Alors que le monde entier a les yeux rivés sur le Texas, les inondations au Bangladesh, en Inde et au Népal ont tué 1200 personnes et en ont touché 16 millions

Tandis qu’aux États-Unis, la tempête Harvey a tué au moins 14 personnes et que les autorités de Houston espèrent voir bientôt les pluies faiblir, l’Asie du sud-ouest est en train de vivre l’un des pires désastres climatiques depuis de nombreuses années. Après des pluies de mousson particulièrement fortes, de catastrophiques inondations ont frappé l’Inde, le Bangladesh, et le Népal, laissant des milliers de communes coupées du monde, privant depuis plusieurs jours leurs habitants d’eau courante et de nourriture.

Au moins 1 200 personnes ont été tuées, selon les premières estimations des agences d’aide internationale, et plusieurs millions d’habitants sont actuellement sans abri. Au total, plus de 16 millions de personnes sont affectées par la catastrophe sur l’ensemble de ces trois pays.

Les habitants de la région sont habitués aux périodes de fortes pluies qui, pendant la saison humide (de juin à septembre) peuvent régulièrement causer des inondations. Ces pluies de mousson sont un phénomène saisonnier normal tout autour du golfe du Bengale. En revanche, selon les autorités concernées, c’est l’intensité inhabituelle de ces pluies qui est en train de causer une grave catastrophe humanitaire.

Dans l’État indien du Bihar, situé à l’est du pays, la barre des 500 victimes a été dépassée. Le Bihar, l’une des régions les plus pauvres du pays, reste également l’une des zones les plus touchées. La population s’appuie en grande majorité sur l’agriculture pour vivre, et les récoltes de l’année ont été gravement compromises à cause des inondations, ce qui laisse en conséquence de présager une grave crise alimentaire dans le futur.

La montée des eaux affecte actuellement plus de 17 millions de personnes dans le reste du pays. Les camps d’hébergement provisoire des personnes dont le logement a été détruit sont déjà saturés. À Bombay, tous les transports sont paralysés et certaines zones ont dû être totalement évacuées, tandis que dans l’Uttar Pradresh (nord), plus de 100 morts sont à déplorer. Les autorités prévoient encore des pluies torrentielles pendant les 24 prochaines heures, et ont intimé à la population de ne pas sortir dehors.

Dans le Bangladesh voisin, 134 décès ont été officiellement confirmés, mais ce bilan pourrait s’alourdir très rapidement : plus d’un tiers du pays a été totalement submergé par les eaux. Si le nombre exact des victimes humaines demeure pour l’instant incertain, plus de 600 000 hectares de terres agricoles ont été gravement endommagés et plus de 10 000 hectares ont été complètement détruits. Une nouvelle très inquiétante pour les bengalis, dont la majeure partie de l’économie s’appuie sur l’agriculture.

En avril, plus d’un million de tonnes de riz avait déjà été perdu par le pays à cause d’une inondation-éclair. Le cumul de ces deux catastrophes risque de provoquer une grave crise pour ce pays, très dépendant de la production agricole. Plus de 7 millions de personnes seraient touchées, selon la Croix Rouge.

Enfin, au Népal, 150 personnes ont été tuées selon les premiers chiffres, et 90 000 foyers se sont retrouvés détruits. Les Nations Unies parlent de la catastrophe comme étant les «pires inondations» ayant eu lieu dans ce pays depuis plus d’une décennie. 1,4 million de personnes auraient été affectées par la catastrophe.

Ifri Paris-Bruxelles – La politique africaine de la France à l’épreuve de la diversité du continent – par Alain ANTIL, directeur du Programme Afrique subsaharienne de l’Ifri.

La présence sur le continent africain est un élément clé de la puissance de la France, ou tout du moins de son influence. Elle a toujours été une priorité de son action extérieure. Pour le demeurer, elle devra s’adapter aux mutations profondes du continent, et à la diversité des dynamiques qui le traversent.

Sécurité

La France a mené une cinquantaine d’opérations militaires sur le continent africain depuis les indépendances. Après la fin de la guerre froide et à la suite du génocide rwandais, Paris a souhaité ne plus jouer le rôle de « gendarme » de l’Afrique, et a opté pour une triple inflexion de sa politique : intervenir avec de solides mandats internationaux ; tenter de pousser l’Union européenne (UE) à s’impliquer davantage ; et enfin contribuer au renforcement des armées nationales et à l’édification d’une architecture africaine de sécurité. Cette politique a été mise en œuvre au cours des vingt dernières années dans un contexte de réduction du budget de la défense, ce qui s’est traduit par une réduction du nombre de militaires français pré-positionnés en Afrique.

Le premier objectif a été atteint. Le deuxième partiellement : si des pays européens participent aujourd’hui à des opérations de maintien de la paix, leur participation demeure exceptionnelle et légère. Le troisième est loin d’être atteint, ce qui oblige régulièrement la France à intervenir parce qu’elle est la seule à pouvoir le faire, du moins dans les phases initiales du conflit. C’est ainsi que l’on peut interpréter les interventions au Mali (Serval) et en République centrafricaine (Sangaris). Le désengagement français semble impossible, à en juger par la fragilité actuelle de la bande sahélo-saharienne, dont les soubresauts politiques pourraient avoir des conséquences directes sur le Maghreb et le bassin méditerranéen. L’adaptation de l’opération Barkhane, qui regroupe 3 500 militaires, est la clé pour la stabilisation de la bande sahélo-saharienne.

