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The world as we know it would appear to have suddenly become more hazardous than ever before in our living memory. This may not actually be so considering the entire hazardscape, but the types of societal threats have changed. The sweet complacency of the affluent West has been disrupted. Instead of history ending in an unstoppable march of globalisation and economic growth, we are suddenly faced with natural and social calamities that threaten the sustainability of our common future.Ìę

Before looking at the role of evaluation in development and transformational change, the root causes of destruction are examined, along with the maldistribution of the repercussions of this destruction. It is argued that evaluation must take a broad view within a complex system that includes the natural environment if it is to make a contribution to a world that is socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable.

The full article is available (open access) in the journal 7:21.

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Maailmanlaajuinen ympĂ€ristörahasto (Global Environment FacilityÌę) on maailman vanhin monenkeskinen rahasto, joka sijoittaa kehittyvien maiden ympĂ€ristötyöhön. Se on jakanut 30-vuotisen historiansa aikana rahoitusta miljardien edestĂ€. Vastuu merkittĂ€vien rahavirtojen kanavoimisesta on saanut GEFin ottamaan arvioinnin vakavasti.

Ìętoimii GEF:n organisaatiokaaviossa omana yksikkönÀÀn, ja sen johtajana raportoin suoraan johtokunnalle. TehtĂ€vĂ€nĂ€mme on tuottaa riippumattomaan arviointiin perustuvaa tietoa rahaston ja sen rahoittamien hankkeiden tuloksista ja vaikuttavuudesta sekĂ€ Ìęyhteistyön toimivuudesta kokonaisuudessaan. Koska GEF:n rahoittamat ohjelmat ja hankkeet toteutetaan eri jĂ€rjestöjenÌę kuten Maailmanpankin, muutamien YK-jĂ€rjestöjen ja isojen, ympĂ€ristöön keskittyvien kansalaisjĂ€rjestöjen kautta, tehtĂ€vĂ€mme on myös valvoa, ettĂ€ nĂ€mĂ€ arvioivat toteuttamansa hankkeet sovitulla tavalla.

Olemme juuri julkistaneetÌęÌęmeneillÀÀn oleviaÌę lisĂ€rahoitusneuvotteluja varten. TĂ€mĂ€ evaluaatio tuo yhteen löydökset 34:stĂ€ eri osa-arvioinnista, joita toimistomme on laatinut lĂ€hes kolmen vuoden ajan. Kaikkiaan GEF on rahoittanut historiansa aikana yli 5 000 hanketta. NĂ€istĂ€ jokainen loppuun saatettu hanke on arvioitu. NĂ€mĂ€ hanketason arvioinnit ovat meille aarreaitta, kun tutkimme trendejĂ€ rahoituksen painopisteissĂ€ ja hankkeiden tuloksissa. Ne tuovat myös esiin erittĂ€in rikkaan kirjon syitĂ€, jotka selittĂ€vĂ€t hankkeiden onnistumisten edellytyksiĂ€ ja antavat osviittaa sille, mihin GEF:n ja sen jĂ€rjestöjen kannattaisi panostaa.

Emme kuitenkaan tukeudu ainoastaan hanketason arviointeihin, joita toteuttajaorganisaatiot ja konsultit ovat tehneet, vaan teemme myös itse omia tutkimuksiamme. Esimerkiksi viimeisimmĂ€n kokonaisarvioinnin osana pÀÀtimme tutkia tarkemmin, mistĂ€ mitattavat erot eri maaryhmien vĂ€lillĂ€ hankkeiden tuloksissa johtuvat. Kun vaikkapa Kiinassa ja Meksikossa yhdeksĂ€n kymmenestĂ€ hankkeesta onnistuu erinomaisesti, on vastaava luku Afrikassa paljon alhaisempi. Teimme maaryhmĂ€arvioinnit vĂ€hiten kehittyneistĂ€ maistaÌę yleensĂ€ ja Sahelin alueesta erityisesti sekĂ€ pienistĂ€ saarivaltioista. Arvioinnit valaisivat nĂ€iden maaryhmien erityisongelmia, joihin kuuluvat matala institutionaalinen kapasiteetti ja vĂ€hĂ€iset henkilöresurssit. Etenkin köyhimmissĂ€ maissa on tĂ€rkeÀÀ, ettĂ€ ympĂ€ristöhankkeet auttavat myös ihmisiĂ€ toimeentulon hankkimisessa.

Teimme lisÀksi erityisen arvioinnin maista, joissa haavoittuvuus ja konfliktitilanteet vaikuttavat hankkeisiin, sillÀ GEF:n rahoittamista hankkeista yli puolet toteutetaan juuri tÀllaisissa maissa. Arvioinnin mukaan heikko turvallisuustilanne ja kysymykset eri toimijoiden legitimiteetistÀ ovat suoranaisia uhkia hankkeille. Toisaalta löysimme esimerkkejÀ hankkeista, jotka olivat paikallisen vÀestön kannalta erityisen tervetulleita, sillÀ ne paransivat luonnonvarainhoidon kautta ihmisten toimeentuloa ja elintarviketurvaa sekÀ auttoivat paikallisyhteisöjÀ toimimaan yhteistyössÀ. GEF ei kuitenkaan systemaattisesti ota paikallista tilannetta huomioon ohjelmatoiminnassaan. Arviointi kehottaakin rahastoa parantamaan kÀytÀntöÀÀn jatkossa.

Viime vuosina GEF:n strategiat ovat siirtyneet selkeÀsti sektoriaalisista ympÀristöhankkeista integroituihin ohjelmiin, joiden kohteena ovat ympÀristöön vaikuttavat yhteiskunnalliset prosessit. Ohjelmat kohdistuvat ruoantuotantoon ja maankÀyttöön, kaupunkeihin ja tuotantoketjuihin, joilla on erityisen suuri ympÀristövaikutus. PÀivittÀiset tuotteet, kuten soijapavut, palmuöljy ja liha, ovat suurimpia syitÀ trooppiseen metsÀkatoon ja vaikuttavat suuresti niin ilmastonmuutokseen kuin biodiversiteetin katoamiseenkin. Kaupungit kuluttavat kaksi kolmasosaa maailman energiasta ja pÀÀstÀvÀt ilmoille 70 prosenttia kasvihuonekaasuista. Niiden hallitsematon kasvu kehitysmaissa johtaa tÀrkeiden ekosysteemien tuhoon ja metsÀkatoon ja samalla tekee kaupungeista ja niiden vÀestöstÀ hyvin haavoittuvaisia ilmastonmuutoksen vaikutuksille. Toisaalta hyvÀllÀ kaupunkisuunnittelulla kaikkia nÀitÀ ongelmia voidaan ratkaista.

