The Energy Issue Sipanews VOLUME XX No
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | MAY 2007 SIPAnews The Energy Issue SIPAnews VOLUME XX No. 2 MAY 2007 Published biannually by School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University his is my last introductory letter in SIPA think. I will recall the varied versions of myself in from the dean News; I will be stepping down as dean at the Follies. I will marvel at the remarkable accommoda- Tend of June. It has been a decade since I tions we made to new information technologies in came into office. In that time, we have turned out classrooms and in teaching—ten years ago the the equivalent of 1.5 graduates a day—nearly 6,000 World Wide Web was five years old, there was no students earned degrees at SIPA in the last ten years. Google, and wireless referred to the radio. I will And there are other ways to quantify our undertak- think of the debates among the faculty over the ings during this period. We hired new faculty at a contributions of theory and practice to public poli- rate of one every two months, tripling the size of cy education. I will remember staring south from our full-time faculty. We developed new degree the 15th floor of the International Affairs Building programs at a rate of one every 18 months—the on September 11, 2001, and will continue to be EMPA, the MPA in Environmental Science and awed by the generosity with which students, staff, Policy, the PhD in Sustainable Development, and and faculty alike organized in response to the dev- the dual degree programs with Sciences Po in Paris, astation. I will remember the alumni who ensured the London School of Economics, Singapore’s Lee that the Mexican elections were democratic, who Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and New York’s reported on the war from Baghdad, who ran the own Jewish Theological Seminary. We refurbished Central Bank of Mongolia, who worked for the and renovated the equivalent of four full floors of International Rescue Committee in Sudan, all of the International Affairs Building—about one whom took a moment to write to let us know what square foot every two hours for ten years. And we they were doing and how much SIPA had prepared raised more than two dollars a second, providing them to do it well. enhanced funding for faculty research, facilities This issue of SIPA News is devoted to energy, an upgrades, and student fellowships. increasingly vital policy arena around the world. I But, of course, I will not remember the numbers. am proud to have contributed to bringing the In fact, the time flew by—I was having fun. I will Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and think of the students who asked for (and got) a Public Policy to SIPA, as I am of all the work we course on how to set up a refugee camp, the donor have done over the last ten years to strengthen and who signed the multimillion dollar gift agreement enhance one of the most remarkable institutions in over lunch in Athens, the alumnus who made the the world. It has been a privilege. case for greater funding at a reception by waving a piece of concrete that had broken off the staircase. Lisa Anderson I will remember the students who marveled in class James T. Shotwell Professor of International that they would “have to think” about what we’d Relations been discussing, and the reform group we called the Dean, School of International and Public Affairs Conceptual Foundations insurgency, which argued that there was still more about which we should contents FEATURES p.10 p.20 INSIDE SIPA p. 38 p. 42 Biodiesel: The U.S. Energy News and Events SIPA Develops p.2 uncertain promise Security and p.33 By Rob Garris Alumni Council Empowering of “Nature’s fuel” EU Climate A Legacy to Be Women: A SIPA- By Paula Margulies Policy: The Proud Of UNDP workshop policy dialogue By Rob Garris p. 39 p. 43 that could be explores how p.14 A Fond Farewell to energy can fight By Albert Bressand Donor Profiles: Robin Lewis Jim (MIA ’77) and poverty Nuclear Power: p.35 By JoAnn Crawford By Rachel Makabi A 21st-century Sandra (MIA ’76) Faculty Profile: with reporting by solution or a p.24 Leitner Jennifer Chang, Emily Guillermo Calvo 20th-century Firth, and Andres Crude Charity: By Dan McSweeney p.40 Franco mistake? Will Chavez’s p. 44 By Steven Cohen brand of populism The SIPA Energy push Venezuela to p. 36 Association and Class Notes p.6 the brink? the Third Annual Compiled by Don Rassler p.16 By Monique Mugnier A SIPA Success Energy Symposium Q&A with Story: The Center By Casey Albert Professor David Africa’s Road Builders: China’s for Energy, Marine Nissen Transportation and By Justin Vogt growing energy p.26 Public Policy p. 41 needs are leading Iraq’s Oil Politics it to some of the By Justin Vogt The ISP Alumni p.7 world’s least Network in New stable places York Gazprom’s Grip p.37 By Cary McClelland p.30 By Justin Vogt By Jackie Carpenter A Pipeline Profile: Albert Through the Bressand p.18 Balkans? By Rob Garris p. 42 By Andrew Monahan Global Roundtable EMPA Forum on Climate Change By Casey Albert By Nichole Gomez EMPOWERING WOMEN A SIPA-UNDP WORKSHOP EXPLORES HOW ENERGY CAN FIGHT POVERTY. 