Back to Blogging...

After a protracted, seven-month silence, I'm going to try to resume writing the occasional blog -- if and when there are interesting, pertinent things to write about. They will be shorter blogs, I suspect, than in the past: only the occasional paragraph or two...

This first is a simple one, a mere update for bemused readers.  Since my last blog in July 2011, I concluded my job in Colombia, travelled around the country for three months, wrote a small book on the country and my experiences there (available on request with immediate effect, and with luck by Spring 2012 as an e-book), and then returned home to London, where I have just begun - in early January 2012 - a new job for the Prince's Charities' International Sustainability Unit (pcfisu.org), working on the rainforests and sustainable agriculture.  I am living at home, in Battersea, and picking up my UK life after three years and two months spent in Colombia.

In terms of the blog, this means that there will be fewer articles with a Colombian theme, although I continue to follow the life and fortunes of that special country with great interest.  There will be more, I predict, on books, music, international issues, and musings on the UK.  So welcome (back) and I hope there is the occasional piece of interest to you.  My email address remains the same: edwardleodavey@gmail.com.

Solar, by Ian McEwan

On my way back from a week in London working on climate change, and the bilateral relationship between the UK and Colombia on this issue, I read Ian McEwan's latest novel -- a 'climate change novel' -- Solar, from cover to cover.

I'd been looking forward to reading it ever since it was published in 2010.  Indeed, when McEwan was here in Colombia, at the Hay Festival's Cartagena festival, he spoke compellingly about  Solar and about the circumstances of its inception.

Invited on a boat trip in 2005 with a group of artists and thinkers to the Arctic, to see the polar ice melting, McEwan noted with ironic glee how in the course of the week, the storage room on the boat where the group kept their winter clothes (hats, thermals, boots, glasses, etc.) became more and more chaotic -- such that, within days, everybody had lost their kit, and all were obliged effectively to steal bits of their companions' get-up (the odd glove here or there) in order to be able to participate in the daily expeditions.  Chaos reigned, in what seemed to be the most simple of challenges: assuring the common good in a group of fifteen for the purposes of the voyage on which they had embarked.

By night, nonetheless, McEwan recounted to large audiences in Bogotá and Cartagena, his group would engage in lengthy, earnest, well-intentioned discussions over their dinner and plentiful wine on the boat about climate change: cap and trade mechanisms; global frameworks; contraction and convergence; domestic legislation; and all the rest.

The gap between the grandiosity of the global ambition, absolutely necessary in order to mitigate a global problem; and, in a sense, the realities of human nature, seemed to be eloquently epitomised in the author's experience on the boat.

In the novel, the void between our global predicament and the human response is also comically set out.  The main character, our hero, or anti-hero, is (implausibly) a Nobel-prize winning scientist, who runs a climate change research centre near Reading.  His personal life, however, is chaotic, caught as he is between wives and lovers, past and present, and increasingly entangled in a web of half-truths and lies on the academic front too.  A reprehensible character, perhaps, but an engaging and very lifelike one, whose misdemeanours fill the pages and form the core of the plot.

The writing is characteristically excellent: astute, humorous, sharp, unforgiving, wry.  McEwan gives ample space to the science too, such that there are passages, dialogues and debates on climate change in the novel which really bring the issue to life, and should be required reading for devotees and sceptics alike.  Never have the advantages of solar photovoltaics over wind turbines on the rooftops of individual houses been so compellingly set out as in the pages of this novel...

Perhaps deliberately, and despite the humour, I found the novel ultimately quite troubling and depressing: human beings, human nature, are found wanting faced with the magnitude of the challenge we face (and of our own creation), seemed to be the message, if indeed there is a message.  Doubtless reading the novel in one fell swoop in a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean, belching fumes and water vapour into the blue skies, compounded the helpless feeling.

