Author: Ben Debski

Swedish sustainability

Posted on by Ben Debski

Mid Sweden, consisting of the counties of Jamtland and Vasternorrland, has a magnificent countryside, with large rivers, vast forests, a long coastline along the Bothnian Sea and striking mountains in the west on the border with Norway. The inland areas of the region offer a good environment for recreation in various forms, such as skiing, hiking, berry picking and also hunting as the region has a rich wildlife, including elk, bear and grouse. Fishing, mostly for salmon and salmon trout is excellent in rivers, lakes and along the coast. These amenities are very much appreciated by local people and visitors.

The Sami people make up a considerable part of the population, mainly in the mountainous western parts of the region. The Sami population is divided into eight Sami villages and the economic basis is the breeding of reindeer. Obviously the Sami culture is very much dependant on an unspoilt natural environment.

This is one side of the coin – fresh air, clean water, a diverse wildlife and an attractive and healthy environment that is well worth being preserved.

Another aspect is the presence of highly productive and export oriented industries, such as, forestry and hydroelectric power. These retain a strong position but they do not provide as many job opportunities today as they once did in the past. Although these companies have contributed considerably to the development in the fields of energy, especially in renewable energy (wind, bio mass etc.) and environmental engineering. Mid Sweden is in fact the base for a large number of companies and organisations that offer unique cleantech products and solutions. Even the public sector provides, to a large extent, new energy solutions for its own needs that can be an effective model for others.

It should also be said that in a region such as Mid Sweden, where for instance the coastal area has had a long tradition of industry, there are remains of older, not so environmentally friendly technology. Extensive resources have been invested for the environmental remediation of old polluted industrial sites and restoration of waterways. This situation has created new innovative solutions to many of these inherited problems, the knowledge of these applications are widespread locally and beyond. Regional initiatives aim at highlighting Mid Sweden’s collective expertise in the fields of renewable energy and clean tech.

The primary clean tech region of Mid Sweden is situated in the centre of Scandinavia. The region has a land area of 71,028 km2 which is more than Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg together, or 17.3 percent of Sweden’s total land area. Despite the vast areas only four percent of the total population of Sweden, around 370 000 inhabitants, live in Mid Sweden. The population density is 5.2 inhabitants per km2, which can be compared with Sweden’s average of 22.6 and the 27 members of the EU who have 144 inhabitants per km2. The distance to the nearest big market, i.e. Stockholm, is about 500km away from Sundsvall and Östersund, the region’s main cities.

The development in the field of renewable energy is promising, with major investments in wind farms (the biggest land based wind farm in Sweden is located in Mid Sweden), and continuing the promising efforts to utilise the huge potential energy production based on the implementation of biomass fuel.

These investments and efforts are reassuring as they are carried out in all parts of the counties, not just in the proximity of the cities but in really rural and peripheral parts of the region. This new sector of renewable energy and Clean Tech constitutes new opportunities especially for small companies and for many areas that have been forgotten during recent years of concentration, urbanisation and emerging mega cities. This was a clear message from the first Regional Development Conference, held in Östersund, Sweden in July 2009.  Furthermore, the 2009 conference illustrated the necessity for small regions to join forces and work together to be able to obtain results.

The second Regional Development Conference, RDC2011, will take place in Östersund over the 14th -15th of June this summer, is especially designed to meet the demand for an arena to discuss the possibilities and challenges of the above and come up with joint proposals for solutions that include amendments of policies nationally and at supra national levels. Such discussions cannot, if they are to be effective, take place in secluded chambers, and they cannot be just for politicians, scientists or businessmen among themselves only, but all of them – together and on an equal footing.

Social media: Egypt’s quandary

Posted on by Ben Debski

The uprising in Egypt has provoked the familiar “realism-versus-idealism” foreign policy debate in many Western capitals, as diplomats and politicians struggle to balance their ideological sympathy for the protesters with fears of chaos and the threat of a future anti-Western and anti-Israel policy from Cairo if the people do win.

What we have paid less attention to is that the demonstrations have forced some of the world’s hottest technology companies to engage in a very similar debate. The conclusions these technorati end up drawing may be as significant as the verdicts of Western governments. And this new intellectual battleground is a further sign that in the age of the internet and the global economy, foreign policy doesn’t belong just to professionals or to states anymore.

The quandary Egypt poses for technology companies – particularly the power troika of Google, Facebook and Twitter – goes far beyond the classic corporate social responsibility concerns that have become as much a part of standard operating practice at big multinationals as filling out expense reports.

