The European Council on Foreign Relations organised today its first briefing, presenting the results of a world-wide survey (PDF) conducted by Gallup International on the balance between hard and soft power. The survey covered a range of questions on the global influence of several international actors, including the EU, the US, China and India. Mark Leonard, Executive Director of the ECFR, chaired a somewhat drowsy panel that included Lord Desai, Robert Kagan and Ivan Krastev. The conclusions? Since the EU is the least hated of all the major powers, this should be interpreted as a sign that it should be given greater clout internationally. Alas, the newly-born think-tank gave away a strangely familiar smell of old habits.

A proper debate with the audience, packed with policy wonks and senior civil servants, never really kicked off. The elephants in the corner were carefully left dormant. If the EU has more power, what does this mean for the Member States? Can we realistically expect them to step aside and let go the reigns, especially those that have never really lost the appetite for world domination? And if it develops a stronger role internationally, will this come at the expense of its real (or perceived) soft power? And does all this matter at all, since the Commission has been promoting a stronger global role for the EU long before anyone was asked whether they supported it or not? How does this fit with the idea of a democratic Europe? Or is foreign policy - as Kagan was suggesting - something that should be still dealt with by the old boys in the corridors of power? None of these provocative questions was really raised during the debate.

Instead, discussion turned quickly to the US - why everyone hates it, why it doesn’t matter, why it should, etc. - while the topic of the EU was pushed aside. Clearly, even for the panelists there were more interesting subjects to discuss. To be fair, the ECFR made an effort to engage the broader public in the debate, for example by posting some interesting throughts on the survey (but receiving only 1 response at the time of writing). However, the briefing was strangely reminiscent of those dull Brusselite luncheons where everyone is too polite to start a proper discussion. The only one who did, Lord Desai, ranted on about a chart in the handouts, only to be gently told that he was reading it upside down, and then made some completely unfounded statements about how the Enlargement and the Single Market have failed (sic!). Everyone else sat silently in their dark suits (even the very few present women appeared dressed for a funeral). This was hardly stuff that gets people excited about the EU in the world.

Now, I know I am being a little harsh, but this is because I really think the ECFR has huge potential, and I want it to succeed. However, if it truly wants to rock the debate on Europe - especially in the UK - it’ll have to be a little more daring and provocative than today. So here are my 3 little suggestions to make the next event more captivating and perhaps memorable:

1. A more diverse panel: less pompous academics (notoriously allergic to criticism) and younger, more unconventional thinkers with strong and sustained views on the subject could have generated a much livelier debate, and perhaps generated 2-3 more challenging ideas about the role of Europe in the world. For example him. Or her.

2. A richer audience: I am not sure who everyone in the audience was, but if my understanding of English fashion doesn’t fail me, most were civil servants, press officers (not journalists) and the odd think-tank refugee. People from more diverse backgrounds (business, media, NGOs, even students) could have thrown in some hard questions at the survey and at the panel. In line with the ECFR’s stated objective of being truly 2.0, why not - for example - invite next time also a sample of some of the most provocative and interesting British Euro-bloggers (them, or him, to begin with)?

3. A cooler venue: the Foreign Press Association felt like one of those old boys’ clubs, where men used to go smoke cigars and discuss politics away from the madding crowds. The ECFR debates should happen instead in exciting new venues, where businessmen, artists, creators, or architects hang out, and where think-tanks rarely set foot. London is awash with exciting places where to hold events. One example for all, the Bloomberg Space:

There, I said it all. Now let’s hope I haven’t just secured my banning from all future ECFR events…!

Ethan Zuckerman remains my No. 1 favourite blogger of all times, and given how much I struggle to update GlobaLab at least 2-3 times a week, while trying to work and retain a decent social life, I am in awe at his amazing prolificacy.

A quick browse at his last few entries would be enough to feed an average person’s brain for 6 months. Over the last few days, he’s been busy reporting from the PopTech conference, which he describes as “the annual three-day gathering of scientists, inventors, geeks, philosophers and thinkers in coastal Maine“. The event is a catwalk for amazing projects and ideas that are truly transforming the world. If you haven’t followed the event, you can read Ethan’s posts on some of the most interesting presentations, including (but there are more):