2 SIPA NEWS The machine would not work. So Dionfolo Oualy and her ten-year-old daughter Kamissa had no choice but to put aside their other tasks and thrash at the chunks of millet with large wooden sticks. It was nearing four in the afternoon on a Friday in the mid-sized village of Bantantinty, Senegal—about 290 miles of potholed roads east of the capital, Dakar—where a team of students had traveled to examine access to energy services in rural Africa as part of a joint SIPA–United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) work- shop. There were afternoon prayers to be said and meals to be OMEN prepared, but the grinding would have to come first, adding to N FIGHT POVERTY. the women’s already long workday. by Rachel Makabi with reporting by Jennifer Chang, Emily Firth, and Andres Franco SIPA NEWS 3 Left to right: Women in Bantantinty selling fataya, a Senegalese dish; a man using the Multi-Function Platform; women making soap; a young girl carrying water; a family drawing water from the well. Title page: Women manually grinding grains Like most women in the villages of West form has created new jobs, as people had to be implementation of the platform, girls’ school Africa, where electricity and motorized machines trained to maintain and repair it. The village doc- attendance has shot up, giving them many of the are scarce, the Oualy women work from dawn tor even reported that as a result of doing less opportunities that their mothers never had. until dusk on all the basic tasks necessary for sur- manual labor, women were delivering their “I had to work a lot in my life. It is pretty vival. They wake up at six in the morning to say babies with fewer complications. obvious my daughter has an easier time,” said prayers, draw water from the well, and prepare In a room adjacent to the platform, one Noné Signate, a member of the platform’s man- breakfast. In the afternoon, they prepare flour woman demonstrated the village’s new manual aging association. and gather wood for the midday meal. In the sewing machine, while others made soap—two Signate’s husband, who was formerly the chief early evening, they grind, clean, and work on new enterprises that the women have started of the village, helped bring the platform to harvesting. They finish at ten at night and wake with their newly acquired free time. As a result of Bantantinty. Their daughter is the first girl in sev- up at six the next morning, only to begin the such activities, women’s incomes have grown eral generations of their family to attend school. process once again. There is little time for resting considerably. “I don’t want my daughter to have a hard life, the and raising children and even less time for “Women have a vested interest in making this way I had,” Signate explained. “This is why I am attending school. work, because they were the ones who would suf- sending her to school.” Things are different in the village when the fer before,” said Odile Balizet, a coordinator for Obtaining a platform requires a strong finan- machine works. Bantantinty is one of 40 villages the Multi-Function Platform program in the cial commitment from villages. Recipient villages in Senegal that has a diesel-run device called a UNDP’s Senegal office. According to Balizet, have to pay between 20 and 60 percent of the “Multi-Function Platform,” which quickly per- before the arrival of the platform, women made $7,500 hardware costs of a machine. Even forms tasks that would otherwise take the women 5,000 CFA ($10 US) a year. Now, they are mak- though this is a fraction of the total $17,000 cost hours to complete. The machine, which is ing twice that amount each month. of a platform, most of which is subsidized, it nev- financed by the village, local government, and These are just a few examples of the slow but ertheless makes some villages unwilling or reluc- the UNDP, mechanically grinds millet, dehusks steady changes in the lives of rural women in vil- tant to invest in the technology.