On one hand, the Egyptian revolt and the ways in which it has been facilitated by the internet is the apotheosis of hacker culture and its worldview. That is the powerful conviction of the digerati, that they are on the side of freedom, small ‘d’ democracy and of doing good in the world. This is a self-image that is easy to mock – that Google pledge to “do no evil” makes a pretty juicy target for satirists – but it is also deeply felt. 

I have listened to Larry Page, soon to become Google’s chief executive, earnestly tell a group of rapt technology executives that his central motivation is to make the world a better place. He offered some examples that would have made Mother Teresa proud: the heart attack victims whose lives have been saved by Google searches; the car crash deaths that might be averted if Google eventually figures out how to create a self-driving automobile.

Of course, nowadays nearly all companies offer a version of this vow of virtue, but it is probably much easier to say and believe if you are a Googler than if you sell sugary drinks or package credit derivatives.

Egypt has helped confirm this view of technology companies being on the side of angels. For example, Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who helped organise the protests, was jailed and has emerged this week as an important face of a movement looking for leaders. Before that, there was the much-publicised workaround that Google and Twitter technologists devised to help evade the Egyptian government’s communications crackdown.

And although it has recently become trendy for some Western observers to warn that ascribing too central a role to the internet and social media is the latest version of self-centred Orientalism, the Arab street, judging by all those handmade pro-Facebook placards and graffiti, seems pretty keen on advertising its affection for the world’s most popular social media site.

Business models
All of which sounds like a PR dream come true. As Adrian Chen noted on Gawker, the edgy blog which is itself a product of technorati culture, “the amount of positive press generated by Egypt’s uprising for the site could only be greater if Mark Zuckerberg had parachuted in and started beating back riot police himself.”

On the other hand, the problem for technology companies in many parts of the world is that doing good – or even doing no evil – is very much in the eye of the beholder. The views, and the self-interest, of twenty-something programmers in Silicon Valley, or in Bangalore, India, are unlikely to coincide with those of eighty-something dictators. And that clash can spell trouble for firms primarily intent on building a global business.

“Facebook is trying to expand into China, so it is hard for them to take the side of the protesters,” said Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, a newly published contrarian book that argues that the internet will not necessarily make the world a freer, better place.
“They don’t want to be considered the digital equivalent of Radio Free Europe,” he explained. “If they take the side of the protesters, their global business model will come under pressure.”

Morozov is pretty certain that in this conflict between “the hacker ethos” and “the capitalist ethos,” it is the hackers who will have to compromise. But even if Morozov is right that technology company shareholders and executives – like any others – care overwhelmingly about maximising global profits, he may be underestimating the expectations users and employees have of companies whose founding premises are the empowerment of the individual and the democratisation of information.

Facebook, in particular, has been blasted by the internet’s emerging punditocracy for failing to adapt its no-pseudonyms policy to the needs of democracy activists in authoritarian regimes who, for obvious reasons, can’t use their real names.

As Jillian C York, a researcher and activist who works at Harvard’s Berkman Centre for Internet and Society, recently demanded on her blog: “I, for one, would like to see Facebook abandon this policy. It is, for lack of a better word, inane in light of how the platform is used globally. Facebook should listen to their users and accommodate their needs.”

Facebook has a sophisticated policy team that understands these concerns. But they are also worried about weakening the ‘real names only’ policy, which is crucial to the power of the platform, by administering a policy that permits some people to have pseudonyms and not others.

Richard Edelman, the boss of the public relations firm that carries his name, works with businesses around the world. In his firm’s annual survey of which institutions people trust, technology companies are near the top. “Technology companies are seen as legitimate forces for good,” Edelman said.

That halo brings many benefits. But as technology emerges as a force for real good in some of the grimmest parts of the world, that reputation may force technology firms to stick with their idealism even if realism might be better for the bottom line.

“There is a higher expectation of technology companies than of any others,” Edelman said. “There would be a lower expectation of resource companies, for instance. It is why, ultimately, Google walked in China.”
We used to say that Western missionaries came to do good, and ended up doing well. Technology firms could find themselves forced to do good, even if it sometimes means doing badly.

Insurance industry battered

Posted on by Ben Debski

To simulate hurricane-like conditions, an industry group has built a wind tunnel big enough to accommodate nine large residential homes. Some 105 fans deliver gusts of 175 miles per hour, destroying dwellings built precisely for this purpose. The goal is to construct homes across the country that can withstand the worst Mother Nature has to offer, which lately has been quite a lot; damage which is tough if not impossible for insurers to predict.