NÀmÀ ohjelmat ovat sen verran uusia, ettÀ niiden vaikutuksia on liian varhaista arvioida. Olemme kuitenkin pyrkineet ennakoimaan niiden onnistumista formatiivisen arvioinnin avulla. NÀyttÀÀ selvÀltÀ, ettÀ on viisaampaa keskittyÀ ongelman aiheuttajiin kuin yrittÀÀ korjata jo tapahtunutta tuhoa.

KÀytÀmme arvioinneissamme monia erilaisia metodeja. Kokeelliset metodit eivÀt usein ole mahdollisia tÀmÀn tyyppisissÀ tutkimuksissa, mutta pyrimme kvantifioimaan tuloksia siinÀ mÀÀrin kuin mahdollista. Koska monissa GEF:n ohjelmissa kohteena on vaikkapa maankÀyttö tai kasvillisuus, olemme kehittÀneet tapoja kÀyttÀÀ kaukokartoitusta ja paikkatietojÀrjestelmiÀ mittaamaan muutosta. NÀitÀ voi yhdistÀÀ sosioekonomiseen analyysiin. MitÀ tahansa metodia kÀytetÀÀnkin, tÀrkeintÀ on systemaattinen analyysi ja triangulaatio.

Miksi arvioinnista on tullut niin tÀrkeÀ osa GEF:n toimintaa? YhtenÀ syynÀ on se, ettÀ GEF perustettiin olemaan innovatiivinen rahoitusmekanismi, jonka puitteissa voidaan testata uusia, parempia tapoja toimia ympÀristön hyvÀksi. TÀllainen kokeellinen lÀhestymistapa tietysti vaatii, ettÀ arviointi on oleellinen osa jÀrjestelmÀÀ. Vuosien saatossa arviointi on lisÀksi todistanut arvonsa tuottamalla kÀytÀnnöllistÀ tietoa toimintamallien tarkoituksiin sekÀ vastaamalla johtokunnan ja muiden osallistujien tarpeisiin joustavasti ja ajallaan.

Olemme juuri julkaisseet kirjanÌę, jossa valaisemme nĂ€itĂ€ asioita tarkemmin GEF:n nĂ€kökulmasta. Kirjan esittelytilaisuuden tallenne löytyyÌę.

Originally published by the .

Tokyo Dawn (photo: J.I. Uitto)
COP26 is about to start in Scotland and thousands of government and civil society representatives, international organization and private sector types, scientists, journalists, and hangers-on are descending upon the city of Glasgow while the pandemic is still ongoing. In fact, the accommodations in town and its surroundings are already so overbooked that many participants have to stay in Edinburgh, some 40 minutes� train ride away.

The gathering is the 26th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the hopes are high that, finally, the world leaders will take decisive action to halt global warming. Under President Joe Biden, the Americans are back with a vengeance and UK as the host nation is talking up the game. China, which has surpassed the US as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases (although on per capita basis it is still at a much lower level) has announced ambitious plans that fossil fuels will constitute less than 20% of its energy mix by 2060.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) latest assessment gives humanity a dire warning: we have until the end of the decade to mend our ways, lest runaway climate change wreaks havoc on the planet and its inhabitants. .

Mind you, the havoc is not anymore in the distant future. In the past couple of years we’ve seen devastating wildfires in Australia, Siberia and the US West Coast. Some of the wealthiest parts of the planet are running out of water, threatening California’s famed citrus groves and forcing cities to ration water. Unprecedented floods took Germany and much of Central Europe by surprise this summer and also caused huge damages in China. Heatwaves are killing people and storms are destroying infrastructure and causing frequent power outages even in places like Texas.

Climate change is real and its impacts are already being felt by the majority of the planet’s population, not least in small islands and places like Bangladesh with low-lying coasts. So, surely our leaders see the writing on the wall and will take decisive action. Well, don’t bet your money on it. The hopes were equally high at another climate meeting in Copenhagen twelve years ago where the rich nations promised to deliver US$100 billion a year to combat climate change but little came out of it. .

How is it possible, you are asking? Citizens are increasingly concerned and young people are getting literally sick with climate anxiety. . Don’t our democratically elected leaders know? Or don’t they care? They know, for sure, and some may even care but there are forces too strong to resist. Of course, big businesses, not least the fossil fuel industry but others as well, continue to spend tremendous amounts of money to spread misinformation and sow the seeds of doubt — and to lobby and provide campaign contributions to politicians without which, at least in the United States, a politician doesn’t stand a chance to get elected or re-elected (in most European countries, such contributions would fall squarely into the category of criminal corruption).

But it’s also all of us: the citizens — or more accurately, consumers. In the summer of 2020 when the pandemic was still new — oh, how long ago that feels now — there was a growing feeling that maybe this calamity could teach us something. Something about our values, about what is important in life. We realized that our priorities had been misplaced. Getting those new clothes or going on that vacation wasn’t the meaning of life. Sheltering in place, concerned about the health and wellbeing of our loved ones and ourselves, worried about our job security, we missed our friends and families and recognized some inner emptiness.

But that was a lifetime ago. The pandemic lasted too long (actually, it isn’t over yet, as much as we pretend it is) and we got bored. The malls and restaurants opened again. Airplanes started to take off again. Some of us didn’t lose our jobs, after all, or figured out a way to survive without a regular pay-check. So it’s party time — and shopping time! In the US, consumer spending increased by 12% in the second quarter of 2021. Our greatest worry now is not a virus, but bottlenecks in supply chains that prevent us from having everything we want as quickly and cheaply as we want it. After all, we deserve it, after the terrible lockdown.

Climate change is a bummer. We are told that to combat it, we all have to make sacrifices. We should stop consuming frivolously. If you have a decent pair of jeans, you really don’t need that second (or fourth) pair, especially the very cheap one because it’s been made by child labor in hazardous conditions in a developing country sweatshop, using hundreds of liters of water and polluting the local river, then shipped over to the rich North. You have to get rid of the gas-guzzling truck and stop flying to your weekend getaways. First and foremost, you have to stop eating meat, for more tropical forest is cleared for cattle ranching and for animal feed (including your precious soybeans) than for any other reason (except perhaps palm oil, which itself is ubiquitous in virtually everything we consume in our daily lives).

This doesn’t of course apply only to everyone in London and Los Angeles, Helsinki and Hamburg. It is equally important for the people in Chengdu and Chongqing who have just recently become rich enough to add meat to their poor diets. And in Ulaanbaatar where they, in their harsh climate, have for generations fed themselves with meat from the yak, horses, sheep. If you take that away, it’s pretty much potatoes that’s left for them.

The truth is, even if everyone on the planet suddenly — and highly improbably — turned vegan, it won’t stop climate change. We’re not going to stop flying either, as witnessed by the case of the thousands who are flying to Glasgow for the climate meetings.

