Working with electricity in Pretoria

For the last 2 weeks Paul Keursten and I have been working with the Imtech/Nova project in the east of Pretoria. The project is part of the Imtech BV corporate social responsibility programme and is working with the Nova Institute to promote the sustainable use of electricity in households as a contribution to addressing climate change. 6 people from Imtech have been working (together with people from Nova) in households in 3 distinct communities in the east of Pretoria (Mamelodi, Garsfontein and Woodhill).

In each household, the Imtech people have engaged with the residents over a 48-hour period to measure the electrical energy consumed by each individual appliance in the homes and to provide advice to reduce electricity consumption. The results have been very interesting, both from a social and from a technology perspective!

Major consumers of energy are geysers and fridge/freezers (especially when set at inappropriate or incorrect temperatures), TVs and other devices on stand-by, and over-filled kettles. This is true in all communities, regardless of income levels. It appears that households in all 3 communities could quite easily reduce their electricity consumption (and bills!) by up to 20% a month by taking some quite easy steps. Particularly important in the light of huge looming price increases for electricity over the next 3 years!

Paul and I have been facilitating the learning process in the project, and we framed the process in the heroic journey model (Home, Test, Quest, Shift, Gift). We have facilitated a learning and de-briefing session with the Imtech and Nova people at the end of each day, and have been fascinated to see how the group has developed in the course of the project. A big ‘shift’ is now occurring, in which the group members are increasingly seeing how providing information is only one part of a wider process of social change that requires community and individual engagement, and so the group is now looking at how to sustain the initiative over the longer term.

Low Trust Globalisation

I have indulged myself somewhat in recent posts with my thoughts on the Open Doors and Flags scenarios developed by the Shell scenarios team in 2005, in which they explore possible future worlds in 2025.

To complete the picture, the third scenario they imagine is ‘Low Trust Globalisation’. This scenario is perhaps closer to a representation of the world as it is today, and less idealistic than ‘Open Doors’ and less fatalistic than ‘Flags’.

These 3 Shell scenarios were developed through a process of exploring the results of trade-offs and choices that can be made in managing the interplay between powerful forces that exist in the global business environment. The forces derive from a drive for efficiency and the power of the market, the need for security (in the broadest sense) and the consequent push for coercion and regulation, and the push for social cohesion that arises from the human need for community.

So, while the Shell team emphasises that these three forces will continue to shape our world for the next number of years, it is the business choices and political trade-offs that will impact on the balance of these forces and lead to the scenario alternatives. So ‘Flags’ represents a world where the balance is found between the needs of security and community, with free markets playing a less significant (but not absent) role. ‘Open Doors’ emphasises the balance between community (social cohesion) and the market, with less concern about security and higher levels of regulation. And the ‘Low Trust Globalisation’ scenario is a world that finds itself concerned primarily with market efficiency and security, and in which community power and the drive for social cohesion struggle to make as big an impact.

The current global economic ‘crisis’ has had interesting consequences, with western ‘capitalist’ governments effectively nationalising banks and propping up the motor industry. It was Karl Marx of course who in the Communist Party Manifesto called for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy. Come back you Reds – all is forgiven!

And it seems to be agreed, amongst economic commentators in the Western media, that much tighter regulation is needed of the banking system and the behaviour of senior banking, auditing and other financial directors and CEOs.

If this represents a fundamental shift away from the values of the market, it could lead us towards the ‘Flags' scenario, in which national interests take precedence over the globalisation trends of the last 30 years. My sense, however, especially after following what has been happening in Davos, is that the leading economic powers will seek to re-establish the power of the markets as drivers of economic growth and that Western governments will have little appetite for running banks for very long, even if new regulatory systems are negotiated and put in place.

The prime challenge facing those who see the need for a more environmentally and ecologically sustainable world system at peace with itself then remains. As the forces of globalisation reassert themselves, how can companies, organisations, communities and governments, especially those in the developing world, create innovative, practical and dynamic products, services and initiatives that stimulate more sustainable ways of living and lift people out of poverty?

We certainly live in interesting times, and the world and South Africa seem to change markedly even in the time between my blogposts! But these times are times of great opportunity and optimism, even as we face deep and sustained crises of one kind or another. Seamus Heaney, one of Ireland’s leading poets, wrote of the time when ‘hope and history rhyme’:

from The Cure at Troy

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.

~ Seamus Heaney ~

more on Open Doors

The appointment of Justice Edwin Cameron as a judge of the Constitutional Court is very much to be welcomed, and is also an example of an Open Doors approach (see my last blog). Justice Cameron is eminently qualified from a legal perspective, but is also an interesting choice because of his openness about his sexuality and his HIV status – he has been living openly with HIV for some years. This means that he brings an important human rights perspective to his new role, and strengthens confidence in the Constitutional Court as an institution that is able not only to defend the Constitution but also to articulate and stimulate our emerging human rights culture in South Africa.

