Ideas for Change - Because the right idea can change the world » Corporate Social Responsibility

The World Bank

Daniel Daboczy - Editor in chief — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:56:17 +0000

World Bank is a term used to describe an international financial institution that provides leveraged loans to developing countries for capital programs. The World Bank has a stated goal of reducingpoverty.

The World Bank differs from the World Bank Group, in that the World Bank comprises only two institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), whereas the latter incorporates these two in addition to three more:^[3]International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), andInternational Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank

http://www.worldbank.org/

Google displays all requests from governments for shutdown

Daniel Daboczy - Editor in chief — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:57:43 +0000

Government requests directed to Google and YouTube

Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products. The map shows the number of requests that we received between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009, with certain limitations.

We know these numbers are imperfect and may not provide a complete picture of these government requests. For example, a single request may ask for the removal of more than one URL or for the disclosure of information for multiple users. See the FAQ for more information.

http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

GLOBAL TRADE LOGISTICS IMPROVING, BUT MORE NEEDED TO BOOST RECOVERY

Invited Contributor — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:24:08 +0000

GLOBAL TRADE LOGISTICS IMPROVING, BUT MORE NEEDED TO BOOST RECOVERY

Brazil, China, Bangladesh and Uganda see upgrade in rankings, as Germany tops list

WASHINGTON, January 15, 2010—The capacity of countries to efficiently move goods and connect manufacturers and consumers with international markets is improving around the world, but much more progress is needed to spur faster economic growth and help firms benefit from trade recovery, according to a new World Bank Group survey on trade logistics.

Germany is the top performer among the 155 economies ranked in the Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI), which are included in the report Connecting to Compete 2010: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy. The study is based on the most comprehensive world survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers.

“Economic competitiveness is relentlessly driving countries to strengthen performance, and improving trade logistics is a smart way to deliver more efficiencies, lower costs and added economic growth,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick, who is visiting Berlin January 13 -15 to discuss global development and economic issues. “Streamlining the connections among markets, manufacturers, farmers and consumers offers tremendous growth and investment opportunities and should be a top focus for developing country growth strategies. As we issue this global report, I’m pleased to be in Germany, the top performer on efficient logistics.”

According to the LPI, high income economies dominate the top logistics rankings, with most of them occupying important places in global and regional supply chains. By contrast, the ten lowest performing countries are almost all from the low and lower income groups.

Although the study shows a substantial “logistics gap” between rich countries and most developing countries, it finds positive trends in some areas essential to logistics performance and trade. Some of them include the modernization of customs, use of information technology, and development of private logistics services.

“Following our first survey in 2007, many developing countries have improved their capacity to connect to international markets, which is a key ingredient for competitiveness and economic growth,” said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. “But if developing countries want to come out of the crisis in a stronger and more competitive position, they need to invest in better trade logistics.”

“Countries with better logistics performance can grow faster, become more competitive and increase their level of investment,” said Bernard Hoekman, World Bank Trade Department Director. “Our research shows that increasing logistics performance in low income countries to the middle-income average could boost trade by around 15 per cent and benefit all firms and consumers through lower prices and better quality services.”

The report, headed by World Bank Group economists Jean Francois Arvis and Monica Alina Mustra, notes that among developing economies logistics performance transcends the level of per capita income: Many countries perform better than what their income level would suggest. The ten most significant over-performers include China (27), India (47), Uganda (66), Vietnam (53), Thailand (35), the Philippines (44), and South Africa (28).

Likewise, the countries with significant improvement in performance between the two surveys (the 2007 and 2010 LPI) are often those which implemented comprehensive logistics and trade facilitation reforms earlier, such as Colombia, Brazil, and Tunisia.

In terms of how developing countries are doing per region, South Africa (28) is the top performer from Africa; China (27) from East Asia; Poland (30) from Central and Eastern Europe; Brazil (41) from Latin America; Lebanon (33) from the Middle East; and India (47) from South Asia.