We should, of course, fly less than we used to. In 2019, before the pandemic, there were 3 billion airline passengers in the world (many naturally frequent fliers). That is an obscene number. The only way we can reduce it is by raising prices, to reflect the real costs, of unsubsidized fuel and internalized environmental costs. But then flying would again become the privilege of the wealthy, like it used to be, and we can’t have that. It has become a human right for anyone that can scrape together a few dollars or euro for a discount ticket to crowd to an airport and fight over an ever-shrinking seat in a pressurized tube hurtling through the skies for a weekend of fun. A human right, just like the 4-dollar t-shirt and 12-dollar jeans produced by a brown woman near-blind by the age of 25 from bad lighting and toxic fumes.

Which brings me to environmental justice. Climate impacts — just like the impacts of the pandemic — hit first and hardest the least privileged among us. Those living in the developing countries with fewest resources and opportunities. The same people who crowd at the US southern border with Mexico or who try to find a passage to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. In the rich countries, too, the ones at the bottom of the social and economic pyramid are the hardest hit. There is no doubt that climate change and environmental degradation have a social justice dimension.

But addressing the environmental justice issue is not going to stop the climate from changing, like some activists would have us believe. Even if we taxed the rich heavily, as we should (in a globalized world, this would require global coordination and concerted action by every country), there are still more than 2 billion people living in abject poverty in the world. Their number may have increased by as many as 150 million because of the pandemic. Lifting their incomes so that they can consume adequately for a dignified life must be a priority.

Kate Raworth has put forth the attractive model of doughnut economics, which places all humanity within an acceptable range in terms of standard of living. . No-one is left in the doughnut hole, while no-one should be allowed to consume beyond the outer layer of the ring. But with 8 billion people, and counting, on the planet, this still puts huge strains on the environment, especially at current technological levels.

Of course, we must measure wealth differently. Gross Domestic Product, GDP, is most outdated and most destructive a meter, given that it doesn’t give any value to the natural environment, except as raw material even if it is depleted, and hardly any to social capital. The Dasgupta Review published by the UK Government earlier this year makes this fundamental failure in economic thinking clear and calls for integrating nature into the economic calculus. . Irrespective of how we measure wealth, however, a dignified human life requires resources and energy, for food, for shelter, for mobility, for stimulation.

Energy is a critical factor. It is needed for all human endeavors: for construction, transportation, heating, cooling, manufacturing. The Internet uses extraordinary amounts of energy, as do all appliances that we have at home and in our pockets. Cryptocurrencies are extremely destructive in their energy use, to the point that China banned their mining. . There have been decades of promises of how solar and wind energy will provide abundant cheap and clean energy, but despite sinking costs this has not yet taken off at adequate scale. Partly it is due to continued fossil fuel subsidies, but not entirely.

Any old way I look at it, there is always something missing in the equation. We have to hope that our leaders, whether democratically elected or not, have the wisdom and courage to take some real steps in Glasgow, which they will follow up with concrete actions afterwards. The best they could do, I believe, would be to agree to remove public subsidies to actions that harm the environment, including fossil fuels and industrial agriculture. This would more than offset the missing finance to climate action. The IMF estimates that the global fossil fuel subsidies were US$5.9 trillion in 2020 (about 6.8% of global GDP) and expected to rise to 7.4% of GDP in 2025. .

We all should think twice about our own consumption, minimize waste and act responsibly as citizens. But we can’t leave stopping climate change to individuals. That’s neither possible nor fair, when the system is stacked against us. Furthermore, we can’t expect poor people around the world to stop aspiring to a better life (even if some may consider such aspirations misguided) just because we in the North have overshot our own share of the common good.

And don’t count on a global revolution. It’s not going to happen anytime soon. And if it does, it’s not going to be pretty. It may only happen because of too many people dying of climatic hazards and conflicts. Anyway, where revolutions have taken place in the past, the results have been at best mixed. Russia and China today are among the most polluted countries in the world. China at least is actively trying to do something about it and may have a decent chance, not least because it can mobilize its resources behind a unified cause under state leadership.

The only way out of this mess is, I believe, through mobilizing all means towards mitigating climate change, adapting to it, and enhancing society’s and people’s resilience against its impacts. Many environmentalists are inherently skeptical about technological solutions, whether they be carbon capture or geoengineering or, of course, nuclear energy. It is true that there are risks involved and some of the risks may be severe. These have to be studied carefully and any technologies have to be deployed judiciously. Concerns about the risks are entirely legitimate but at the same time we know the risks of not addressing climate change and environmental degradation.

Some of the objections are more of an ethical nature, as if taking technological solutions to climate change somehow absolved humanity from its sins. As if having a good life and consuming energy in themselves were a moral hazard, even if they didn’t result in environmental damage. Are we better people if we wash our hair with cold water? This type of logic appeals to the converted but risks pushing away many others.

Morals aside, the bottom line is that behavior change even if it were to happen globally and immediately (which is not likely) will not save the planet. Nor will the Nationally Determined Voluntary Contributions towards the Paris Agreement goals, even if all countries lived up to their promises (which they are unlike to do). .

To give us the best chance to a decent future we need advanced technologies in the mix. And we urgently need investments in research and development. Such investments will require public-private partnerships and financing through tax revenues from both corporations and individuals. Those are the kinds of sacrifices we need to make for our common future. It’s too late to rely on one set of strategies alone.

Published at .

Evaluation in an Uncertain World: Complexity, Legitimacy and Ethics, 6-10 September 2021 � An interview with Juha Uitto, Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment FacilityThis interview was given in connection with the European Evaluation Society conference and on 26 August 2021.

ÌęWe live in a rapidly changing world although we don’t always notice it as our lives unfold in the midst of these changes. Only when you think back, even only a few years, to a specific time and you compare how life was then, do you notice how different it is now. I had this epiphany when I worked on the new revised edition ofÌęEvaluating Environment in International Development. The book was originally published in 2014—only seven years ago—so I was somewhat surprised and distinctly pleased when the publisher approached me for an update. At the time of its publishing, the book had been quite unique in its specific focus on how evaluation of international development programs incorporated the environment. Since then, the need for evaluating the results and effectiveness of environmental interventions has only grown.

As I started updating the work, I realized how much had happened in the intervening years. Today there is hardly anyone who doesn’t recognize global environmental degradation as a terrifying problem affecting our future and the future of coming generations. Climate change, in the words of the UN Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres, has become theÌę. Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist, is now a recognized leader of a movement calling for urgent action to halt climate change, perhaps reflecting the fact that a large share of kids in Sweden and elsewhere suffer from what has been termed climate anxiety. The effects of climate change are increasingly undeniable, with unprecedented wildfires raging from Australia to the Pantanal, from Siberia to California; and fierce hurricanes and typhoons battering coastlines of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

While the human and financial costs of these disasters skyrocket, we are losing more biodiversity than ever since the mass extinctions before humans inhabited the planet. Climate change contributes to this devastation, but the root causes of biodiversity loss are in human activity that destroys habitats through deforestation, agricultural expansion, extensive animal husbandry, mining and natural resource extraction, and urbanization. These same forces that have brought us in ever closer communion with non-human animals, have brought us the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by a zoonotic virus that has spilled over to humans. We also face a third environmental crisis, that of pollution and waste that threatens both human and ecosystem health, not least the living ocean. We need to know how best to tackle these existential problems informed by evaluative evidence.