Diplomatie économique

La France est toujours l’un des principaux investisseurs et l’un des plus importants partenaires commerciaux du continent. Ses parts de marché diminuent en raison de l’émergence de concurrents africains et non africains. Si les grands groupes français sont bien armés pour maintenir ou conquérir des marchés, les PME/PMI françaises sont en revanche beaucoup moins outillées et soutenues. Le continent africain représente des marchés en croissance pour lesquels l’appareil industriel français dispose d’atouts (BTP, réseaux d’eau, transports, etc.). Parallèlement, la contribution de la France à la sécurité du continent constitue un utile soutien à sa diplomatie économique. Cependant, trop d’initiatives et de structures, parfois concurrentes, sont censées défendre les intérêts français. Cette surabondance nuit à l’efficacité d’ensemble de cette diplomatie économique. L’échec de l’initiative « Énergies pour l’Afrique » est une illustration de cette politique en ordre dispersé.

Francophonie

Bien que leader naturel de la francophonie, la France apparaît souvent en marge des institutions francophones et ne semble pas en faire un axe cardinal de sa politique étrangère. Se jouent pourtant autour de la francophonie des enjeux d’influence liés au droit, au commerce, aux organisations internationales, ou encore à la diffusion des œuvres culturelles. De plus, compte tenu des évolutions démographiques des pays francophones d’Afrique, le français pourrait gagner des centaines de millions de locuteurs au cours du xxie siècle. Cette évolution est théorique, car si la France ne se réengage pas davantage dans la coopération (envoi de professeurs, soutien aux institutions scolaires, etc.), cette progression de la langue française ne se concrétisera pas. La francophonie pourrait être également utilisée comme levier de promotion de la démocratie et de la bonne gouvernance, objectif plus facile à promouvoir dans ce cadre que dans une relation bilatérale, où chaque recommandation peut être dénoncée comme une atteinte à la souveraineté. Le soutien prolongé à des régimes autoritaires, pour des raisons sécuritaires ou économiques, a terni l’image de la France auprès des populations jeunes de ces pays qui seront peut-être les élites de demain et pourraient alors se détourner d’une relation privilégiée avec Paris.

Aide au développement et à la bonne gouvernance

L’Afrique a une population jeune qui peine à s’insérer dans des marchés de l’emploi incapables d’absorber la masse des nouveaux entrants. Cette jeunesse est porteuse de potentialités : elle tente de se trouver une place dans les sociétés africaines, notamment en créant des mouvements citoyens pour réclamer le respect des droits politiques mais aussi économiques. Parallèlement, cette jeunesse est également porteuse de tensions si des emplois ne sont pas massivement créés. La coopération et l’aide au développement françaises sont des éléments d’influence (soft power) mais doivent intégrer davantage ces enjeux (création d’emplois et respect des droits civiques). Cela passe aussi par une attention accrue aux évaporations de l’aide observées dans certains pays récipiendaires.

World Economic Forum – These are the skills you should learn that will pay off forever – Written by Dr Travis Bradberry, Coauthor of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0 & President at Talent Smart, published in collaboration with LinkedIn.

The further along you are in your career, the easier it is to fall back on the mistaken assumption that you’ve made it and have all the skills you need to succeed. The tendency is to focus all your energy on getting the job done, assuming that the rest will take care of itself. Big mistake.

New research from Stanford tells the story. Carol Dweck and her colleagues conducted a study with people who were struggling with their performance. One group was taught to perform better on a task that they performed poorly in. The other group received a completely different intervention: for the task that they performed badly in, they were taught that they weren’t stuck and that improving their performance was a choice. They discovered that learning produces physiological changes in the brain, just like exercise changes muscles. All they had to do was believe in themselves and make it happen.

When the groups’ performance was reassessed a few months later, the group that was taught to perform the task better did even worse. The group that was taught that they had the power to change their brains and improve their performance themselves improved dramatically.

The primary takeaway from Dweck’s research is that we should never stop learning. The moment we think that we are who we are is the moment we give away our unrealized potential.

The act of learning is every bit as important as what you learn. Believing that you can improve yourself and do things in the future that are beyond your current possibilities is exciting and fulfilling.

Still, your time is finite, and you should dedicate yourself to learning skills that will yield the greatest benefit. There are nine skills that I believe fit the bill because they never stop paying dividends. These are the skills that deliver the biggest payoff, both in terms of what they teach you and their tendency to keep the learning alive.

Emotional intelligence (EQ). EQ is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. EQ is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships. Decades of research now point to EQ as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction, with tremendous results.

TalentSmart tested EQ alongside 33 other important workplace skills and found that EQ is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs. Of all the people we’ve studied at work, we’ve found that 90% of top performers are also high in EQ. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in EQ. You can be a top performer without EQ, but the chances are slim. Naturally, people with a high degree of EQ make more money, an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of emotional intelligence. The link between EQ and earnings is so direct that every point increase in EQ adds $1,300 to an annual salary. Increasing your EQ won’t just pad your bank account, it’ll make you happier and less stressed as well.

