Michael Kevane

At ISO pool today, a birthday party for a kid… Leslie and Sukie saw the whole show while I was playing tennis.  I’ll post a few more pictures later….

A series of secret contracts seen by Global Witness spell out how BSGR promised Mamadie Touré (sometimes known as Mamadie Conté) millions of dollars and shares in the massive Simandou iron ore concession in return for help in acquiring the licences. Along with the stake in Simandou – a mountain range in the forested region of southeastern Guinea – Mme Touré was also promised stakes in uranium and bauxite mines that were granted to BSGR. Mme Touré was, at the time the deals were signed, one of the four wives of Guinean dictator Lansana Conté, who came to power in a 1984 coup, ruling the country until his death in December 2008. BSGR acquired the licences to Simandou two weeks before he died.

Just as contentious is the allegation by a Guinean mining review committee that BSGR asked Mme Touré to ensure that licences to Simandou were taken away from the company then holding them – the mining giant Rio Tinto. Blocks 1 and 2 – half the concession – were confiscated from Rio in July 2008, five months before they were granted to BSGR. The Guinean government said at the time that Rio had not met production deadlines.

A leaked video from a September 2006 meeting held by BSGR – an edited version of which we post online today – shows Mme Touré at the event with top BSGR officials. One of those who speak at the event is Frédéric Cilins, an adviser to BSGR who was arrested on Sunday in Florida, standing accused of obstructing a federal grand jury investigation into BSGR by seeking to destroy the secret contracts.

The FBI arrested Mr Cilins in a sting operation, after he allegedly tried to pay Mme Touré to hand over contracts she had signed in relation to Simandou in order for them to be destroyed, according to the indictment. Mr Cilins also instructed Mme Touré to tell the FBI, should she be questioned in relation to Simandou, that she had no involvement with BSGR, the indictment says.

Mme Touré now lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where she owns three properties. Property records indicate that Mr Cilins and another official who has worked for BSGR may have been tied to the purchase of these properties.

via Damning video and contracts show BSGR was lying in Guinea mining scandal | Global Witness.

The FAVL team in Ouaga (Michael, Donkoui, Krystle) spent the morning prioritizing our agenda, and then rearranging the office.  Nothing like a little furniture moving to make people feel better about the lives. Well, it works for me.  I went by the U.S. Embassy in the afternoon, and saw the acting PAO LaSean Brown, and good news!  We can do a book launch for the RWA books and my edited volume with Alain Sissao and Felix Compaore on reading, at the Embassy Library.  So check your calendar if you are in Ouagadougou on 16 May…. let me know!  Should be a nice way to get FAVL partners together, and celebrate some wonderful student books, and decent research, if I say so myself.

In the late afternoon played doubles at the Rec Center tennis courts. My partner was Roc, a doctor at Clinique LifeLong in Six Saints… we won!

Sukie and I went to watch the dressage/jumping.  Reminded me of my youth when we would watch my sisters and brothers, out at El Comandante and then later at the place in Isla Grande (must have been where Convention Center is today).

Anyway, what should we find at the club?  Elliot!

The facts seem to be that the health workers declared a 96 hour strike, and a woman died in childbirth, along with her baby, and the government promptly fired the person who should have been the anesthesiologist, and indicated the person might be tried.  So the public issue is whether the health workers could legitimately strike, and whether the government too arbitrarily pursues justice when and where it chooses.

De par ses principes fondamentaux, notre parti condamne toute forme d’impunité si les faits sont juridiquement constitués et déplore la perte effroyable de cette compatriote et de son bébé. Par contre, l’UNIR/PS ne saurait tolérer la démission du pouvoir de la 4e République face aux préoccupations existentielles de nos populations et l’injustice sciemment orchestrée qui sont en réalité les véritables sources de la lâcheté des uns et la révolte légitime des autres.

