Daily Archives: November 24, 2019

At the 2019 Beijing Forum, Russian intellectual Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council since 2011, tackled a major point of controversy in the West: globalization vs. protectionism.

According to Kortunov, globalization did not produce the anticipated positive revolution in the world order. Back in the 1990s, it was widely believed that the benefits of globalization would be available to everyone. However, Kortunov notes, the benefits were hardly distributed equally and consequentially globalization has divided the world into winners and losers, and more specifically by certain social, age and professional groups, and between large urban agglomerations and rural areas.

Kortunov explained that processes occurring in the second decade of the 21st century, such as Donald Trump's assumptions of the US presidency and the steps towards Brexit in the UK, demonstrated that globalization could be hindered, and - in some countries - even reversed.

Kortunov underlined that certain areas of human activity demonstrated a level of "resistance" to globalization. "The growing gap between the economy and politics proved to be especially evident and dangerous for the phenomenon: the economy requires strategic, systemic, global, continental and multilateral decisions, while politics entail tactical, opportunistic, local and one-sided priorities. Moreover, 'identity politics' prevail over the 'politics of interests' increasingly. This further widens the gap between the way the economic and political domains react to globalization and related events," Kortunov analyzed.

During the 1990s, Kortunov said, the prevailing assumption was that globalization would assure the final victory of liberal economic and political models worldwide. However, today's events are raising questions about globalization even in the so-called historical West, and, opined Kortunov, alternative socio-political and economic models are demonstrating b0tu sustainability and high efficiency. "This raises the question about combining the universal character of globalization with the continuing pluralism of national development paths," Kortunov assessed.

The common wisdom of the late 1980s and early 1990s was assumed that the globalization "waves" would spread outwards from the West to its periphery. The large "semi-peripheral" countries, Russia, China, India, and Brazil, were to become transmission mechanisms. Experts also predicted that as the process moved away from the core (i.e. the West) and closer to the periphery, the resistance to globalization would increase, generating conflicts, trade wars, and the growth of isolationism and nationalism.

However, Kortunov observes, today what is happening is the exact opposite: the "waves" of globalization are moving from the periphery to the core. It is the West that is implementing restrictions on migration, sliding back into protectionism, and allowing the rise of nationalism.

Kortunov concluded stating that the United States, perceived as the primary driver of globalization, is lagging behind China in world trade activity. "Although the aggregate West as a whole currently surpasses the aggregate non-West in its involvement in globalization processes, the question of who will become the main driver of these processes in the future remains open," Kortunov said.

Below are Kortunov's speaking notes for his presentation at the Beijing Forum 2019:[1]

Andrey Kortunov (Source: YouTube.com)

"As noted by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 'Man came silently into the world'. This observation made by the great 19th Century French philosopher and theologian could be referring to globalization. And indeed, globalization came into the world silently, and we dont truly know when exactly that happened. Some attribute its beginning to the end of the 20th century, while others connect it with the creation of global governance institutions after World War II. Some believe that the foundation of globalization was laid during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th19th centuries; others push the origins of the global world back to the Age of Discovery in the 15th16th centuries.

"Current international discourse on globalization began more than 30 years ago. Politically, such discussion is possible mostly thanks to the end of the Cold War and the world recovering from being split into two opposing and mutually isolated systems. The most crucial technological incentive for such discourse was the emergence of the global Internet and the information and communication revolution. Economically, today's discussions about globalization often trace back to the end of the 20th century, particularly the sharp increase in world trade and investment, the global downward trend in tariffs and other trade restrictions, as well as the successful implementation of regional integration projects (EU, ASEAN and others).

"My remarks will focus on how our views on globalization have changed over the past three decades. Have our hopes from thirty years ago come true? Have we advanced in understanding the driving forces of globalization and its internal logic? Have there been significant shifts in our assessments of the positive and negative aspects of globalization, its main achievements and inevitable side effects? Have we, in 2019, revised fundamental ideas driving globalization that seemed to be unshakable axioms back in 1989?

"My answers to these questions, obviously subjective and undoubtedly vulnerable to criticism, can be summarized in six short sections.

1. Resolution or Evolution?

"Three decades ago, most observers, including myself, believed that globalization would result in a fast and radical restructuring of the system of international institutions, legal norms, and foreign policy practices of individual states. However, globalization has not yet led to a revolution of the world order. The security institutions of the previous era (UN, NATO), as well as development institutions (IBRD, IMF, WTO), showed a high degree of sustainability, confining themselves only to cosmetic repairs of their priorities, procedures and operation principles.

