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Thursday, 28 de July de 2005
Diez países de América latina, en riesgo de convertirse en "Estados fallidos"
Informe de Foreign Policy y el Fondo para la Paz Diez países de América latina, en riesgo de convertirse en "Estados fallidos"
El ranking mundial se elaboró sobre la base de 12 indicadores económicos, sociales, políticos y militares
Haití, Colombia, República Dominicana, Venezuela, Guatemala, Paraguay, Perú, Honduras, Ecuador y Cuba. Estos diez países tienen algo en común, además de su pertenencia a América latina: el dudoso honor de aparecer, en ese orden y entre los puestos 10° y 58°, en la lista de 60 países en el mundo con mayor riesgo de convertirse en "Estados fallidos", según un trabajo de la publicación Foreign Policy y la ONG norteamericana Fondo para la Paz (Fund for Peace).
El ranking evalúa la performance de los países en 12 indicadores económicos, sociales, políticos y militares entre los cuales figuran las presiones demográficas, el desarrollo económico desigual, la criminalización o la deslegitimación del Estado, el deterioro económico y la violación de los derechos humanos.
En los primeros 20 puestos -en los que figuran países latinoamericanos como Haití, Colombia y República Dominicana, en un ranking en el que se destaca la presencia de países africanos y asiáticos como Irak, Afganistán y Yemen- el factor común que existe es que los gobiernos han perdido el control de su territorio y el monopolio del uso de la fuerza.
"Este es claramente el caso de Colombia, donde además existen los problemas del narcotráfico, de la desigualdad económica, y una rebelión armada que se resiste a los cambios", dijo la presidenta de Fondo para la Paz, Pauline H. Baker, en diálogo telefónico desde Washington con LA NACION.
Baker reconoció que los países latinoamericanos pueden subir próximamente en el ranking, dada la ola de inestabilidad que afecta a la región. "En el corto plazo no veo progresos y muchos países están enfrentando grandes desafíos -comentó-. En Bolivia es tan grande la brecha entre ricos y pobres que no habrá estabilidad a menos que hagan algo al respecto." El estudio dice que el desarrollo desigual es el "síntoma más común de fracaso del Estado entre todos los analizados, sugiriendo que la injusticia y no la pobreza es el mayor determinante de inestabilidad".
Baker indicó que no se trata sólo un problema de desarrollo, sino también un problema de seguridad. Ponerlo en evidencia fue uno de los grandes incentivos que tuvo su organización, que busca evitar la guerra, para realizar el informe. Según el Fondo para la Paz, hoy día son los países en riesgo de convertirse en "fallidos" los que representan una mayor amenaza para Estados Unidos, a diferencia de lo que sucedió en la primera mitad del siglo XX y aun durante la Guerra Fría, cuando los desvelos de la Casa Blanca se centraban en los Estados poderosos con ambiciones de conquista.
"Los Estados vulnerables suponen una amenaza de desorden general. Si existe desorden general, entonces existe la posibilidad de que elementos criminales, grupos terroristas y contrabandistas movilicen armas de destrucción masiva", aseguró Baker.
Pero estas naciones no sólo constituyen una amenaza para la Casa Blanca: el trabajo del Foreign Policy y el Fondo para la Paz destaca que cinco de los diez principales inversores en armas (como porcentaje del PBI) son Estados vulnerables. Tal es el caso de Eritrea, Angola, Arabia Saudita, Yemen y Bahrein.
"Yemen, el octavo Estado más vulnerable, tiene un sorprendente gasto militar, del 7,8% de su PBI."
Ahora bien, ¿qué sucede cuando los llamados Estados vulnerables tienen armas atómicas? Sencillamente, se multiplican las posibilidades de un ataque devastador. "Un Estado fallido con armas nucleares puede ser una pesadilla para todos", destaca el trabajo.
Los candidatos a convertirse "en pesadilla" son Corea del Norte, que con un régimen aislado se encuentra en el puesto 13° de países bajo riesgo de colapso; Paquistán, que en el puesto 34° tiene un armamento nuclear relevante; Irán, acusado por Estados Unidos de desarrollar armas nucleares, se encuentra 57°, y Rusia, que con su arsenal nuclear masivo se ubica en el 59° puesto.
Otro descubrimiento preocupante es que la ayuda económica no suele auxiliar a los más necesitados: "Un número significativo de Estados de alto riesgo, como Sudán y Corea del Norte, recibe muy poca ayuda y tiene gobiernos parias, lo que sugiere que la población paga por los pecados de sus líderes".
