Limiting ,population, growth, Africa and Jimmy Wales

Friday morning…The morning began with a highly productive working breakfast with Larry Brilliant to discuss whether GBN would be willing to do for the AIDS initiative what we did for Pandemics last year. He and I will be meeting with Peter Piot the head of the initiative who is here, to help formulate the process.

My first session of the day was The Procreation Choice…about reproductive technologies and all the issues surrounding them. I was the moderator but the panel was terrific. A Columbia Professor Raymond Fisman who has studied how people choose at sperm banks (what is really desirable sperm) and how they choose dates, Prof. Robert Winston of Imperial College, London who argued that gender choice was about to become a real issue, but the rest of the issue was irrelevant. But most profound was Ingrid Mattson, the first woman head of the Islamic Society of North America. She took the conversation in a surprising direction focusing on the immigration issue and how some countries are now trying to raise their birthrates through technology to avoid becoming immigrant societies. She also pointed out that, of course, limiting reproduction has been and continues to be the most critical reproductive decision that women are making today.

Now in a session on African Geopolitics.
Thabo Mbeki is speaking mainly on African security issues and the challenges of sovereignty. He argued that focusing on poverty as a source of conflict was the answer and that until we eliminate poverty we won’t end the violence. I must say it seems backwards to me. He is also arguing for a relationship with the world from an African perspective for example seeking an equitable relationship with China…not perpetuating the old colonial model. Africans need to develop the strength to really negotiate with China. Richard Haas said that Africa is now part of globalization …not just an internal matter for the continent. Now linked to the world in at least ten ways…energy, HIV/AIDs, terror, developmental, trade (as negotiators), conflicts, genocide, governance, role of AU, role of external powers. He argued that there is a need for the US and China to come together on how to deal with Africa. CEO of Total, said Africa is now 11% of world oil production but soon 15% with a growing competition with the Chinese for access. He was emphasizing traditional approaches for joint ventures. The Nigerian finance minister, Nenadi Usman, who was really impressive, emphasized the need for new leadership. Africa has to pull itself up. We need to determine what we want to be. Need to reinforce good behavior. Need for good governance…then can do everything else. Can shed the weight of the past. We are now seeing even best practices in Nigeria. US General James Jones the former head of NATO argued for NATO to be engaged in Africa, training, etc. and be involved in the variety issues in Africa, especially terrorism…need for steady presence. I asked a question of Mbeki on Zimbabwe. How could they deal with the misery that Mugabe is producing there? Mbeki replied that they were working on the internal parties none of whom want foreign military intervention. It was a self serving and vacuous answer that annoyed many of the panel.

My lunch event was on extending human lifespan. In the end there was a lot of agreement on the technology potential but the real issue they focused on was cost and associated inequities. If we can’t all live longer should anyone?

On the way back to the hall I ran into Moises Naim the editor of Foreign Policy who raved about his work with GBN. And he and I agreed that he would publish the debate that Niall Ferguson and I will do in September on applied history: the optimist vs the pessimist. Also ran into Steve Case, who much to my surprise was a big fan of GBN. Also ran into Mike Porter today…this is where we end up seeing each other most often.



The afternoon session was The Next Limits of Growth.
Martin Wolf the moderator and said that Malthus was wrong for 200 years because of innovation and the availability of fossil fuels leading to rising agricultural productivity. Brabeck-Letmathe CEO of Nestle argued that innovation will continue unabated and that there really no are limits, if markets work (right price matters.) His big issue was water because markets don’t work in water. Sam DiPiazza, CEO of PWC also said no limits and reported on their current survey of 1000 CEOS. They are optimistic about growth (90%) but energy is a concern, along with climate change and resource scarcity. Isdell, CEO of Coke also said no limits. The biggest threat is that we lose confidence in the growth oriented system as a result of income gaps, and job insecurity, Kindle of ABB also said no limits but the necessary energy substitution would lead to much higher costs. Chukwuma Soludo the head of the Nigerian Central Bank and also quite impressive said most of Africa’s limits were internal limits. Water kept coming up as perhaps the greatest constraint. Soludo, when the population issue came up, suggested open the borders and let population poor countries absorb some of the excess from the population rich countries. You can imagine how the Europeans reacted to the suggestion of vast numbers of Nigerians arriving on their shores seeking work.. The politics of water and immigration, not technology are the real constraints to solutions, they all seemed to agree. Van Jones of Oakland expressed a great deal of skepticism at the panels relative optimism and spoke for many others in the room.

Jimmy Wales, of Wikipedia has just arrived and rang in desperation. I am off to help him solve the problem that no one at registration knows anything about him…a big oops. It turns out the invitation was for next year and someone in Bono’s entourage screwed up in inviting him now…(a little later) but we managed to get Jimmy in any way..

More later….