Applied Economics and Politics (TTP's)

[Surferbeetle]

How about some Econ TTP's from USAID which could be applied at a local level:

GATE'S METHODOLOGY
GATE uses mixed-methods, which rely on primary data collection through surveys, secondary analysis of household survey and national accounts data, and qualitative analysis using key informant interviews and focus groups. Integral to GATE's gender and pro-poor analysis are the following components:

Distributional analysis: explores the value added generated along the chain and examines the returns to labor and capital and to the different actors that participate in the chain.

Segmentation analysis: assesses how the labor market is segmented by sex throughout the value chain;

Analysis of power and governance within the chain: investigates power within production and exchange relationships across the value chain, including the power to set market prices and bargain as well as indebtedness and sub-optimal contracting; and,

Entitlements and capabilities analysis: considers factors and characteristics that mediate men's and women's entitlements to productive resources, and their capabilities to deploy these resources. Where possible, GATE also examines the poverty rates and livelihood strategies of different actors in the chain.

Survey from Wikipedia

Statistical surveys are used to collect quantitative information about items in a population. Surveys of human populations and institutions are common in political polling and government, health, social science and marketing research. A survey may focus on opinions or factual information depending on its purpose, and many surveys involve administering questions to individuals. When the questions are administered by a researcher, the survey is called a structured interview or a researcher-administered survey. When the questions are administered by the respondent, the survey is referred to as a questionnaire or a self-administered survey.

Market Segmentation from Wikipedia

Market segmentation is a concept in economics and marketing. A market segment is a sub-set of a market made up of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to demand similar product and/or services based on qualities of those products such as price or function. A true market segment meets all of the following criteria: it is distinct from other segments (different segments have different needs), it is homogeneous within the segment (exhibits common needs); it responds similarly to a market stimulus, and it can be reached by a market intervention. The term is also used when consumers with identical product and/or service needs are divided up into groups so they can be charged different amounts. These can broadly be viewed as 'positive' and 'negative' applications of the same idea, splitting up the market into smaller groups.

Value Chain Analysis by Wikipedia

A value chain is a chain of activities for a firm operating in a specific industry. The business unit is the appropriate level for construction of a value chain, not the divisional level or corporate level. Products pass through all activities of the chain in order, and at each activity the product gains some value. The chain of activities gives the products more added value than the sum of added values of all activities. It is important not to mix the concept of the value chain with the costs occurring throughout the activities. A diamond cutter can be used as an example of the difference. The cutting activity may have a low cost, but the activity adds much of the value to the end product, since a rough diamond is significantly less valuable than a cut diamond. Typically, the described value chain and the documentation of processes, assessment and auditing of adherence to the process routines are at the core of the quality certification of the business, e.g. ISO 9001.

Supply chain analysis from Wikipedia

A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer. In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable. Supply chains link value chains.[2]

SWOT analysis by Wikipedia

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies.

Stakeholder analysis by Wikipedia

Stakeholder analysis is a term used in conflict resolution, project management, and business administration to describe a process where all the individuals or groups that are likely to be affected by a proposed action are identified and then sorted according to how much they can affect the action and how much the action can affect them. This information is used to assess how the interests of those stakeholders should be addressed in a project plan, policy, program, or other action. Stakeholder analysis is a key part of Stakeholder management.

[Steve the Planner]

Beetle:

Problem with all those great power points in GIGO.

You can download the USAID "master plans" for Iraq, as an example, and track them across the years. I summarize all below:

2004: We have analyzed the economic problems in Iraq and find that they all derive from agricultural inadequacies, all traceable to the lack of american made tractors. In 2004, we addressed the problem by providing 5,000 tractors.

2005: We have analyzed the economic problems in Irq and find that, despite tractors, agricultural inadequacies are all traceable to the lack of american made center pivot irrigation systems. In 2005, we addressed the problem by providing 5,000 systems.

And so on and so on.

USAID looks good on paper, but, at present, has no effective teeth. Fix that, and, in theory, we would not have many of the COIN confusion the military is now struggling with.

[Surferbeetle]

Vetted digital copies of 'local' case studies and simulations could be used to gain and check subject comprehension and be maintained upon a share portal.

Two examples:

• Harvard Business School sells digital copies of case studies and simulations.

• IBS/CDC out of India sells case studies

[Steve the Planner]

Problem is we go to war with the aid system we have.

State's Ambassador Herbst has, over and again, sought money to staff up SCRS. Whether this would work or not, no funding ever materialized, and, at best, he can field a handful of 90-day inter-agency assignees for piecemeal "master planning."