The good news is that there has been an awakening, of sorts. Many important milestones have been reached since the publication of the original book. TheÌęÌęhas been ratified by a vast majority of countries in the world. TheÌęÌęwas created to galvanize action for disaster risk reduction, acknowledging that climate change is one of the main drivers. And then there are theÌęÌęthat recognize that development must balance the social, environmental, and economic to produce positive outcomes for the people, planet and prosperity. These are all great initiatives but without implementation, without true commitment by all sectors of society, they will add up to too little too late. We see positive signs of real change. Countries have set targets for reaching carbon neutrality at specific dates: the United States in 2050, China a decade later. Enlightened business leaders have understood that there are no profits to be made on a devastated planet. Renewable energy is becoming increasingly competitive and major car makers have set timetables to phase out the internal combustion engine.

Earlier this year, theÌęÌęwas released by the UK Government, making a strong case for changing how we measure success. Economic calculations must start to account fully for the costs of environmental degradation. Before this happens, there is little hope that change will be more than a greenwash. For the first time in its 30-year history, UNDP’sÌęÌęincluded planetary pressures in its calculations, clearly showing how the countries that measure at the highest levels of human development do so at the cost of unsustainable use of natural resources.

This all demonstrates how the environmental agenda is also a social justice agenda. The rich countries continue to overstretch the planetary boundaries denying the poorer countries opportunities. It is also the poorest people, including in the rich countries, that are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts and suffer most from pollution and environmental degradation. These are the people—and their ranks include disproportionally minorities and women—whose health, lives and livelihoods are most at risk.

The importance and appreciation of evaluation continue to increase, for there is a recognition that we must better understand what policies, strategies, programs and projects are effective in addressing these pressing challenges. We only have limited time to move towards a more sustainable path before the window closes, before climate change and environmental degradation lead to major societal destabilization on a global scale. We must ensure that we learn from the past efforts what has worked, for whom, under what circumstances. One size does not fit all, clearly, and global “best practicesâ€� are elusive. All interventions take place in specific contexts where social, economic, historical, geographical, cultural, and institutional factors interact in complex ways. Successful approaches to policymaking, programming, and evaluation must be sensitive to context and gauge the impacts, both intended and unintended, on different groups of people as well as the environment.

The second edition ofÌęÌębrings together contributions from 22 evaluation thinkers and practitioners who reflect on their experiences from work with major international organizations, civil society, private sector and academia. They share their accumulated wisdom in 16 chapters that cover topics from the conceptual to the practical, based lessons from the field. There is no preferred approach or methodology; on the contrary, the complex challenges and varied situations require a broad range of approaches to evaluation, from quantitative and quasi-experimental, including the use of remote sensing and geospatial techniques, to qualitative. The cases covered range from program evaluation to evaluating policy and normative work. Examples highlighted come from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. To be accessible to as many readers as possible, especially those from these regions and younger readers, the book is available as anÌęÌęfree of charge.

It is my sincere hope that the book will provide food for thought about how to utilize evaluation even more as an important tool for better policy development and programming. And I hope it will help inspire new ideas for improved evaluation practice that can help us tackle the pressing problems of environment and development.

Originally published on .

by David Todd & Juha Uitto

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the attendant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) all recognize the close interlinkages of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The pandemic that we’re living through demonstrates this in a concrete and drastic manner. Not only has the pandemic caused a health crisis, it has wreaked havoc on the global economy and revealed huge social clefts in societies. Moreover, the corona virus causing the pandemic is zoonotic and its emergence has been facilitated by the unsustainable exploitation of the natural environment by human society. It has also demonstrated in no uncertain terms that we humans are still part of the natural world, and that human health and ecosystem health are closely intertwined.

In 2019, the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) established a Working Group on Integrating Environmental and Social Impact into Evaluations Its objective is to establish a common UN-wide approach, norms and standards for appropriately incorporating environmental and social considerations into all evaluations, in line with the UN system-wide effort to move towards a common approach to environmental and social standards for UN programming.

The Working Group first conducted a stocktaking of the policies and guidance of UNEG members in support of evaluating the environment and social considerations. The study consisted of a collection and review of evaluation policies and guidance documents of UNEG members, and a survey that was administered to the evaluation offices. A total of 40 documents from 39 agencies were collected and analyzed, and 29 full sets of survey responses from agencies were received.

So what did we find? The importance placed on social and environmental considerations depends on the extent to which the agencies define their mandates to cover these areas. Having said that, both areas are generally seen as important. In all, 70% of the agencies feel that their work is highly engaged with social aspects and 45% think so about the environment. Overall, social considerations have a higher profile than those of the environment, but almost all agencies also report medium- or high-level engagement with the latter.

In keeping with the importance of these considerations, almost 60% of agencies reported having environmental or social safeguard policies, which need to be applied during the preparation of projects or programs, which then provide an entry point for evaluations to address these issues.

The agencies of course have their unique mandates, which can be highly specialized requiring appropriate evaluation methods. To meet their needs, almost all agencies have developed their own evaluation guidelines, tailored to the specifics of the work they undertake. One might assume that such guidance would adequately cover the social and environmental considerations from their perspective, but this is often not the case. In fact, based on survey results, 68% of responding evaluation offices feel that social considerations have not been well addressed, and as many as 84% feel this to be the case for environmental aspects. The survey results show a highly consistent perception among UNEG members that there is a need for additional guidance, particularly in the area of the environment. However, in terms of the precise areas that should be included, a less clear picture emerges.

Although social considerations are much more widely covered in existing guidance than environmental ones are, there are still gaps. Gender receives the strongest attention, a situation to which UNEG is said to have made an important contribution through its document “Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality in Evaluation: Towards UNEG Guidanceâ€� . Human rights, the other major thrust of UNEG’s work, are also present, but tend to be bundled with gender and are often not addressed in as much detail. ÌęOther social considerations have received much less attention. Examples of areas that would require more consideration and clarity in how they can be covered in evaluations include vulnerability; poverty (interestingly, given that poverty is such a central mandate for the UN); indigenous peoples; and disability (an area in which UNEG is now investing).