“One thing we as a society don’t really do anymore is build for where we live. We build for how we want to live,” said Julie Rochman, chief executive of the Institute for Building and Home Safety, the industry-sponsored group behind the wind tunnel initiative. “There’s a wonderful ability to be living in denial and when disaster happened a long time ago we get disaster amnesia.”

It’s a tough time to be in the $500bn US property insurance business. Storms are happening in places they never happened before, at intensities they have never reached before and at times of year when they didn’t used to happen. These bizarre weather patterns damage not just homes but also insurance companies’ financials. If seas rise and houses flood, insurers pay. If winds shift and buildings blow down, they also pay. If temperatures rise and crops fail, same thing.

The industry hasn’t reached a consensus on what’s causing weird weather. “It’s hard to really deny that global warming exists,” said Karen Clark, chief executive of Boston-based Karen Clark & Co., which helps insurance companies forecast natural disasters. “You can accept that and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean we can quantify the impacts.”

Others in the business are reluctant to assign blame to broader trends. “Our view would be it’s too early to come to a conclusion,” said Liam McGee, chief executive of the Hartford Financial Services Group. What no one disputes is that the storms the industry expects aren’t happening and the ones they don’t expect are hitting them hard.

The implications are profound for consumers as well as insurers. If storms of this force are now at risk of happening every 40 years or even every three, it is difficult to know how much property insurance should cost.

The last couple of months underscore just how much the climate seems to be changing. Queensland State in Australia has suffered a virtual apocalypse – flooding in December, flooding in January and tropical cyclones in February that inundated at least 30,000 homes and crippled the local coal industry.

Meanwhile in the US, snow fell on Christmas Day in a number of southern cities for the first time since at least the 1880s. Los Angeles got six months’ worth of rain in three weeks, causing some of the worst flooding in the state’s history. The New York metropolitan area had an unprecedented blizzard the day after Christmas and a month later got almost the same again, breaking historical records.

Private weather service AccuWeather, in a blog entry on its website two days before the Christmas blizzard in New York, asked its forecasters for their take on the sophisticated, expensive new computer models used to predict the path and behaviour of the storm.
The forecasters’ collective answer, according to the blog: “None of them are right.”

Building in bad places
Worldwide, insurers suffered at least $36bn in catastrophe losses in 2010, according to Swiss Re, the fourth-highest total of the last decade, and the highest if years with major hurricane landfalls are excluded. But this year, as with last year and the year before, what insurers are seeing is the unexpected. That means both storms going where they’re not supposed to as well as a spate of totally unexpected losses at entirely unpredicted times of year.

“Some people believe that is because weather patterns have changed. I happen to be in that camp,” said Tom Wilson, the chairman and chief executive of Allstate, the largest publicly traded property insurer in the country. “I just don’t think it should happen three years in a row.”

One of the biggest problems for insurers is that they have to insure increasingly valuable properties in risky areas that, by and large, are not being built with any disaster risk in mind. That in and of itself is steadily driving their risk up dramatically.

When an insurer writes a policy for a property, it takes various factors into account, such as the property’s location, its age, the propensity of the region it’s in to be affected by weather events and the potential cost of replacing the property if it is damaged or destroyed. Those criteria have largely stayed the same over the years, but what has changed is the value of the properties to be insured and the volume of them. People around the world love beachfront houses and developers love selling them.

The lack of data on how homes survive disasters drove IBHS, the industry-sponsored research centre, to create the South Carolina wind tunnel late last year to test how buildings hold up under extreme duress. “There has been research on wind damage to structures for several decades, but we as an industry hit a brick wall in not being able to do full scale testing,” said Anne Cope, the centre’s director of research.

The wind tunnel has enough space to hold up to nine 2,300 ft2 homes. When fully operational, the centre can test hurricane force winds, mixed with up to 8in. of water per hour of simulated rain. For heavily wooded areas, the tunnel has a fire pit, where hot embers can be sucked into the wind currents, simulating how wild fires spread from house to house.

Fear of the unknown
Weird weather has undermined many of the insurance industry’s assumptions. Some in the modelling business say the best they can do is to give their clients scenarios to pick from based on the client’s own belief about the evolution of the climate.

“The uncertainties are so large that a lot of our clients focus on the uncertainty they can handle and manage to, which is today’s risk,” said Peter Dailey, director of atmospheric science at AIR Worldwide.

Other modellers agree that what is changing is not the mathematics behind modelling, but the willingness of clients to accept their conclusions. “There’s a lot of science involved and there’s a lot of uncertainty involved. To the extent the models produce credible results, people use them. To the extent the models produce results that might not be consistent with peoples’ view of risk, they might not use them,” Eqecat’s Keogh said.