En effet, dans un pays où le pouvoir exécutif s’adonne à la confusion des rôles au point de se substituer à la justice, il lui est facile de tirer rapidement des conséquences quand et comme il veut selon les intérêts du régime afin de tenter de réaffirmer son autorité visiblement décadente. Mais, lorsqu’il s’agit par exemple d’un militaire du Régiment de sécurité présidentielle qui abat à bout portant une citoyenne, on lui assure toute la protection dont il a besoin pour ensuite confier à l’opinion la désormais célèbre formule au Burkina Faso selon laquelle la justice suit son cours.

via Lettre ouverte de l’UNIR/PS au Premier Ministre sur la grève du SYNTSHA – leFaso.net, l’actualité au Burkina Faso.

A Loser who can be suckered into bad bargains is set to become one of the Clueless. That’s why they are promoted: they are worth even more as Clueless pawns in the middle than as direct producers at the bottom, where the average, rationally-disengaged Loser will do. At the bottom, the overperformers can merely add a predictable amount of value. In the middle they can be used by the Sociopaths to escape the consequences of high-risk machinations like re-orgs.

via The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”.

As in: “Environ 2635 litres de carburant frelaté ont été saisis mercredi tôt dans la matinée le long des principales routes nationales partant de Ouagadougou … “

About 43, for you centigrade people.  This in the partial shade of our custard apple tree.  Our fans working nonstop.  Nice couscous today.  Sukie chowing down; we had a brief discussion of why anyone would eat at McDonald’s when they could eat couscous.  Long meeting again all morning with the FAVL team, and now they have headed back to villages, to start doing promotion for reading project.

Ugh… I daren’t actually listen.  But I actually did talk about the sequester in French, to VOA-West Africa.  I come on about half way through.

Sukie was signed up for djembe class (African drumming) at ISO, but I got the times wrong so we showed up at the end.  It looked fun, and several of her classmates are in the class.  So after we walked around and found two of the desert tortoises, happily munches the grass.  They are very very cool looking, and quite large.  For dinner Salimata cooked riz gras, vegetarian style, and it was very good; Sukie had two huge servings.  We had a Peace Corps volunteer, Amelia, over for dinner.  Then we went for ice cream at Festival de Glace.  I had noisette – hazelnut.  It was very good, made more delicious because the electricity went off for six hours in the afternoon, so it was really hot.  We’re talking 104 degrees outside.  Unable to work inside without any ventilation.  I worked all day with the FAVL team, including a lengthy discussion of the estimated costs of the refurbishment of a library building in Kiembara, where Amelia is based (and she heads off tomorrow for the village).

First the Sukie and personal news.  All was good.  We both got really good night sleep; Sukie fell asleep about 9pm reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins and she slept the whole night through, so now her plan tonite is to do exactly the same thing. Mr. Popper will be read promptly at 8:30, fall asleep on couch, be carried into bed.  Hope it works.  School was fine.  Yesterday French was awful, “Dad I don’t understand anything, the teacher only talks in French.”  Today: “Dad, you kn0w what my favorite class is?  French.  You know, I think I can already understand it.”  She gave a nice smile to Salimata, and wolfed down an entire plate of fried plantains (alloco).  Played itouch for an hour.  She even said hello to Herve, Halidou and Dounko while we had a meeting at the house.  Banana bread from Sam’s Bakery was a good ice breaker… nothing like serving a bunch of Burkinabe village guys banana bread… they were grabbing for more…. this stuff is good!  Then we walked back over to ISO for hiphop class.  Whining the entire way.  I don’t want to…. why do I have to…. what if i stop right here….  As we enter the school a gaggle four girls overheard, “where’s the hiphop class?”  Her step is no longer dragging.  Now it’s all: “I’m just going to watch.”  We get there.  Fifteen girls, three boys.  Three kids from her class.  The teacher- a young Burkinabe man with a shy smile, knows no English.  I tell him Sukie is going to watch.  “C’est bon.”  When they start up everyone gets in a circle holding hands…. he glances over at Sukie, holds out his hand…. “You, yes?”  What a great teacher… he instinctively knew just how to do it.   And boy can the guy dance.  He just starts teaching them steps to a little routine.  By the end of the hour they’ve all learned the steps, and Sukie very happy.  Ah, Ouaga!

I guess I’ll write about work over at the FAVL blog.

