Student Network for Human Security (SNHS) Blog

This is a very timely reflection on water and sanitation issues, specially related to the tragedy going on in Zimbabwe. I would like to highlight the following statement, cruel reflect of the banality of developing countries problems, in the eyes of developed ones:

"The environmental causes aren't related to climate change or global warming," she [Ms. Blocks, director of the Blacksmith Foundation, a charity whose aim is to clean up pollution hotspots in developing countries] says. "And it seems that people in the US couldn't care less if you can't relate an issue to global warming."

The idea has been longly sustained by Bjørn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus, in the sense that abstract, mega-solutions have left no budget for little but effective projects. It seems to be the point where the money is invested, and how good you look at doing it.

The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies has been publishing weekly short op-eds about several international issues from a country perspective. Most of the time it seems to take a traditional view of security, from time to time some experts bring alternative views to the arena. The number 56, which title is the same of this post, was written by Kinichi Komano, ex-ambassador in Afghanistan, and highlights some of the challenges of a reconstruction program: the economic burden of the monopoly of violence, and the difficulty to make development plans take off. The solution: international community to shoulder the security problem, giving breath to the national government to do the rest. Sounds good but, easier said than done.