Not only is the coronavirus assaulting our bodies, killing thousands, which is bad enough. It is also attacking our social and economic structures.
Scientists have found that once it enters the body, COVID-19 is capable of attacking almost any organ, with devastating consequences. It is doing something very similar to our economic systems.
Your money or your life
During the spring and summer of 2020, in the depths of the coronavirus crisis, human contact has become potentially life-threatening. Going to church, concerts, restaurants, ball games, just hanging out with friends…all the things that bring us together became potentially lethal, and were ordered to shut down. The slow pace of reopening and the hesitant return to normal life in many places highlights the ongoing fears people have of becoming infected.
The coronavirus has led to many needless deaths, in the sense that researchers have estimated locking down earlier could have saved tens of thousands of lives, notably in the US, UK, Brazil, Russia and other countries. In many countries, either by going into lockdown too late, or opening up too early, the health of the economy seems to have been given precedence over the health of the population.
Is there an inherent de-prioritizing of human life in some societies? If we consider just the US, the answer would seem to be yes. Add up the opioid deaths (67,000 in 2018) fatal shootings (over 15,000 in 2018), civilians killed by police (about 1,000 per year) not to mention falling life expectancy (a phenomenon unique among developed countries), one cannot but wonder whey so little has been done to address these types of deaths.
The disregard toward human life was not new, but has come into sharp relief during the crisis, which has so far claimed over 115,00 American lives (out of at least 420,000 worldwide).
Calculating risks
Of course, it is true that a balance must be struck between staying safe and living life. To quote Jean-Paul Sartre “to know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.”
There is a risk calculus to everything we do. We’re always making trade-offs. Shut economies down too tightly and for too long and the side-effects can start turning lethal. Clearly, the health of the economy indirectly affects our personal health as well. People avoid going to the hospital, women in abusive relationships are further endangered, the poor run out of food.
However, in some countries, as the crisis dragged on it became clear that leaders, keeping an eye on the election cycle and the stock market, have been cavalier about the human costs. The default justifications for doing too little were either professed beliefs that COVID-19 is not that serious, perhaps even a hoax? Or that people’s freedom should not be curtailed.
What does the coronavirus threat mean for society? Specifically, what does it mean for the capitalist system, to which most of the world’s countries adhere to one degree or another? One could argue that, amid the economic havoc it has caused, and the many needless deaths, the virus also presents us with an opportunity. An opportunity to shift our focus away from materialism, consumerism, profits and share prices, and place greater value on human aspects.
I will argue that this would not be wide-eyed, new age attitude, but a smart investment in one of the under-appreciated pillars of capitalism – human capital. And it is precisely human capital that the coronavirus is attacking.
Capitalism’s foundations
According to economic theory, capitalism is based on three factors: capital, labor and land. The first two, capital and labor, have been severely damaged by coronavirus.
With labor, the impact is obvious. Millions have lost their jobs and a large share of those jobs will never come back. Many businesses have shut their doors forever, others are having to adjust to diminished sales as customer numbers fall. Still more are rebalancing how they combine labor and technology and accelerating the move to automation.
What about capital? In economic terms capital is an asset, a good. Traditionally, capital is considered the physical and financial material necessary for producing goods and creating wealth. Capital is the raw material to be transformed into things we use and things we consume. This process of capital extraction and transformation produces new value.
In simple terms, labor and technology are the skills, energy and tools used to create surplus value from that capital. We take a basically inert substance, matter, and process it into something useful and more valuable than before.
Mix in property rights and freedom of exchange, and in very broad terms you have the basic building blocks of a capitalist system.
Human capital
In the 1950s the concept of capital was expanded beyond the physical and financial to what was called human capital. This refers to the health, education, and social networks of a population. This capital is not visible, per se, but it is a very valuable asset. Simply put, being educated, healthy and connected with others helps all of us to live better lives.
Human capital also increases productivity, it makes the labor input more efficient and effective. Without human capital, physical and financial capital are not very useful, although technology is able to substitute for human capital for certain tasks, as production processes become automated.
Another type of capital is social capital. This is formed out of the contacts which individuals have with others, their networks. These can also be extremely valuable. The Kyrgyz have a saying (which was used for the title of a World Bank study on the importance of social networks in that country): better a hundred friends than a hundred rubles.
COVID’s attack on capital
It is precisely the three core elements of human capital — health, education, and social networks — which COVID-19 has so successfully attacked.
In terms of health, it has infected over 6 million people, and killed over 400,000 as of early June 2020. On the education front, the virus has hobbled our schools, weakened the ability of children and university students to learn. And when it comes to networks — the confinement, social isolation, and closure of restaurants, bars and churches has severely restricted our human contact. And for the roughly 50% of the global population that is without internet access or smartphones, it has degraded their social interactions. Not everyone spends their days in Zoom meetings or happy hours.
Of course, even before the crisis, it seems our society gave greater weight to financial capital than to the health or education of our population. One could argue that police killings of unarmed African Americans, and the apparent disregard among police for human rights that have become apparent during the protests are yet another indicator that in America the interests of society take second place to other interests. (On could say that “black” human capital is valued less than “white” human capital.)
After the 2008 financial crisis, government bailed out the banks, not ordinary people. The numbers that we track are financial — the Dow Jones, GDP, interest rates.
Why don’t we take as much care of our human capital as we do of our financial capital? Somehow, we’ve let ourselves, as a society, become focused on efficiencies, cost savings, share prices and shareholder value. It has come to seem normal to many people.
Just referring to the US healthcare system and the health of the population as an example — are people truly free if they face the threat of catastrophic health bills should they become sick? Is it good for capitalism when labor is hobbled in this way?
Undervaluing human health and education
Human capital is intangible. Is it because economists have trouble measuring it, that we undervalue it? (For example, it is fairly easy to track years of schooling, it is more difficult to measure the quality of education, i.e. how much children are actually learning.) Is it because financial and business interests largely control our political processes? A combination of the above?
Why, for example, does health insurance have to be linked to be employment, as is the case in the US? Why do we in the US, have a system where millions still don’t have health insurance when all other rich countries do? A lot of people are afraid to leave their jobs because they depend on them for health insurance. That can hardly be called freedom of movement, an essential element of a free market system which the US prides itself on having. It is not optimal for the free market. Staying in a job you’d rather leave doesn’t stimulate risk-taking and innovation, two prized elements of the free market system.
It is not that we can’t afford it — the US spends more money on healthcare per capita than any country in the world. It just does not spend it very well. Life expectancy is lower than all other rich nations and, as noted above, has been falling for four years (it finally ticked up again in 2019).
Opposition to guaranteeing health cannot stem from some love for unfettered free markets, or an aversion to government support. Medicare is huge and popular! And we are happy to bail out financial institutions, businesses, car companies, when they were on the brink of collapse in 2009. We always seem happy to lavish support on the private sector in the form of tax cuts and tax breaks.
Now, it’s true that trillions of dollars in stimulus funding have been passed on to citizens. But this is a reaction to the crisis. Why should we not take better care of human capital during the good times as well?
An opportunity to change?
Let’s hope that the assault on human capital by COVID-19 will lead to a shift in values. A shift away from fixating on financial capital toward human capital.
What I would hope arises from this is a different way of thinking, a more human-centric attitude toward capitalism.
Under such a human-centric capital system, as much weight would be given to human capital as it is to physical and financial capital. This may seem an obvious choice to many liberals. However, the shift will only take place if the die-hard free market, pro-business factions come to recognize it as well: that human capital — a healthy, educated population — is valuable, should be cared for and protected. Just like a company’s bottom line. That would be a kind of victory, and a metric worth tracking.
If you want to be popular, probably best not to go into evaluation. Pick another role, another profession.
However, evaluation performs a necessary and valuable function. Like street cleaning and colonoscopies, someone has to do it.
Evaluators are paid (tolerated?) to deliver sometimes unpleasant truths or hard-to-swallow advice. The role has evolved, slightly, since Medieval times when the king’s fool, among other things, had to speak truth to power, presumably in some palatable way like mixing humor and self-deprecation. Mercifully, we evaluators don’t need to dress up in funny costumes and makes fools of ourselves anymore (although sometimes we inadvertently do a bit of the latter).