Still, it's well worth reading: and if haven't yet read it, and need convincing, it's worth looking at the following links too:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/13/solar-ian-mcewan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/14/ian-mcewan-environment-novel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/26/solar-ian-mcewan-lezard-review
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article7050338.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2011/jan/13/ian-mcewan-copenhagen-solar-video
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7359254/Solar-by-Ian-McEwan-review.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/books/30book.html

An interview with Rudolf Hommes

An interview with Rudolf Hommes, Colombia's Former Treasury Minister, on the state of the Colombian economy

May 2011

Edward Davey, The City Paper

1. What are the strengths of the Colombian economy and how has the 'Emergencia Invernal' affected these strengths?

I think the Colombian economy is very resilient. It has absorbed the shock of the global economic crisis, the closing of the Venezuelan market and the internal instability due to violence with surprising endurance. I am concerned that the floods and the present winter emergency will make a dent but I may be one of the few who are troubled. Most people and analysts do not appear to be worried and there are even some who think that this tragedy is a blessing in disguise because it will make investment surge and force the government to face the reality that Colombian infrastructure is less than subpar and very poorly conceived.

2. Will recent corruption scandals affect foreign direct investment?

I think foreign companies will not be overly deterred by corruption. They often contribute to it and some European firms are still notorious for it. In this country they have promoted political corruption and financed guerrilla activities.

3. Does Colombia rely too much on its natural resource base for income, instead of developing other sectors of the economy; how will Colombia avoid the resource curse and unacceptably high environmental externalities?

Countries develop whatever they can develop and they often prefer the low hanging fruit. We need industrial and export based output, but the present opportunity is in mining, which had lagged because of insecurity and a diminished exploration. While I remain an advocate of industrial and agro-industrial development, I do not share the concept that mining is a bad option. If you look at Chile or Peru, they have been doing extremely well because they chose the right policies and stuck to them, but also because of mining which has been the hidden factor behind the recent economic success of those countries. They also have managed very well the exchange rate effects of the mining boom through fiscal restraint and special institutions to graduate the inflow of export revenues.

4. There is criticism that Colombia's infrastructure is still lacking to meet the potential of a Free Trade Agreement and to compete regionally...what does Colombia need to do urgently to improve the state of its roads, ports etc..?

Colombia's infrastructure is lacking in quantity and in quality according to surveys of the country's competitiveness in comparison with others. Its roads, ports and overall transportation infrastructure are rated at the bottom of a list of many other countries, while air transportation is at the top of the list, which is not however an achievement. It is a reflection of how bad the rest of the infrastructure is.  I believe there are two reasons why this development has been so poor: the political system in Colombia is based on patronage and public works have been plagued by it. Second, infrastructure conception, planning, investment and execution lack scale. The country has been accustomed to scratch roads into the side of the mountains, to avoid tunnel construction, to conceive roads for trucks of the past and rarely undertakes a project that has the dimensions and scope that are required. There has been an overreliance on truck transportation and railroads have been relegated to niches. This is a big conceptual design mistake; it determines the mix of Colombian exports, limits the potential to expand the national market, and severely restricts the transportation capacity of people and cargo.   

5. Why isn't Colombia taking more advantage of its agroindustrial possibilities?

Colombian agriculture has suffered from insecurity and violence, extreme protectionism, overreliance on subsidies for the rich and insufficient research and agricultural extension. There is also a problem of extreme poverty in rural areas and a very unequal distribution of land and opportunities. The development of agro-industry would require a 180 degree change in policies, more reliance on research and a land distribution program that would increase productivity and entrepreneurship. Land is overly expensive in Colombia, in part due to subsidies for the land owners and protectionism (the effective import tariffs of sugar and other commercial agricultural products are above 80%).

6. Has Colombia's image really had a turn for the better, in terms of investor confidence, or does the lack of peace process with illegal armed groups still affect the country's international fortunes?

Colombia is benefiting from something that usually happens in economics but not in politics: the world has already internalized that Colombia has ceased to be a semi-failed state and assumes that it is only a matter of time that the government will be in full control of the country. If progress continues in this direction, we will keep on benefitting from this perception.

7. What are the roots of all the recent corruption scandals, and what should the government do to tackle this issue?

The corruption was always there, in part due to clientelism in patronage, but it was kept “within reasonable boundaries”, as one of our political leaders used to say. Through time, with the advent of drug trafficking and due to fiscal and political decentralization, it ceased to be reasonable. During the second term of President Uribe it seemed to accelerate because there was an attempt to actually buy a third term for him and because the style of government during his administration weakened institutions, the judiciary system and controls (checks and balances). What we are seeing now is the result of all this, and I hope that it is not just the tip of the iceberg.