Beyond the implications for our Constitution, his appointment is also an expression of tolerance and an embracing of diversity in public life that sends a wider message. How many judges, or other high public officials, around the world have ever been able to declare their HIV status, let alone done so in a country where this does not hold back their promotion. We should celebrate his appointment for what it means for South Africa at the start of 2009, and hope that the ANC government in the run up to and beyond the upcoming election can continue to promote diversity, openness and transparency in its governance of the country and its tolerance of differing and even opposing opinions.

Of course, the Open Doors scenario is about much more then political tolerance. It is the Shell scenario that appears to offer the best prospects for enhanced economic growth over the next 15 years. As such, it is useful to think about it as a template for democracy and development, whilst also engaging critically with the insights we gain from the Open Doors perspective in addressing South Africa’s challenges.

We tend to take for granted the idea that economic growth needs to be pursued almost at any cost. We know, from what happened with the power crisis last year, that a growing economy needs to be fuelled with oil, water and electricity, so we immediately need to think about how we create a sustainable growing economy – one that addresses both the demand and supply side of the economic equation. The Open Doors scenario is the one that places the greatest demand on oil reserves as rapid economic growth, particularly in the developing world, means that millions more people buy cars and seek middle class lifestyles.

In consequence, if we seek to create the open and accountable society envisaged in the Open Doors scenario, we need also to focus on issues of sustainability and think creatively about strategies to address energy needs. And the issue of poverty, and the associated consequences, risks falling from the agenda. I will share further thoughts in future posts. Meanwhile, a happy new year!

of blogs, small farmers and new Presidents

Well it seems I was wrong about Ms Baleka Mbete, and that the likely new President will be the current Deputy President of the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe. Which just goes to show that I should not pretend to be a political analyst. Steven Friedman does that job very well, and I was impressed by his opinion piece in yesterday’s Business Day.

Currently I am involved in an interesting collaboration with 2 Dutch people – Sibrenne Wagenaar and Joitske Hulsebosh. We are together doing some research with IKM into different approaches to the evaluation of knowledge management strategies. This has involved a desktop literature study, and we are also interviewing people. We will be publishing a paper, and our findings will be presented in Holland in November and in Namibia early next year.

This collaboration has been interesting as we have done a lot of work together online, using tools such as Skype, Google Docs and blogging. This has been a new way of working for me and has led me to see the potential for using the internet as an interactive collaborative tool as well as a search engine and a networking forum.

I did have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Sibrenne and Joitske when in Holland recently, and this certainly makes online collaboration easier, but increasingly I can see the potential for online collaboration and working over distance when one does not have the opportunity to meet one’s colleagues in person. This raises challenges in terms of how one builds trusting and cooperative relationships, minimising the opportunities for misunderstanding and conflict, without ever having met the other people.

I am also involved in developing another project together with my new Kessels and Smit colleague Julian Sturgeon. Julian is involved with an organisation called Resource Africa.

Our proposal is to investigate alternative forms of capacity building in the development sector with the intention of developing new and sustainable learning methodologies.

The ‘Empowering Emerging Farmers’ (EEF) project seeks to develop supply chains for agricultural products that can be marketed through the fair-trade mechanisms. Resource Africa’s role in the project is to assist emerging farmers to set up production systems and to develop management capacity in the community-based organisations.

With Julian, we are developing a systemic learning approach in which the project will aim to achieve the following:

Firstly, we will introduce a systemic organisational learning approach using different projects that are willing to particpate. Secondly, we will focus on measurable changes in the performance, creativity, sustainablility and impact of key organisations within the system - an example here would be a Common Property Association engaged in supplying fruit to the fair-trade system. Third, we hope this will result in a sustainable learning approach that can be applied in the arena of land reform and small-scale agriculture.

This is an exciting initiative and provides the opportunity for us to expand our work in a developmental context with a social learning approach.

What goes around...

Well someone said to me the other day about living in South Africa that we live in interesting times, and it is certainly true reading the newspapers this morning! One of the things that strikes me is that we need to move beyond our conception of a centralised state. This idea did not serve SA well under apartheid, and it does not serve us well now. Unfortunately, our current (but for how long?) President, Thabo Mbeki, has adopted a 'democratic centralist' approach to how he has run the government and the country, and has appropriated significant power to himself and a few people around him. It appears, from yesterday's judgement in the Zuma case, that this included effectively giving instructions to supposedly independent state institutions such as the National Prosecuting Authority.

We now live in the 21st century, and centralisation of state power, and indeed the centralisation of power in organisations, is no longer, I believe, a sustainable way to manage our affairs. It will not work in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Iraq or the United States.

So, while Jacob Zuma may not be an ideal person to have as incoming President of the country, the ANC conference in Polokwane was important in that it re-established the control of the party over an increasingly remote and disconnected government. And now Mbeki's pigeons are coming home to roost.

What can we learn from all this? I would suggest that sharing power is important if we want to create sustainable organisations and societies. The idea of 'the big man' is past. Further, we have to move beyond the idea that support and loyalty (based partly on fear!) can be bought through systems of patronage, and build societies and organisations in which people are genuinely committed to each other through bonds of trust and shared responsibility for our future.