In all honesty, the point of this blog post is not to deter would-be evaluators from entering the field. Rather, it is to warn you that you may not make as many friends as you would if you were, say, working in sales or marketing.
Also, when I say “unpopular” I do not mean that demand for evaluators is low. To the contrary, there is (still) lots of evaluation and evaluation-type work out there.
The fact is, auditors, tax collectors, inspectors, evaluators and their ilk – in what are sometimes called the accountability professions – are not really meant to be liked.
President Trump’s firing of six Inspectors General in the last few months notwithstanding, most people know that accountability is important. Like taking medicine or going to the gym, being evaluated or investigated can be disagreeable for the object of the evaluation, but there is also good chance it will make whatever or whoever is being evaluated better.
Why you need a thick skin
I have known of evaluators who have been threatened, fired, had their work trashed, or even been held against their will. Here are a couple of examples (one personal).
I once was leading an evaluation in Croatia on the impact of employee redundancies at the country’s shipyards. The data collection supervisor on our team, an intrepid young Croatian woman, was asked by a shipyard manager to turn over the list of (randomly selected) employees she was interviewing. When she refused, he locked her in the interview room and threatened not to let her out unless she complied with his request. She still refused, risking her safety and well-being in the name of professional integrity and respondent confidentiality. Luckily, she had a contact in the Ministry she was able to call, and the manager relented and unlocked the door. She was shaken, but able to continue with her interviews. The evaluation was completed and well received. The reforms, on the hand, did not happen.
It happens to evaluators – it has happened to me – that your findings and conclusions are rejected, even when I thought the analysis was strong.
Last year I conducted an evaluation-type study in an African country for the World Bank. It involved assessing the likely social impacts of a $100 million program. The manager who commissioned my work (in a division– referred to as “Global Practices” – at the Bank, with a focus on social issues) was happy with the analysis. However, the manager whose program I reviewed (from the Global Practice responsible for the assistance program) actually refused to speak with me. After reading my report and its conclusions, he rejected the analysis and brought in someone else to redo it. Not a happy experience, but you develop a thick skin in this line of work.
A popular way of rejecting evaluation findings is to question or attack the evaluation methods, or the evaluator’s qualifications. These are good ways of deflecting attention from the findings.
Often, you won’t know whether the client was unhappy with the quality or scope of the work, or if there were other internal politics at play.
These types of unpleasant experiences tend to be rarer, and less of an issue when the client commissioning the evaluation is not the one whose work is being evaluated. This may be the case with donors or US Government agencies such as USAID or Millennium Challenge Corporation evaluations. They are the agencies funding the work, while another organization implements it, so they are generally truly interested in whether the money is being well spent, e.g. is the program going according to plan and getting results.
You may not be popular, but you still have to be nice
With evaluators, when people are nice to you, it isn’t necessarily because they like you, or see you as a linchpin in their career progression. Of course, hopefully you’re a decent person with a disarming personality! But quite possibly, their chumminess could reflect a, shall we say, slight bias. You are evaluating their programs after all, and they most likely prefer it that you see them at their very best. If people are quite nice to you at the beginning, but when they realize that you’re serious about your job, they start cooling to you, you’ll know that the amicability was more of a tactic than anything else.
It is your job to look past the surface, dig into the data, find what what’s really happening, and report fairly. Yet, you yourself need to adopt an attitude of goodwill, and cordiality toward others, regardless of what your finding are, no matter how useless your inept or corrupt the program is. (I honestly have evaluated very few programs that fall into that category, quite possibly because everyone knows that the evaluators will be showing up.)
Why is being nice to others who might not be nice to you important?
First, being nice is simply part of being professional.
Second, you want to build relationships. You need others trust you and share information and, if all goes well, accept your findings.
Third, maintaining a pleasant demeanor is a simply good default attitude to have to contain whatever feelings you may have about the program you’re evaluating. Whether you think it is amazing or terrible, you want to keep those feelings separate from the work.
The bottom line is that being decent to others is a soft skill you want in your toolbox.
The evaluator as outsider
Closely linked to being “unpopular” is being an outsider.
Professional independent evaluators are, by dint of their position, outsiders. (This is different from internal evaluators who work within an organization.) You need to accept and embrace that role, even while building trust with the client and stakeholders you meet. You need to obtain information from them, and want them to accept your findings.
However, it is a fine line. As an evaluator, you arrive in a new place, with its own professional or work culture, maybe in a new country. You start poking around, and asking questions. That’s the job. People will be on their guard.
The outsider status is beneficial in that it can shield you from certain biases that you might bring. These biases might include if you were part of the system you are evaluating, such as belonging to one or the other political parties, ethnic groups, clans or other groupings of which you are probably not aware.
A corollary of this is that foreign governments often value non-nationals because they are outsiders, independent, not connected to a particular faction. Sometimes this is justified, sometimes not. Despite being an outsider, and thus often partially aware (or unaware) of the unwritten and unspoken codes and connections, there is value in standing outside, in not being part of the culture.
One can be less beholden, less biased, and face lower risk of consequences from producing unpopular findings, since everyone knows that when it’s over the evaluator will board the plane and leave the country.
The international consultant, very much an outsider position, also brings an international perspective to the table, based on evaluation experience in multiple countries and cultures.
The evaluator as friend?
I like the concept of critical friend, which I have found very useful in understanding and accepting my role as an evaluator. It implies that you are there to help through constructive criticism. One of the best descriptions comes from John MacBeath, a Cambridge University academic, in a 1998 article on improving school effectiveness:
The Critical Friend is a powerful idea, perhaps because it contains an inherent tension. Friends bring a high degree of unconditional positive regard. Critics are, at first sight at least, conditional, negative and intolerant of failure. Perhaps the critical friend comes closest to what might be regarded as ‘true friendship’ – a successful marrying of unconditional support and unconditional critique.
Good evaluators should be respected for their work. They are not going to be the most popular kid on the block and should not strive for that.
Sometimes evaluation findings are accepted, sometimes rejected, sometimes ignored. Sometimes you are hired again, sometimes you are not. As an independent consultant moving from one assignment to the next, one client to the next, you often never learn of the outcome of your work. It comes with the territory and you should not be disheartened by this.
I began this post by noting how evaluation is not a popular profession. In this age of online calumny and fake news, where many suspect any criticism of being driven by ulterior motives, the notion of accountability is more important than ever.
Nonetheless, if you stick to your guns, maintain your integrity and deliver credible and useful advice, you may be the best critical friend, the people who hired you have ever had.
Today we’ll look at when and how to share a piece of professional writing, specifically when it comes to producing notes or reports for international development work.
Three core elements of writing
Let me propose that writing is made up of three core elements: content, style, and management.
Content is what the writing is about, the rough material, the substance to be molded into shape, like turning a lump of clay into a sculpture. A near infinite number of topics are out there, waiting to be written about. The biggest hurdle may be deciding on which one to focus on. Think of content as the what.
Style is the form, the shape and design that the content assumes. Editing and revising for grammar, punctuation, clarity, structure; all those key style elements that Strunk and White, George Orwell and others address. The style must also be appropriate for the type of report and organization for which it is being written. Prose fiction, journalism, doctoral theses and UN reports are different animals. Each has its own logic and purpose and appropriate style. Think of style as the how.
Management is the process of producing the writing, the steps along the way, from concept to outline to draft to revisions to sharing for comment. As dull and prosaic (no pun intended) as this third element may sound, it matters quite a bit. You may have plenty of ideas in your head, and an inimitable writing style. However, if you don’t manage to write them down and prepare them for readers, it won’t matter. Think of management as the when, how much, where, to whom, etc. That is, anything that goes beyond content and style.
On a side note – if you don’t have at least basic competence in all three of the above, you will probably struggle. However, if you are part of a team responsible for the report, you can rely on each other. To a certain extent, team members can compensate for each other’s weaknesses.
Managing the written word
Perhaps for good reason, the third element, management, is the most neglected. What writer wants to think about managing their writing process? We are not all brilliant wordsmiths, such as the late Christopher Hitchens, who, astoundingly, could sit down and produce a polished, piece in just 20 minutes.
Most of us need to plan, and work rather laboriously toward the finished product. It’s not always pretty. Like any process, writing can be managed well or managed poorly, but it must be managed.