• Chris Jordan’s images of consumerism, trying to convey the sheer absurdity of our waste-prone societies;
• Jessica Flannery’s presentation of Kiva, the online-based initiative that is rocking the micro-credit world;
• Paul Polak’s designs for the rural poor, on which Paul and PSD had already commented;
• Adrian Bowyer’s breeding machines, which bring us a step closer to the Matrix (watchout, Jon!);
• Louanne Brizendine’s study of male and female brains, which won’t please those advocating gender equality;
• John Shearer’s research into wireless power transmission, which might one day move beyond lighting Christmas trees;
• Sheila Kennedy’s portable light systems for the developing world, adopted by Mexican women to read and cook meals into the night;
• Jonathan Harris’ digital story telling, and his “We feel fine” collection of online human emotions;
• Dan Gilbert’s analysis of happiness and risk, which tells us - basically - that humans are dumb and selfish;
• Chris Luebkeman’s study of sustainable vs. unsustainable cities, which pitches Ski Dubai against Dongtan Eco City (guess who wins?);
• Claire Nouvian’s observations of the deep oceans, that reveal alarming damages by human activities to deep sea ecosystems;
• Victoria Hale’s non-profit drug company One World Health, reminiscent of the $1 ASAQ malaria treatment;
• A conversation on Islam facilitated by John Esposito, that tells us that Americans hate Muslims (no, really?);
• and finally Zainab Salbi’s presentation on Women for Women International, which is helping women who have survived war rebuild their lives.

It took me good part of the day to read them all, and there are many more celebrity bloggers who reported from the event, including BoingBoing, Next Billion, and a few (but not many) non-English speaking bloggers.

If this isn’t enough for you, check out Ethan’s earlier post about a new initiative to fight counterfeit pharmaceuticals in Ghana (hopefully soon the whole of Africa), mPedigree, which will use mobile phones to track drugs from their original producers all the way to the pharmacy shelves, allowing each buyer in the chain to ensure that they’re dealing with a legitimate product. Or check out the entry in which he takes a good shot at unravelling the complex situation in Somalia, in response to the Onion’s eye-opening video Situation in Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex, a must see for all Africanists:

In The Know: Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

What can I say? Ethan, you are my personal hero!!!

From globalisation to nanotechnology, vote here for the Drivers of Change that you think will influence your area of work.

The Washington Post showcases an amazingly visionary project, the World Digital Library, which plans to digitize the accumulated wisdom of humankind, catalogue it, and offer it for free on the Internet in seven languages:

The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.

They don’t come more visionary than this one…

[via Jon]

The Independent’s Johann Hari writes a long overdue report on France’s secret involvement in the Central African Republic, the most forgotten and under-reported country of Africa.

This is classical, old-fashioned war-reporting and political journalism, an uncompromising indictment of France’s foreign policy in Central Africa (and Africa more generally), and a very uncomfortable read for those who still think *we* are the good ones, and *they* are the underdeveloped ones. Francewatcher will be pleased…

A few good sources exploring the themes of social entrepreneurship and microcredit.

Beyond Good Intentions reproduces an article from the International Trade Forum on innovative approaches to reduce poverty through trade, which are bringing business, NGOs, government and aid agencies together. Examples include Bespoke Experience, a social enterprise creating high-end tourism lodges in Mozambique, and using its profits to enable communities to work their way out of poverty.

NOW and PBS review the debate on microcredit, and whether it’s really pro-poor or simply exploiting the most vulnerable, with a focus on Compartamos, the Mexican non-profit turned for-profit microfinance institution at the centre of a fierce debate. It contains an excellent interview on the subject with Muhammad Yunus, the world-renowned founder of the Grameen Bank and father of microcredit, who also wrote another good piece on Social Business Entrepreneurs here.

The IHT writes about the current wave of scepticism over social marketing, a market-inspired strategy to get the poor to start using mosquito nets by asking them to pay a minimum price for them, which the WHO’s director Dr. Arata Kochi bluntly describes as a pointless approach to reach the most vulnerable.

Clearly, no one has informed of such policy-shift Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who’ve been visiting Tanzanian hospitals implementing government-backed and USAID-funded net distribution facilities adopting a social marketing strategy, allegedly very successfully.

Ok, I am late. I was meant to post this yesterday to tow the line with the rules of Blog Action Day, but didn’t have time. But really, in California it’s still the 15th. And the blogosphere is allowed to be chaotic…

Well, I am certainly not an environmental expert, but you don’t have to be a genius to understand that we are at a historical turning point on environmental thinking. Most of the environment-related blogs and sites I read - such as Grains of Sand, the outstanding blog of Caspar Henderson, award-winning writer and journalist on environmental affairs, who also writes on the Open Democracy site - agree that addressing environmental degradation and climate change should be the top priority for all politicians. Celebrating Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, Alex Steffen writes on WorldChanging:

“There is no longer any reasonable debate about whether or not we need to move with all possible speed towards a different way of living on this planet. To argue the contrary is now to prove oneself morally bankrupt”.

