Do you want to know more about how Obama would address global challenges at the United Nations ? Tune in and Esther Brimmer will tell you live @ Conversation with America.

Posted by DipNote Bloggers / September 05, 2012

Click here to read this on DipNote of US State Dept

Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, will hold a conversation with Stewart Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director of the National Security Network, on Addressing Global Challenges at the UN. The discussion will be moderated by Cheryl Benton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, and will be available for on demand viewing soon on DipNote, the Department of State's official blog.

You are invited to participate by submitting questions, some of which will be selected for response during the taping. Submit your questions below on DipNote and join the ongoing discussion via Twitter using the hashtag #UNGA. Please submit questions via DipNote and Twitter as soon as possible for consideration.

Through Conversations With America, leaders of national non-governmental organizations have the opportunity to discuss foreign policy and global issues with senior State Department officials. These conversations aim to provide candid views of the ways in which leaders from the foreign affairs community are engaging the Department on pressing foreign policy issues.

View other Conversations With America here and by accessing the Conversations With America video podcasts on iTunes.


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Up in Smoke: The Influence of Household Behavior on the Long-Run Impact of Improved Cooking Stoves

Click here for the paper on Social Science Research Network

Rema Hanna

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)

Esther Duflo

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD)

Michael Greenstone

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); American Bar Foundation

April 16, 2012

MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 12-10

Abstract:     
It is conventional wisdom that it is possible to reduce exposure to indoor air pollution, improve health outcomes, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions in rural areas of developing countries through the adoption of improved cooking stoves. This is largely supported by observational field studies and engineering or laboratory experiments. However, we provide new evidence, from a randomized control trial conducted in rural Orissa, India (one of the poorest places in India) on the benefits of a commonly used improved stove that laboratory tests showed to reduce indoor air pollution and require less fuel. We track households for up to four years after they received the stove. While we find a meaningful reduction in smoke inhalation in the first year, there is no effect over longer time horizons. We find no evidence of improvements in lung functioning or health and there is no change in fuel consumption (and presumably greenhouse gas emissions). The difference between the laboratory and field findings appears to result from households’ revealed low valuation of the stoves. Households failed to use the stoves regularly or appropriately, did not make the necessary investments to maintain them properly, and usage rates ultimately declined further over time. More broadly, this study underscores the need to test environmental and health technologies in real-world settings where behavior may temper impacts, and to test them over a long enough horizon to understand how this behavioral effect evolves over time. 


Number of Pages in PDF File: 72

Keywords: indoor air pollution, human health, climate change, technology adoption
 
JEL Classification: O10, O13, O12, Q0, Q23, Q3, Q51, Q53, Q56, I15, I18
working papers series

Click here for the paper on Social Science Research Network

Obama's State Department doesn't trust the U.S. Congress -- instead opts for a UN "independent probe" onto UN's own dealings in North Korea/Iran

EXCLUSIVE: While Congress protests, US helps UN agency with 'independent' probe into high-tech shipments to North Korea

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/03/while-congress-protests-us-helps-un-agency-with-independent-probe-into-high/#ixzz22XOYVFJT

Amid protests from congressional leaders from both parties, the Obama administration is helping an obscure United Nations agency create an investigation into whether it shipped computers and sophisticated servers to North Korea, in violation of the U.N.’s own sanctions against the communist regime.

The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, told Fox News on Friday that a “full independent external inquiry” into the murky issue would start next week. The “modalities and terms of reference of this inquiry,” a WIPO spokesman declared, “have been completed in close consultation with the U.S. Department of State.”

A State Department spokesman subsequently told Fox News that “we are aware” of the inquiry and that it was being conducted by a “very credible investigator.”

The same spokesman underlined that the State Department “has taken this issue very seriously since it came to our attention in March” and that “we have been working with WIPO to get to the bottom of this,” a process that has involved “asking and pressuring” the U.N. organization for answers. Nonetheless, the spokesman did not bring up the existence of the inquiry until Fox News asked about it.

The WIPO announcement came after a briefing by senior State Department officials yesterday to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, held behind closed doors.

After that session, committee aides complained that legislators “on both sides of the aisle” remain frustrated by the muffled approach that the Obama Administration is taking to the controversial transfer of technology the nuclear-ambitious regime in North Korea, despite U.N. and U.S. sanctions against the communist government, and said the lawmakers were told nothing that they could not have heard in open session.

“They’re deliberately being reticent,” an aide told Fox News, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They have yet to commit to appear before us in open session, or to provide documents to us,” he added, using the excuse that the crucial paperwork had not yet been received.