One way of improving writing is, of course, by exploiting the feedback of others. That becomes a little tricky when the feedback is from the manager, editor, or client who has commissioned you to do the work, however.
As you knit your brow and sigh over your unfinished report, questions you may ask yourself include:
You know your draft still needs work. Should you share it or continue revising it, even if it means delaying delivery?
How much detail should you include? Is it better to produce too much and pare it back, based on feedback? Or is it better to “park” extra material in reserve, and add it later, when you get the inevitable request to expand on this or that point?
Is it okay to leave in weak parts if you point out that you are aware of them and will continue to improve them?
Share now or share later?
You want to avoid sharing a draft that is too weak, since it could cause the reviewers to question your writing or analytical abilities, or commitment to quality.However, perhaps the draft is due in a few days, and you know it will not be ready. Should you deliver it on time, because that’s what was agreed, or ask for an extension? Generally, choose the latter: better to deliver late but good, than on time but poor.
However, if you do ask for an extension, let the person you report to, who will be reviewing the piece, know in advance. They may well be flexible, especially when it comes to internal deadlines.
If most sections are in good shape, but one section needs a lot of work, send the document with a note that section X needs a bit more time. Similarly, in those parts of your report where you know more information or analysis is needed, note that directly in the document, as a heads up. Better to deliver good writing that is incomplete — than weak writing that is complete.
If you have written good material but it exceeds the page limit you’ve been given, either hold it back or create an annex. The annex is your Joker card, where you can put surplus (but hopefully good) writing, and save it from oblivion.
Internal deadlines are your friends. Deadlines are often not hard, and delivering a few days, or even a week late might not make a difference. The writing process is managed by setting a series of intermediate milestones that need to be met. This is not college, where you can cram all night and deliver your paper before class in the morning.
Keep people in the loop on your progress. Share outlines, concepts, or smaller sections of the report in advance, to show that the work is progressing, and to get feedback. Or, have a few meetings or calls to keep the people who will be reviewing updated. This process is similar to how companies release “beta” versions of software programs, piloting them in the real world before upgrading them to the final release version. There is a clear advantage to sharing a work in progress, as opposed to a work you feel is close to complete. Others will see things that you don’t, making the revision process more efficient.
Unless you have an open-ended or a very long timeline, and almost no other obligations, remember that perfection is not the goal. If you are a consultant, you have been given a fixed budget or finite number of days. You need to produce competent, high quality, relevant work. That is what is asked and expected of you. Of course, you can always do more and better. But the best way to get there is through repeated practice, not fixating on this one piece.
Some reviewers will be more forgiving than others. Some focus on strengths, others on weaknesses. Your work will benefit from both. However, you will know which ones you can trust to provide constructive feedback on preliminary efforts. Reviewers are your allies. Use them.
There are no strict rules, but the better you are at managing how and when you share your work, the less stressful it will be, and the more pride you can take in the result.
For writers, the road to perfection passes through the review purgatory.
The fact that the review process is collaborative makes writing both easier and harder. Easier because the burden of improving the writing is shared. Harder, because you as the writer are exposed to the scrutiny and criticism of others.
In this blog post I will propose some ways of smoothing the rocky passage, from the perspective of both the giver of feedback and the receiver.
In the fields of international development and evaluation, sharing written drafts for comment is standard practice. While essential to good quality outputs, it is also a laborious process. When a report is developed, it can go through multiple rounds of revisions over a period lasting weeks, and even months.
A silent dialogue
Imagine, in this fast-paced world, a slow-motion conversation in which the speaker takes as much time as he or she needs to reflect and ruminate on a given subject. It is an extended back-and-forth dialogue with the audience that starts…and…stops…and…starts…and…goes…on…for…weeks. The dialogue continues until…no one has more to say, and it is finally over.
On top of that, imagine that the issues under discussion are technical in nature, and would mean little to most people listening in.
Such a conversation might sound agonizingly dull. But it mirrors the way good reports get written. Most of this dialogue is not spoken, of course. It takes place on the page. The back-and-forth is the writing, reviewing, commenting, editing, revising, and rewriting that happens in the “document space.” It is usually very effective. I have seen plenty of reports transformed from sub-par to excellent as a result.
A far from dull process
Being the responsible writer in this ‘dialogue’ is far from boring. It can, in fact, be nerve-wracking, waiting to see/hear what the other person thinks, knowing they will find and point out weaknesses (which is their job), and wondering how tough they will be.
If you are the primary team member responsible for the writing, after you have labored over your draft, there’s always a moment of trepidation after hitting the “send” button. Is the report on the right track? Is it broadly acceptable? How difficult will the comments be to address? How many comments will there be? Should I have spent another day revising before sending it in? If you are a consultant, you may even be wondering, Will I ever get hired by this client again?
In the fields of evaluation and development, you will be in the role of reviewer as well as reviewee. You need to be able to dish it out as well as take it. That is, to give and accept critiques of the reports that you and others write. These are skills most development professionals learn over the course of their career.
(I should note that the word “critique” is not normally used in these circumstances. It’s a little too loaded, perhaps. The preference is for “comments,” “feedback” or “review.” But critiquing is essentially what’s happening.)
When I first began working in this field, I was delighted to find weaknesses in a given document. Being asked to review the work of others gave me the sense that I had arrived, that I could hold my own among colleagues, most of whom were older and far more experienced. It gave me a confidence.
Unfortunately, it also occasionally caused me at times to become a bit cocky in my reviews. I may have expressed my reservations in language that was a little too harsh. I’ve learned that, on the written page at least, while being straightforward is fine, being severe is unnecessary and unhelpful.
Who comments?
Comments can be generated by the client, the manager overseeing the task, other members of the team, and by specialists from outside the team. For official publications, an editor will be hired. For certain documents, the feedback process may be formalized as a peer review process, as is done for academic journal articles.
If you are new to the field, you’ll need to get comfortable with feedback, because it will always be there. If you don’t receive feedback from someone, it is not because you are brilliant, I’m afraid. It’s because they either didn’t review your draft, or didn’t read very carefully.
On the flipside, you can always find constructive ways that work written by others can be improved. It may take a couple of read-throughs, but issues will come into focus, like those magic eye pictures or autostereograms that reveal a 3D image if you stare at them long enough.
Receiving a lot of comments means additional work, of course. But you want substantive feedback: it will make the report that much better. What you want to avoid is receiving feedback along the lines of “I don’t understand what you’re trying to do here” or “this is not what we were expecting” or “the quality is unacceptable.” That generally means you need to start over.
Then there is the pedantic reviewer, who finds fault with every minor issue or who gratuitously asks for everything to be explained ad nauseum, which can also be stressful.
Below are a few things to keep in mind:
On receiving feedback
All comments from the client or your manager will need to be addressed, either by incorporating them in the text or by making a good case for why not.
Other than the above two cases, you don’t need to address every single comment. Indeed, some comments may contradict one another.
When deciding the order in which to address comments, consider plucking the low-hanging fruit first. Addressing the easier comments first will give you an encouraging sense of progress, and additional time to reflect on how to tackle the trickier feedback.
Keep in mind that it is good if you get no feedback suggesting that the work’s approach was wrong, or if they don’t ask for a complete redo.
Before sharing your work with others, it is paramount to edit one’s own work. That is one way of reducing the amount of comments you will receive.
To avoid going down a cul-de-sac, it is a good idea to communicate with people who will be reviewing the piece before you send them the final draft to review. Share ideas and outlines with them early on, and incorporate feedback. This generates interest and buy-in for the work.
Don’t take criticism personally. It’s not you, it’s the writing.
On giving feedback
As you review, ask yourself:
Is the piece addressing the stated objectives, the questions it poses?
Is anything important missing?
Does the structure work?
Does the work flow in a natural progression?
Are certain elements underemphasized or overemphasized?
Are there any errors?
Avoid framing comments in a negative way, e.g. “this is incorrect” or “you didn’t understand.” Positive turns of phrase include “I suggest” or “think about phrasing it this way.” You don’t want to demotivate the writer with harsh criticism.
Although you probably have not been asked to copyedit, if you do come across grammatical errors or typos, it’s not inappropriate to simply make the correction. When I do that, I’ll add a note to the effect “that I took the liberty of doing some light editing” or that I “made a few edits along the way.”