"Neither the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union, nor the rapid rise of international terrorism, nor the global financial crisis of 20082009 entailed global changes of a revolutionary nature. After 30 years, the extent to which the world system can be managed has decreased instead of increased. The gap keeps growing between the objective degree of humankind's unity and how aware the world's leaders, political elite and societies are of that unity.

2. Mutual Benefit or Factor for Polarization?

"In the 1990s, it was widely perceived that 'a rising tide lifts all boats', meaning the benefits of globalization will somehow be available to everyone. In some sense, the fact that today the average human being lives better, brighter, and longer than three decades ago reinforced this view. But the benefits were hardly distributed equally; globalization has divided the world into winners and losers. Moreover, the dividing line between the two does not always lie between 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' states. More often it lies within such countries themselves: between certain social, age and professional groups, between large urban agglomerations and countryside areas, between rich and poor regions. That is between those who 'fit in' to the new way of life and those who simply fell behind.

"The inevitable result of socio-economic polarization is political polarization, which is the rise of weak governments, incapable of taking unpopular and perhaps difficult decisions. Note that it would be incorrect to perceive growing socio-economic inequality as an inevitable consequence of globalization alone: it is sufficient to mention how Scandinavian countries confidently fit into the globalization trend while maintaining one of the lowest Gini indexes in the world. Referring to globalization as the root cause of all problems very often hides the reluctance of leaders (as well as experts) to admit their own mistakes and shortcomings.

3. Permanency or Discreteness?

"One of the notions of globalization, popular at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, was its perception as a relatively linear, permanent, and continuous process. It was assumed that over time, the pace of globalization would only increase, and the resistance to globalization would weaken and decline. However, the second decade of the 21st century with Donald Trump taking office as President of the USA and the beginning of Britain's withdrawal from the EU demonstrated that globalization could be hindered, slowed down, and in some areas and for some countries, even reversed.

"This slowdown is linked to the resistance of various parties who lost touch with new technological and economic structures and the features of such structures. For example, one of the outcomes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution could be the large-scale displacement of workers from the production process, a sharp reduction in labor requirements of developed countries and, as a consequence, an equally drastic reduction of international migration flows. That means that the supply of labor from the developing world will increase, but the demand for it from the developed world will decline rapidly. The development of 'new energy' (renewable sources and shale hydrocarbons) will sooner or later bring down international trade of oil and gas, one of the main pillars of world trade in general. Discussions on the 'reversibility' of globalization that seemed unthinkable twenty years ago have begun. Meanwhile, terms like 'globalization crisis', 'de-globalization' and even 'the post-global world' are gaining momentum.

4. Synchronization or Asynchrony?

"Since the beginning of the 1990s, research on globalization was focused on its financial and economic dimensions. By the end of the 20th century, it was perceived as a complex process that affects all aspects of human life. It was assumed that financial and economic globalization would inevitably push social, cultural and political globalization, just as a locomotive pulls rail cars. Perhaps humans would somehow manage to synchronize its dynamics in all the above-mentioned spheres by ensuring they interact with each other and generate a cumulative effect, accelerating the process as a whole.

"It became clear that certain areas of human activity demonstrated a level of 'resistance' to globalization. Therefore, at the moment, it is impossible to synchronize its processes. The growing gap between the economy and politics proved to be especially evident and dangerous for the phenomenon: the economy requires strategic, systemic, global, continental and multilateral decisions, while politics entail tactical, opportunistic, local and one-sided priorities. Moreover, 'identity politics' prevail over the 'politics of interests' increasingly. This further widens the gap between the way the economic and political domains react to globalization and related events.

5. Universalism or Pluralism?

"The global triumph of political and economic liberalism was accompanied by the rise in interest in the phenomenon of globalization. During the 1990s, 'liberal globalization' and 'globalized liberalism' were perceived as inextricably linked concepts, if not as synonyms. That entails that the accelerators of globalization, as well as one of its inevitable results, should have been the final victory of liberal economic and political models on a global scale. Any non-liberal development models were interpreted in this context as manifestations of archaic nature, symptoms of inconsistent and incomplete modernization, impeding their successful integration into the new global world.

"Today, such causal relationships look much less convincing than three decades ago. Political and economic liberalism are undergoing tough times; their fundamental principles are being questioned even in the so-called historical West, while alternative socio-political and economic models are demonstrating sustainability and, in some cases, high efficiency. This raises the question about combining the universal character of globalization with the continuing pluralism of national development paths. This new task was hardly discussed ten or fifteen years ago.

