Archives for February 2016

Episode 99: Raj Shah

Dr. Raj Shah served as the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, from 2010 to 2015. He was just 36 years old when he was appointed to this cabinet-level position, and less than a week into his tenure a massive earthquake struck Haiti. President Obama turned to raj to coordinate the US Government’s response.

raj shahWe discuss how he came to terms with that responsibility. We also have a very interesting discussion about his childhood growing up the son of immigrants from India, and how that compelled him to a career in global health and development. That career really started at the Gates Foundation. He was one of very early employees of the Gates Foundation where he helped designed a financing mechanism that to this day is helping to fund vaccines around the world.

Raj is the co-author, with Michael Gerson, of a chapter about USAID and foreign aid in the new book MoneyBall for Government.  We kick off discussing his contribution to that chapter.

Just a quick note before we begin: The audio quality of this interview is not of a caliber that you typically get with this podcast, but it could have been much worse. In fact it would have been totally lost if not for the efforts of a listener who moonlights as an audio engineer and rescued the contents of this interview. I say this listener “moonlights” because his day job is as a distiller of hand crafted American whisky, out of Portland Oregon. It’s called Tualatin Valley Distillers. I’ve bought a bottle. And if you are 21 or older and delicious hand crafted American whisky is your thing, check them out.

The Global Implications of Apple V FBI


By now you have probably heard of the legal and public relations battle between the FBI and Apple. In short, the FBI is trying to force Apple to unlock the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple is unwilling to comply, saying that doing so could endanger the privacy of every iPhone user, everywhere.

This dispute will play itself out in the US legal system. The result will have profound international implications. On the line to discuss the global consequences of this dispute is David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Freedom of Expression and a clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine.

David Kaye recently wrote a report in his role as UN Special Rapporteur that assesses the relationship between encryption technologies, the varying policies of governments around the world towards encryption, and the protection of human rights. Encryption, he argues, is a key protector of the freedom of expression around the world, for reasons we discuss in this episode.

Episode 98: Susan Benesch

SIS BeneschSusan Benesch is the founding director of the Dangerous Speech Project. In this role she has helped to create a set of guidelines that helps policy makers and observers deduce the conditions under which inflammatory public rhetoric crosses the line to become a catalyst for major violence. We kick off discussing what those criteria are have a broader conversation about the role of language in inspiring violence.

Susan had a career as a journalist, covering conflict in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s and then, after experiencing some profound physical and emotional turbulence, she switched careers and became a human rights lawyer, working among other places at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Have a listen!

Burundi is in a Tailspin

Burundi is inching ever closer to disaster.  The crisis began last year, when President Pierre Nkurinziza decided to run for a constitutionally dubious third term in office. That set off protests, a violent suppression of those protests, and a short lived coup. Now, Nkurinziza is consolidating his hold on power, there is great fear that the situation may devolve into a full blown civil war, and given the history of the region, perhaps even genocide.

The world is pretty aware of this. But the international community seems unable to stop Burundi from sliding into deeper conflict. Why?

I put that question to Dr. Cara Jones, an associate professor at Mary Baldwin College. Dr. Jones offers some concise background on the history of this conflict and explains why observers are so concerned that this may spiral out of control and have profound implications not just for Burundi, but for the entire region.

If you have twenty minutes and want a deeper and nuanced understanding of the crisis in Burundi, what the international community is trying to do to stop it, have a listen.

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From the World Government Summit in Dubai

This is a special episode of the podcast, recorded live from the World Government Summit in Dubai.

This is a conference dedicated to ideas and technologies to make government work more effectively.  It’s sort of a cross between TED talks and Davos. You have people like Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing government’s role in science research, fancy presentations of drone technologies, and virtual reality stations. But you also have UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson discussing the Sustainable Development Goals and international superstars like Mary Robinson and Mohammad Yunus keeping it real by maintaining a focus on harnessing these technologies and ideas in service of humanity at large.

It’s been an interesting few days, and I have two interviews from the summit for you, which reflect the dual tracks of this conference.

sarah zFirst up is Princess Sarah Zeid, who is a long time UN employee and humanitarian worker. (Her spouse is the Jordanian diplomat and royal and current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.) She is spearheading efforts in the UN system and beyond to sharpen the international community’s focus on providing maternal and reproductive health in humanitarian emergencies. Up to now, this is not something that the international community has done very well, for reasons she explains.  She discusses candidly the very personal reason that she decided to take on this cause.

Next up, I speak with Justin Hall-Tipping, a venture capitalist who is investing in nano-technology in the clean energy

Photographed by Siddharth Siva

Photographed by Siddharth Siva

space. We have a discussion about the potential of nano technology to revolutionize things like access to clean water and clean energy, and what it will take to realize some very promising scientific discovery.

So, like I said, two somewhat different issues, but all under the rubric of this conference and both interesting. Have a listen!

 

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Episode 97: Michelle Mays, an MSF Nurse Who Saves Lives in Crisis Zones

Michelle Mays is a nurse with Doctors without Borders, better known of course as MSF. She has worked in conflict zones, post conflict zones and generally very intense situations around the world to deliver health care and other services to vulnerable people.

MSF has a reputation in the humanitarian community for being the first to arrive and last to leave often times dangerous situations, and its been in the news recently for the fact that its hospitals have been bombed in Yemen, by Saudi forces and Afghanistan by Americans.

Michelle started her career as a nurse in Baltimore with an itch to work globally. We discuss some of her deployments in recent years, including to Haiti after the earthquake and to a remote part of India. We kick off discussing her most recent deployment to South Sudan.

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The Syrian Humanitarian Crisis Enters a New Phase

The United Kingdom plays host to a major conference this week intended to raise money and political support for the Syrian humanitarian disaster. There are now over 4.6 million Syrian refugees who have fled abroad, mostly to surrounding countries and 7.6 million people displaced inside the country. In all the UN estimates that there by the end of 2016, there will be 18 million people in need of some sort of humanitarian relief, thins like food aid, shelter, medicines.

And that is going to cost a great deal of money — about $9 billion to be exact. And the way that money is raised is through appeals to donors–basically like a charity whose major contributors are governments around the world.
On the line today to discuss this London conference and the major global challenge of mounting an appropriate humanitarian response to this overwhelming crisis is the UK’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Peter Wilson. We discuss some specific aspects of the humanitarian response to this now 5 year old crisis, like providing access to education for displaced children and opportunities for employment for refugees abroad. We also discuss the larger challenge of mounting a humanitarian response when so many of the belligerents are ignoring basic tenants of the laws of war, and we also discuss the current political peace process underway in Geneva.