Nor, according to the aide, did the State Department officials agree in response to committee demands to help pressure WIPO to send two of its senior officials to testify in Washington, a course of action demanded by the committee and rejected by WIPO early last week.

The hearing and the complaints came only a day after the chairman of the House committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, and ranking member Howard Berman, a California Democrat, sent a letter to the head of WIPO, Francis Gurry, accusing him of failing to provide “full cooperation” to U.S. legislators, “in default of your commitments and in default of your responsibilities as an official of an international organization.”

The committee members repeated a previous demand that WIPO allow WIPO deputy director general James Pooley and senior advisor Miranda Brown be allowed from testifying in Washington. WIPO has blocked both from appearing, saying that they “did not have any involvement in or direct knowledge of this assistance program.”

Click to read the committee letter.

For its part, WIPO told Fox News that it “continues to respond promptly and in good faith to all the requests for information and documentation received from the U.S. government,” before revealing that imminent startup of the “independent external inquiry” with State Department collaboration. The inquiry, WIPO said, expects to report its findings on September 10.

According to the U.S. legislative aides, Foreign Affairs Committee members learned little in their meeting that they did not already know about the puzzling transfer of computers by WIPO, ostensibly part of a program to modernize North Korea’s ability to access the U.N. organization’s global archive of patents.

Among other things, the committee aides said, Administration officials claimed that they had not yet received the documentation that the committee demanded to see about the controversial shipment, which was revealed by Fox News last April.

The staffers were venting their frustration after a session with Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizational Affairs Esther Brimmer, whose bureau handles U.N. matters in Washington. Brimmer was backed up through a video link with Betty King, the U.S. Ambassador to U.N. organizations in Geneva.

Neither the U.S. nor the U.N. sanctions committees concerned with the issue were informed in advance of the shipment, which took place either late last year or early in 2012. The equipment was sent to Pyongyang by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), via its China office, a method that appeared designed to avoid heightened oversight over UNDP activities in North Korea following an earlier controversy involving the transfer of sensitive equipment and cash to the communist regime.

That incident also culminated in the formation of an “independent external “ panel of investigators, who were chosen by UNDP.

Even though WIPO had not yet announced that an “independent external inquiry” was about to begin shortly, a State Department spokesman had already declared last week that it “doesn’t appear” that WIPO’s actions -- which involved sending the equipment and paying for it via China, to avoid heightened U.N. oversight -- amounted to a U.N. sanctions violation, though WIPO had asked a U.N. sanctions committee to rule—retroactively—on the issue.

When it comes to whether stricter U.S. sanctions against North Korea have been violated, the State Department spokesman who spoke to Fox News today underlined that the determination ultimately would be made by the U.S. Commerce Department, after State had gotten the requisite information from WIPO. Getting that information, the spokesman said, was “much like a dialogue,” in which WIPO has been “forthcoming.”

Nonetheless, the spokesman added, “This is not simple stuff. It’s complicated. The answers aren’t there yet.”

Adding to the confusion and apparent disarray surrounding the handling of the issue, a second State Department spokesperson separately emailed Fox News a one –sentence reply to a number of questions sent yesterday about the controversial shipment and the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
That statement, in full, declared: “We share the Committee’s concerns and are continuing our own inquiry into the facts surrounding this issue.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/03/while-congress-protests-us-helps-un-agency-with-independent-probe-into-high/#ixzz22XOGenfi

The United Nations "Investment": Another Obama Administration economic triumph

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ON HUMANEVENTS.COM

Another Obama Administration economic triumph.

by John Hayward

George Russell of Fox News has an interesting article today, dissecting the Obama Administration’s claim that the billions we pump into the United Nations are actually a wonderful “investment” that yields big returns for American business:

Is the multibillion-dollar U.S. annual payout to the United Nations a good investment? The Obama administration says it is a smart move. The facts, however, suggest otherwise.

The smart investment claim was made most recently by Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, the branch of State that includes U.N. oversight, during last month’s opening session of the U.N. General Assembly.

While arguing that “the U.N. helps sustain the global economic landscape that U.S. companies depend on,” Brimmer also declared that “the U.N. spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year procuring goods and services from American companies. They spend more money here than in any other country in the world -- more than $1.5 billion last year alone.”