Point taken, you won’t hear a whisper from this blog, sir! But while there is (not) much talk of historical responsibilities, EcoEquity and of the right of developing nations to achieve our levels of economic welfare and prosperity, in practice most realist observers would admit that such rights will be trampled in the name of national economic self-interest.

With Western politicians more interested in wooing political constituencies, how can we expect them to make fair choices about who should bear the costs of carbon emission reduction? Are we honestly so deluded to think that the US and EU will consider slashing their economic growth perspectives, harm their own national companies, cause unemployment and possibly even political unrest, in order to help China, India or Brazil become wealthy, highly-industrialised nations? If we are, then perhaps we should simply ask Father Christmas to bring us a new atmosphere on 25 December.

The truth is, as a number of critical political ecologists concerned about international development put it, that the climate change debate could prove to be the hardest hurdle to jump for nations trying to develop. As Tim Forsythe and Zoe Young put it on Mute Magazine:

“There seems to be consensus among global elites about where to start (be afraid, be very afraid … but always trust the government), how to address the challenge (change development patterns in the South to ‘offset’ carbon emissions produced by business as usual in the North), and who is responsible (mainly you and me). Real doubts and arguments are suppressed while market-friendly ‘solutions’ are served up on a nice, glossy plate”.

For example, northern corporations - supported by government policies - are increasingly buying out large quantities of land to convert into ‘carbon sinks‘, often in areas where land tenure and land use rights are in dispute, so they don’t have to reduce their carbon emissions.

Many environmentalist would already have me gunned down for what I’ve written so far, but let me reassure them: I really do love trees! I’ve planted about 20 so far myself! But I just can’t see how we can expect our governments to solve this situation while lifting millions of people out of poverty.

So, what is to be done? Are we - generally concerned individuals, who are passionate about global justice, yet also care about passing on to our children a world where the air is breathable and the seas still populated by fish schools - just condemned to take sides? If we do not agree with this state of play, are we to be considered environmental foes?

I refuse to bow to this logic. The answers to the problems of climate change, environmental degradation and sustainable development are far more complex and intertwined than what we’re being told so far. On the one hand, we need to invest serious money into researching and identifying appropriate technologies to the economic development needs, energy consumption requirements and environmental challenges of developing countries. This would show developing nations that we are not just paying lip-service to the press when we say we want to help them fight poverty.

On the other hand, we need to engender a behavioural shift in the developed world, recognising that the neo-liberal economic principles that govern our economies and societies are also part of the problem, so it’s unrealistic to expect people not to discount the future when the socio-economic structures that surround them are giving them the opposite message. This is about much more than switching to energy-saving light bulbs. It’s about questioning one of the founding tenets of contemporary capitalism: consumerism.

Addressing climate change requires a deeper re-thinking than most governments, corporations and - dare I say - radical environmentalists are ready to concede. Gore is right: this is the end of the beginning. But - in Kevin Smith’s words - another end of the world is, indeed, possible.

You know a book is good when not one, but three different friends write to you unprompted to recommend it. And you know it’s a masterpiece when it spawns a Facebook fanclub group! So today I bought Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel’s new study on the absurdities and political interests lying behind the current global food system, which leaves millions fighting obesity while millions more struggle to get a meal a day.

Felicity Lawrence on The Guardian sings its praise:

Unless you are a corporate food executive, the food system isn’t working for you. If you are one of the world’s rural poor dependent on agriculture for your livelihood - and roughly half the global population of 6 billion fall into this category - you are likely to be one of the starved. If you are an urban consumer, whether an affluent metropolitan or slum-dwelling industrial labourer, you are likely to be one of the stuffed, suffering from obesity or other diet-related ills.

Raj Patel’s fascinating first book examines this apparent paradox. His thesis is that the simultaneous existence of nearly 1 billion who are malnourished and nearly 1 billion who are overweight is in fact the inevitable corollary of a system in which a handful of corporations have been allowed to capture the value of the food chain. Moreover, government policies through history have been designed to control our food. Their aim has been to provide cheap food for the urban masses and so prevent dissent at home. The instruments of colonial command may have been replaced with newer mechanisms that give a greater role to the private sector, but control our food they still do with disastrous social consequences, despite all the neo-liberal rhetoric of free trade and choice.

Another book joining my awful backlog of to-do reading…