There will be reports which are poor quality, or completely miss the mark. Remedial measures may be needed, including a complete rewrite, or even another person to write it. Even this situation should be handled diplomatically.
You can write comments directly into the report, and also include general comments in the body or in your email response.
Use the sandwich approach — start with what you like about the report, and end on a positive note. Highlight the strengths. That’s encouraging for the writer.
As a general rule, feedback makes everyone’s work better. It is the essence of quality control. Having more eyes poring over a report, more brains scanning it, is effective for uncovering issues before a written work is signed, sealed and delivered.
Sometimes it may feel as though you are getting hammered by critics. If your critics are insightful and forthright, what they’re really doing is helping you hammer your work into shape. And that’s a good thing.
Historically, plagues have been considered a manifestation of god’s wrath, and as punishment for our sins. But what if coronavirus is, in fact, a god himself?
The coronavirus is invisible, powerful, ubiquitous, mysterious. This new god has reached every corner of our lives, touching almost every one of the 7.8 billion people living on the planet.
Like an intruder in the dark, the virus sneaks up on us with stealth-like precision. Yet, Coronavirus-God works its dark magic in broad daylight. Even as we engage in mundane, innocent tasks, interacting with our fellow humans, some of us are stricken down.
Coronavirus-God has humbled nations into submission. The best (and worst) laid plans of political leaders have been consigned to the shredder. Our old way of life has been suddenly, even violently, altered. We are weak and vulnerable in its face.
This god is mysterious. We know many things about it, but we don’t know a lot. Scientists are not able to determine exactly how, and why, it is transmitted. That is, what are the probabilities of getting infected through different types of proximity, different types of contact by going outside, with or without a mask? Of passing someone without a mask on the street? Of picking up my mail? Of eating food bought at the grocery store or delivered? Of being exposed to it just one time vs. ten times?
My wife has a cousin who lives with her husband and daughter in Rimini, Italy. The cousin fell ill, and was diagnosed with Covid-19. Her husband and daughter did not get it, or at least did not show any symptoms. (The cousin recovered.)
Another case: a distant in-law of my wife, in Germany, is a healthcare worker who contracted the virus. She had to quarantine herself and recovered. Her husband was tested, and found he was negative, even though he was obviously exposed before she knew she had been infected. They had been living and eating and sleeping together. How much more exposed to the virus can one be? Gods works in mysterious ways.
Gods, such as the Old Testament God Yahweh, have a track record (faithfully recorded in that tome) of cruelty and destruction. Pick any number of Old Testament stories. During the Flood, God destroys all of humanity, saving only Noah and his family, and as many species that could join them on their big wooden ship.
Indeed, many religions have gods of destruction, gods of plague, wreaking havoc on sinners and innocent alike. Perhpas coronavirus is a goddess in pathogen form? In many cultures, there are plague gods and gods of death. Kali, Hindu goddess of death and destruction, comes to mind.
In the past, natural disasters and plagues were attributed to God. The Black Death, the bubonic plague that devasted Europe and Asia in the 14th century, was seen by many as God’s punishment. Most people know better now, but among the faithful, the question of whether the coronavirus is an act of God is not clear cut.
Regardless, in the fight to develop anti-viral medication and a vaccine, this “god of death” is, for now at least, winning.
Coronavirus-God is targeting, among others, the people we rely on most, people who are doing good. From doctors and nurses and healthcare workers, and extending on down to workers in essential services who maintain order, provide us with care and food. It is targeting the elderly, people living their normal lives one day, suddenly taken from us the next.
Thus far, the new god does not have its own religion or its own worshippers. But it is asking us to sacrifice what we hold dear.
Will we prove up to the task and vanquish this new god of death? What good, or what evil will it reveal in us when its shadow passes?
Disasters like this help me understand what drives people into the arms of religion.
I am glad we humans were driven from Eden, that our eyes were opened, that we were able to learn about the world, and make it safer and better for ourselves, rather than being entirely at god’s mercy.
Pray to your god. Be comforted. But for me, the most important defenses we have are science, the rules we live by, and our common humanity.
The defense, the battle, really requires that massive amounts of assistance and resources be deployed to fight the virus. Many countries struggle to take care of their citizens in normal times. The coronavirus god has hit them like a hurricane hitting a rubber raft.
Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors without Borders) — a highly respected international humanitarian NGO, to which I have been donating — is supporting health authorities in providing care for patients with COVID-19, keeping essential medical services running, among performing other critical work. The IMF itself is providing $1 trillion in lending support to help countries maintain liquidity. The World Bank is sending $160 billion in financing to 100 countries over the next 15 months to help them protect their poor and vulnerable strengthen their health sectors and economies, among other things.
The Bible says you cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon. And yet money is exactly what is needed. Not wealth to be worshipped, but money to help those who are struggling. Money for the vulnerable who are struggling to feed themselves. Money to buy the protective equipment healthcare workers need. Money to prevent the collapse of economies.
Of course, among most households, money is much now harder to come by than it was just a few months ago, before the new god descended upon us. Millions of jobs have been lost. Millions of shops and restaurants are closed, the future looks uncertain. This all leads people to save rather than spend.
So, who is left to fight this Coronavirus-God?
In Genesis 32:22–32, Jacob, grandson of Abraham, wrestles all night with a man, who turns out to be either God or an angel, depending on different interpretations. The struggle left Jacob limping, but also with a new name, Israel. He came to be considered the traditional ancestor of the people of Israel.
Here is a modern parallel: Let Jacob, founder of a nation, be the state, our government. And the world’s governments are being tested as never before. They are locked in an intense struggle with this Coronavirus-God.
Many governments (and the societies over which they preside) will come out of this period wounded and limping. But it also represents a chance to start anew. A chance to reflect on how we want to live in the new era that will dawn when this is all over.
That’s a question on many people’s minds these days. A lot of us are following the numbers closely and wondering, how safe am I?
To truly understand risks, you must account for the time period for which those risks are valid.
According to recent forecasts by the University of Washington’s predictive model the U.S. may lose up to 68,000 people to Covid-19 before the pandemic is over. That number looks low, since as of April 24, 2020, the US has already recorded more than 50,000 deaths, and well over 2,000 per day are added to the toll.
If this forecast is accurate, the risk of dying would be 1 in 4,853. Not great, but not alarming, either. At first glance. Those odds are lower than from dying in a pedestrian accident, which are 1 in 541.
What’s wrong with this picture? Why are extreme lockdown measures being taken at the national, state, and local levels to deal with Covid-19, but not to mitigate many other, often preventable causes of death?
Even if the U.S. were to lose 2.2 million people, based on an alarming early forecast (which did not take into account containment measures), the risk to any one individual would still be “just” 1 in 166. That is far lower than dying of heart disease (1 in 6), and still lower than the risk of dying in a car accident (1 in 106), or even, supposedly, just from falling (1 in 111). (These estimates come from the U.S.-based National Safety Council.) The fatality risk per person from base jumping (pictured above) is around 1 in 60 annually.
Here’s the rub: the seemingly low “risk of death” odds related to the coronavirus are misleading. Why? Because the they don’t account for the time span over which they play out.
Time is a key factor when computing odds of anything happening. You see, you may die in an accident over the next 40 years. But you may die of Covid-19 in the next 40 days.
That, in a nutshell, is why our response to dealing with Covid-19 is so urgent and extreme when compared to our response to dealing with heart disease, car crashes, and other fatalities.
The virus has exposed the fragility of our society
Covid-19 has revealed how fragile both our societies and economies are. This is true both at the local and the global level. It is a story of how a microscopic pathogen has wreaked global havoc. With a diameter of just 60-140 nanometers (laid end-to-end, about 600,000 would make an inch), Covid-19 is nature’s nano-weapon against humanity.
The odds of succumbing may appear fairly low, but Covid-19 is scary because it is an imminent threat. In this post I’m going to explain why.
The invisible weapon against humanity
Let’s review. The coronavirus is adept at homing in on the most vulnerable among us, to disable and even kill. However, there is no guarantee that those who appear fit and healthy have dodged a bullet, as they can succumb as well. But unlike being hit by a “normal” weapon, in many cases people will never even know they have been “attacked.” In other cases, it will only become apparent days later.