Personally, I have a great deal of respect and faith in the new USAID administrator, and believe that, one day, he will be able to transform USAID, if, like Herbst, enough time, money, and staffing is provided.

Notwithstanding, the White House, Senate, NSC, State and USAID have been deeply immersed for the last six months in a policy/organizational structure debate about the above: Who is going to lead and implement an effective US stability & reconstruction program if and when we choose to create one?

Until that core debate is concluded, and the organization is (or is not) created, the US military is left to muddle in active wars without the key entity needed for resolution.

They are doing the best they can, without adequate resources, framework, training or capability. God bless them.

[Dayuhan]

AID, like so many other aid agencies, often tries to use money and technical assistance to promote development in environments where the primary constraints on development are not financial or technical, but political. Given the complications and potential for unintended consequences that go along with political engagement this is understandable, but it often produces very unsatisfactory returns on aid investment.

[Steve the Planner]

Dahayun:

i.e., Massive corruption comes from massive unconstrained US spending.

How do we cure corruption?????

[Dayuhan]

Massive corruption comes from massive unconstrained US spending.

I wouldn't say that corruption is a consequence of US spending, though large amounts of externally sourced money do increase the opportunities for corruption.

I was thinking more of the reality that economic development requires change, and change often threatens the position, prosperity, and even the survival of local and national elites. These elites may not openly oppose development efforts, especially if they have uses for the incoming funds, but they are likely to actively manipulate the process to ensure that their interests are not compromised, which often also ensures that the aims of the funding agency are not met. We need to be able to recognize divergent goals, and in cases where the interests of the local elite are completely incompatible with development goals it may be better to simply put the money somewhere else, where it might have some chance of accomplishing something.

Unfortunately it's often more important to be able to say we sent x hundred million to a certain utterly miserable place than to be able to point out what that money actually accomplished.

How do we cure corruption?????

We don't, unless it's our own corruption. We can't cure anyone else's.

[Surferbeetle]

STP and Dayuhan; define corruption. Different cultures have different definitions as we all know.

Dayuhan, I am still reflecting upon the Philippine Politics and the Rule of Law paper (perhaps you could provide a link in this thread as well) which you shared the other day; here is a political analysis (TTP's) paper which you might find to be of interest:

Reidar Visser's Iran's Role in Post Occupation Iraq Enemy, Good Neighbor, or Overlord?

The subject of Iran’s role in Iraq—what it is, and what it should be—is a hotly contested one. Some analysts stress the role of Shiite identity and religion as a unifying bond between Iran’s approximately 60 million Shiites and the 15 million strong Shiite majority in Iraq, mostly concentrated in Baghdad and areas south. A few suggest the existence of even vaster schemes of cooperation, with Shiite solidarity extending from Iran via Iraq to the Alawite minority that rules Syria and into the south of Lebanon, which is also dominated by Shiites—a “Shiite crescent” that seems ideally positioned to dominate the entire Middle East through its hold on strategic territory and with its control of combined oil resources that rival those of Saudi Arabia. At the same time, other scholars reject the idea of any particular closeness between the Shiites of Iran and those of Iraq. These analysts tend to stress the Arabness of the Shiites of Iraq—who in many cases descend from recently settled nomadic tribes whose conversion to Shiism took place within the past couple of centuries—and point to historical facts such as the loyal Shiite participation on the Iraqi side in the eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s as proof of the Iraqiness of the Shiites and as a formative experience in its own right. Often, this kind of perspective goes hand in hand with a view that Iraqi Shiites are actively hostile to the model of government instituted in Iran after the 1979 revolution, and that they in particular despise the idea of clerics holding political office. It has even been suggested that the current government of Nuri al-Maliki, after its turn against certain internal Shiite contenders, constitutes a contemporary example of what this attitude to Iran means in practice.

In this report, a synthesis of these two positions is offered. On the one hand, the Iraqi identity of the Shiites living in the country seems firmly established at the popular level. Historically, the Shiites of Iraq have always shied away from all kinds of schemes that would create a sectarian enclave south of Baghdad or unite the Shiite portions of the country with Iran, and the spectacular failure of the scheme to create a federal Shiite entity in post-2003 Iraq (which was tentatively launched in the summer of 2005) seems to attest to the endurance of an “Iraq first” attitude among the Shiite population. However, on the other hand, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 set in motion a formidable process of upheaval and such tremendous pressures from the outside that internal Shiite elite politics in Iraq changed beyond recognition and shifted away from its historical trajectory.