Guidance on the environment was found to be limited and inadequate for both current and emerging needs, a fact that should not surprise anyone. This was confirmed by both the document review and the survey. Specific areas that were identified as priorities where guidance would be needed included: (not unexpectedly) climate change (which now often tends to be the primary environmental concern on people’s minds); environmental impacts of development projects and how to minimize environmental footprints of interventions; and environmental risks. These latter are obviously central issues for mainstreaming environment into development processes as well as evaluation.

On a very positive note, a broad range of agencies realize that their activities may have unanticipated environmental effects. This in fact should be the basic assumption, as it seems safe to say that anything we do will have some environmental impact. There is also a heightened awareness of the interactions between social and environmental factors, clearly driven by the SDGs� explicit emphasis on these interlinkages.

There’s also a clear recognition that individual agencies are not best positioned to produce guidance on all aspects. UNEG’s work on gender and human rights is generally very well regarded and has been widely used, so agencies see it as a clear model for further work in the environmental and other social areas as well. The advantages of developing guidance through UNEG include its institutional neutrality; the guidance can also be more detailed in specific areas than most agencies would be able to produce; and it can address common needs identified by a broad range of agencies.

The Working Group continues its work. It currently has members from 13 agencies, coordinated by the GEF, jointly with UNEP and UNIDO. We plan to develop tiered guidance for UNEG members to integrate environmental and social impact into their evaluations building upon good practices identified in current agency-specific guidelines and evaluations that have successfully applied a holistic perspective. It is worth noting that our target is particularly evaluations where the evaluand is not an environmental program or a specific social issue. The purpose is thus to achieve mainstreaming of environmental and social dimensions into all evaluations in the spirit of sustainable development.

Originally published on .Ìę

Blue Swamini in January 2020 (photo by author)
That 2020 was a bad year goes without saying. One of the areas of human endeavor that suffered most was arts and culture. And these are also amongst the most vital areas for us. In a year dominated by a pandemic and a health crisis (which is fundamentally an expression of how our human society has an unhealthy relationship with nature), social and political strife, closures of small business and rising unemployment, police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement and the rise of right-wing violence and white supremacy, and the sad farce of an increasingly mad president in the United States, it’s easy to overlook how important a role music and other arts play in our wellbeing.
As countries and cities locked down in the spring, museums, galleries, concert halls and live music venues boarded up as well. I personally had planned to have an active year of music and cultural events. In fact, it all started off well. In January, I managed to first catch the (a Chinese ensemble that features more than 30 instruments all made of bamboo) and then saw the Blue Swamini, a fabulous and innovative band with the unusual set-up of harp, vibes, bass and drums, also featuring the vocalist . In early-February, I was delighted to witness the performance of composer and bassist ’s work Aventurine for strings and a jazz quartet. All of these interesting and elevating events at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.
While there is no doubt the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Opera and other major venues around the world will bounce back—they have the resources to bridge over these tough times and their patrons will be eager to come back—I am frankly terribly worried about smaller live music venues and clubs. Many have already closed down and many of them, I fear, permanently. In August, we lost one of the best clubs in Washington, DC, , which had operated for 33 years on U Street. One of the biggest losses for the jazz scene in New York (and the world) was the closure of , another well-established club, which featured nightly many of the city’s best talent, often of the more progressive variety creating new and innovative music.Ìę
ÌęThen there were those who died of COVID-19. The first one I took note of early in the pandemic was , who passed on March 24 in his adopted city, Paris. The Cameroonian saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist was highly influential in mixing African music with funk and jazz. His best known piece was probably the 1972 hit . Dibango was 86.
The last day of March witnessed the passing of (59), a protĂ©gĂ© of Miles Davis and a remarkable trumpeter in his own right. Three decades ago, Roney was one of the “Young Lionsâ€� who wanted to bring back the glory of modern jazz from earlier days. There was a lot of Miles in his playing, as can be heard in the recording of in 2018, but he was definitely his own man. One of the top trumpeters in his generation and beyond.
On April 1st, world lost the pianist died of pneumonia triggered by COVID at the age of 85. Apart from a musician Ellis Marsalis was an important music educator in New Orleans where his legacy lives on in the . His legacy is also evident in his four sons who have become contemporary jazz stars, Winton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason who have become household names.Ìę
ÌęThe guitarist died on the same day at the age of 94. Pizzarelli was a highly skillful guitarist who had performed with luminaries such as Benny Goodman, Sarah Vaughn and Frank Sinatra and recorded with pop musicians ranging from Paul McCartney and Michael Franks to Aretha Franklin and Carly Simon. Both presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton invited him to perform at the White House. He also frequently with his son, guitarist John Pizzarelli.Ìę
may not have been a household name, but he was a highly established pianist whose music inspired me as a teenager in Finland. Gumbs died in New York on April 6th at 70.Ìę
Then ten days later, on April 15th, the world lost two great senior statesmen of modern jazz. passed away from COVID-related pneumonia at the age of 92. It is impossible to capture the importance of Lee Konitz. He was one of greatest and most original alto saxophone players of all time. He was born in Chicago to a Jewish immigrant family and started his professional career with dance and blues bands in the Windy City in 1944. He moved to New York City in 1947 and soon performed and recorded with greats, such as Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Lenny Tristano, Stan Kenton and Bill Evans. His trademark was an that was pure and his expression was devoid of anything beyond the musical essential. He recorded the last album of his incredibly productive career, Old Songs New, in 2017 just after his 90th birthday.Ìę
All of these deaths are tragedies, of course, but one of those that made me saddest was that of who passed away in Harlem on the same day as Konitz at the age 84. From the late-1950s, Grimes was an active participant on the jazz scene, playing with greats such as Coleman Hawkins. However, he made his mark as part of the free jazz movement with others including Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry. He fell on hard times in 1968 when his bass broke on a tour with Jon Hendricks. Henry was left stranded, broke and without an instrument in Los Angeles where he stayed working as janitor until 2003 when he was discovered by a social worker who luckily recognized the great musician. He made a celebrated comeback on the New York music scene where jazz aficionados had never forgotten about him. He was a warm and open person and even I managed to connect with him on social media.
The list goes on and I could add so many names, but here I have only focused on those firmly in the jazz world. Just to pay my respects to them, here are some others: Trini Lopez, Kenny Rogers (who, incidentally, was a jazz bassist before he found fame as a country star), the renowned bass guitarists Matthew Seligman and Adam Schlesinger, Dave Greenfeld of the Stranglers, John Prine, Alan Merrill (best know as the co-writer of ‘I Love Rock ’nâ€� Rollâ€�), and the composer William Pursell.
A totally unnecessary casualty of the pandemic was the Japanese pianist who was badly beaten by a bunch of thugs upon entering the subway in New York City in September. While the details of the attack are blurry, there is reason to believe that this was racists attack as he remembers his attackers calling him Chinese. One of the many unfortunate side effects of the inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump who insisted on calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.”Ì�
These have all been terrible losses to the music world. But apart from those who died, many more have seen their livelihoods disappear. Behind this is also the greater change in how music is consumed. With the shift to streaming, musicians can no longer make a living wage by recordings—and there are so many people who, quite inexplicably, think that music should be free and who do their best to avoid paying even the paltry fees that services like Spotify and Pandora would transfer partly to the artist (can you imagine people suddenly deciding that farmers or doctors should not get paid for their work because they “enjoyâ€� it and provide something that is good for the world?). All of this is very bad for musicians, especially those who create a novel kind of music that doesn’t get millions of instances of airplay. But that’s another story for another time.
The closing of live music venues and concert sites and the halting of tours has left countless musicians with very little possibilities of earning an income. There are some creative ideas around, of course. I’ve personally contributed to a number music projects through crowdsourcing sites like Kickstarter. Live music has been partially reinvented through live streaming from artistsâ€� homes and some clubs. One of my favorites, the fabulous pianist , for example, has shared a lot of music from her home in Boston.
Here in DC, the Kennedy Center streams concerts, as do clubs like our premier jazz and supper club and New York’s famed . I listen to these events on occasion—and always make a point of paying the “entrance feeâ€� even it would be easy to skip it. The legendary New Orleans club broadcasts live music from the club in as realistic manner as possible. According to the current owners of the club, members of the jam band Galactic, the silver lining is that very few people could actually get a place in the front row if they were physically at the club, while at home we can all have that experience. I guess one could also turn the heater and the space humidifier on full blast, grab a few beers, and let go at home—at least until the neighbors complain.Ìę
The spontaneity of live performances can be created this way and you can still hear new music, but obviously the experience is different both to the listener and the performers who will miss the feedback from a live audience. As Jimmy Page, the legendary guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin, said in a recent : “I will never be one of those people who’ll record alone and send someone a file. I never went into music in the first place to do that, it was for playing together and this is what it means.â€� He states his conviction that “music means nothing without live shows.”Ì�
As long as we need social distancing because of the pandemic, seeing performances online is better than nothing. Apart from the US and UK, some other countries around the world, like New Zealand, Japan and Finland, have been somewhat less severely hit due to better policies and a more disciplined population. There, live music may make a comeback sooner, although tightly packed enthusiastic crowds will remain risky for a long time coming. Eventually, this current pandemic will wane and we’ll all get vaccinated (worryingly, there is a large proportion of population hesitant to take the vaccine). Although it may take years before we can again mingle freely in crowded places—and there are other novel viruses lurking in nature waiting to spillover to humans as we continue to abuse the environment—there is hope that live music will come back.
But the likelihood is that most of the venues that have now closed will not reopen, as the operators have moved on and reopening would require a lot of money in a situation that remains highly uncertain. Furthermore, there has been a movement of people away from city centers during the pandemic and that, obviously, is bad news for clubs that depend on dense concentrations of customers.Ìę
The website of Jazz Standard in New York has an upbeat message: We’ll be together again! I believe that there are millions of people around the world who feel the same. That should be our best hope.