Worst of all, the virus has weaponized humans against each other. We, the most social of creatures, can’t come physically close to one another because we might accidentally cause each other to die.
And so, almost every government in the world has told its citizens to keep a distance of least six feet from each other. Entire countries are under stay-at-home orders of varying strictness. Businesses have been shut, economies are under massive strain and headed for collapse. It is as though the Great Depression is being resurrected like a zombie from the dead.
The odds of not making it
As bad as things are, in a way, things could be much, much worse. Only a small share of each country’s population shows symptoms of being infected, i.e. are reported as Covid-19 cases.
There is general agreement that these case numbers—tracked by Johns Hopkins and avidly followed by perhaps millions of people—are significantly under-counting the actual cases. The actual number of persons infected is not yet known, given the still unacceptably low testing rates in most countries. Even so, even if the rates of dying doubles, the chance of any single person succumbing would remain very low.
A study from the Stanford Prevention Research Center estimated the absolute risk of dying among individuals younger than 65 without underlying diseases at just 1.7 per million in Germany (a country that so far has managed to keep death rates relatively low) to 79 per million in New York, the U.S. epicenter of the virus. That comes to a relatively minuscule risk of 1 person out of 588,000 in Germany, and a still very low risk of one person out of 12,658 in New York state.
These odds depend on age, gender and underlying health conditions, among other factors. Men, for example, are more at risk than women. And the risks are much greater for older adults than for the young.
In the U.S., the pandemic is taking a critical toll on African-American and Hispanic communities. This is due to the lethal combination of having worse underlying health conditions, and that they are generally less likely to have health insurance.
Let’s take demographics out of the equation for now, though, and consider the entire U.S. population of about 330 million people. That includes infected and non-infected, of course. And let’s remember that we don’t know the actual rate of infection, because not everyone is tested.
If U.S. fatalities from Covid-19 reach 68,000 before this is over, the absolute death rate for all ages would come to about one in 5,500. Looked at another way, if those are the odds of the average American dying of Covid-19, it means that 5,499 out of every 5,500 will survive this.
I am not minimizing the importance of the measures taken to try and control the virus. In fact, the projection are fairly “low” largely because of all the social distancing measures being taken. This may be lost on the “liberate America” protesters
Healthcare and hospital systems are under strain in many areas. Clearly, they are not prepared to handle a surge in patients, just as morgues and cemeteries were not prepared to handle them. Doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers—the real heroes of this crisis—are putting their lives on the line while caring for patients. Often, they don’t have the equipment they need.
An outside observer might say, why all the fuss? Why the lockdowns if the risk of dying is so low, not much higher than a bad normal flu season?
Compare these numbers to the Black Death, which hit Europe in 1348. An astounding 30-60 percent of the population may have died. For those going through it, it must have been apocalyptic. Here’s a firsthand account from a chronicle kept by William de la Dene at the cathedral priory of Rochester 30 miles east of London, written in the year the plague arrived:
“A great mortality … destroyed more than a third of the men, women and children. As a result, there was such a shortage of servants, craftsmen, and workmen, and of agricultural workers and labourers, that a great many lords and people, although well-endowed with goods and possessions, were yet without service and attendance. Alas, this mortality devoured such a multitude of both sexes that no one could be found to carry the bodies of the dead to burial…”
We can count ourselves lucky that we’ve only got Covid-19. (But this does not mean we can afford complacency. The next virus to hit us could conceivably be much worse.)
Covid-19 and the other risks we face
To return to my initial argument, if you compare the odds of dying of Covid-19 with the odds of dying from other factors, it is essential to understand over what time period it plays out.
That is because there seem to be many other causes of death for which the odds of dying are much, much higher. They include cancer (1 in 7), suicide (1 in 86), car accident (1 in 106), or from a gun assault (1 in 298). Even the chances of dying from choking on food (1 in 2,618) or from being hit while bicycling (1 in 4,060) seem to be worse than dying from covid-19, at least if you’re under 65.
The U.S.-based National Safety Council provides a long list of those odds:
Lifetime odds of death for selected causes, United States, 2018
Cause of Death
Odds of Dying
Heart disease
1 in 6
Cancer
1 in 7
All preventable causes of death
1 in 25
Chronic lower respiratory disease
1 in 26
Suicide
1 in 86
Opioid overdose
1 in 98
Motor vehicle crash
1 in 106
Fall
1 in 111
Gun assault
1 in 298
Pedestrian accident
1 in 541
Motorcyclist
1 in 890
Drowning
1 in 1,121
Fire or smoke
1 in 1,399
Choking on food
1 in 2,618
Bicyclist
1 in 4,060
Sunstroke
1 in 7,770
Accidental gun discharge
1 in 9,077
Electrocution, radiation, extreme temperatures, and pressure
1 in 12,484
Sharp objects
1 in 29,483
Hot surfaces and substances
1 in 45,186
Hornet, wasp, and bee stings
1 in 53,989
Cataclysmic storm
1 in 54,699
Dog attack
1 in 118,776
Lightning
1 in 180,746
The odds above show the risk in 2018 of someone in the U.S. dying of these various causes, but not dying in the year 2018 of any of those causes. (If that were the case, 47 million Americans would have died of cancer in 2018, not the estimated 609,000.)
Knowing that your chance of one day dying of cancer are one in seven may be unpleasant, and dying in a pedestrian accident 1 in 541. But these risks do not reflect the chance of dying within the next few months, but over the rest of your lifetime, which will extend for many more decades.
The average age of the U.S. population is 38.2 years, and average life expectancy is 78.5, so the odds in the table above really cover, on average, 40 years of a person’s life span.
At 50 years old, I still have, actuarially speaking, about 34 years left to live, and 34 years during which I could die as a pedestrian crossing the street. I don’t like to think about it, but I can handle it. But I could die of covid-19 in the next month. For proper comparison, it means that the risk of me getting hit by a car in the next month is 408 times (12 months times 34 years) lower than the 1 in 541 odds. The odds are now about 1 in 220,000 of me dying as a pedestrian next month.
Now look again at the odds of dying of coronavirus, of 1 in 5,500 in the very near future. Things look quite different.
To take the most extreme form, the risk of any one of us dying eventually is, unfortunately, 100%. As the Game of Thrones saying reminds us, valar morghulis (“all men must die” in High Valyrian). At the other end of the extreme, the risk of any one of us dying in the next 24 hours is close to zero.
There you have it. This is why there is, to put it mildly, a rather significant time dimension to risks. And that is why Covid-19 is so brutal. It is not about the possibility of dying from it, one day, maybe in a few years, maybe far in the future. It is that you, your loved ones, your friends, your colleagues, may die of it tomorrow.
Be prudent, be safe, and treasure the life you have. Remember, the biggest risk in life is to die without having lived.
But let’s leave the last word to Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. As the inimitable Tyrion Lannister puts it, “Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
It is the middle of April 2020. Restaurants around the world stand empty.
In the U.S. we are entering the second month of Covid-19 restrictions on movement, business and social activities. As with most of the world, virtually the entire country is under some form of ‘stay at home’ order or lockdown.
Turbulence and uncertainty
The coronavirus pandemic has created huge uncertainties, including: how the easily the virus is transmitted, why some are infected and others aren’t, why some but not others succumb, when the combined health-economic crisis will be over, how bad the damage to the economy will be, and when will it recover.
The fear and uncertainty have been tracked by the stock market, which has exhibited violent swings. March 2020 was the most turbulent month of the stock market in the 124-year history of the Dow Jones Industrials, as measured by daily falls and rises.
While virtually everyone has been affected by the crisis, it would be an overstatement to say that “we’re all in this together.” Amid all the uncertainty, one thing is certain: the poor and vulnerable are going to suffer the most.
Those of us who still have jobs — especially jobs that don’t require us to leave the home — are the lucky ones. We can still count on an income (for now, anyway.) As businesses shutter, jobs have become a scarcer commodity and almost overnight, millions have suddenly lost their main source of livelihood. Since the middle of March, 10 percent of Americans have lost their jobs.
Unprecedented use of the term “unprecedented”
On the economic front, the present pandemic has begun eliciting comparisons not with the global financial crisis of 2008, but with the decade-long Great Depression that afflicted the nation starting in 1929. Policy makers and citizens alike are hoping for a quick recovery.
