by Mark Weston | Feb 8, 2010 | Africa, Economics and development
Mobile phones are spreading through Sierra Leone like a cholera epidemic. Everyone either has one or aspires to one. Phone theft is common (my own lasted a week). People will sacrifice meals or school fees to buy credits (everyone is on pay-as-you-go, and stalls selling top-up scratch cards are ubiquitous, as are recharging shops, since few have electricity at home).
There is keen competition among the major mobile networks – Zain, Africell and Comium adverts adorn billboards, bars and houses, whose owners charge a monthly rent for you to daub your logo over their walls. They sponsor pop concerts, sports events and even Freetown’s venerable cotton tree, under which the first freed slaves congregated to plan their new lives.
As in Europe, the operators do not shirk from sharp practice. Calls to someone else on your network are cheap, but if you call a Zain phone from an Africell sim your costs soar. To combat this, Sierra Leoneans buy a sim card for each network and give out three numbers to contacts – a sim costs a dollar, and phones are sold unlocked. Some have handsets that can carry two cards at once, and you press a button to choose which to use for a particular call. Others have three phones with a different sim in each. The less affluent have to open up their phone to change the card each time they call another network (this of course means that you often have to dial three different numbers before you can get through to someone).
The mobile exerts a dictatorial hold on social intercourse. Nothing is more important than an incoming call. Businesspeople interrupt meetings to take calls from friends, family and colleagues; the judge in a court case we observed last week kept halting proceedings whenever his phone rang; a beer with a Sierra Leonean friend is a series of stops and starts as he or she fields calls or replies to texts. (more…)
by Alex Evans | Feb 5, 2010 | Influence and networks
I tried asking that to roomful of Foreign Office diplomats yesterday, at a Chatham House seminar (part of the Institute’s program on Redefining the UK’s International Ambitions and Choices ahead of the election – David and I are writing one of two concluding reports, on ‘organising for influence’; the other, by Paul Cornish, will be on UK security and defence policy).
It’s not an altogether flippant question. Various countries (especially from the former Soviet Union) have decided not to bother with embassies in the UK, electing simply to hire Bell Pottinger instead. Other countres go for a both / and approach: China, for instance, has an extensive global network of posts, but also a large account with APCO Worldwide.
Granted, there are some areas in which it makes sense to keep things in house. Managing bilateral relationships with other government’s isn’t something you can easily outsource. And knowing how to operate in multilateral processes is something you only really learn inside a government – sure, you can hire a lobbyist to help you with (say) WTO negotiations, but chances are that what makes them a good operator in that arena is time spent working for a government.
But campaigning work on global issues – trying to create the conditions internationally for an ambitious climate deal, for instance – mightn’t that be the sort of thing at which a communications consultancy might actually be better than the Foreign Office? (more…)
by Alex Evans | Feb 5, 2010 | Influence and networks
USA Today this morning:
The recession has battered the U.S. economy, but the lobbying industry is humming along in the nation’s capital, even for companies that have shed thousands of jobs in the past year.The 20 trade associations and companies that spent the most on lobbying increased their spending by more than 20% in 2009 to $507.7 million, up from $418.2 million a year earlier, according to a USA TODAY analysis of reports compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.
The top 10 spenders: US Chamber of Commerce ($144.5m spend in 2009), ExxonMobil ($27.4m), Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America ($26.4m), General Electric ($25.5m, Pfizer ($24.6m), American Assocition of Retired People ($21.0m), Chevron ($20.8m), Blue Cross / Blue Shield ($20.0m), and the National Association of Realtors ($19.5m). Followed by: Conoco Phillips; Verizon; FedEx; Boeing; American Hospital Association; National Cable and Telecommunications Association; Northrop Grumman; Lockheed Martin; Business Roundtable; Altria Group.
by Mark Weston | Feb 5, 2010 | Africa, Economics and development
Had a surprisingly interesting tour of Freetown’s port yesterday. It’s the world’s third largest natural harbour.
Seventy years ago, the ship carrying my grandfather to the Far East during the war anchored briefly off Freetown. He remembered the oppressive heat and humidity, and the hawkers who rowed out to the ship in dugout canoes to sell their wares to British soldiers (plus ça change). The soldiers would lower buckets down to the canoes and haul up fresh fruit and snacks. For entertainment, some would drop coins into the sea, which intrepid young boys would dive down to retrieve from the seabed.
The port is a pretty modern affair these days. A couple of hours there gives you some insight into the workings of the country. A huge Norwegian vessel was unloading limestone to make cement (the post-war rebuilding of Freetown continues); another ship was being emptied of flour; dockers employed by the day were asleep in the shade of Maersk containers. Rice, bizarrely in such a hot and wet country, is the main import commodity, followed by wheat and iron rods for construction. Iron ore (processed elsewhere – Sierra Leone lacks the industrial capacity to process anything), timber, bauxite and rutile are the main exports (diamonds and gold are exported by other means). The World Food Programme has its own depot there, half-full of sacks of corn and flour.
We were shown round by a security guard, Alex, who has worked at the port for twenty years, including during the war when RUF rebels took it over and looted all the containers. His main duties include checking departing ships for drugs and stowaways. He says about half of the ships bound for Europe contain four or five stowaways. They row in in the dead of night, climb into the rudder hole, and sit tight – for weeks.
Sitting forlornly at the far end of the dock is a medium-sized Chinese fishing vessel. On it are a couple of Chinese men and a Sierra Leonean soldier. The boat was caught and impounded last autumn for fishing in Sierra Leone’s waters without a license (a common problem in West Africa). Seven Chinese fishermen have languished in a Freetown prison ever since – those who remain on board take them food every day but are not allowed to leave the country. To obtain his and the boat’s liberty, each prisoner must pay a $25,000 fine, but the shipping agent has failed to cough up. The vessel, guarded round the clock, is quietly rusting.