6. Core or Periphery?

"In the late 1980s early 1990s, it was assumed that the 'waves' of globalization would spread mainly from the economic, political and technological core of the modern world (the aggregate West) to its periphery. Large 'semi-peripheral' countries such as Russia, China, India, Brazil and others, should have become transmission mechanisms. Moreover, experts predicted that when moving away from the core closer to the periphery, the resistance to globalization would increase, generating conflicts, trade wars, growth of isolationism and nationalism. These impulses of de-globalization, though, would weaken the closer they get to the global core.

"History shows that, in many cases, the 'waves' of globalization are moving the opposite direction from the periphery to the core. The aggregate West is trying to fence itself off the periphery by implementing restrictions on migration, sliding back into protectionism, repatriating previously abandoned industries and allowing the rise of nationalism. The United States, perceived by the majority as the undisputed leader and primary driver of globalization, remains at the very lowest end in almost all of its dimensions. This applies to world trade activity, with the United States lagging behind China. Although the aggregate West as a whole currently surpasses the aggregate non-West in its involvement in globalization processes, the question of who will become the main driver of these processes in the future remains open.

Interim Results

"What does all this mean for our perception of globalization? Perhaps none of the above sections is sufficient to conclude that the process reached its peak at the beginning of the century and is now in decline. Likewise, Trump's Administration taking office in the United States was not necessarily the turning point in globalization trends. DHLs latest annual Global Connectedness Index concluded that such processes have gained momentum and remained stable, despite some fluctuations. The Index assessed the dynamics of globalization according to four critical criteria: shares of trade, capital, information, and people flows crossing national borders.

"The phenomenon turned out to be much more complex, more controversial and less predictable than it had seemed before. Moreover, the world is only at the very beginning of the age of globalization. Currently, roughly 20% of economic output across the globe is exported, while only 1719% of tourists cross their countries borders. On average, transnational corporations produce only 9% of their products outside their country of origin, while roughly 7% of phone call minutes are international and only 3% of people live outside the countries they were born. Numerous academics and journalists who expressed ideas such as 'the world has become borderless', 'distance is dead' and 'the world is flat', seem to be reflecting what the future might hold, rather than what the world looks like today.

"Nevertheless, it is essential to prepare for the future today. Perhaps the main lesson of the last thirty years is that market mechanisms alone cannot be a universal solution to economic and political issues: neither at the level of individual elements of the global social system (states) nor at the level of the system as a whole. Increasing the manageability of the system in the age of globalization is more relevant than ever before in the history of humankind. Accordingly, there remains a need for comprehensive interdisciplinary research, revealing the features of the phenomenon of globalization at a new stage of its development."

[1] Russiancouncil.ru, November 12, 2019.

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Russian Intellectual Kortunov: The 1990s Certainties On Globalization Have Been Debunked - Middle East Media Research Institute

Keynote speech by ACC Commissioner Francis Ben Kaifala (pictured) at the Christ the King Colleges 66th anniversary Speech-Day and Prize-giving ceremony, Friday 22nd November, 2019, in Bo.

1.Mr.Chairman, Principals of JSS and SSS, Members of the School Board, Executive and members of the College Old Boys Association (COBA), pupils and teachers, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I bring you warm greetings from the Anti-Corruption Commission.

2.It is a distinct honour to be part of this 66th anniversary speech day and prize giving ceremony of Christ the King College, more so in the capacity as Keynote Speaker. I thank the school authorities and organizers for their kind thoughts in inviting me and giving me this moment on this podium in this historic school to deliver this speech on the topic HOW DO WE LEVERAGE THE FREE QUALITY EDUCATION TO PROMOTE INTEGRITY IN SCHOOLS

3.This invite comes at a time when the national development plan lays emphasis on Human Capital Development with quality education being emphasized at all levels. We have a President, His Excellency, Dr. Julius Maada Bio whose vision for the socio-economic transformation of Sierra Leone is firmly built on developing an educated population to lead the rebirth of Sierra Leone.

4.For a country that was once referred to as the Athens of West Africa, the choice of theme for this ceremony is very apt; mainly because it is now very clear to all citizens that the values and hallmarks of integrity, discipline and excellence that characterized our educational system has been consistently eroded over the years. In fact, it had deteriorated to the brink of collapse.

5.For most emerging economies, one of the common denominators for their under-development is the high illiteracy rate. Sierra Leone being one of those countries, it will be almost a clich to repeat that it has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world The literacy rate of the country according to UNESCO remains stagnant at 48.1% of the total population in the global index, with 58.7% for men and 37.7% for women (aged 15 and over). No country will prosper with this kind of unfavourable statistics.