On a gondola ride up to a biodiversity rich mountain area in Sichuan, China (photo by the author).
The year 2020 has been defined by the COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted lives and livelihoods everywhere around the world. The way we work has been interrupted and altered. This is true for those working to advance and manage international environmental projects and programs â€� it is also true for the professionals working to evaluate for effectiveness and impact of those initiatives. At the GEF Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), the body I lead, we have had to innovate in our data collection and analysis to counter the travel and other limitations posed by the situation. The fact that the coronavirus causing the pandemic is zoonotic, and thus directly linked to how humanity exploits and abuses the natural environment, places it at the center of the Global Environment Facility’s work. For independent evaluators, equally, understanding the connections between the human and natural systems, between environmental health and human health has become essential.

The pandemic struck at a critical time for the IEO, as we are in the midst of the Seventh Comprehensive Evaluation of the GEF, known as OPS7. These periodic evaluations are an important part of the GEF’s four-year replenishment cycle, providing evidence of the multilateral funding body’s impact and performance and informing the preparations of new policies and programs. In the IEO, we rely on solid data and information from multiple sources as the basis of our evaluations, using both quantitative and qualitative methods for analysis.

While analysis of portfolio data and the use of project-level evaluation reports are building blocks of our evaluations, being able to collect information from the field in the countries where GEF-supported projects and programs take place is usually essential to our work. After all, while the GEF’s purpose is to tackle pressing global environmental problems, and support global environmental benefits, its projects and programs are also intended to benefit the countries and the people in those countries where they operate. It is important for our evaluators to be able to observe what happens on the ground in all the places and all the areas where the GEF operates. We need the perspectives of the government and civil society representatives, as well as the agencies that implement and execute the projects. Crucially, we must understand the needs and concerns of the people whose lives are affected by GEF-supported interventions. Therefore, data collection in the field is a regular part of our evaluations. When the seriousness of the pandemic hit home in early March, IEO colleagues were conducting field visits in far-flung places, from Samoa to Ecuador, and had to be called home on short notice.

Our pre-pandemic strategy of expanding the use of national consultants for country expertise and broader country coverage over time helped us in this time of crisis, and we were quickly able to leverage experts in the field around the world to continue our work. In the evaluations that have continued to progress this year, we were able to engage local in-country consultants to collect data and information about GEF programs and projects, based on agreed protocols. These included country studies in Mozambique and Costa Rica for theÌę, and project cases in Peru and the Philippines for theÌę. There still were some limitations, as we did not want to expose our consultants or stakeholders to any health risk, but the national consultants were in a much better position to interact with and hear from local actors than we would have otherwise been able to glean.

Several evaluations contributing directly to OPS7 were already well underway before COVID-19, with field work completed before the pandemic made travel impossible. But there were also earlier studies that could be mined for the purposes of current evaluations. The datasets and information collected had been utilized for other purposes but could be used also to dig deeper into present evaluation questions.

It is worth noting that the IEO is not facing these challenges alone. The networks in which we participate, including theÌęÌęand theÌęÌęof the international financial institutions, have been actively finding solutions in similar circumstances. We have been able to work together with our partners, such as the independent evaluation bodies of the World Bank, UNDP, and IFAD, in coordinating and honing robust approaches to data collection under these extraordinary circumstances. In some areas, we have been recognized as leaders. One such area pertains to theÌę, including remotely sensed data. Those familiar with IEO’s work know that we have pioneered such techniques since OPS5, and our work has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. We have expanded our analysis to factors beyond land cover change and vegetation productivity to also now include value-for-money and socioeconomic analyses. In a recentÌę, the IEO team overlaid data on GEF-supported sustainable forest management projects with World Bank socioeconomic household survey data, which also was geocoded, and was able to demonstrate a positive correlation between the GEF interventions and household wellbeing.