According to the study, logistics performance is heavily influenced by the quality of public sector institutions and the effective coordination of border clearance processes among all border management agencies. In this area, customs performs better than many other agencies, pointing to the need for border management reforms. In low performing countries, on average, half of the containers are physically inspected and one container out of seven at least twice.

Other areas for improvement include better transport policies, increasing competition in trade-related services such as trucking, freight forwarding and railways; and better trade-related infrastructure. For many low-income countries the most binding constraints are often in logistics services and international transit systems. Given they perform better on many other indicators, improving trade infrastructure is often reported to be a priority for middle-income countries.

The World Bank Group has a number of projects designed to improve trade logistics in developing countries. The US$250 million East Africa Trade and Transport Facilitation Project improved the corridor infrastructure and upgraded the main border crossing between Uganda and Kenya at Malaba, reducing border crossing times from three days to three hours. In Tunisia, a US$250 million operation is improving competitiveness by reducing trade costs and streamlining border clearance procedures. And in Afghanistan, the Bank is providing funding for a US$31.2 million project to modernize and computerize four major border crossings, increasing customs revenues from US$50 million when the project started in 2004 to over US$399 million in 2008.

In addition, the Bank is working with IBM, Microsoft and the Global Express Association as part of a public-private partnership on “Aid for Trade Facilitation.” The objective is to develop pilot projects in developing countries that apply innovative IT solutions to streamline border procedures.

To access the report under embargo, please visit: www.media.worldbank.org

The report and related material will be available to the public after the embargo expires at:
www.worldbank.org

Can you feel the winds of change?

Daniel Daboczy - Editor in chief — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:41:37 +0000

I´m not talking about Obama, nor Google leaving China, nor Iran, Thailand or other. I´m talking about We The People.

I´m talking about the new times where more and more people migrate from Facebook, couchsurfing, aimless consumption of media and become involved. They begin to share, to spread, to interact. Never before has the opinions and the knowledge of the grassrots been more effective, saught for or relevant. We are used to listen. We are used to look upwards to leaders for guidance bur now projects like ours builds forces on connecting the dots. On harvesting the wast ammount of knowledge that you and your friends might have.

Please share your cognitive surplus and do some good.

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://laughingsquid.com/clay-shirky-on-cognitive-surplus/

http://www.shirky.com/

Wikileaks ensures our freedom. Now they need your help!

Daniel Daboczy - Editor in chief — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:35:32 +0000

“ Wikileaks has probably produced more scoops in its short life than the Washington Post has in the past 30 years ”
— The National, November 19, 2009

They have received hundreds of thousands of pages from corrupt banks, the US detainee system, the Iraq war, China, the UN and many others that they do not currently have the resources to release. You can change that and by doing so, change the world. Even $10 will pay to put one of these reports into another ten thousand hands.

Courage is contagious.

Please do something important today here:

http://wikileaks.org/

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Idea of the Year AWARD

Daniel Daboczy - Editor in chief — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:02:56 +0000

We are announcing “The Idea of the Year Award”. The first annual prize to the best idea received to IdeasForChange from 2010 -01 -01 untill 2010-10-01. The prize and the amount is growing for each day and consists of all of the donated amount, google ad revenue and some other. If you have a good idea, want to share a great idea, know about a great idea for our world please Contribute or if you wish to donate please use the DONATE button on the top right corner and help us build the funds and make the prize bigger. Any ammount big or small will be highly appreciated and used in fully for the prize.

The 10 finalists will be presented on october 02 and the winner will receive the prize on October 30.