In the meantime, a shocking number of people face a grim reality as they have been pushed to the unemployment front line. In the three weeks ending on April 9, 16 million people claimed unemployment benefits. The unemployment rate has spiked to an estimated 13 percent, the highest since the Great Depression.
A Pew Research Center survey taken at the end of March found that nearly nine of out 10 Americans said their lives had changed a little and 44% said their lives had changed in a major way as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
These, and many other, massive changes did not gradually set in; they occurred in a matter of weeks.
The people most affected, of course, are those who have succumbed to the virus, and those in hospitals. Then there are the millions of doctors, nurses, EMT workers and thers in the healthcare sector, working on the front lines and putting their lives at risk. These new heroes are the most highly exposed to the dangers of the pandemic.
Unpleasant choices
However, on a structural level, the blow has landed hardest on low-income workers (as usual) and informal workers. Millions of people have lost their jobs in sectors that are collapsing, such as hospitality, retail, travel, manufacturing, house cleaning, childcare, or in sectors which are considered essential businesses and services, where continuing to work means more chances of exposure.
In some of these sectors — groceries, warehouses, delivery services — demand has even surged, and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being created. This is hardly a cause for jubilation, however, because simply leaving your home to go to a workplace puts you at greater risk. The low-paid employees at nursing homes, and in social care, cleaning, etc. naturally are also rewarded with a higher chance of infection.
Those who are low-paid do not have the relative luxury of white-collar workers to stay at home and work remotely. If they quit their jobs, they lose a paycheck. If they stick with it, they may be putting their lives and those of their loved ones at risk. A grim choice, to say the least.
For those in sectors that have just cratered, their source of livelihood has evaporated and it is uncertain for how long, or whether, those jobs will come back. Predictions are that many restaurants and other businesses will close permanently, which does not bode well for the economic recovery after restrictions are lifted and life goes back to normal, or a “new normal,” whatever that will look like.
While the government is spending trillions of dollars to cushion the blow, people working in informal jobs, including undocumented migrants, will not qualify for government assistance. Even the $1,200 in government relief going to the rest is not nearly enough to make up for lost employment.
And so, millions are cast out to sea in a leaky vessel, heading toward the twin catastrophe of Scylla and Charybdis. These are the people who will struggle to survive using the safety nets or their own meagre (and often non-existent) savings to carry them through. They also have fewer resources— such as savings and other assets — to fall back on during hard times.
The global shock
Low-paid, poor households are considered “vulnerable” during normal times. Vulnerable to what? Well, to the catastrophic situation we are in now. This “shock,” a term used by economists to refer to a sudden disruption with negative consequences, is probably already pushing many vulnerable into destitution.
Normally, shocks hit people at an individual level, or because a sector has been hit. Individual shocks might come in the form of an illness or injury, or death of a family breadwinner, which dry up an income stream. Sector level shocks affect an entire industry, such as the shutting down of the coal industry in England under Thatcher’s reforms, or of the textile industry in Nigeria when the country began allowing cheaper imports from China. Shocks also occasionally hit an entire nation, such as Hurricane Maria which devastated Domenica and Puerto Rico in in 2017. But this time, the shock is global, all-encompassing and, yes, unprecedented.
For individual workers, compounding the risks that come with working outside the home are the risks of simply getting to work. Many low-paid workers rely on public or shared transportation. Obviously it is more difficult to practice social distancing in confined spaces, such as subways or buses.
Circumstances are tough enough for the vulnerable who are still healthy. But for those who become ill, the situation gets much worse. Getting sick while just getting by imposes a cost not only to people’s immediate physical health, but is a tax on livelihoods and the wellbeing of dependents.
In the U.S., as in many developing countries, there are three specific areas where the poor slip through holes in social safety nets: paid sick leave, health insurance, and unemployment benefits. Combined, these big holes in the net can, perversely, incentivize people to risk their own wellbeing —and now, in the age of Covid-19, their own lives and those of others.
Lack of paid sick leave
The lack of paid sick leave doesn’t just harm individuals, it threatens the public welfare. According to the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), which highlighted this issue in November 2019 (well before the pandemic hit these shores), over 32 million workers in the U.S. have no paid sick days off, with low wage workers being the least likely to have sick leave. The combination of no of sick leave and low income incentivizes behaviors that run against measures needed to mitigate the risks thrown up by the pandemic. Covid-19 can thus “cost them their livelihoods, as well as their health”.
Without paid sick leave, workers cannot afford to take unpaid time off when they are sick. That means they will continue to work, while exposing others to their illness, with potentially deadly implications. In other words, individual choices, resulting from public policies, end up harming the public good, even as it widens inequality.
Lack of health insurance
In the U.S., many of those same workers who do not have paid sick leave also lack health insurance.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of uninsured Americans fell significantly —from 46.5 million to 27 million — between the time the Affordable Healthcare Act was passed in 2010, and 2016, Obama’s last year in office. Since then, the number of uninsured Americans has been creeping up again. From 2017 to 2018 it increased by 500,000, according to Tolbert et al (2019).
Unexpected healthcare costs threaten to burden already limited household finances. They disincentivize seeking treatment or preventive care. Though some governments provide free or reduced-cost services to its poorest, the coronavirus may now present an additional expense for those ineligible, or who cannot access it.
Lack of unemployment benefits
For the many who work in the informal sector, or as gig workers — think Uber and Lyft drivers — there are no unemployment benefits.
Although governments in some countries are making an effort to support those who have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, if you don’t have a contract, you can’t be laid off, and you can’t claim benefits. You just watch your income shrink or disappear.
Safety nets under strain
Meanwhile, NBC News reports that nonprofit community centers, who primarily serve as safety nets for un- and underinsured American citizens and immigrants, are running out of funding as the coronavirus ramps up. Not surprisingly, the poorest are suffering the most, as this USA Today article points out. A drop in donations, volunteers, supplies, and certainty of funding, combined with overall lack of preparedness, is forcing these clinics to reduce their services.
Compounding poverty
Similar to the way in which investors reap compound interest, money begets more money in an upward spiral of wealth accumulation, so does poverty beget more poverty in a downward spiral asset depletion.
Thus, other poverty factors and demographics can compound the economic and health impact of the coronavirus on the poor. For example, the poor tend to live in smaller homes, more cramped environments (think of urban slums and shantytowns) and in larger families. This makes social distancing more difficult, and isolating the sick next to impossible.
Even if more vulnerable and elderly family members are staying home and practicing social distancing, someone who works, not by choice but by necessity — may bring the virus home with them.
Being poor is bad enough, but the coronavirus, and especially the government measures taken to combat and contain it – shutting down businesses, ordering people stay at home — hurt the poor much more than anyone else.
I’ve focused on the situation in the US above. With its weak support for the poor, the US, despite being a rich country, has quite a bit in common with developing countries. A big difference is that the US is home to the world’s global currency. It can print as many dollars as it needs to bail itself out (although a move not entirely devoid of fiscal consequences).
A far-off consolation?
Plagues and pandemics sometimes reorder societies. It may be a meager consolation, but sometimes the reordering benefits the lower classes, leveling the playing field. After the Black Death swept through Europe in the 14th century, killing between 30 and 60 percent of its population, demand for labor jumped, serfs were freed from their masters, and wages increased.
For those who have been alarmed by the relentless rise in inequality in rich countries, the pandemic may be a blessing in disguise, although for many of the poor living through this crisis now it will be too little too late.
Life was simple. I had planned to devote this blog to
helping organizations set up monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems.
Then global events overtook me. And all of us.
With the coronavirus, the invisible Covid-19, we have woken
up to find ourselves in a not-so-brave new world. Socializing is over —
social distancing is in. As our economic, social, and cultural lives are shut down
by the health scare and accompanying protocols, it seems almost impossible to
have a conversation in which the virus doesn’t intrude. It is equally rare to
read news, or any article, that isn’t about the topic in one way or another.
And I find it impossible to go back to my rough draft on M&E systems. The
new coronavirus reality has occupied our minds.
Unlike anything in living memory, this invisible, odorless
and often symptom-free virus has abruptly changed our world, affecting nearly
everyone. Perhaps remote Amazon communities and young infants are the only humans
on the planet still unaware, as country after country shuts down all public
life and economies are pushed to the brink of collapse.