6.The most recent United Nations Human Development index places the country among the bottom 10 worse off countries. Regrettably, we are at what seems to be a point of no return, as the standard of education and output continues to take a nosedive - The institutions of higher learning, as their lower counterparts, remain decayed and dilapidated; there is the lack of adequate and proper facilities that would be useful to students in their chosen disciplines; the available faculties and disciplines remain few and mostly unprogressive; most teachers or lecturers do not necessarily teach students well enough; and they examine them with the objective that the bulk of them fails; there is little incentive to attract qualified teachers to help raise the standards of the faculties; the syllabuses do not reflect the educational and job demands of the 21st Century; the level of political interference in admission of students and the recruitment of staff is scandalous; the administrations of the respective schools and Universities seem to have lost control of properly managing and disciplining their staff and students; and above all, majority of students are awarded lower class degrees that inhibit their ability to be awarded serious Scholarships or gain admission into World-Class Universities. The result is that education is in the sepulchers, and we lost Athens!

7.There was a deep sigh of hope when a few years ago the Government recognised the crumbling educational system and established a commission to investigate the reasons behind the poor educational output and offer recommendations to ameliorate the system. The Commission, dubbed the Gbamanja Commission of Enquiry was established to look into the poor performance of students at the BECE and WASSCE examinations, as well as to ascertain the impact of the 6-3-3-4 system of education. This turned out, several years later, not to produce the desired result and compounded the problem!

8.As would be reasonably expected, among its many findings, the Commission highlighted poor quality teachers, the lack of textbooks, school fees, overcrowding in classrooms, lack of parental supervision, unprepared students taking the BECE and WASSCE, and above all, corruption in the school system to be the reason for the decline. This, to many, was a mere painful elaboration of the obvious. However, instead of properly implementing solutions to ameliorate the poor state of affairs, the Government simply added another year of senior schooling, making the system a 6-3-4-4 timeline - in a hook-line-and-sinker acceptance of the controversial recommendations of the Gbamanja Commission.

9.That, with utmost respect, was an unfortunate error of judgment by the then government; and I applaud the current government for rightly reversing it as the additional year of school merely shifted the burden from the government to parents who were already overburdened with the high cost of education and hands-tied by the high cost of living in an already harsh economy. Simply put, another year of school meant another year of fees, uniforms, textbooks, transportation, etc. for many impoverished parents (who were in the majority). It gets even worse when juxtaposed with another year of an unjustifiable risk of the girl-child getting pregnant whilst still in school with the possibility of dropping out thereafter.

10.The governments before now needed to invest in free fundamental education for all children and improve the quality of existing institutions and the teaching regime (including the quality of teachers, the syllabus and knowledge delivery discipline) not just at the Primary and secondary levels but even the Universities. Our higher educational institutions and their tutors, for example, only needed (and still need) to consider students as partners; and a consequence-based system put in place to ensure compliance and mutual respect. When those students or pupils are taught well so to pass, it is equally the institution that passes.

11.When students fail en masse or the educational system is organized so as to fail students rather than ensure that they pass at least in the majority, the educational institution itself would be a failure. What, for example, recently happened at the Sierra Leone Law School; where over 70% failed the Bar Exams, is not just reflective of the poor quality students enrolled, but should also, with all sincerity, raise eyebrows on the overall quality of the institution itself and its tutors.

12.It is largely as a result of the decaying educational situation; and to reverse the ugly trend, that His Excellency, the President, Brig. (Rtd.) Dr. Julius Maada Bio, made human capital development - which the Free Quality Education (FQE) a key component of - as his Governments priority. It is absolutely right that the government views education as an investment that is second to none.

13.As Nelson Mandela once put it, a countrys future is only as promising as its next generation of citizens, and, in his words, we can no longer sit and watch while many of our countrys children are held back in the mire of ignorance and lack of skills. If we are serious about development and progress, we must restore the country to what it once was educationallythe Athens of West Africa. Only then, we can consider ourselves to be closer to being ready to bring about socio-economic transformation within the New Direction.

14.How do we then leverage this great opportunity on offer to promote integrity, a critical value that I had earlier stated had been scandalously eroded, in schools? Firstly, the pillars upon which the Free Quality Education is being built can only thrive in a teaching environment with integrity. Integrity is the highest standard in human relation and it includes good morals, fairness, sincerity and honesty.

15.The key players in ensuring the programme succeeds - Principals, teachers, pupils, parents and the Government - must play their roles with integrity, sense of purpose and commitment. No nation can progress without integrity ensured!