Dropped Sukie off at 7am at the International School. Everyone was very welcoming. Her class has 8 other kids. Four girls, four boys. She is the only American! Four of the kids are anglophone Africans, one boy from Holland, one girl from Poland, and two she isn’t sure. Teacher is from Canada. She says it was a good first day… the girls told her the boys were a little… you know… crazy. So that went pretty well. She came home and Salimata had made benga (rice and bean dish) and she liked it. For dinner spaghetti with vegetable sauce. She watched Nancy Drew again, and now is doing homework.

I had a good meeting at INSS with my colleagues Alain Sissao and Felix Compaore. The FAVL team working with me on the project to promote reading amongst youth arrived. We are going to meet and go over the program the next two days. I am looking forward to this project getting underway. It will be really interesting to see how things develop.

I’m back for four months.  I think this will be a good trip.  Saw Peter Hochet on the plane; he was returning from Guinea.  He and colleagues in Labo Citoyennetes are doing a big project on land tenure regimes in Guinea.  Airport was smooth, and my thirft store suitcases all made it, even the 1950s one, though the entire side fell off and everything was held in the bag by the liner only.  I did a count and we now have 14 large suitcases in the house in Ouaga.  A problem of always coming with two and leaving with one!  Have to sell some at the ISO garage sale.

Speaking of the International School of Ouagadougou, Sukie and I walked around about noon.  Nobody out.  Of course, it was 104 F.  Right now it is night time, and about 95 inside the house.  Funny though it is such a dry heat neither Sukie nor I are really feeling it.  It helped that after the ISO tour, we drove over to the Club Sonabel, by the barrage, and watched my colleague Alain Sissao and his daughters take their first swimming lesson.  Alain was pretty brave… imagine being fifty and dunking your head underwater for the first time…. scary.  The girls of course quickly blew past him, practically diving by the end of the hour.  Then we went and had ice cream at the Festival de Glace, the relatively new ice cream place.  Very air conditioned.  Quite nice.

Sukie and I drove home, and ate leftover couscous.  She says it is her favorite meal.  Salimata (the FAVL cook and in charge of the guesthouse) makes a mean vegetarian couscous.  Then she (and me a little) watched a Nancy Drew mystery (interestingly, they play her as slightly Asperger’s… or just old fashioned?  She can’t lie, and she can’t hear irony, and has a hard time with emotions.

Anyway, a good first day in Ouaga,

On termine cette revue de presse au Sénégal. La Chine « déferle dans l’arachide » : c’est le titre choisi par Jeune Afrique dans son édition économique. Au port de Dakar, 53 000 tonnes d’oléagineux étaient en instance de départ mi-mars. « Assez pour que huiliers et opérateurs privés stockeurs les intermédiaires, tirent la sonnette d’alarme ». Ils demandent que la filière soit mieux encadrée pour « préserver l’industrie locale » mais aussi pour « constituer un stock semencier pour le prochain hivernage ». Jeune Afrique raconte que les opérateurs sénégalais stockeurs n’ont pas atteint leurs objectifs de récolte. Ces opérateurs sont d’ailleurs court-circuités par les négociants chinois. Contrairement aux autres étrangers, ceux de l’Empire du milieu « viennent avec leur argent et opèrent au bord du champ ou avec l’aide de rabatteurs locaux ». Les opérateurs trépignent, mais le journal souligne dans sa version en ligne que les paysans, eux, tirent leur épingle du jeu. « Les négociants, surtout chinois, proposent jusqu’à 270 FCFA le kilogramme d’arachide en lieu et place des 190 FCFA officiels. Du jamais vu ! »

via A la Une : l’Afrique minée par les crises sociopolitiques – RFI.

From The New Yorker review of Justin Timberlake’s new album:

Timberlake’s …  “Let the Groove Get In” is… powered by a synthetic kick drum and a sample of vocals and percussion from Burkina Faso…”

Maybe because I don’t know a single Timberlake song, and have never been sure whether he also owns the shoe company, and just who is Timbaland?