Time management. One of the biggest things that gets in the way of effective time management is the “tyranny of the urgent.” This refers to the tendency of little things that have to be done right now to get in the way of what really matters. When you succumb to it, you spend so much time putting out fires that you never get any real work done. How many times have you left work at the end of the day, only to realize that you didn’t move the important things along even one inch? Learning to manage your time effectively frees you up to perform at your absolute highest level, and it does so every single day of your life.

Listening. This one should be easy. If we’re not talking, we’re listening, right? Well, not exactly. A lot of times, we think we’re listening, but we’re actually planning what we’re going to say next. True listening means focusing solely on what the other person is saying. It’s about understanding, not rebuttal or input. Learning how to suspend judgment and focus on understanding the other person’s input is one of the most important skills you can develop.

Listening is a bit like intelligence—most everyone thinks they’re above average (even though that’s impossible). A study at Wright State University surveyed more than 8,000 people from different verticals, and almost all rated themselves as listening as well as or better than their co-workers. We know intuitively that many of them were wrong.

There’s so much talking happening at work that opportunities to listen abound. We talk to provide feedback, explain instructions, and communicate deadlines. Beyond the spoken words, there’s invaluable information to be deciphered through tone of voice, body language, and what isn’t said. In other words, failing to keep your ears (and eyes) open could leave you out of the game.

Saying No. Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, showed that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is indeed a major challenge for many people. No is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, avoid phrases such as I don’t think I can or I’m not certain. Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them. When you learn to say no, you free yourself from unnecessary constraints and free up your time and energy for the important things in life.

Asking for help. It might seem counterintuitive to suggest that asking for help is a skill, but it is. It takes a tremendous amount of confidence and humility to admit that you need assistance. This skill is critical because the last thing a leader wants are employees who keep on trucking down the wrong path because they are too embarrassed or proud to admit that they don’t know what they’re doing. The ability to recognize when you need help, summon up the courage to ask for it, and follow through on that help is an extremely valuable skill.

Getting high-quality sleep. We’ve always known that quality sleep is good for your brain, but recent research from the University of Rochester demonstrated exactly how so. The study found that when you sleep, your brain removes toxic proteins, which are by-products of neural activity when you’re awake, from its neurons. The catch here is that your brain can only adequately remove these toxic proteins when you have sufficient quality sleep. When you don’t get high-quality deep sleep, the toxic proteins remain in your brain cells, wreaking havoc and ultimately impairing your ability to think—something no amount of caffeine can fix. This slows your ability to process information and solve problems, kills your creativity, and increases your emotional reactivity. Learning to get high-quality sleep on a regular basis is a difficult skill to master, but it pays massive dividends the next day.

Knowing when to shut up. Sure, it can feel so good to unload on somebody and let them know what you really think, but that good feeling is temporary. What happens the next day, the next week, or the next year? It’s human nature to want to prove that you’re right, but it’s rarely effective. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you and the relationship severely damaged. When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right. The vast majority of the time, that means biting your tongue.

Taking initiative. Initiative is a skill that will take you far in life. In theory, initiative is easy—the desire to take action is always there—but in the real world, other things get in the way. There’s a big difference between knowing what to do and being too scared or lazy to actually do it. That requires initiative. You have to take risks and push yourself out of your comfort zone, until taking initiative is second nature.

Staying positive. We’ve all received the well-meaning advice to « stay positive. » The greater the challenge, the more this glass-half-full wisdom can come across as Pollyannaish and unrealistic. It’s hard to find the motivation to focus on the positive when positivity seems like nothing more than wishful thinking. The real obstacle to positivity is that our brains are hard-wired to look for and focus on threats. This survival mechanism served humankind well, back when we were hunters and gatherers and living each day with the very real threat of being killed by someone or something in our immediate surroundings.

That was eons ago. Today, this mechanism breeds pessimism and negativity through the mind’s tendency to wander until it finds a threat. These « threats » magnify the perceived likelihood that things are going—and/or are going to go—poorly. When the threat is real and lurking in the bushes down the path, this mechanism serves you well. When the threat is imagined and you spend two months convinced that the project you’re working on is going to flop, this mechanism leaves you with a soured view of reality that wreaks havoc in your life. Maintaining positivity is a daily challenge that requires focus and attention. You must be intentional about staying positive if you’re going to overcome the brain’s tendency to focus on threats.

Bringing It All Together

Research shows that lifelong learning pays dividends beyond the skills you acquire. Never stop learning.

The Author:

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

World Economic Forum – Americans are still haunted by the recession. These 4 charts show why – Written by Editorial Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, in collaboration with Business Insider.

Expectations are everything, especially in economics.

That’s why a distinct lack of progress in a few basic measures of economic progress, particularly relative to pre-crisis expectations, has left many Americans questioning how much they have personally benefitted from the economic recovery.

A new report from the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, highlights a number of ways in which « the recovery since 2009 is, in a sense, a statistical illusion. »

The study finds the nation’s total economic output, its gross domestic product, « remains about 15% below the pre-recession trend, a larger gap than at the bottom of the recession. » The first chart below shows that lag, while the second offers insights into just how badly the crisis dented expectations about the future.

Strong employment gains in recent months have brought the jobless rate down to a historically-low 4.3%. However, this decline has not been accompanied by rising incomes or consumer prices, generally associated with a sustainable economic boom. Some Federal Reserve policymakers have found this trend puzzling, while many labor economists point to underlying weaknesses in the job market, including high levels of underemployment and long-term joblessness, as drags on income.

