential candidate debates and making social progress through Afghan Idol.

Quote of the Day

Comes from Matt at Aidthoughts.

All articles/comments about America must now be appended with the following background description for those who can't find America on a map: 

"America, with a population of 300 million, is one of the fattest countries of the world, with a frighteningly awful perception of poor countries, aggregated by a befuddled, profit-driven media."

The Tribune has all the key stories

Football match ends without score in Yirol West 

By Manyang Mayom June 2, 2025 (RUMBEK) — A friendly football match between two rival teams of Zalan and Ramciel ended in a tie on Sunday evening in Yirol West County in Lakes state. Officials (...)