8. Colombia remains a country with a high taxation rate for small businesses and few incentives...is a tax reform necessary in this country?

I believe that a thorough tax reform is needed that would lower tariffs of both income and value added taxes, would reduce exemptions for the rich and would increase the tax base. It also requires a simplification of processes and separating the administrative functions of the DIAN (tax authority) from its judiciary functions. Having both functions in one institution loads the system heavily against the taxpayer. It would also require a simplified system for small firms that would encourage them to cease being informal.

Article for The City Paper on the Colombian Victims' and Land Restitution Law

Article for The City Paper, Bogotá

'Of Land and Victims'

A piece on the new Victims and Land Restitution Law written for the City Paper, Bogotá, on 1 June 2011.

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The words of Christian Salazar Volkmann, Representative of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights in Colombia, pay eloquent testimony to the transcendence of the Victims and Land Restitution Law, approved by the Colombian Congress and Senate on 1 June 2011.

"The ratification of the Victims and Land Restitution Law marks a historical advance", Salazar said.  "It is the culmination of an effort, initiated by President Juan Manuel Santos, to place victims truly at the centre of attention.  Its implementation will mean a new horizon of hope in the search for peace and reconciliation in the country".

All those who care for the fortunes of this tragic, stoic and magnificent country will hope that Salazar's prediction comes true in the years ahead.  There is no doubt as to the political, intellectual and moral commitment that President Santos, his key Ministers and the leading Senators behind the Law - principally the Liberal Party's Juan Fernando Cristo - have for the process.  As the President himself said in the Congress when presenting the key debate: "if this Law alone is passed, it will have been worthwhile being President".

Over the past fifty years, Colombia's internal armed conflict has led to the deaths of thousands of people and to the displacement of millions more.  As the acclaimed recent film 'Los Colores de la Montaña' powerfully and poignantly showed, whole communities have been torn apart, trapped between the FARC and the paramilitaries, drawn inexorably into a conflict not of their making and fuelled by the drugs trade.

Large-scale human rights abuses have been committed by both sides, and by the Colombian Army, and displacement from rural areas to the outskirts and slums of the country's major cities has been the inevitable outcome.  Despite the valiant efforts of civil society and the media to raise awareness of the plight of the victims of the conflict, the vast majority have languished anonymously in precarious (under-)employment and poverty in the cities. 

With the exception of particularly egregious or symbolic cases, such as the massacres in El Salado or Bojayá, many of the country's most grievous experiences of violence and displacement have still been neither recognised nor told; nor less, publicly acknowledged and then, perhaps, forgiven.

The Victims Law seeks to make the first steps towards changing this, by returning several million hectares of stolen agricultural lands to their rightful owners and by providing symbolic financial compensation for all victims of the conflict. 

All observers agree that there will be pitfalls along the way.  Already, as many as eight community leaders and human rights defenders seeking to initiate the restitution process have been assassinated.  A plethora of corrupt lawyers and vested interests are showing signs of seeking to obstruct the process at every turn, particularly in regions where the conflict remains acute or where crimes have been particularly heinous. 

A number of powerful politicians, including former President Uribe and the more radical factions of the 'U' Party, view elements of the Law as an instinctive threat.  And, last but not least, some question the compatibility of the families' return to their land with the Government's simultaneous promotion of large-scale agriculture, mining and hydrocarbons extraction across the country.  What kind of future awaits those who do manage to return to their land?

Despite the legitimate worries, however, there is much hope.  As similar processes around the world have shown, most notably the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-Apartheid South Africa, any society's attempts to heal its wounds from a protracted conflict or injustice necessarily imply both impressive moral and political leadership, and a collective acceptance that such a process is timely and justified.  These conditions both seem now to exist in Colombia. 

 

When President Santos signs the legislation into force in mid-June, in the company of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, a major new chapter in Colombia's history will begin.  The President is to be applauded for his leadership; and the international community should provide the full force of their backing for the Law.

