My field trip to the wettest place on earth

I reconnected with my good old mate and colleague from school, Peter Marbaniang when I visited his home to deliver the Hapa book sent by his cousin Karen David who is based in London. Later in the week I went for a field trip to the village near Sohra to meet the members of the Self Help Group that he has been working with for about a year. To get to the village people have to climb down 5000 steps and it takes about an hour to get to the bottom of the mountain near the river. The SHG consisting of 10 males in the village with Peter's help have been able to build a shop cum storage facility on the top of the mountain near the road side to sell the local products that they make in the village.


Peter is helping them to create market linkages for their products so as to benefit the whole village. There are about 250 people in the village and it is the most under developed one compared to others in the area. Anyway I had a great learning experience from my journey with Peter and we have decided to raise awareness about the hardship faced by the villagers and to get more support for them from the government and other concerned funders.


We also visited the office of the Khatarshnong Social Organisation (KSO) and met its dynamic founder who has made a huge impact in the development of the 46 villages in the surrounding area since he got started back in 1990. We later had lunch in the Sohra market and we were so lucky to have a beautiful clear blue sky above us with no sign of rain in the wettest place on earth. On the way back to Shillong we drove through a nature park that was inargurated by the Governor of Meghalaya recently. It was really a beautiful spot with great potential for eco tourism.

Meeting the UN's Deputy SG Mark Malloch Brown

The Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mark Malloch Brown delivered the Third British Council lecture in London on 9 March 2006, which I was invited to attend. The lecture was on the theme: The United Nations in the 21st century 2006.

Mr. Brown said to understand the challenges that the UN faces this century, we need to go back to the end of the Cold War and to the extraordinary period of globalisation that followed it. He stated that during the 1990s we saw a dramatic integration of world economies, not just around trade, but around information flows and capital flows and even cultural flows. He said that in some ways it seemed we had reached a moment where international organisations had their epiphany: that they had found their moment in the sun and the world order they had been calling for, often as lonely voices during those cold war years, had finally come about.

Hence, he suspect for all of us, who believe in these organisations, there has been a real sense of surprise and dismay at the fact that, 15 years later, nearly all of these organisations are in a profound crisis of legitimacy, mandate and purpose. Not just the United Nations, but he thought it would be fair to say at the European Commission as well, NATO even, the IMF and the World Bank. Mr. Brown said if all of these organisations are struggling to recover lost ground with public opinion in member countries, to reconnect with those they're seeking to help, reconnect with the governments that must support them, one must seek some common roots, some common explanations for why we see this crisis in the very international organizations.


Mr. Brown mentioned three new pillars that the UN needs to focus are development, security and human rights, and that the new UN needs major management reform. He said that nothing symbolises this issue of an institution still too closely held down by its 1945 roots, than the management and institutional arrangements of today’s United Nations. He stated that the UN spends some $2 billion a year and there’s something $18 billion a year devoted to development, humanitarian and peacekeeping work around the world, all of it done in hugely difficult circumstances.

He said that for the UN Secretariat proper, with an assessed contribution funding scheme and huge intergovernmental involvement in the management, it has not changed with the times. Mr. Brown said that today in the peacekeeping operations alone the US has more than twice as many civilian staff, UN staff, as they have in the Secretariat in New York. He argues that whereas the Secretariat in New York is in some ways more often like a kind of comfortable, tenured university world with 3% vacancy rates and some people sitting in the same jobs for years and even decades at a time, out in the field it’s a very different story. He said that the people in the field are not able to have their families with them, and are disadvantaged in terms of the financial package they're offered and as a consequence the UN has 30% vacancy rates in the field and in critical functions such as procurement, 50% vacancy rates.

Mr. Brown wants to change the whole structure of the organisation, its management systems, its investment in people, the way they develop their leadership, the way they run things in terms of their global IT system – in short the way the whole operation works -- to one which reflects this new global operational reality.

After his lecture I asked him a question about the possibility of the UN having a rapid action force or a standing army of blue helmets under the direct command of the Secretary General in the future to prevent conflicts around the world. Mr. Brown answered saying that the UN depends on developing countries to provide the troops needed for peacekeeping operations that are paid by developed countries. But it would take a while for the members states to agree on contributing enough troops to serve under the UN flag and to be ready for deployment within short notice. Later I continued the discussion with him in depth. I also reminded him about the story he stayed at Columbia University on a panel with Jeffery Sachs about the development hawks in New York with sharper beaks. He remembered the event and laugh at the reminder. Before he was taken away by the people from the BBC, he gave me his business card and asked me to keep him posted on the finding from my own research work at the London School of Economics.