For more information please e-mail daniel@ideasforchange.tv

/Daniel Daboczy

Computer recyclers – a scam

taboring — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:54:01 +0000

So called computer recyclers have been scamming the American business, educational, governmental and individual publics for years. The glut of unwanted and discarded electronics equipment (televisions, computers, monitors/other peripherals, printers, phones) is overwhelming and growing every year. Beleaguerd IT and maintenance departments had this problem dumped into their responsiblities starting early in this century, as it became known that such discards were potentially hazardous waste and questionable for disposal in US landfills.
Because there are little regulations in developing nations (India, China, Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam), a disgusting pollution engendering scrap industry developed. A CRT monitor, fresh from your donation to a charity but still unwanted, can be sold for several dollars, packaged into a 40′ seagoing container with 999 others, and exported to India. There, it is dumped anywhere accessible. Laborers, earning $2 a day if they are lucky, will dismantle it with crude hand tools. They will take the copper yoke and the low grade circuit board from it. The remainder will be left where it lays. That punctured tube contains 4-8 lbs of lead dust (from a coating that absorbs the heat while it was sitting on your desk). This dust will enter the local atmosphere and cause birth defects and respiratory illnesses. Some lead will seep into the ground as it rains, entering and ruining the water table. There is ample evidence of this all over the Web (see www.ban.org for example).
As this problem has been publicized, it has become a topic to discuss as decision makers, those who have to decide how to dispose of their unwanted scrap, try to weigh the options. Unethical compnies, willing to be vague, spin and outright lie, have convinced the great majority of decision makers that they are ‘recyclers’, that they do not export scrap to developing nations, that they do not landfill it, that they do not use US prison labor to process it. The scam has matured such that these charlatans will issue Certificates to these effects. Most decision makers are more conscious of the bottom line than spoiling to investigate the ‘recyclers’. So, if a company tells the decision maker a good tale, offers low cost or no cost solutions and issues a Certificate, that company earns the business over a legitimate recycler, who must pay to process the equipment in the US, thus driving up the costs. The legitimate recycler will word a proper Certificate to warrant that there was no export of landfilling PERIOD, and will list the serial numbers of the disposed equipment to clarify that the company did indeed handle certain equipment properly, if somewhat more costly.
Recent exposes have publicized the polluters; one on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a situation in Pittsburgh PA concerning an identified scammer, EarthECycle, documented the scam where the polluters brazenly tell a customer a sales pitch, promising not to export or landfill, then violate that agreement at will. The legitimate recycler, had no chance to get the contract, because he had real costs to incorporate into the sale price.
After a long period of these scenarios playing out, more and more decision makers were demanding rigorous documentation and legitmate recyclers, particularly those called ‘e stewards’, affiliated with the Basel Action Network, were in place to legitimately earn the business of these coscientious decision makers. To that end, BAN e stewards began the organization of a rigorous certification process to establish their legitimacy even further. Thsi process is being developed and will bear fruit in the next 6 months.
Faced with the loss of billions of dollars in potential profits, the group of companies that has long depended on shady, unverified procedures, struck back. They organized. They formed a new organization, an outgrowth of several older organizations, entitled the “World Reuse, Repair and Recycle Association” or “WR3A” for short. In the not so old days, one of the scammers precepts that melded nicely into the ‘sales pitch’ was the use of a reference to the ‘reuse’ component of recycling. Any legitimate recycler agrees that reuse is the most desirable way to recyucle. It reduces costs as the equipment is less expensive and thus available to lower income potential users. It removes the need to use new materials. When donated to non profit agencies, there can be positive tax advantages. Reuse is great!
The polluters have woven reuse into the sales pitch, with a touch of charity often the glue. There is a woman in the e waste disposal industry who has for years solicited the equipment from corporations by telling them that it was going to be used in a far eastern nation to train orphans as technicians, and teach them to refurb CRT monitors for resale. Sounds great!
But, the sad truth is that there is such a glut of CRTs that there is no market for them in any real quantity anywhere in the world, even if they still work and need no repair. It is safe to say that they can usually NOT even be given away in any quantity. So, if a company takes them from a client, either for free or a little charge, how can they process them? Who would pay to ship them to the Far East? How about testing them, storing them, arranging for their distribution IF there was an outlet? And, what about the CRTs that do not work? In India, who will verifiably contract to keep them out of the waste stream? (By the way, this problem includes other electronic discards like computers themselves, CRTs are the best example)
Nevertheless, this new organization WR3A, will attempt to create the appearance of legitimacy with a logo, websites, public relations media. Those of us who know better must work to educate the consuming public to the facts that this is simply an attempt at ‘business as usual’, taking US waste, prolonging the squeezing of a profit from it under the ‘reuse’ battle cry that will continue to result in despicable pollution. Beleaguered decision makers will have WR3A literature to stick in the file to play CYA. However, the result will be the same as it has been. Those of us e stewards who have elected to attempt a business model that does not damage the environment will continue to attempt to educate the public

The grassroots are the real power

Hank Nokanami — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:30:16 +0000

We always believe that we need change to come from above.