'Colombia's Environmental Dilemma' - a piece for the FT

I wrote the following article for a Financial Times supplement on Colombia.  It ended up being published on the FT's Beyond Brics website, alongside a good piece by the Colombian economist Alejandro Gaviria.  The link is here.  It took me a while to write, and I learnt a lot from John Paul Rathbone, the FT's Latin America editor, in the process.  The truth is that the piece is a balanced, optimistic version of a challenge that I view to be much more bleak and pessimistic than I set out here...

Changing Colombia, part 2: the environmental challenge

May 6, 2011 4:46 pmby beyondbrics

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By Edward Davey of Acción Social

Somewhat unusually, Juan Manuel Santos began his first day as Colombian president last year with the elders of the millenarian indigenous tribes that live on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the snow-capped Andean mountain range that runs down to the country’s Caribbean coast.

That same afternoon, having flown to Bogotá, President Santos told the nation in his inaugural presidential address of the moment of “transcendental significance” he had experienced that morning.

The mamas, or priests, he said, had given him a ceremonial staff and a collar with four stones, representing earth, water, nature “with which we must live in harmony”, and good government. “These prized symbols,” Santos said, “will form an integral part of the Administration, which we begin today”.

Almost a year later, many increasingly question whether Santos’s economic goals can be reconciled with the principles of the mamas’ four-stoned collar. The challenge is particularly acute in a country as biodiverse as Colombia.

On the one hand, “Colombia is sitting on a bed of coal”, as finance minister Juan Carlos Echeverry has said.

On the other, Colombia is home to 10 per cent of the world’s fauna and flora, the world’s highest number of bird species, and a breathtaking diversity of landscapes. As the noted Harvard biologist E O Wilson has put it: “biodiversity is to Colombia what oil is to Saudi Arabia”.

Those who believe environmental protection and economic development are compatible cite three arguments.

The first is Santos’s commitment to reinforcing Colombia’s environmental watchdogs, through the creation of a self-standing ‘ministry of environment and sustainable development’ and a revamping of local environmental authorities.

Second, the government argues that the damage caused by heavy winter rains – which affected over 2.4m people – is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild the country along environmentally-sensible lines, with ecologically-sensitive spatial planning.

And third, the government argues that its five “motors of development” – infrastructure, housing, mining, agriculture and innovation – are key to meeting the poverty reduction targets enshrined in its National Development Plan, as well as paying the financial costs of Santos’s signature piece of legislation, the Land Restitution and Victims Law, which will provide compensation for land and life lost during the past 20 years of conflict.

However, for the indigenous people represented by the mamas, there is a worrying overlap between Colombia’s indigenous territories and those areas earmarked for mining. Many experts fear an increase in local conflicts, as in Peru.

“While the Colombian Constitutional Court identifies 32 indigenous peoples as being at risk of extinction, there are situations in the country where mining and infrastructure projects have undermined their…very existence as a people,” says José Luis Barreiro, head of Oxfam’s territorial rights programme.

Meanwhile, Manuel Rodríguez Becerra, a former environment minister in the 1990s, argues that the “irreparable damage caused to biodiversity and water” by large-scale coal-mining projects such as Alabama-based Drummond’s operations in northern Colombia is “an image which we do not want for the future of the country”.

While applauding Santos’s attempts to combat illegal mining, he maintains that the country “cannot turn a blind eye to the impacts of large-scale projects”.

German Andrade, of the University of the Andes, similarly argues that Colombia is “not ready” for large-scale mining, due to poor institutions and a lack of data about the full environmental impact of extractive industries.

Guillermo Rudas, an advisor to the national planning council, agrees, noting that government spending on environmental institutions has declined over the past ten years to just 0.24 per cent of total expenditure.

Finally, Brigitte Baptiste, director of Colombia’s National Biodiversity Institute, shows there is a “huge overlap” between potential mining blocks and some of the country’s key ecosystems, including national parks, watersheds and forest reserves.

In a country of 114m hectares, some 40m hectares – or over a third of the national territory – have already been identified as potential mining zones. A further 48 million hectares – equivalent to four Englands – have been set aside for hydrocarbons.

Just in the páramos, Colombia’s high mountain wetlands which are crucial for water supplies and are excluded in principle from exploitation, the number of titled hectares rose from 70,000 in 2006 to 122,000 in 2009.