Our role as independent evaluators is not only to verify whether each project or program has achieved the goals set for it. Evaluation goes far beyond performance auditing in that respect. To be truly useful, evaluation must not only look at what was achieved in the past but also take a perspective towards the future. Such a perspective must be based on an analysis of what has worked, under what circumstances, and why. We must also look for missed opportunities and unintended consequences. To be able to do this, evaluation must tap into cutting-edge knowledge on the topic being evaluated, especially in areas that are novel in the context of the GEF. In the evaluations ofÌęÌęand gold mining, the IEO worked closely with leading external experts who could bring to the table state-of-the-art thinking that would help the GEF move forward in these critical areas.

The ongoing pandemic has forced us to think creatively about evaluating the GEF. In light of the above, I am personally confident that the IEO will be able to continue delivering quality evaluations that our partners have come to expect from us. Equally, the Seventh Comprehensive Evaluation of the GEF will provide timely and reliable insights into the next replenishment process, along with lessons learned from this novel experience that will feed into future evaluations processes as well.

[Originally published at the Global Environment Facility website atÌę]

Transporting logs on Rio Tapajos in Amazonia (photo by author).

Over the past eight months, the novel coronavirus pandemic has infected some 20 million people and killed more than 700,000, sparing virtually no country. The economic and social consequences have been devastating. The virus SARS-CoV-2 that caused COVID-19 crossed over from its non-human host, probably a bat, directly or more likely through an intermediate host like a pangolin, to a human in or around the city of Wuhan in China in late 2019. The exact transmission mechanism is still not known but the root causes are clear. The spill-over of zoonotic viruses like SARS-CoV-2 is becoming more common as we come into ever closer contacts with animals, both domesticated and wild.Ìę As human activities extend deeper into undisturbed ecosystems, undiscovered pathogens are released. The destruction is driven by the expansion of agriculture and cattle ranching, logging and deforestation, road construction, mining, new settlements and urban sprawl, making space for the growing human population and its ever increasing demands for raw materials, food stuffs and consumer goods.

Although COVID-19 in itself was not known, the coming pandemic was widely predicted by scientists and there were even government taskforces set out to prepare us for its eventuality. There were precedents—SARS, MERS, H1N1, Zika, Ebola and others—although their impacts were much more modest. COVID-19 spread like a wildfire in a globalized world—there were 3 billion airline trips taken in 2019—due to its characteristics of being airborne and contagious before infected persons become symptomatic.

What does any of this have to do with evaluation, you might ask. In my view, everything. And if not, what is the relevance of evaluation to the real problems of the world? The pandemic is an illustration of the kind of challenges we face today, how interconnected the world is, and how events in one place have global consequences. It also shows how economic development and environmental degradation are intimately intertwined. As we cut down trees, not only do we come into contact with lethal pathogens, but we also undermine the forest’s ability to sequester carbon thereby speeding up global warming. As people get richer, their diets tend to become more meat-based. There are now half a billion cows and 23 billion chicken on the planet. There is a patch the size of Denmark in the Amazon, which has been cleared to grow soy beans to feed pigs in Denmark. Another consequence of the increased meat consumption is higher rates of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases even in countries that previously didn’t experience them. A recent study by Harvard University provided strongest evidence yet linking air pollution directly to higher mortality. Human health and ecosystem health are inseparable.

The pandemic has affected different groups and communities differently. In the USA, Black, Indigenous and other People of Colour (BIPOC) have been disproportionately hit because they are more likely to be employed in essential jobs that cannot be done remotely, and their living conditions are more cramped. They may also have more pre-existing medical conditions rendering them more vulnerable to the virus. Climate change affects the poor and vulnerable communities hardest, whether it is those living on the low-lying coast of Bangladesh pummelled by more frequent cyclones and sea-level rise or small farmers in African drylands suffering during prolonged droughts.

Many evaluators write about these global challenges, using terms like ‘complexâ€� and ‘wicked,â€� but I am not sure that the practice of evaluation has kept up with the theory. Evaluation as a profession has its roots in social inquiry, where we test the effectiveness of interventions on a well-defined treatment population against a control group. We may use experimental or quasi-experimental tools, or we may lean more towards more participatory and qualitative approaches, but either way the focus is on a single intervention and its effects. Our evaluations test the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of its pre-determined objectives. The desire is to be able to attribute any changes in the outcome to the intervention—or, recognizing the complexity and presence of multiple actors, at least the specific contributions of the intervention.

Apart from being narrowly project-focused, evaluations are still driven by donor concerns for accountability and ‘value for money.â€� This treats the central question as a matter of simple accounting instead of a choice between types of intervention or organization that can, say, lift the largest number of people out of poverty with the least amount of money. To make things worse, the accounting in development cooperation is for the purposes of the donors and their priorities, not for the benefit of the claim-holders that the project is intended to benefit. This accounting mentality in evaluation tends to miss the big picture and may end up doing more harm than good.

Seldom do evaluations look at the big picture: Are we actually doing the right thing? Is the intervention that we are promoting meaningful in the larger whole? Is it something that the intended beneficiaries want and need? Is it fixing one part of the problem but creating others elsewhere? Is it having unintended consequences for the environment, for disadvantaged groups, for indigenous peoples, for power relations, etc.?

We must incorporate the environment into our evaluations. Sustainable development lies on social, economic and environmental foundations, yet evaluation—like national accounting—is almost exclusively concerned with the economic and, to a lesser degree, social capital, while natural capital and its depreciation are considered external to the system. According to the World Bank,Ìę. This figure certainly underestimates the value of ecosystem services, in terms of clean water and air, health benefits, recreation, protection against natural hazards, etc. Evaluators must learn how to operate at the nexus of environment and development, which means understanding the interplay between human and natural systems.

Some of these lessons come out clearly in theÌę, which is directly relevant to warding off pandemics such as the current one. The evaluation revealed the need to address the root causes of illegal wildlife trade on multiple fronts while also protecting endangered species in situ. Working with local communities to provide sustainable livelihoods is important, but not sufficient. It is essential to address political will, corruption and demand for wildlife products in the market countries of Asia, Europe and North America. Such interventions—and evaluating them—require holistic perspectives and a broad understanding of the dynamic systems.

For evaluation to remain relevant, it must rise above its project mentality and start looking beyond the internal logic of the interventions that are evaluated. It must systematically search for unintended consequences that may lie outside of the immediate scope of the evaluation. It must expand its vision to encompass the coupled human and natural systems and how they interact. And it must resist focusing on accountability for donors and instead make sure that it contributes to learning, for the wellbeing of the beneficiaries and nature in an equitable manner. If we achieve this, evaluation will be better positioned to contribute to more sustainable and just development in an interconnected world.