Stagnant wages amid rising profits have meant that the wage share in US national income has fallen from 63% to 57% in the last 15 years, according to the report.

« It is impossible for the wage share to ever rise if the central bank will not allow a period of ‘excessive’ wage growth, » writes J.W. Mason, who authored the report. « A rise in the wage share necessarily requires a period in which wages rise faster than would be consistent with longterm macroeconomic stability. »

In other words, if Fed officials tighten monetary policy at the first sign of wage increases, they will never allow the imbalances that have built up, including deep income disparities, to be torn down. Average hourly earnings rose just 2.5% on a yearly basis in July, nothing to write home about and certainly not enough to begin the ground lost over the last decade and more.

Business investment, which is key to long-run economic growth, has also been dismal during the now eight-year expansion.

« There is no precedent for the weakness of investment in the current cycle. Nearly ten years later, real investment spending remains less than 10% above its 2007 peak, » Mason writes.

« This is slow even relative to the anemic pace of GDP growth, and extremely low by historical standards. In the three previous [economic] cycles lasting that long, real investment spending had increased anywhere from 30% to 80%. Even shorter cycles saw substantially greater investment growth. »

Finally, Mason looks at whether the economy is at risk of running hot, generating inflation, which central bank officials cite to justify interest rate increases. The Fed has raised interest rates three times since December 2015 to a range of 1% to 1.25%.

« On the contrary, we argue, while a myopic focus on one or another data series might support a story of binding supply constraints, the behavior of the economy as a whole is much more consistent with a situation of depressed demand—an extended recession, » the report concludes.

« The overall picture also makes it unclear what actual danger is posed by overheating in the conventional sense. Most of the obvious costs of overheating — higher inflation, higher interest rates, a rising wage share — would be desirable under current circumstances. »

Banque mondiale – Eau.

L’essor démographique et la croissance économique n’ont jamais autant pesé sur les ressources en eau. En se basant sur les pratiques actuelles de consommation, on estime que la planète sera confrontée d’ici 2030 à un déséquilibre de 40 % entre l’offre et la demande mondiale en eau.

La santé, l’alimentation, la production d’énergie, la gestion de l’environnement et la création d’emplois en sont éminemment tributaires. La disponibilité et la gestion de l’eau ont un impact sur de nombreux aspects, de la scolarisation ou non des filles défavorisées à la salubrité des villes ; elles jouent également sur la capacité de résistance d’industries en essor ou de villages pauvres face à des situations d’inondation ou de sécheresse.

La sécurité hydrique figure toujours au nombre des principaux risques mondiaux (a) en termes d’impact sur le développement et elle jouera un rôle essentiel dans la réalisation des Objectifs de développement durable. En effet, la communauté mondiale ne sera pas en mesure de relever les défis du développement de notre siècle — développement humain, villes vivables, changement climatique, sécurité alimentaire, sécurité énergétique — si elle ne parvient pas à améliorer la gestion des ressources en eau et à garantir l’accès à une eau saine et à des services d’assainissement.

Or la sécurité hydrique demeure un défi pour de nombreux pays en proie à des difficultés importantes dans le secteur de l’eau et qui touchent tous les pans de leur économie. L’essor démographique et la croissance économique n’ont jamais autant pesé sur les ressources en eau. En se basant sur les pratiques actuelles de consommation, on estime que la planète sera confrontée d’ici 2030 à un déséquilibre de 40 % entre l’offre et la demande mondiale en eau. Aujourd’hui, 70 % des prélèvements en eau sont consacrés à l’agriculture. Pour nourrir 9 milliards d’êtres humains à l’horizon 2050, la production agricole devra augmenter de 60 % et les prélèvements en eau de 15 %. Par ailleurs, nos besoins en eau pour la production d’énergie sont voués à croître, sachant que 1,3 milliard de personnes sont encore privées d’accès à l’électricité. Enfin, plus de la moitié de la population mondiale vit actuellement en ville et ce processus d’urbanisation s’accentue rapidement. Et comme les nappes phréatiques s’épuisent plus vite qu’elles ne se reconstituent, près de 1,8 milliard de personnes vivront en 2025 dans des régions ou des pays qui connaîtront une pénurie d’eau absolue.

Un rapport de la Banque mondiale (a) publié en mai 2016 indique que la raréfaction des ressources en eau, exacerbée par les changements climatiques, pourrait entraîner dans certaines régions un recul de 6 % du PIB, une hausse des flux migratoires et le déclenchement de conflits. L’effet cumulé de l’essor démographique, de l’accroissement des revenus et de l’expansion des villes se traduira par une augmentation exponentielle de la demande en eau, alors que l’approvisionnement hydrique devient plus inégal et plus aléatoire.

Tout ceci survient dans un contexte où le dossier crucial de l’accès aux services d’eau et d’assainissement est toujours en souffrance. En dépit de progrès remarquables accomplis ces dernières décennies, 2,4 milliards de personnes n’ont toujours pas accès à des installations sanitaires correctes, et un milliard d’entre elles défèquent à l’air libre. Au moins 663 millions de personnes sont en outre toujours dépourvues d’un accès à une eau potable de qualité. Chaque année, près de 675 000 personnes décèdent prématurément en raison d’installations sanitaires insuffisantes, d’une eau insalubre et du manque d’hygiène. Dans certains pays, cette situation se traduit par un manque à gagner annuel qui peut représenter jusqu’à 7 % du produit intérieur brut.