The country, Baptiste argues, needs to define those areas “which cannot be touched and communicate this information clearly to the private sector and government”. Once done, she adds, “we can negotiate proper local and national compensations for each project which is approved”.

Mining companies essentially agree. “It would help us immensely to have a strong Ministry of Environment and to count on clear guidelines as to which areas can and cannot be explored”, says Rafael Herz, who heads South African-based Anglo-Gold Ashanti’s operations in Colombia.

But echoing the government’s position, Herz adds: “Large-scale, responsible mining, with the highest international standards, can and must be an ally of Colombia in this important phase of its development.”

For Bernardo Toro, chair of the Colombian branch of Latin American think tank Avina: “There is an urgent need to construct a national narrative and meeting point in which all the actors can come together in the pursuit of common rules, understanding, trust and agreement.” Avina, which focuses on sustainable development, has established a national round table for the purpose.

What is certain is that the fulfillment of the mamas’ solemn invocation to Santos will depend on the clarity of the rules his government establishes, and on the strength of the environment ministry.

“We need clear rules…applied in a transparent way,” says Hernando José Gómez, director of Colombia’s national planning department.

Edward Davey of Acción Social is lead advisor on the environment in Colombia’s international cooperation directorate, Acción Social. This is the second of a two-part series.

Of friends, marriages + children

A chance encounter on Facebook chat last week with my great friend Johnny Candy, from St. Edward's School days.  He is in Singapore; I am in Colombia: somehow, our daily schedule coincided and we were able to chat for half an hour or so on-line about love, life and - most importantly in the context of this blog - about the lives and news of all our mutual friends.

And what news! I count at least four marriages; a couple of children already in the world; a few more on their way; friends being pageboys and best men to other friends; and so on.

Speaking to Johnny, I felt quite sheepish and shocked: manifestly, and despite Facebook, email and all the rest, I have lost touch over recent years with the lives of many of my dear friends from this stage of my life.  Of course, I have little doubt that my friendships with my contemporaries from school remain as strong as they always have been; and that a few boozy dinners out in London would make up for lost time.

But our talk did concentrate the mind and make me realise that, however much one tries, almost three years away, living in a very different and distant country like Colombia, does take its toll on one's immediacy and connectedness with the lives of others - particularly, in this case, one's longest-standing English friends.

So this is a small 'mea culpa' and an earnest promise to make amends in 2012 onwards.

Back to Blogging...

Dear friends,

Enthused by the experience of my new Environment blog, I have decided to have a second go at keeping this, my main blog, more frequently up-to-date.

My thinking is that, if I can find half an hour a day to write random thoughts about the environment, then I should be able to find half an hour a day - or at least a few times a week - to write more generally about life, love, culture, books, Colombia and other topics.

So here goes - back to Blog 1 too, whilst I also hope to keep up the newly-established Environment Blog.

But I suppose both blogs presuppose the question: why bother?  Does what one has to say have any value?  Is it a waste of time? Can't just one keep a diary, as before, and be done with it?

Occasionally, of course, I worry about these things.  For example, I think that every hour one spends on the internet - newspapers, Facebook, emails, blogs - is an hour not spent reading a book.  With so much to read in life, is this opportunity cost worth it?

A second worry is whether Facebook implies a loss of intimacy, and whether one's individual life and thoughts should remain a mystery, only to be revealed to good friends and family in person.  I am sure there is some truth in this.

Despite these arguments, however, and doubtless others too, I have decided to engage fully with the blogosphere, for the following reasons:

1. I think writing a blog is one way of giving friends and family a sense of what I am up to life (especially for family and a large number of friends whom I currently see very little of in person);

2. I think a blog or two can form a good, virtual record of one's thoughts and preoccupations at a particular moment in one's life;

3. I enjoy writing and combine it always with a good concert on Radio 3 or the Berlin Philharmonic's truly extraordinary and much-recommended Digital Concert Hall;

and 4. two blogs a day might be better, and less annoying, than 15 Facebook posts (I have decided to reduce their number as realise they clutter up other people's pages).

So there we have it.

Welcome (back) to my main blog and all good wishes,

Edward