But we the grassroots are more powerfull and influential then any of them. Societies are build by us, for us, from us. Therefore change can only come if we believe that we can make a change. Obama and his change is amazing, but still, we expect leaders to change for us. Be aware of being confortable, change comes from us. Obama is one man, Kim Il Jong is one man, we are 6,5 billion.

/dr Hank Nokanami

Powerless or powerfull

Daniel Daboczy - Editor in chief — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:46:32 +0000

In these times, the days before COP15, when the Nobel prize is handed out, when the Right Livelihood Award is given to people that have done something good or right, when everybody looks at TV for salvation. When we have become confortable, I stand and wonder if the methods we use today still work in these times. Does manifestations or other methods still apply for the 21:st century? Is media still the way to go through when we need publicity? Does politicians have real power anymore? Should we unite and create a massforce that no one can ignore? Should we do as we always have done?

Or should we be individualists and do whatever we can in our own backyard? Maybe it´s enough to quietly protest by choosing other paths then the easy ones?

But I can tell you something, the world will not change itself. But the world hasn´t either been destroyed by the common man, but by companies and organizations trying to make a quick buck because we thought that we need cheap and massive ammounts of stuff. And they obliged, found cheap stuff for us. And we believed that cheap is better. We built a culture that chases the best deals. But somebody, somewhere always pays the difference. What you gain on a bargain is paid somehow else, by poor people slaving for you, by nature or other.

Do you think that we would have chosen the cheap but bad way instead of the expensive good way? I can tell you that even the poorest of us would do good first. I am sure of that.

So instead of butting our heads together and acomplish almost nothing, or little in a very long time, we should go to the source, to the power, to the money. We should go to the companies and ask them, make them, convince them to be part of this movement. Companies are made by people. People are made the same as you, think the same as you and act the same as you. There for it´s given how you can change.

Just put yourself in their shoes and make a good argument!

/Daniel Daboczy

http://en.cop15.dk/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/01/q-and-a-copenhagen-summit

Making simplicity work

jon.brunberg — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:23:10 +0000

The idea behind the Exctractive Industries Transparency Initiative – EITI – is as simple as a model for transparency and accountability can be. One part in a business deal discloses its payments to the public and the receiving part discoses its revenues from the same deal to the same public. These reports are analyzed by parties from the civil society and any discrepancies accounted for.

The EITI deals exclusively with industries that extract natural resources such as oil, natural gas, diamonds or other minerals and the states that have these resources on its soil. The idea is that this process would disclose corruption and unfair deals that are not benificient to the public in these countries and that contracts between companies and states can be re-negotiatiated if necessary. The Guardian now reports that EITI has approved its first two members: Liberia and Azerbaijan and that it already has renegotiated contracts in Liberia:

Liberia, rich in mineral wealth, was until 2005 one of Africa’s most notorious killing fields. The first peace-time president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, decided early on to sign up to the EITI. Its inaugural report reveals that the main contractor, the Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, was asked to renegotiate its initial contract after analysis suggested it had been negotiated with the company rather than the country’s benefit in mind. Now the taxes it pays are the main source of mineral-related revenue for the government.

The report also revealed a payment the company had made but the government had not received. And it exposed other companies that had not reported at all, and other payments that had apparently been made, but not received. This, it said, generated local comment and inquiry.

EITI’s model seem to be one way out for countries that have been bogged down in corrupt practices and plagued by plundering and injustices. It will be very interesting in the coming years to see wheter it will work for other countries as well.

Watch video from EITI