 

World Economic Forum – We’re not turning wealth into wellbeing, Inequality has a major impact on a country’s wellbeing. Why? Written by Vincent Chin, Senior Partner and Managing Director, Head of South-East Asia, Boston Consulting Group

I’ve been in South Africa and the US recently. From geography to development both countries are, of course, very different. But they do share some similarities. Take inequality, for example. This issue – which is by no means limited to their shores – has become a deeply rooted feature of their social and economic landscapes, one that proven stubbornly resistant to attempted remedies.

Inequality has many invidious consequences – too many to list here. This is because it is one of the few issues that spans both the micro and macro. From the parents who can no longer be confident that their kids will be able to ascend the ladder of opportunity, to the fact it leads to increased government spending on healthcare, it is clear that its impact stretches far and wide.

That’s why we have placed inequality front and centre in the latest Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA). The report, which The Boston Consulting Group publishes annually, assesses the relative well-being of countries around the world and how well they convert wealth into well-being.

This year we found that income inequality, together with a country’s governance and civil society, has a major impact on the well-being of a country’s population. Why is this so?

Under the microscope

It’s important at the outset to remind ourselves why we look at well-being specifically. The fact is that increased GDP, while still important, is no longer seen as conclusive evidence that a country’s economic policies are working. A country may have a growing economy but, at the same time, large swathes of its population can remain struggling, seemingly cut off from the prosperity enjoyed the rich and powerful, and with little or no prospect of any upward mobility coming their way.

This issue has come to the fore particularly strongly in recent years. This is because the recovery of the global economy from the financial crisis of 2008 has not been felt by everyone. Sure, most businesses have bounced back and high net worth individuals are doing fine, but poverty rates remain high in many countries – both developed and developing – and the incomes of the poorest have stagnated or even declined. All this before the looming artificial intelligence revolution which promises to massively disrupt the labour market.

Such trends also explain why many in society have turned against globalisation – even though it has undoubtedly fuelled economic growth over the past 20 years. No wonder, then, that back in 2013 President Obama called it “the defining challenge of our time”. He was right to do so.

Countries constrained

Yet in looking at countries’ wealth and growth rates over time, we have observed performance rarely varies dramatically. This, we believe, is due to their institutional foundations. Steeped in tradition and resistant to change, such systems and conventions have proven unable to radically shift the way a country can convert wealth into well-being. Conservatism – with a small ‘c’ – often wins the day.

This unfortunate reality does not mask the fact that what policymakers really need to deliver is inclusive growth – prosperity that is shared way beyond the very top earners and trickles down to impact and improve the lives of the population as a whole. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Regrettably, turning this vision into reality is hardly the easiest of tasks. And while politicians tinker, the situation for the less fortunate in society is worsening.

The main issue is that as overall inequality increases, so, too, does the gap between the income of populations in the lower and the average income. This, in turn, leads to reduced access to key aspects of well-being – such as a good education system and effective healthcare. We tested this theory in SEDA, exploring whether inequality has a detrimental impact on average well-being levels, and found, not surprisingly, that income inequality is indeed a drag on the ability to convert wealth to well-being.

This conclusion has a number of repercussions. For example, the SEDA report specifically examined whether people living in countries with higher levels of income inequality are less happy than they otherwise would expected to be and we found are strong correlation between the two. Countries with high levels of income inequality tend to have a larger gap between well-being and happiness, according to our research.

Such findings also serve as a vivid reminder for politicians and public servants alike that inequality is an issue that can be kicked down the road no longer. It needs confronting here and now – starting with addressing the flaws in those institutions which have prevented a more dramatic shift in the way countries can turn the wealth of their economies into well-being for all their citizens.

The clock is ticking and the stakes are high. History will not judge kindly those whose paralysis today casts a shadow on those tomorrow.

 

Un mur en Europe – Une honte pour toute l’Europe – Le problème de réfugiés reste entier

Ce mur de la honte a été construit le long de la frontière avec la Serbie par la Hongrie, pays gouverné par Viktor Horban, qui ne répond pas aux critiques et interrogations justifiées des ONG européens. Ironie de l’histoire, ce mur se dresse dans le premier pays de l’ancien bloc de l’Est qui avait fait tomber le rideau de fer né de la guerre froide, en mai 1989,qui séparait l’Europe en deux pendant plus de trente ans. Cette clôture « anti-migrants » a été érigée sur une distance de 175 kilomètres, elle est composée de deux palissades métalliques hautes de 4 mètres et espacées de 6 mètres l’une de l’autre, chacune couronnée d’une épaisse couche de barbelés. Cette structure est accompagnée de miradors high-tech avec projecteurs et caméras thermiques pour détecter les mouvements de ceux qui essaieraient de se frayer un chemin pour traverser. Un chemin bitumeux a été aménagé pour permettre aux soldats de patrouiller du coté Hongrois. Cette barricade s’étend aussi sur la frontière de la Croatie et s’étendra bientôt face à la Roumanie. Cette démarche ne grandit pas l’Europe.