[Originally published on the website of the European Evaluation Society ()]

How the Japanese deal with the pandemic is illustrative of what’s wrong in America.
The US just set a new record: more than 40,000 new cases of COVID-19 infections in one day. This is the end of June 2020 when many states have been reopening their economies and people around the country have breathed a big sigh of relief: The pandemic is over and we survived it! Except that it is not over and many did not survive. So far there have been more than 125,000 deaths confirmed to have been caused by the virus in the US. This is a quarter of all deaths globally (Americans stand for just over 4% of the world population).
Meanwhile in Japan, there is growing concern that a second wave of the pandemic is about to hit the country. This widespread fear among the general population and politicians alike has been caused by the fact that over the past three weeks or so there has been an increase in the number of new cases detected daily, mostly in the capital city. It is important to note, however, that these infection figures causing the panic are entirely in a different range than those in America. On Saturday, June 27, Tokyo discovered 57 new infections. The day before that, the figure was 54 and the day before that 55. That is 55, not 55,000.
Now, your reaction may be that, well, Japan is a small country. It is indeed much smaller that the United States, just 377,975 km2(147,937 sq. miles), as compared with the 9,833,520 km2 (3,796,742 square miles) of the USA. The US thus has many times the land area of Japan, but Japan’s population of 126 million is well over a third of America’s 328 million. Japan’s population density is therefore many times higher than that of the United States. Pandemics thrive in densely populated places. Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world—probably the largest if you count the surrounding areas the form the contiguous metropolitan area. Just the area falling under the administrative unit of Tokyo proper houses 14 million people, one-third more than New York City.
Despite this enormous population concentration, Japan has so far only had just over 18,000 corona cases, as compared with America’s almost 2.5 million. Japan also sits next to China, where the pandemic started at the end of last year, and is a major destination for Chinese tourists: 9.6 million Chinese visited Japan in 2019, some of them bringing the virus with them, especially to the northern island of Hokkaido that experienced an early surge in infections.
So what might explain these striking differences? Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso, as reported by , had a short and clear answer: Cultural standards. Aso was criticized for his insensitivity, including by some of his fellow politicians in Japan (this is not the first time that he is taking flak for blunt comments that can be seen as culturally chauvinistic), but it would be impossible to dismiss his observation offhand. Unlike in the USA where efforts to (belatedly) control the spread of the virus through lockdowns and social distancing have been met with armed protests, the Japanese never implemented any draconian closings. Sure, there were many common sense changes—restaurants would stop serving alcohol early in the evening encouraging people to return home, train service was significantly reduced—but much of It was done voluntarily.
There are different forces at play. One is that the Japanese tend to be on the average a well-educated populace with a high science literacy. This naturally comes with a respect for scientific authority. People would heed the advice that epidemiologists and medical professionals would give them. This is the first obvious contrast to the US where an anti-science bias has long and deep roots, as documented by the historian Richard Hofstadter in his 1963 classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Many people simply reject scientifically proven facts. Even during the COVID-19 crisis, there have been people claiming that the pandemic is just a liberal ploy to destroy the American way of life.
Secondly, Japan is ethnically and socially a very homogenous country with very low numbers of foreigners and relatively small differences between the rich and the poor. This homogeneity has maintained centuries old social structures and hierarchies. It is also a society with generally a high level of trust: between people and between people and the government. Needless to say, nothing could be further from truth when it comes to the American society today where divisions run deep between different groups and where distrust of the government has in recent years risen to feverish levels.
The Japanese homogeneity is of course not pure idyll. Its downside is that people who are different are often frowned upon, even ostracized. During the pandemic earlier in the spring, “virus vigilantesâ€� would harass those seen as breaking the social rules and putting other people at risk. There were also of discrimination against people who would be—rightly or falsely—suspected of carrying the virus, including quite unreasonably health care workers.
Respect for rules and other people’s safety and comfort, however, runs very deep in the Japanese culture. This would be part of the “high cultural standardsâ€� that Taro Aso was referring to as helping ward off the spread of the virus. Having lived in Japan for almost a decade and visiting frequently since then, I can attest to the extreme politeness and considerateness that people show to others. Wearing surgical masks has for decades been par for the course during the flu and pollen allergy seasons, not to protect oneself but out of consideration to others. Inconveniencing other people is highly embarrassing. So when the pandemic started, everyone naturally started wearing a mask. Cleanliness overall is at a remarkably high level in Japan, so again few adjustments had to be made in terms of hygiene.
No formal travel limitations had to be put in place as people censored themselves. My wife hails from Iwate, an area between the central mountains and the Pacific Ocean in the northern part of the main island, Honshu. Iwate has been the only prefecture in the country where no COVID cases have been recorded throughout the pandemic (they may well be there, but no-one has got sick enough to require hospitalization). This fact is thanks to health checks of people entering the prefecture that were not mandated by the central government and, notably, by self-regulation by travelers. Like my wife has pointed out: Being the person who gets to be known as the one who brought the virus to a hitherto uncontaminated place would bring unbearable shame to the person and her/his family, so people would rather not risk acting as the vector.
So, now there is a resurgence of the virus in Japan, which has led to quick action by both the authorities and regular people. Scientists have been able to trace the infection clusters that have emerged in the past few weeks since Japan started getting back to normal after new cases almost disappeared towards the end of May. These new clusters are almost all traceable to entertainment areas in Tokyo—karaoke bars, clubs and gyms, “associated with heavy breathing in close proximity,â€� as a new put it.
This same pattern is, of course, visible in the States. Partying over the Memorial Day weekend resulted in a new spread of infections. The pandemic has now moved south, to places like Florida, Arizona and Texas that opened up their economies prematurely, crowding beaches and bars as the weather warmed. On Friday, June 26, the governors of Texas and Florida were again forced to close down bars as new COVID-19 cases shot through the roof. Florida alone reported 8,942 new cases in one day alone.
The question now is, what will happen next. There may be a second wave hitting Japan but it is bound to be a very small one that will again be curbed in a few weeks, as people refrain from behaviors that put themselves and others at risk. It is hard to see the pandemic contained as easily in the US. The rudderless and reactive government response, self-centered instant gratification-seeking behavior of individuals, hugely divided society, and distrust of authority will guarantee that.
The renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama recently wrote in that the factors that have determined successful response to the pandemic across countries are state capacity, social trust, and leadership. The United States has failed in all three. Others have observed that Americans seem to have simply given up on the pandemic, focusing on different things instead. Some are serious—like the Black Lives Matter and police brutality—but many people just want to get their lives back, whether it’s getting on with work and making money or simply enjoying the summer. Now it’s coming back to bite us—and the world watches in stunned bafflement as the country that used to lead the way in so many ways now only leads the way to a downward spiral. In the meantime, the European Union (EU) mulls a travel ban for American visitors and countries like Japan require a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving there, leaving people like us spinning our wheels at our homes and watching as every new day brings more and more misery that could have been avoided.
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