We now live in a world of isolation and uncertainty —
over our personal health and economic well-being. This uncertainty is fueled by
the fact that for the first time in over a century we are experiencing a
pandemic of this scope. Many of us have gone, in a matter of weeks, from fixating
over the costs to humanity of climate change, (a medium-to-long-term
civilizational threat) to the costs of coronavirus, which are immediate and
life threatening in a very personal way. (Ironically, the global coronavirus shutdown
seems to be the best thing that has happened for emissions reductions in
decades, although don’t count on the effect lasting after the social distancing
era ends.)
Covid-19, this shrouded, faceless phantom with a scythe, silently stalking the globe, has triggered massive, rapid policy changes and behavioral changes, each with economic consequences. Last week, 3.3 million Americans filed unemployment claims. Whole sectors — travel, hospitality, dining, entertaining — are on their knees and it is far from clear how many will rise again from the rubble.
Who knows how bad it will be, or what world we will re-emerge into? After countless deaths, will humanity emerge healthier, having survived, and become inoculated against the virus, or will it be more vulnerable? Will we socialize less, now that we have grown accustomed to virtual meetings, or socialize more, because we’ll have been starved of real human contact? Whoever reads this blog years from now will know the answer. I don’t.
Notable from an M&E perspective is our ability to track the number of cases — infected, recovered, deceased —in real time across the globe, as illustrated by this Johns Hopkins University dashboard. I will venture to say there has been nothing else like it in the history of monitoring, where everyone with access to the internet (several billion people, now) can follow a global phenomenon as it unfolds, with almost hourly updates. This not the Olympics (now postponed), but a deadly kind of score-keeping, nonetheless.
Of course, the numbers we see in many countries must be taken with a grain of salt — would anyone like to hazard a guess about why Russia (population 146 million) is reporting fewer cases than Luxembourg (population 602,000)?
Aside from nature of a country’s political regime, the amount of testing seems to be correlated with the number of cases — the more tests that are carried out, the more that infections are found. Much more accurate data on infections and mortality rates would require testing a large, randomly selected sample of the population in each country.
At present, those who get tested are only those who think they have symptoms, or who are able to get tested. Many are infected and don’t know it. And there are some who would like to get tested but cannot, for reasons of access or lack of test kits or hospital resources.
So, the tracking is not a reflection of reality, but it is a near approximation, and we must use our own powers of reasoning to analyze their accuracy, what they numbers mean, and why they differ. Nonetheless, this sharing and publicizing of data is a remarkable phenomenon, with political implications.
Governments, when they finally decided to react, are passing policies and stimulus measures remarkably swiftly, with massive interventions in public life and in the economy, pumping in trillions of dollars to cushion the blow. This is not to say that the measures are always well designed, and the lack of coordination between countries is lamentable. But, from a policy perspective, it is quite astounding to see how quickly evidence and evaluation of an issue — chiefly by epidemiologists such as Neil Ferguson and colleagues at Imperial College, London — is taken seriously on board and turned into policy.
As a thought experiment, imagine if the world were tracking, on a daily basis, every death from malaria, every case of child mortality, every woman killed by her partner, every rise in greenhouse gas emissions, every time another person slips into poverty. Armed with this real time information, citizens would be busy educating themselves on the issues, how to prevent them, following the rise and fall of deaths, or emissions, in each country. Imagine if governments were spending billions and trillions of dollars to mitigate these problems and find solutions.
Of course, it is quite difficult to imagine such a thing. Why? Because the people affected are too few, relatively speaking, and they are too poor. The problems are too distant, geographically or temporally speaking, from those in power.
But we now have a pretty good idea of where the tipping
point is. That is, the point at which society and government suddenly become
willing to act. It occurs when the threat to people in middle and high-income
countries is immediate and potentially fatal. It is too early to know the mortality
rate for this pandemic, but it might lie between 1 and 2 percent, although using
the Johns Hopkins the range, is remarkably wide right now. At the time of
writing (March 27, 2020) among countries with at least 5,000 cases, mortality
is just 0.6 percent in Germany and 0.8 percent in Switzerland, but 7.6 percent
in Spain and an alarming 10.2 percent in Italy.
Coronavirus cases (countries with at least 5,00 cases)
Cases
Deaths
Mortality rate
Germany
47,373
285
0.6%
Austria
7,317
58
0.8%
South Korea
9,332
139
1.5%
United States
86,012
1,301
1.5%
Switzerland
12,311
207
1.7%
Belgium
7,284
289
4.0%
China
81,897
3,296
4.0%
United Kingdom
11,816
580
4.9%
France
29,581
1,698
5.7%
Netherlands
7,469
547
7.3%
Iran
32,332
2,378
7.4%
Spain
64,059
4,858
7.6%
Italy
80,589
8,215
10.2%
Source:
Own calculations, using data from Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus
Covid-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering
No one is quite sure as to why, although various theories
have been advanced, including access to and prevalence of testing (Germany is
doing better), demographic factors (South Korea has a younger population) and,
of course, government policy on social distancing.
For the historical record, at the time this blog is posted, there have been 585,040 confirmed Covid-19 infections and 26,455 deaths worldwide. (Between the time I drafted this post in the morning and publishing it this afternoon, the number of cases jumped by more than 35,000, and the number of deaths by over 1,500. That is how bad things are.) For those who are reading this in the future, however, the tally will be many millions of cases, and hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of deaths.
This is not a joyful post to write. Hopefully, in the weeks and months to come there will, again, eventually, be positive news and issues to write about. For now, one can take some small comfort in knowing that M&E systems, if properly deployed, can be used to inform decisions for the common good. In the meantime, stay safe and keep well.
This blog post about beneficiaries is built around a series of questions. Why? Because whether you are a program designer, a program implementer or an evaluator, you spend much of your professional life trying to find answers to them.
What policymakers want to know
Policies are generally designed with the aim of allocating
resources or creating opportunities to one or more segments of a given population.
A question policymakers often ask
themselves is: Who will benefit if…?
Addressing issues related to program beneficiaries depends a
lot on how the questions are framed. Typical questions might be: Who will
benefit from a new policy? Who is benefiting from the status quo? What are my
policy options? or What will be the effect of choosing policy A over policy B?
Existing conditions, and who is benefiting from them, are
themselves influenced by prior policy decisions. (And don’t forget that not implementing
a policy change is a policy in itself.)
Policy choices and questions like those above also concern actors
in the foreign aid / development assistance sector. Governments in rich
countries need to be able justify their assistance programs to their taxpayers.
They want to be able to justify their foreign aid spending. One important way they
do this is by demonstrating that their foreign aid program is making a positive
difference in people’s lives.
Policymakers in recipient countries want to exert a positive
impact for some or all of their constituents. And they generally want to be
rewarded for it, for example by getting re-elected, or their bosses getting
re-elected.
Design, deliver and evaluate
The task of program designers is to demonstrate how investments will deliver. How will the money flowing into one end of the foreign aid funnel be transformed into better lives at the other end? This has to be figured out. It is a program logic issue.
The task of program implementers is to deliver on the program’s design, to realize the goals and reach the targets that are set out. Implementers address the question of How do I use the resources I have to produce the results they want? Think of it as a form of foreign aid alchemy. “The base metal” of financing, resources, plans etc. is, if all goes well, turned into a golden opportunity. This is a management issue.
The task of program evaluators is to figure out whether the desired benefits, in fact, came through. Evaluators apply a set of methods to determine What happened? Why, or why not? This is an analytical issue.
When a beneficiary isn’t a beneficiary
Some organizations prefer to avoid using the term
“beneficiary” as it has connotations of passivity. Other terms include client,
customer, end-user, program participants, affected groups or
program-affected-populations. Each has a slightly different connotation. Because
“beneficiary” is a catch-all term, I’ll stick with it in this post.
The case of roads
Let’s use investments in roads as an example. (I am
currently involved in three evaluations of road projects for the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, and so find myself thinking quite a bit about this
issue.) While road networks connect virtually everyone nowadays, roads
deteriorate over time. They need maintenance, resurfacing, and complete
rehabilitation.