Un million de personnes, en 2015 et 2016, venues de Syrie, notamment, ont emprunté cette route, pour rejoindre le Royaume uni et L’Allemagne où la chancelière Madame Merkel avait proclamé l’ouverture des frontières, depuis lors cette région qui borde l’espace Schengen – (26 états) à l’intérieur du quel les voyageurs se déplacent sans contrôle – , le gouvernement Hongrois a mis en place une législation, la plus sévère de l’Union Européenne. La simple entrée sur le territoire Hongrois sans autorisation est devenue un crime. Les demandeurs d’asile sont systématiquement placés en centre de détention dans les camps établis le long de la clôture et n’ont pas accès aux journalistes. Ces dispositions sont contraires au droit européen qui reviennent à emprisonner plusieurs mois ces personnes, au terme du processus, neuf personnes sur dix voient leurs demandes rejetées. La Hongrie crie haut et fort qu’elle applique les conventions internationales et ses obligations légales, mais les sept juges de la cour européenne ne sont pas de cet avis (Arrêt du 28 février 2016) estimant que la Hongrie ne respecte pas ses engagements dans ce domaine.

Ce gouvernement refuse d’appliquer le programme de répartition de 160 000 réfugiés adopté majoritairement par les pays membres de l’UE. L’Europe a portant accordé 24 millions d’euros pour la période 2014-2020 dans le but de gérer l’asile et l’intégration. A elle seule la clôture a coûté 900 millions, déclaration du Secrétaire d’état à l’intérieur hongrois Dans les autres états, Serbie et Bulgarie, les camps sont correctement gérés et les dossiers sont étudiés et beaucoup quittent les lieux sans attendre la réponse.

Les critiques sont nombreuses contre la politique hongroise en la matière. Certains états comme le Luxembourg a suggéré d’expulser la Hongrie de l’union européenne, considérant qu’elle traite les réfugiés comme des animaux sauvages. Ces positions sont plus rares aujourd’hui hormis en Suède. Le premier ministre hongrois va même jusqu’à dire que qu’il a informé les chefs d’états européens, au conseil de mars 2017, des dernières dispositions légales hongroises et que ceux ci n’ont formulé aucune objection.

En matière migratoire, il n’existe pas une politique d’asile commune. En 2016, seulement 363000 personnes ont frappé à la porte de l’Europe contre 1 million l’année d’avant, grâce à l’accord conclu avec la Turquie. La crise est loin d’être terminée et l’Europe ne semble pas être la hauteur de ce défi humanitaire sans précédent depuis la seconde guerre. L’Italie  avec 85% (118000) migrants venus de Libye, tandis que 2400 périssaient en mer, loin des Balkans au large des côtes, loin des caméras.

Le Président de république française avait envisagé la mise en place d’un hot spot en Libye pour éviter que les personnes prennent des risques fous alors qu’ils ne sont pas éligibles à l’asile. Pour y arriver, il faudra que le calme s’installe dans ce pays l’autre voie pour les africains de l’ouest est la route du Maroc avec des centres d’enregistrement délocalisés situés en Grèce et en Italie, qui séparent ceux qui peuvent prétendre à l’asile des migrants économiques qui sont les plus nombreux. Ceux là, ils n’auront pas plus de droits d’entrer en Europe dans les hot spots.

 

World Economic Forum – One of the most common questions in American small-talk is considered rude in much of the world – Written by Lila MacLellan, Reporter in collaboration with Quartz.

There is something daring in seeking out an exchange with someone, especially a stranger. For such occasions, cultures around the world develop a repertoire of easy conversation starters. In the United States and Canada, however, one opener dominates: what do you do?

Whatever the reason—the influence of a Protestant work ethic, or a desperate attempt to not appear classist—North Americans habitually start a conversation with strangers by asking what they do for a living. It’s one of many customs in which American cultural norms deviate from those of the UK and Europe.

In most places in the world, asking a stranger what kind of work he or she does, especially without any pretext, is frowned upon. And now, “What do you do?” is finally becoming a tainted question in North America, too.

Learn from the French

In the US, national politics have made people more self-conscious about longstanding class divisions, while the gig economy has made work itself a more complicated concept. The question of what one does, therefore, feels a lot more loaded than it used to.

The disdain for this opening line is nothing new for the French, who have been known for shutting down chats with Americans who ask the dreaded “What do you do?”

In their new book, The Bonjour Effect: The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed, authors Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau elaborate on why you should never ask a French person about their work. The reaction is not just about the conversation starter’s affront to egalitarianism (a concept the French value dearly, even if they don’t live it, Barlow says). Rather, the French frequently enjoy pretending that they don’t like their jobs. So, just like money, work is a boring topic.

“They will be offended, believing you’re trying to put them into a box,” Barlow, a French-Canadian, tells Quartz. “And they just don’t think it’s interesting to work for a living. There are other things they’d much rather talk about.”

To the French, she explains, conversations are for exchanging points of view, not finding things in common, the goal of conversation for North Americans.

Counterintuitively, the French do not find it rude or elitist to ask about where a person likes to vacation, but that’s because it’s common for people there to take an average 30 days of paid vacation per year. In any case, it’s a nice alternative to staring blankly into the middle distance for too long the next time you encounter a stranger.