Brimmer was invited to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ last month, and elaborated on her “U.N. investment” theory in a speech she recounted via State Department blog post:

First, the UN helps sustain the global economic landscape that U.S. companies depend on. UN offices help protect American patents and intellectual property around the world. UN agencies promote global standards for things like international shipping, civil aviation, telecommunications, and postal services. Basically, if you're an American company doing business across borders, odds are, you're benefiting from the work the United States does in the UN.

Second, the UN spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year procuring goods and services from American companies. They spend more money here than in any other country in the world -- more than $1.5 billion dollars last year alone. So, American companies in places like Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and elsewhere know that the UN is a significant source of income and jobs for small, medium, and large U.S. companies.

Third, the UN is a boost for New York's economy. Aside from the thousands of diplomats and UN staff, the UN brings in hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. That means billions of dollars for local hotels, restaurants, and other businesses.

Of course, U.N. funding long predates either Obama or Brimmer’s arrival on the scene, but this is the first time I can remember a bureaucrat citing dollar figures to justify it as a money-making “investment.”

Brimmer’s first point is highly debatable, particularly as filtered through the inefficient reality of U.N. graft and corruption. The U.N. is a maze of leaky money pipes circling the world, and pouring money into as many palaces and sports car collections as worthy endeavors. Every dollar America “contributes” is at least as likely to fund rent-seeking “green” parasites, or fund a multi-million dollar “prize” for a human-rights violator, as to build a global economic super-highway for the benefit of businessmen.

Also, few of the corporations who really do stand to profit from Brimmer’s “investments” could be fairly described as small or medium-sized businesses. Even as the rest of the Obama Administration pretends to soothe the “frustrations” of Occupy Wall Street, she’s touting the rich fruits of taxpayer support for transnational mega-corporations.

Brimmer’s third point is even stranger: the residents of the other 49 states are supposed to be happy because massive United Nations funding is pouring money into New York City?

But her second, and principal, point is the one most in need of debunking, and Fox News’ Russell is up to the task:

According to the 2010 procurement summary, the U.S. did, in fact, get $1.5 billion in U.N. procurement contracts this year, making it the U.N.’s top source of supply in the world.

But when it comes to overall return on investment, the U.S. procurement bounty looks different --and worse.

According to U.S. government figures, Washington gave $7.7 billion to the widely varying branches of the U.N. global system last year -- meaning that for every dollar the U.S. put in, it got about 19.7 cents worth of procurement back.

(Emphasis mine.) Well, that kind of investment “genius” is right in line with the wonders of Obamanomics: spending a dollar of taxpayer money to make twenty cents for a few government-selected businesses.

Russell goes on to note that every other major developed nation gets a better “return on investment” than the U.S., except Germany. None of them are the kind of “investments” a private fund manager could keep his job by making – Britain gets 46.2 cents on the dollar for their $652.8 million contribution, while Germany only earns 15.2 cents on its $1.2 billion.

It’s hard to think of a worse “investment” than the United Nations, outside of the White House’s “green jobs” disasters. Like those scandals, the United Nations involves vast amounts of compulsory funding for the very attenuated benefit of a select few. I wonder if the traders at the NASDAQ politely stifled their laughter while Assistant Secretary Brimmer congratulated herself for losing eighty cents on the dollar.

Shopping at the UN for Global Leadership

by Claudia Rosett @ PajamasMedia.com

Leading from behind may be President Obama’s preferred approach on foreign policy, but apparently that doesn’t apply when it comes to paying for the United Nations, where the U.S. is just one of 192 voting member states, but gets stuck with roughly one-quarter of the bill for the entire system. When it comes to spending billions on the UN, administration officials keep making the pitch for America to lead from the front. As far as there’s any logic to this pretzel of an approach, it seems to entail staying way out ahead of the pack on funding, while trying to lead from behind on policy.

The latest pitch came this week from Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, in a June 15 address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Brimmer attempted the contortionist feat of combining, in a single speech, a profession of American support for Israel with a pitch for a continuing flood of American money into the UN system. What with the UN being a relentless font of Israel-fixated anti-Semitism, one might have supposed the better move would be to cut off the funding on which such UN bigotry enjoys a free ride. But so far that’s not in the administration’s playbook. Instead, the argument is that yet more U.S. money for the UN will help buy a degree of integrity from that institution which loads of money have already failed to produce. Brimmer says of the U.S. at the UN: “We must be a responsible global leader, and that means paying our bills.”

No, it doesn’t. Not when those bills are supporting an institution that undercuts American interests and savages an American ally. If the Obama administration wants to buy its way back toward global leadership, forget the UN — it’s time to go shopping somewhere else.