Roads facilitate the movement of people and goods. Similar
to roads, canals (mostly for cargo), railways (people and cargo), sewerage
systems (wastewater), pipelines (oil and gas), power lines (electricity) telephone
lines (communication), and broadband cables (information), improve the flow of
things people need and value.
By reducing resistance, these various channels save time and
energy compared to alternatives for moving things or people from point A to
point B. When these channels are cut,
blocked, or destroyed, havoc can occur. Access is impeded. Very quickly, everything
becomes more difficult and costly.
The beneficiary perspective
From an individual’s viewpoint, the impact will depend on, for
example, where that road leads, how often they use it, what they use it for,
and how easy it is to reach. Is there
a paved feeder road, a gravel road, or a path? Is there a mountain or river
that must first be crossed?
Many other questions can be asked. Are you a farmer who
sells produce at a weekly market along the road? Is your village close by and connected to the
road via a well-maintained access road?
Maybe the new road won’t make any difference to you
financially, but it saves you time, and improves your quality of life. It’s
much more pleasant to drive along a smooth asphalt road at 80 km per hour than
a bumpy one with perilous potholes. You might not see money in your pocket, but
you will feel more connected to the outside world if you live near a good road
instead of a bad one.
It’s also possible that you don’t see the effect today, but
will see it years later. If your parent has a stroke five years from now, the
new road could make a big difference in how quickly can you get them to the
hospital.
The evaluator perspective
Now consider the issue from the perspective of a researcher
or evaluator. You’re looking not at individuals but at aggregate effects. These
are less precise, but more useful. You don’t want to collect five hundred
stories of how the improved infrastructure has changed, or not changed, lives.
You want to measure trends and aggregate changes. You want to know the effect
of the new road on the population as whole.
And there are questions about distance: What if an old
road with a rough surface and full of potholes is rebuilt? Are you a
beneficiary if you are living in a town 2 km from the newly rehabilitated road?
What about if you live 5 km or 10 km away?Or only people who use
vehicles, i.e. not pedestrians?
In the past, it was common for road evaluations to pick a
distance on either side of the road in question, draw two imaginary lines, and consider
anyone within this band, the “corridor of influence” was a beneficiary. The distance
of 5 km was considered too wide, and 2 km came to be considered a more
reasonable distance. An alternative, and more conservative way of estimating
road beneficiaries is to only survey people directly using the road. This ignores
indirect beneficiaries, but road users are easier to count, and gives more
confidence in the result.
The data you collect will depend very much on how you draw
the line, who you choose to include among your potential beneficiaries, and
what assumptions you make.
Analytical tools
The previous questions in this blog post are just the tip of
the iceberg. When thinking about how people are affected, we can ask many, many
more. For example, here are questions
about (potential) beneficiaries that evaluators will ask:
What is our population of interest?
How many beneficiaries are there?
Where do they live?
How many are direct / indirect beneficiaries?
How are they benefiting?
By how much are they benefiting, in relative and absolute terms?
Among project-affected persons, how many are benefiting?
Why are some people benefiting and not others?
How are the benefits distributed among income groups? Among different stakeholders?
Are some people taking advantage of the benefits more than others?
Are some people dis-benefiting, i.e. negatively affected as a result of the project?
What methods should we use?
What are the critical information sources?
Who should we to talk to?
How should we talk to them?
How many people should we survey?
How big should the survey sample be?
Where (what population) should the sample be taken from?
What types of groups should be sampled?
What questions should be asked?
Although beyond the scope of this blog post, common
measurement tools for addressing questions about road project beneficiaries road
are origin-destination (O-D) surveys and traffic counts. A range of approaches
and methods exist for each.
Your decision on what approach to take will be influenced by
resources at your disposal – money, time, expertise, etc. Your decision will
also be guided by what others have done before you.
But, perhaps more than anything else, your findings will be
influenced by the questions you ask. Assuming your methods are sound, the findings
may vary, but none will be entirely wrong.
On the face of it, independent consulting in international
development is not an appealing career choice.
You’re on your own, with no institution to back you up. You’re an outsider, a transient professional,
an interloper. You touch down for a few weeks in a foreign country and have
little time to acclimatize or develop relationships. You often find yourself counting on team members
who up until yesterday were complete strangers. You have to pray that they’re
competent.
Of course, there are plenty of independent consultants for
whom their career path was less a choice than a default position. It might have
been thrust upon them. They may have originally sought the stability, structure
and institutional opportunities that come with being part of a big development
agency or a consulting firm of whatever size. But that didn’t happen.
Freedom is not always a blessing
Certainly, independent consulting comes with a lot of
freedom. But freedom is only a positive thing insofar as you enjoy being
untethered and don’t mind not belonging. There are a lot of reluctant gig
workers out there.
Although it is rarely acknowledged, there are non-negligible
advantages to being told what to do. A professional life where you can mostly
focus on completing the tasks you are given. There is less decision making and
need for self-discipline. Plus there is no need to file estimated taxes every
quarter (as the self-employed in the US must do).
If, in addition to being an independent consultant, you are so “unlucky” as to work as an evaluator, you can expect to enjoy several additional drawbacks. While it is true that someone is paying you to look into a program or project, to collect data and information and ferret out the truth, a lot of people involved in that program won’t exactly appreciate your poking your nose around and asking sometimes uncomfortable questions.
They say evaluators play the role of “critical friend,” the person you can trust who will also point out your faults. Not everybody is reconciled to that concept. Who likes a party pooper? Who likes to get a diagnosis that they aren’t as healthy as they thought?
In other words, independent consulting ain’t for everyone.
But if you must…
Still, there are rewards to be had. A few of us are out there doing this type of work, after all, and not all of us plan to throw in the towel…
If you happen to fall into the sub-sub-sub-category of a) being a consultant who, b) works independently, c) is active in the field of international development, and d) conducts evaluations; then here are a few observations on what you might face.
In the article, we discuss common divides and some useful competencies that consultants that belong to the sub-sub-sub category use to navigate them.
We consider various divides that consultants likely deal with while working abroad. We identified divides along cultural, power, gender, national–international, language, geographical lines. None of these are insurmountable but, in one way or another, they require a bit of navigation.
Language is a common and obvious divide. Not speaking the language won’t necessarily prevent you from getting an assignment (except in French or Spanish speaking countries). However, relying on interpreters does pose some risks. Things do get lost in translation. It adds yet another a layer of complexity to your work.
Because you are not part of the system, probably lack a deep understanding of the country, don’t have the relationships, or necessarily speak the language, you come with a built-in disadvantage.
If you are young and female, you may face further
challenges. You may find, at least in some cultures, that you are not taken as
seriously as your male counterparts.
Privilege and power – those perennial aspects of life that insinuate themselves into so much of our political and social life – are part of the equation, too. Independent consultants have both more and less privilege and power than meets the eye. On the one hand, as professionals who are independent, well-remunerated, and often based in Western countries, we have certain advantages. On the other hand, we face limitations. As outsiders, (often) not knowing the local language, not have the connections, not the institutional backing that our full-time employed colleagues do, our influence is certainly limited.
Most of the divides we identified spring from disparities between you, the consultant, and the social, political and cultural environment you work in.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
I’ve emphasized the difficult and less
appealing sides of independent consulting for two reasons.
If you have doubts about this path, maybe
reading this will help you clear them up, and push you in a different
direction.
However, if you still think it’s a good
idea, then embrace the challenge with open eyes.
On a related note, I like the concept of cognitive disfluency. It refers to the benefits that come from the mental effort of completing a task. If something is too easy to do or to learn, your mind is, according to the theory, less likely retain it. Learning to play the piano is hard. But by practicing day after day, you improve. The same applies to many other skills people acquire. Although a more nebulous skill than mastering a musical instrument, wWorking as an independent consultant, at least until you get the hang of it, is fairly effortful.
This brings me back to our article: we conclude that the very process of overcoming these divides and dealing with these issues can strengthen you as a professional, while also making the work more interesting and enjoyable. There is satisfaction to be had from overcoming life’s tribulations.
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*Junge, N.,
& Negroustoueva, S. (2019). Bridging divides and creating opportunities in
international evaluation consulting. In N. Martınez-Rubin, A. A. Germuth, &
M. L. Feldmann (Eds.), Independent Evaluation Consulting: Approaches and
Practices from a Growing Field. New Directions for Evaluation, 164,
127–139.