16.That is why, the ACC, which I head, has made ensuring integrity in schools, examinations and institutions of higher learning a core objective of achieving its overall mandate to control corruption; and will continue to take positive strides to inject and instill integrity in schools.

17.To achieve this, the Commission conducts regular sensitization campaigns in schools nationwide dubbed as, Meet the schools campaign. The interaction during these engagements by ACC, with pupils and teachers is to enhance their knowledge about corruption, costs of corruption on their lives, and ways of effectively dealing with the scourge. The Commission has over forty five (45) integrity clubs in secondary schools nationwide. These clubs have the responsibility to disseminate anti-corruption messages in schools, and integrity pupils are to serve as models of integrity and dignity, and as peer educators.

18.Also, the Commission has participated in Community Teachers Association (CTA) meetings where it made clear to parents their roles in the fight against corruption but especially in promoting integrity in schools - as they are equally significant in the equation.

19.More importantly, the Commission through its prevention work, and national strategy, has made interventions in the education sector through reviews of practices and procedures that encourage corruption, development of codes of conduct for teachers, and the establishment of Integrity Management Committees (IMCs). The Educational sector is key in the Pay No Bribe campaign rolled out by the ACC. All these interventions are significant in positioning the school system to be conducive in injecting integrity particularly with the free quality education.

20.Mr.Chairman, the opportunity that the Free Quality Education presents for our children and country is enormous. There may be challenges and drawbacks, but mindful of its benefits, I implore all of us to leverage on its positives to promote integrity in our schools for the good of the country that we love Sierra Leone

21.When I took over, I have adopted an approach I called Radical Transparency Drive. The object is to reverse the scars and effects of corruption rapidly. Students are leading the way in my strategy and ensuring education with integrity is at the centre of this social revolution. This is why we have introduced a robust attitude to the fight against corruption in education as with all other sectors. Corruption is WAR. The only way to win a war is to confront the enemy armed to the teeth. We have taken the war to the corrupt by raiding their strong holds and hideouts. We shall continue to raid corrupt actors in education, hit them through well planned and unsuspecting sting operations. We have therefore increased and effective our intelligence gathering processes, recruited more Confidential Human Intelligence Sources across the country. The New Anti-Corruption Amendment Act 2019 now has a clear provision criminalizing examination malpractices with punishment of not less than five years imprisonment.

22. As students, we all should know we are in the midst of a crisis. Our nation is at war against corruption. Corruption has violently weakened our economy; and has made Sierra Leone a reputational risk and laughter of the rest of the world. This has effectively undermined investment and growth. Corruption led to the war; as a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of many politicians, but also our collective failure as a nation to make hard choices and prepare the country to succeed. Lives have been lost; limbs were mimed, businesses have been shuttered; our healthcare systems are failing; too many learning centers were failing; and each day brings further evidence to show that if we fail to tackle corruption now; we would have failed our country. Like Ziggy Marley rightly said in the Music Diamond City, every day there is a need for a revolution in this country it should however just not be with guns.

23. Nonetheless, there is a new feeling; profound levels of confidence, as evidenced in the MCC, and the recently released Afro-Barometer, that the country is turning things for the better. We made huge progress in the MCC and was number three the in Barometer, incredibly ahead of Botswana, showing that progress is inevitable, and that you the pupils should be the next generation of anti-corruption crusaders.

24.Today, I say to you, as a country and people, the challenges corruption poses are real. They are serious and many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, Sierra Leone must defeat corruption. For this country, we must choose hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict; and concertedness over discord. As said by scripture, the time has come for us to set aside the childish things of corruption. Now is the time to reaffirm our enduring spirit to the fight against corruption; to choose our nation over our selfish interests; to carry forward that zeal and determination to inject integrity in the day-to-day operations of the State.

25. In re-positioning the path of our country to a New Direction, our journey shall never be successfully actualized if we fail to defeat corruption. We cannot achieve this through short-cuts or settling for less. The fight against corruption has never been the path for the faint-hearted. Even if we build the roads schools and bridges; the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together, we shall fail if we fail to exorcise corruption in earnest.

26.Corruption, is a common danger in our lifetime; it must be eliminated. With hope and virtue, let us brave the rains, the sun, and endure what storms may come, but we must fight corruption so that our grandchildren, and their children, shall know that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn our backs nor did we falter. We shall carry forth the fight for future generations for it is only then would there be said to be quality in the free education drive of the president and people of Sierra Leone.

God bless Sierra Leone.

Adveniat Regnum tuum I thank you all.

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How do we leverage the Free Quality Education to promote integrity in schools? - The Patriotic Vanguard