However, the typical French openers that may translate with more ease are things like, “Which part of the country are you from?” (Notably, it’s not “where are you from?” which, in France, could imply you are not French, Barlow explains. That could be a danger in the US, too, where immigration and citizenship have become fiercely debated topics.)

Relatedly, any questions about geography or the food in a person’s hometown or region tend to get people chatting.

Stay within “Tier one”

Food also is on Daniel Post Senning’s list of safe “tier one” topics, meant for encounters with people you don’t know. Post Senning is Emily Post’s great-great grandson, and a co-author of Emily Post’s Etiquette, 18th edition. With other Post descendants, he now works for the Emily Post Institute running seminars on etiquette and communication for businesses and individuals. In his teachings, second-tier topics are religion, politics, dating, and one’s love life. Tier three, for your closest associates, expands to family and finances.

For strangers, tier one is safest. Other options here include sports (including historical, memorable moments), pop culture, and hobbies. “People say hobbies are boring, but what if a person’s hobby is particle physics?” Post Senning argues. “Or painting. The arts are not boring.”

What’s not in tier one? Work.

Try triangulation

If you do have a preoccupation with finding out what someone does (I’ll admit it, I’m always curious), Post Senning says to wait for an opening. A comment about a long day or a demanding boss may make it safe or even polite to probe a little. But pay attention to how people respond and be prepared, with a fresh topic at hand, to back off.

“They may just feel like: Look, it’s all I do 40 hours a week or more, it’s the last thing I want to talk about,” Post Senning says.

As an alternative, one of the easiest routes into a conversation may be to remark on a shared experience—yes, you can have these with a stranger; think of the weather, or the spread on offer at a party. Post Senning suggests an ice breaker like, “Looks like it’s about to rain” or “This food looks delicious.” But these mini-commentaries don’t always have to be that mundane. Your opening line could be an appreciation of the quality of light coming through a window, he suggests.

Kio Stark, author of When Strangers Meet: How People You Don’t Know Can Transform You, refers to the shared-experience strategy as triangulation. “The triangle is made up of you, a stranger, and a third thing that closes the loop—that might be something that you’re both experiencing or seeing that’s worthy of notice,” she told CityLab, explaining:

There might be a cute dog or someone doing something strange—an itinerant preacher on the subway, say. In those situations, you’re more likely to exchange a glance with someone, and that might be the whole outcome, or you could say something like: “Wow, he’s really fire and brimstone today.”

She also likes to notice small things and give people compliments like, “Nice shoes.” People love to fill her in on the details.

Once a conversation has started, if she’s asked about a topic for which she could respond with a full, personal disclosure—beyond the details she’d normally share with a stranger— she may very well go for it. “We tend to meet disclosure with disclosure, even when we talk to strangers,” she says.

For instance, if someone asks about her father, she may choose to mention that he passed away when she was a child. When that happens, she says, she almost invariably is told about a loss the other has experienced. A random encounter can become profound.

Forget yourself

Talking to new people isn’t only a shortcut to learning more about the ways other people live, and perhaps stepping outside your own social echo chambers, it’s also beneficial: Sociologists have found that even weak ties, like those made while chatting with fellow commuters or travelers, are linked to feelings of well-being. And, of course, those weak ties to someone who’s vacationing at the same place as you may organically stretch into a lifelong friendship.

One final tip: If you tend to be neurotic when talking to people, and anxious about what they might think of you, recognize that your concern might paradoxically make you a jerk. Consider what the writer Jennifer Latson learned about herself while doing research for a recent book. As she explained in New York Magazine: “I focus so much on saying exactly the right thing that I hardly pay any attention to the other person. I’m more concerned about how I look to them than I am about getting to know them.”

Most people want to connect, she discovered, and they aren’t judgmental about whether you remember names or little details. You’ll probably be excused even if you accidentally blurt out that suddenly gauche question we’re all trying to avoid—unless, of course, you’re talking to the French.

 

World Economic Forum – One the biggest criticisms of renewables might have just been debunked – Written by Akshat Rathi, Reporter, published in collaboration with Quartz.

One of the biggest criticisms of the renewable-energy industry is that it has been propped up by government subsidies. There is no doubt that without government help, it would have been much harder for the nascent technology to mature. But what’s more important is whether there has been a decent return on taxpayers’ investment.

A new analysis in Nature Energy gives renewable-energy subsidies the thumbs-up. Dev Millstein of Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory and his colleagues find that the fossil fuels not burnt because of wind and solar energy helped avoid between 3,000 and 12,700 premature deaths in the US between 2007 and 2015. Fossil fuels produce large amounts of pollutants like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, which are responsible for ill-health and negative climate effects.

The researchers found that the US saved between $35 billion and $220 billion in that period because of avoided deaths, fewer sick days, and climate-change mitigation.

How do these benefits compare to the US government’s outlays? “The monetary value of air quality and climate benefits are about equal or more than state and federal financial support to wind and solar industries,” says Millstein.

Between 2007 and 2015, Quartz’s own analysis  finds that the US government likely spent between $50 billion and $80 billion on subsidies for those two industries. Even on the lower end of the benefits and higher end of subsidies, just the health and climate benefits of renewable energy return about half of taxpayers’ money. If the US were to stop subsidies now, those benefits would continue to accrue for the lifetime of the already existing infrastructure, improving the long-term return of the investments.