But ultimately, no model, no matter how good, can really tell an insurer exactly what a storm means for its business. “We shouldn’t kid ourselves that just capturing a better hurricane windfield gets you a better answer in terms of losses,” said Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer of Risk Management Solutions.
There is enough confusion about changes in the environment that in 2010, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines for public companies on climate change risk and how and when they have to disclose their exposure to investors.

One of the major changes in the new regime would force insurers to estimate their future liabilities from catastrophe losses each reporting period. In other words, an insurer would have to make its most educated guesses as to what catastrophes it expects to face, how bad they will be and how much they will cost the company.

A senior industry accountant posited the scenario of an insurer that is hours away from reporting its quarterly results when it hears that a tropical depression has formed in the Atlantic Ocean. Under the new rules, that company might have to re-do its entire reserves to account for the damages if that depression becomes a hurricane.

Global current

Posted on by Ben Debski

As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider offer integrated solutions to make energy safe, with power and control, reliable, with critical power & cooling, efficient, with energy efficiency, productive, with industrial, building and home automation and green, with renewable energy solutions across multiple market segments. We have leadership positions in energy and infrastructure, industrial processes, building automation, and data centres/networks, as well as a broad presence in residential applications. With ¤19.6bn sales in 2010, our 100,000+ employees are committed to help individuals and organisations “make the most of their energy”.

The smart grid
To continue to efficiently balance supply and demand, the grid needs to become smarter. How do we make the Smart Grid happen? Today’s grid functions are organised in a top-down way. Tomorrow’s smart grid will be bi-directional: electricity will flow out of homes and offices as well as into them. Presently, centralised, supplier-controlled power is fed into the grid based on consumption predictions and then adjusted at the margin according to peak demand. In the future, demand and supply will interact intelligently in an efficient, decentralised interoperable grid. Currently, intermittent renewable generation is not always efficiently integrated. However, smart grids are approaching efficiently integrating intermittent energy from both renewable power plants and decentralised distributed renewable generation.

At present, providers must come and check meters on a regular basis. Ultimately, consumption data may transfer automatically, giving proconsumers and utilities a real-time estimate of electricity consumption. Most people don’t know how much electricity they consume until they get their electricity bill. Yet in the future, consumers will be able to adjust their energy demand to moments when prices and demand are at their lowest. At the moment, the causes of power cuts have to be manually identified on the grid. However, software is imminent that will detect where cables or equipment are damaged, making blackouts, which carry such a high economic cost, much rarer.

Smart-Grid ready
At Schneider Electric, we believe that there can be no smart grid until all connected players are smart-grid ready. We believe that energy efficient buildings and facilities, together with active end-users will drive smarter demand, which will help push smarter supply, and bring a faster development of the smart grid. This is why we are helping all our customers on the network to be smart-grid ready, by providing them with smart grid enabling solutions for energy management and energy efficiency, demand-side management, flexible distribution and renewable energy integration. And because smarter grids represent such a major change for the electricity network, it is creating a totally new business environment.

In addition to traditional technology providers, energy producers and suppliers, smart grids also bring together active end-users, facility managers, small and large renewable energy producers, energy traders and aggregators, IT enterprise integrators and data management suppliers. This is why we support smarter interactions for a smarter grid – we not only connect our customers to the smart grid, but also connect them with each other. Facilitating these new connections, bringing value to these new relationships, is what will allow our customers to fully leverage the huge business opportunities of a smarter grid – and to mitigate the risks. And because we all recognise that smart grids are a whole new, complex space, we are collaborating and partnering with other, complementary providers – in particular IT enterprise integrators, which are playing a major role in making the grid smarter.

Together, we will experiment in new technology and business models, to create fresh opportunities for our customers, to add intelligence in every part of the network. New demand and supply-side management capabilities are just around the corner. ‘Software as a service’ will offer everything from data exchange, price signal and demand event response management, to 24/7 market and demand monitoring, carbon tracking, reporting and market monitoring. Together, we will make today’s grid greener, more efficient, more stable, easier to navigate – and smarter.

Danish delight

Posted on by Ben Debski

Given the contemporary emphasis on globalisation (both in business and pleasure), air transport is integral. In spite of the climate issues directly related to flying – and even without flying – these same issues would exist. The aviation industry has been working towards improvements, introducing more energy efficient aircraft, engine design modifications and improving operations. In fact, the aircraft carbon emissions per passenger have been reduced by 20 percent over the past ten years. Copenhagen Airport is an excellent example of an airport having introduced measures over the years contributing to the reduction of emissions from its activities.