Meeting the World's Banker James Wolfensohn

The former President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn delivered the Ninth Commonwealth Lecture in London on Thursday 2 March 2006, which I was invited to attend. The lecture was on the theme: The Future Role of the Commonwealth: A Bridge Between an Emerging Three-Speed World.

In his lecture, Mr. Wolfensohn outlined how sweeping changes to the global economy over the next 40 years could produce three distinct but interconnected spheres of varying levels of wealth and development, presenting the Commonwealth with new opportunities but also added challenges. According to Mr. Wolfensohn, developed high-income countries will form the first tier. They will continue to be some of the wealthiest countries on the planet but may slowly lose their economic dominance to the second group of countries, which would include Brazil, China, India and Russia. This second tier will be home to almost half of humanity and could become the new centre of economic power. The third tier will be made up of those countries held back by political, social, and institutional factors. These countries will struggle with widespread poverty but will remain an integral part of the global economy and world social order.

Mr. Wolfensohn said that the Commonwealth could bridge the gap between the different levels of development among its member countries by finding a common ground through shared values. He said the Commonwealth could address the disparities between the high, middle and low-income countries through close collaboration based on a shared heritage of history, language and values. He stated that high income Commonwealth developed countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK will continue to enjoy a major share of global economic growth, while middle income countries such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria and South Africa will enjoy healthy growth in their gross domestic product. Low income and poor countries may languish in poverty if faced with low economic growth but high population growth. Adding to this situation is the disparity in the volumes of foreign direct investment and trade among countries that fall into the three different tiers of development. Mr. Wolfensohn pointed out that these factors have a role in determining the level of equitable growth and social justice that in turn affect global stability.

Strong leadership, accountability and eradication of corruption can make a difference in a country's progress, said Mr. Wolfensohn. Apart from these, having the know-how, coupled with strategic planning and implementation of development programmes, can enhance the growth process. Educated and healthy populations are also critical factors, he added. Mr. Wolfensohn stressed that the Commonwealth has tremendous strengths that can be drawn from its association of 53 countries with close to 2 billion in total population. He commended the Commonwealth for its work that is targeted at promoting peace and democracy, human rights, the rule of law, good governance, public sector reform, gender equality, education, health and trade to advance sustainable development.

After his lecture I asked him a question about what he would do differently to address the interlinking issues of Poverty and Environment if he could go back on a time machine to 1995 when he joined the World Bank. He gave me a 5 min long answer stating the fact that he was not able to do much in that sector and wished he had got more time to deal with the nexus of Poverty and Environment, especially in the least developed countries. He did mention the mainstreaming of the Poverty and Environment linkages and that the World Bank Institute was developing new training programmes to sensitise development professionals globally how to address these two interlinking issues at the same time.


We later continued our discussion over a glass of red wine at the reception that followed with his wife Elaine who also went to Columbia University and recognised the Columbia pin on my jacket. James later gave me his business card and asked me to look him up when I crossed over the creek to New York. What impressed me was that he learnt to play the cello at 40 and is a great lover of classical music. After he left the World Bank in June 2005, he was appointed Special Envoy by the Quartet for the Gaza Disengagement, which comprises the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice; the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavtov; the European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana and United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

Flying to Meghalaya where the clouds come home

I left my research tower at the London School of Economics after sending the 2nd draft of my thesis to my supervisor on the 29th of March. I took the last Piccadilly train to Heathrow international airport at mid night. I got the early 6am Air France flight out of London via Paris to Delhi the next morning and spent the night waiting for my check in time at Terminal 2. Thank God I had the wonderful company of a nice girl from Bogotá, Colombia who was determine to keep me awake while having a great conversation with me in Spanish. Well I must say it was nice way to brush up my language skills again in the early hours of the morning. It was a nice quick sail across the English Channel to Paris and then we had to say goodbye and run to catch our connecting flights heading in different directions. I was so tired on the Delhi bound flight and went straight to dreamland the moment we took off from Paris.


It is great to be back home in India where it is much warmer compared to cold and wet England. The journey home from Delhi to Meghalaya was beautiful flying parallel to the mighty Himalayas on my left. I will be resuming the 2nd stage of my fieldwork in West Khasi hills district and collecting household survey data from 5 more villages in the Riangdo cluster. I hope to collect at least 100 interviews and since each one takes about 3 hours, I guess I got 300 solid hours of work ahead of me. I plan to be back to base in London my the 27th of June, just in time for my PhD seminar due at 2pm GMT. Below are some pictures of my homeland Meghalaya. More updates later!





While I was home I also had a great interview with the legendary Lou Majaw our home grown rock 'n' roll star!