What’s more, those benefits do not account for everything. Creation of a new industry spurs economic growth, creates new jobs, and leads to technology development. There isn’t yet an estimation of what sort of money that brings in, but it’s likely to be a tidy sum.

To be sure, the marginal benefits of additional renewable energy production will start to fall in the future. That is, for every new megawatt of renewable energy produced, an equal amount of pollution won’t be avoided, which means the number of lives saved, and monetary benefits generated, will fall. But Millstein thinks that we won’t reach that point for some time—at least in the US.

The debate whether subsidies to the renewable industry are worth it rages across the world. Though the results of this study are only directly applicable to the US, many rich countries have similar factors at play and are likely to produce similar cost-benefit analyses.

 

World Economic Forum – Europe needs to treat ageing like agriculture. Here’s why – Written by Milena Pavlova, in collaboration with The Conversation.

European societies are ageing. In 1950, only 12% of the European population was over age 65. Today the share has already doubled, and projections show that in 2050 over 36% of Europe’s population will be 65-plus years old.

The culprits are fertility rates and longevity. In the past, a woman in Europe had on average more than two children. Since 2000, the fertility rate has fallen below that threshold. Europeans are also living longer now: 78 years on average, up from 66 years in the 1950s.

Prolonged human life is a sign of Europe’s prosperity, but combined with the region’s low fertility rate it is also creating an array of social and financial problems for the continent.

Perhaps most critical is the fact that the share of working people who can provide care to the older persons is shrinking, even as the number of people needing care grows.

This imbalance between demand and supply, which leads to shortages in nurses and other professional care providers, is already challenging the fast-ageing countries of Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom.

The increased demand for care will also require significant financial resources. In 2014, OECD countries were spending on average 1.4% of GDP on long-term care, but these costs are projected to rise substantially through, reaching 6,4% by 2060.

Public spending on long-term care is highest in the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries (where it costs 3% to 4% of GDP) and lowest in Central and Eastern Europe. In Poland, Hungary and Estonia, less than 1% of GDP is spent on long-term care.

This difference in expenditures reflects not only the share of the population that’s ageing but also the diversity of long-term care systems in Europe. The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries, for example, have well-developed systems of formal care for older persons, which offer a broad range of government and private-sector services at home or in institutions.

In Central and Eastern European countries, on the other hand, elderly care is largely seen as the responsibility of families. In these countries, as in Mediterranean countries, an elderly person who needs daily care for a lengthy period of time will most likely move in with children or relatives, who provide social support and arrange medical assistance when needed.

This informal care system is facing new challenges in the modern era, too. Women, who around the globe have traditionally played the family caretaker role, are increasingly working outside of the home, further reducing the number of family members available to provide informal care for older persons.

Informal care challenges

Even as they seek to grow their stable of professional long-term care providers, countries are endeavouring to make informal family-based care – which is believed to be more beneficial for older people and exert a lower social cost – more feasible.

In Germany, unpaid caregivers have the option to reduce their working hours with a medium-term paid-leave benefit. In the Czech Republic and Ireland, there are tax exemptions for informal care givers to compensate for their efforts.

This type of support will continue to play an important role in both Western and Eastern European countries. But it also raises questions about quality control. How do countries know that their elderly are being given adequate care? And who monitors their well-being?

Informal caregivers, such as family members and neighbours, generally do not have specialised training, which means that overall they lack skills and knowledge about recognising symptoms and thus, about the type of health-care needed.

As the designated protectors of individual rights and social values, governments still have the obligation to monitor informal care provision and ensure that its elderly citizens are in good hands. Establishing quality-monitoring mechanisms in informal care is itself a formidable challenge.

Today’s seniors are not passive in this process. Widespread digitisation of society and higher tech-savviness has given older people better access to information, which may increase their expectations for the quality and type of care they should receive.

Finding new long-term care systems

Across Europe, from the wealthy west to the developing east, there are always competing demands for public resources. Any money spent on growing long-term elder care systems could also be used to meet other pressing social needs – launching new public-health or environmental programmes, for example.

In Western Europe, where extensive care structures are already in place, their increasingly hefty price tags will make them difficult to sustain in coming years as the population in need continues to balloon.

Eastern European countries face a different policy dilemma: providing care for elderly relatives takes a considerable toll on family members, and public resources for creating nursing homes and elderly houses remain scarce.

At present, as each country begins to ponder a future in which its population is working less but needing more, it is still unclear whether their paths forward will converge. Europe could respond to its divergent but shared problem with a unified response, perhaps via the European Commission, which executes all European Union programming.

To date, the Commission has begun stimulating cross-country collaboration on elderly care with such supranational platforms as the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, a portal that helps institutions, professionals and researchers in the healthcare and ageing field to find training resources, best practices, care models and the like.

This is a relatively small step towards grappling with a region-wide social problem. But one immediate hurdle to working together on care for the elderly is the fact that the European Commission has no mandate over healthcare; every EU member state is free to decide how to arrange its own healthcare provision.

In the past, the EU has responded to the need for coordinating similar national issues such as agriculture, for example, by defining subsidies, regulations and investments for EU countries.

A similarly, common European ageing programme based on the commitment and initiative of individual countries could work too, helping each EU member state construct a context-specific care system that benefits both their oldest citizens and society at large.

The author : Milena Pavlova is Associate Professor of Health Economics at the Department of Health Services Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University.