I’m reading Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer, and Jon Robinson’s AER paper on fertilizer use in Kenya.  Summarized by Chris Blattman here.  I’m looking for the gender dimension.  It’s hard to find and interpret.  They sampled ~450 men and ~450 women  (based on lists of parents of children in primary school).  They are not clear in their various papers, but it appears the idea was the project  (ICS staff) would “deal” with the respondent (in supplying fertilizer, seed, demonstrations, the SAFI savings commitment program to purchase fertilizer in advance).  So presumably, even if a man or woman wasn’t the farm manager, the project would deal with them (somehow I cannot see the ICS field staff refusing the speak to the male farmer and instead talking about fertilizer and farming with the shopkeeping wife…). Like I said, not clear in this or the various other papers I have seen online. Probably there is some project document that explains more clearly.

But that’s not the department of buried in a footnote point.  There are three footnotes actually.

One is fn 3: “For instance, consider a farmer with an hourly wage of $0.16 (the average wage rate for the area in Tavneet
K. Suri 2011) for whom round-trip travel to town to buy fertilizer takes 30 minutes and who can initially afford only 3.7 kgs of fertilizer at a cost of $1.92 (the average bought through the program described in this paper). Since the returns to half a teaspoon of top dressing fertilizer are 15.0–27.2 percent over a season (52–85 percent on an annualized basis), netting out the lost wages for time spent shopping for fertilizer would leave the farmer with a 48–81 percent annualized rate of return.”

And then later fn 9: “Most farmers who bought fertilizer through the SAFI program did not buy enough that they would have had to pay for transportation. On average, farmers who bought fertilizer through the SAFI program bought 3.7 kilograms of fertilizer (at a total cost of 135 Kenyan shillings, or $1.92), and only 1 percent of farmers bought more than 10 kilograms. It would take the average farmer roughly a half-hour to walk to town, buy fertilizer, and walk back. For a farmer who makes $0.16 per hour (as in Suri 2011), the SAFI program would save her a bit less than 5 percent of the cost of the fertilizer bought by the average farmer. This cost would be substantially smaller if the farmer were going to town anyway and so would not miss any work time.”

And then the money footnote 11: “Throughout this paper, we focus on usage of fertilizer rather than the quantity of fertilizer used because there is substantial underlying variation in the quantity used by farmers, which would make it difficult to pick up effects in average quantities. The standard deviation in kilograms of fertilizer used is 53, whereas farmers who bought fertilizer through the SAFI program bought only 3.7 kilograms, on average.”

What does this all mean?  Nowhere in the text of the paper does the reader have any idea that they are talking about $2.  That the annualized return of, say, 50% on this $2 investment is $1.  That in the sample of ~900 farmers, the variation in fertilizer quantities is hugely overwhelming the amounts on offer in the experiment.

(If 50% of farmers are using zero kg, and those who do buy have a uniform distribution in quantities, then the average level of fertilizer use must be on the order of 150kg to have a standard deviation of 53 kg.   A study of fertilizer prices in Kenya suggests that three 50kg sacks of fertilizer cost about $45.  100-150 kg is in line with what cotton farmers in Burkina Faso, just as poor as Kenyan farmers, purchase every year for their cotton farms.  See this good paper on nation-wide use of fertilizer in Kenya, suggesting indeed 100kg per hectare is the average.)

Page  2354 of the paper: “As discussed in detail in online Appendix Table 2, panel B, using one-half teaspoon of fertilizer per plant increases yield by about $25.22 per acre and costs $19.83 per acre.”  So the cost is about $20 for a hectare’s worth of fertilizer, about the price of a 50kg sack.  And the benefits are about $5.  But farmers were only spending $2 in the program.

Isn’t this 20-25% of $2 program then a kind of quite low stakes experiment (they normally spend $20 on fertilizer) where response bias could overwhelm incentives, especially in the context of the experiment being run by an NGO that is probably distributing benefits in the hundreds of dollars to each village in the form of schooling, water, not to mention the large team of researchers?   Maybe it is excellent practice to run low stakes experiments like this that can be scaled, but I wish the authors had been more modest about the claims.  (Because they suggest the results could usefully inform fertilizer policy expenditures in the hundreds of millions of dollars .)  And not bury an important fact in the footnotes.