How to change the world (Coursera) - MOOC assignments

A while back I followed a MOOC course called "How to change the world". t's an interesting open source course offered by the Wesleyan University.

Two of the assignments were the following:

Assignment 1: Describe at least two examples of how individuals or private corporations have tried to take something to which a community had free access and restrict this access on the basis of private ownership or price. What can you do to bring something back into the commons?

As I was reading this assignment, two things immediately came to mind, both of them interelated. Firstly, for my masters Latin American & Caribbean studies I once had to read an article on the impact of water privatization in (Chiapas) Mexico, initiated by the multinational company Coca Cola. Their resource monopolization is a process leading to the fact that a large proportion of Mexicans have no access to clean water and sanitation. Secondly, I once watched the movie “Even the rain”, set in (Cochabamba) Bolivia, revolving around the same tragedy of this commons: selling the country’s water rights to a private multinational consortium.

An enormous increase in water prices, makes it unaffordable to the poorest of the population, including the indigenous communities. In Cochabamba, this increase amounted in 200%, with charges on average equalling 25% of a family's average income (source: lasc.ie, Water: The Privatisation Experience, 2009). In Mexico roughly 12 million people have no access to piped water and 32 million have no access to good sanitation. Mexico is now the number two consumer of bottled water in the world, a large percentage of which is sold by Coca-Cola (source: www.casacollective.org/story/newsletter/coca-cola-and-water-resources-chiapas).

The two examples mentioned above exemplify the intent to take something to which a community had free access and restrict this access on the basis of private ownership or price. That is why I chose water as a commons as a topic to my first assignment.

Water is a commons to all of us who inhabit planet Earth and access to water is a communal right. The struggle presented in the article and in the movie, was initiated in the 1980's, called the “water decade” in Latin America, with growing international awareness of limitations in using water as a commons. The international community agreed on privatization schemes as the only solution to improve access to water, quantitatively and qualitatively, instead of considering public participation by increased funding and support to publicly owned water services or institutional reform.

Latin American communities have tried to reclaim water as a commons, acting against the Invisible Hand. To ensure that this happens, but not to the extend of overstraining this commons, the human's capacity for cooperation, altruism and pro-social behavior, as both Singer (2013) and Benkler (2011) proclaim, has to be called upon. I think that the people, their governments & private enterprises have to bundle their strengths and resources in order to protect this precious ecological resource, through alternative water management practices. This requires enabling citizens to contribute to controlling and managing their own water, government transparency and building valid alliances that honor solidarity and the differences and diversity of experiences (source: Changing the Flow: Water Movements in Latin America, 2009).

Assignment 2: Imagine that you have been put in charge of allocating a considerable amount of resources to address extreme poverty in one region of the world. Describe the three most important questions you would want to ask to determine how to use these materials most effectively.

“The 85 Richest People In The World Have As Much Wealth As The 3.5 Billion Poorest...Extreme levels of wealth concentration threaten to exclude hundreds of millions of people from realizing the benefits of their talents and hard work”. (Oxfam report “Working for the few, 01/2014)

The Oxfam report really caught my attention. Poverty is an ongoing global phenomenon, to which not just one, but rather a variety solutions are applicable according to local or country-specific contexts (using Randomized Evaluations - RE's). Yet the incentives are similar. If I were to be put in charge of allocating a considerable amount of resources to address extreme poverty in one region of the world, the three most important questions I would ask, are:

1. Who will receive and benefit from the available resources?

Who are the resources meant for and who is actually profiting from them? It is essential to identify the beneficiaries of the available resources, to make sure they get into the right hands and serve the needy. The Oxfam report mentions that the economic wealth of a country is often concentrated with rich, not reaching the grand majority of the population. But the resources and aid should be accessible to everyone, instead of being captured by a tiny minority. Anderson mentions that through healthy institutions and functioning democracies, guarantees to a greater extend economic growth and innovation. According to Easterly, resources can go to lots of other purposes besides helping the extreme poor (see lecture 2.2). I agree with Sachs (Common Wealth, 2008) that helping those in need help themselves towards sustainable independence is the key. Corruption and incompetence within the supplying system should be identified and corrected.

2.Which resources and tools are needed to cover the basic needs of the locals and help them out of the poverty trap?

“Prioritization of needs is important and involvement by the locals is essential for them to feel included.” (JPAL Urban Services Review Paper, 2012). Easterly thinks that “getting the poorest people in the world such obvious things as vaccines,...food supplements,...roads, water pipes,...text books,...gives the poorest people...a chance to enter the economic system” ( see lecture 2.5 & “Thinking Big versus Thinking Small”, Cohen & Easterly). Once the basic needs are covered through the distribution of resources, investments can be made in things such as health care, education, technology and infrastructure. In her TED talk Duflo gives an example. Hiring more teachers, getting more books, deworming children and providing alimentation at schools are all different tools and resources aiming at encouraging education and fighting poverty. This shows that it is often the combining of resources and tools, drawn from local contexts and basic needs, that works best.

3. What are the targets of the aid on the long term? Is it sustainable and effective contribution to economic development?

Empowering the community and the poor to achieve sustained long term growth and investing in micro and medium scale solutions are ways to ensure effective and steady economic growth of a region. This requires good , collaboration, coordination and responsibility (decision-making) of the various parties involved. An important tool to keep track is monitoring the process.