La excepción que confirma la regla son los países que han sido sede de intervenciones militares internacionales a gran escala, como Afganistán, Bosnia, la República Democrática del Congo e Irak, que recibieron muchos más fondos en comparación.
No obstante, la intervención militar extranjera y los recursos destinados a ese fin de ningún modo aseguran una menor vulnerabilidad de los Estados. Prueba de ello es que el trabajo ubica a Irak en un lapidario 4° lugar en el ranking y que un país como India -del que antaño se esperaba una multiplicación del hambre y de la pobreza- "hoy es la más grande democracia del mundo gracias a sus propias políticas" y sin intervención externa, comentó Baker.
Pero tal vez el dato más inquietante sea la escasa relevancia pública que obtiene la mayoría de los 60 Estados en riesgo de derrumbe, en los que viven 2000 millones de personas. Según el trabajo, naciones como Costa de Marfil, Somalia y la República Democrática del Congo rara vez aparecen en los medios. Ello podría abrir la puerta a que se transformen en "Estados fallidos" sin que lo advierta la mayor parte de la población mundial.
Por Leandro Uría
De la Redacción de LA NACION
Por: Mariano Ferrari | General | Comentarios (1) | Referencias (0)
Wednesday, 27 de July de 2005
Efficiency goes straight to the bottom line (by Amory Lovins)
Amory Lovins
"Efficiency goes straight to the bottom line," asserts the alternate-energy guru in an interview
While it may be more dramatic to announce a new power plant or drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the quickest way to solve the current power crisis is simply to stop wasting energy. So says Amory B. Lovins, the charismatic 53-year-old advocate of clean power and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in Old Snowmass, Colo. ``Efficiency goes straight to the bottom line,'' he declares, adding that U.S. businesses could easily cut their utility bills by half. Not only are efficient operations more profitable but they are also kinder on the environment.
A Harvard- and Oxford-educated physicist, Lovins burst onto the scene in the early 1970s warning of foreign-oil dependency and insisting that nuclear power was uneconomic. He also envisioned a new kind of power grid in which homes and businesses could generate their own electricity. Well, the last nuclear plant orders in the U.S. were cancelled in 1978, and analysts now predict that by 2010, 20% of U.S. electric generation could come from such on-site ``distributed power'' systems.
But power production is only half the equation. Conservation is the other. And Lovins has made a career of proving that it's a lot cheaper to save energy than buy it, coining the term ``negawatt'' to describe energy-saving technologies. Efficiency services have become a multibillion dollar industry, with companies such as Chevron, Enron, and Duke Energy entering the field.
In the midst of a globe-trotting schedule consulting for utilities, auto makers, energy companies, and the U.S. military, Lovins sat down with BusinessWeek writer Janet Ginsburg at RMI's solar-powered offices to talk about energy and the future.
Q: In your latest book, Natural Capitalism, you write about a new resource-friendly business model. How does it work?
A: There are four principles: increasing the productivity of natural resources, modeling industrial processes after biological systems to minimize waste, selling service-based solutions rather than products, and reinvesting in natural capital. [Do this] and you make more money with less risk and provide better service at lower cost.
As a small example, carpet maker Interface figured out how to cut its raw materials input by almost 100%, using ``remanufacturing.'' [The company leases carpets, then takes back worn goods and recycles the materials.] Interface cut capital input by about 90%. Twenty-seven percent of their operating profit is from eliminated waste. Their goal is to produce a floor-covering service that is superior in every customer attribute--and at a lower cost and higher margin. They lease the carpet, so it's even tax-deductible to the customer. How on earth can you compete with that? It has added $143 million to the bottom line.
Q: What about industries, such as computer chips, where energy is just a small fraction of production costs?
A: Only about 2% of the cost of a chip is energy. If you do a good job retrofitting your existing plant, you can save probably half. So what? Well, it makes your operation work better. You'll have higher yield, throughput, shorter setup time, and greater flexibility in switching production. There's a direct effect on energy bills. And very valuable side benefits. In fact, these are often worth 10 times more than the fuel savings themselves.
Q: Energy prices are near all-time highs, and there are rolling blackouts in California. How much of that can be solved by greater efficiency?
A: How much energy do we need? Very, very little if we use it in a way that saves money. It's not just electricity. The same is true for oil and gas. Most of the energy we use now is wasted in both an engineering and an economic sense. This enormous overhang of unbought efficiency is so much bigger than any potential increase in supply that it only takes a few percent to be captured in order to crash the market and put the suppliers out of business.
I see all the same ingredients that led to the 1986 price crash. It took nine years for President Carter's fuel-efficiency standards to work their way into the fleet, but they were largely responsible for an 87% cut in imports from the Persian Gulf. Then President Reagan came in, right after the second and more severe oil price shock in '79, and started pushing supply again. The combination produced a gusher of efficiency, a glut of energy, and bankrupted many of the energy suppliers the Administration had been trying to help.
Q: Some are blaming the power crunch on heavy consumption by the technology sector. Don't we need to build power plants to keep up with demand?
A: All the computing and network equipment, other than telco switches, might consume as much as 2% of U.S. electricity. And if you include every kind of office equipment and all the energy it takes to make the stuff, you would get about 3%. If it were more, you would expect to see enormous growth in electricity usage. It's not in the data.
However, the high-quality power required by digital equipment and the amount of power required are two very different things. About 99% of power failures in the U.S. are not due to inadequate generation but to problems with the grid. If you need digital reliability, the central station model doesn't work because there are so many problems getting the power to you reliably.
Q: So on-site power generation--what has been called ``distributed power''--works better?
A: Yes, the rapid shift we see in the market toward distributed generation is entirely rational. Three-quarters of the residential customers in this country don't need more [capacity] than, I believe, 1.5 kilowatts (kw). And three-quarters of the commercial customers don't need more than an average of 10 kw. So why make the stuff a million kw at a time [in central plants]? It was a magnificent technical achievement, but it's just too expensive to deliver. The delivery now costs more than the juice itself. And it's too unreliable to meet digital needs.
Q: Damage to natural-gas and petroleum pipelines in the U.S. has contributed to the current supply problems. How fragile is the grid?
A: In a book I co-wrote with my partner, Hunter Lovins, in 1981 for the Pentagon, we pointed out that three-quarters of the oil and gas supply to the eastern U.S. could be cut off in one evening without even leaving Louisiana. The reasons for that kind of vulnerability to accident or malicious act are built into the architecture of a highly centralized system. [Power] could be cut off for about a year and then, as soon as it was fixed, cut off again. And the electric grid is more vulnerable than that. However, in a more efficient, diverse, dispersed, and renewable energy system, major failures become impossible.
Q: There has been a lot of talk about hydrogen-powered fuel cells as a clean, abundant energy source. But they're expensive. That brings me to your idea for a Hypercar, which is both a car and a portable power plant. It generates electricity that you can then sell into the grid. Tell us about this.
A: Fuel cells will first be used in buildings, which consume two-thirds of all the electricity in this country. ``Waste heat'' [excess heat from power production in the fuel cell] provides additional space- and water-heating, which helps pay for the hydrogen that the fuel cell consumes. All in all, the net effective cost turns out to be quite competitive.
When the price of fuel cells falls to about $100 per kilowatt, you can afford to put the fuel cells into Hypercars. The Hypercar is about three times lighter and lower in drag than a heavy steel car, so you need only a third as many kilowatts of fuel cell to run the vehicle.
When they are parked, the cars can [be jacked] into a building's hydrogen supply [and provide extra power to the building]. They become a profit center, selling power to the grid at a time and place where it's most valuable--namely, offices in the afternoon.
Q: It sounds like science fiction.
A: The things that I'm talking about are happening. The technical and economic logic behind them is so compelling that I have no doubt whatever that they will succeed. Yes, I have dreams. And they tend to come true.
Por: Mariano Ferrari | General | Comentarios (0) | Referencias (0)
Wednesday, 27 de July de 2005
How Executives Can Assess Their Corporate Behavior
By Kevin Voigt
From The Wall Street Journal Online
When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see?
Around the world, executives are questioning their reflected image in the wake of scandals that felled executives at some of the largest companies in the world. Cutting corners on financial statements and making false promises to customers or clients to clench a deal aren't new issues in the business world, but the fall of Enron and Arthur Anderson shows how unethical behavior can have far-reaching implications.
"Ethics are central to business, and there are certain behaviors that are value-enhancing, some that are value-destroying," says Gary Biddle, a professor of accounting at Hong Kong Polytechnic University who studied the ethical implications of the Enron and Arthur Anderson accounting scandals.
As never before, corporate ethics are under the microscope as regulators, investors and the public feel the financial effects of poor business practices. And the nature of globalization means the corporate world will need to be more vigilant.
"There are thousands of ways to cut corners, and as the economy goes more global there are more ways every day," says Howard Gardner, professor of psychology at Harvard University in Massachusetts and co-author of the book "Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet."
Getting Ahead asked Messrs. Biddle and Gardner about what ethical lessons business people can learn from the scandals through what Mr. Gardner calls "The three Ms": Mission, Mentor and Mirror.
Mission: Why are you doing what you're doing?
Western doctors take the Hippocratic Oath before becoming physicians and lawyers swear to protect the rule of law, but business people have no comparable creed to live by. "Strictly speaking, the only obligation business people have is to obey the law and make a profit ... if not, they go to jail or go out of business," Mr. Gardner says. "So good work has to come from within."
Many companies have a mission statement to try to keep the firm on the right track; even Enron had one. But this doesn't necessarily translate into strong ethical behavior. "All of us have an easy time coming up with a pious view of what we do," Mr. Gardner says.
In a broad sense, Mr. Biddle says, Enron lost its mission when it traded its heritage as a public utility for the quick-growth strategies of a New Economy company. This led executives astray as they turned to so-called creative accounting to protect the company's stock prices and growth strategy, Mr. Biddle says. Enron "had created a culture of deceit at the highest levels of the company," he adds.
For individuals, it's important to have a mission statement of your own, even if your company doesn't have strict business principles. What meaning are you hoping to gain from your work? What goals do you have as an individual? When facing an ethical quandary, your personal mission statement can give you a yardstick by which to measure your standards, Mr. Gardner says.
Mentor: Whom do you admire and emulate?
"Business is like life: There are always temptations, always shortcuts one might want to take," Mr. Biddle says. "Ultimately, the people you respect, the people who gain recognition and admiration, are those who stay within the right lines of the law and ... behavior."
In the Enron and Anderson cases, managers sacrificed principles that long-term trust depends on, such as accountability and honesty, for short-term gain.
By all accounts, former Enron Chief Executive Kenneth Lay was "a nice guy," Mr. Biddle says. "I've talked to people who have known him and they say he was generous, gave to charity. At the same time he allowed the development of this culture of getting away with things."
What makes good mentors in the business world are executives with an eye toward the long term, Mr. Gardner says. Researchers from Harvard, University of Chicago, the Peter Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in California, and Stanford University, also in California, conducted a study of ethics and professions called the GoodWork Project. It compared a group of 20 so-called good executives nominated by business people, professors and deans of business schools with another group of 20 selected at random. Out of those 20 nominated as examples of great executives, only two talked about the importance of the short term, with the rest taking a longer-term approach. Executives selected at random seemed to live or die only by the next quarterly results. The interviews were completed in 2000, when there still was a "frenzy for stock value," Mr. Gardner says.
Executives should bear in mind the standards they set will have consequences long after they've retired. CEOs such as Mr. Lay once were stars that young executives emulated; when mentors like Mr. Lay skirted the rules, those below followed his example. "If you cook the books, it's one of the worst things you can do as an executive," Mr. Biddle says. "It can haunt you into retirement."
Mirror: Are you proud or embarrassed by the image staring back?
Are you satisfied that your company is maintaining strong ethical standards? Enron employees interviewed by Mr. Biddle said they often would ask each other around the water cooler, "How do you think the company is making money?"
Questioning corporate tactics isn't so easy; it often is viewed as a sign of weakness. But as Mr. Gardner adds: "If you don't like what's going on, at some point you have to speak up."
To be effective, influence counts. "If you raise questions, you have to have a decent relationship with the people you work with. Introduce it into conversations' with subordinates and superiors alike, Mr. Gardner says. If you can't make a change from within, perhaps it's time to change companies if you still don't like what you see in the mirror.
Someone who would easily pass the mirror test is Sherron Watkins, the Enron executive who wrote the prescient letter to Mr. Lay warning the company could "implode in a wave of accounting scandals." "She could have stayed silent and been a good soldier, but she decided to do something about it," Mr. Gardner says.
"Criticism is easy; the real challenge is doing what needs to be done to achieve business goals, but do it in a way you're proud to see done," Mr. Gardner says.
Por: Mariano Ferrari | General | Comentarios (0) | Referencias (0)
Saturday, 11 de June de 2005
My CV in English
Resume Mariano Ferrari (updated May 05)
Por: Mariano Ferrari | Biografia | Comentarios (0) | Referencias (0)