The reduction of emissions can be combated in numerous ways such as groundwater cooling, green departures and LED lights. Coupled with that, is the raising of awareness for customers to contribute to lowering emissions as ultimately customers benefit financially if environmentally friendly aircraft are used. Any strategy taken needs to have a viable business case, Copenhagen Airport do not implement any green initiatives unless the business case is strong.  

Groundwater cooling
Another excellent example of how the airport is changing to face environmental concerns is groundwater cooling, a method employed to reduce power consumption. Previously, the airport had used a comfort cooling system to provide a comfortable indoor climate, but this had problems in terms of substantial power consumption and thus CO2 emissions. Over the coming years, most of the conventional cooling compressors will be replaced by a new cooling system which will use cold groundwater for cooling purposes.

The updated system will be the first phase of the installation of Denmark’s largest groundwater cooling system to date. The first dipole of five possible has been installed, together with a cooling distribution pipeline cutting across the airport which runs underneath the runways and aircraft stands to the terminal area, where the cooling effect is needed most. The new system will initially supply up to 15 percent of the airport’s cooling, and will grow annually until the current power-operated cooling compressors are entirely phased out. When fully developed, the system will cover the comfort cooling requirements of the entire airport terminal area and result in reductions in CO2 emissions from the airport in the region of 1500 tons. The system represents an investment in the future that combines high-efficiency cooling with a complete phase-out of greenhouse gases used for comfort cooling by 2015. 

Green take-offs
The lights on and around the runways and taxiways at Copenhagen Airport use some 3,000 megawatt hours every year, conducting more than 250,000 take-offs and landings safely and efficiently. What it calls “green take-offs” are a real focal point, and there are many ways in which the airport is striving towards its target of reducing power consumption by at least 10 percent by 2012.

Every day, hundreds of flights are given permission to deviate from standard procedure in favour of an alternative take-off. These flights instead perform what is known as a green departure; the aircraft climb continuously to their optimal operating level and turn onto the planned route earlier than normal. The benefits are three-fold: It saves time and fuel, while reducing CO2 emissions. According to data analysis by Eurocontrol, aircraft taking off from Copenhagen Airport save some 10,000 tons of fuel per year and several million Danish kroner, while also cutting CO2 emissions by almost 32,000 tons. It is a unique concept for departures, which will result in quite substantial fuel savings and thus a reduced environmental impact.

While most other European airports have urban areas on several sides, Copenhagen Airport’s location on the Øresund strait – with water on three sides– gives it a head-start. But it is not just because of the airport’s unique location that green departures are becoming such a success; extensive use of the procedure is a deliberate choice by the air traffic management service and the airport.

In addition to fuel and CO2, green departures also save time for the airlines and passengers. The departure concept is just one of many initiatives that have been introduced to reduce the environmental impact of aviation and to improve conditions for air traffic – and the efforts do not stop at what the airport has achieved so far. Staff and planners are working constantly on improving their services, and striving for newly optimal conditions with respect to green departures. The next initiative will be the establishment of five new so-called waypoints which reduce the length of the aircraft approach – giving aircraft the most direct route to their destinations – and thus also result in lower fuel consumption.

Reducing power consumption
Copenhagen Airport is reducing power consumption in the terminal by optimising automatic control of lighting in the terminals. Energy experts at the airport have initiated a pilot project with an increased focus on energy and climate, whereby sensors and automatic on/off functions are used to reduce consumption during periods when no people use the lounge. It is a forward-thinking approach by the airport, an examination of whether it is possible to reduce power consumption without causing inconvenience to passengers, business partners and airport staff. So far, the signs are positive.

LED technology is becoming increasingly popular as light sources in enterprises and private homes, and manufacturers have now begun developing special LED fittings for use in airports. New energy-saving LED lights on the taxiways have been introduced, and the LED technology is becoming increasingly popular in other parts of the airport too. Power consumption in the manoeuvring area is another focus, and the airport has also begun replacing its strong halogen fittings there with modern energy-saving light emitting diodes.

Copenhagen Airport is already moving from incandescent lamps to LED in other areas. The airport has replaced 20 lights at the edge of two taxiways by LEDs of only 2.8 Watt, compared with the old 65 Watt halogen fittings. In addition to saving energy, the LEDs also last longer than halogen fittings – which in principle, means that the new fittings can burn for more than 50,000 hours before they must be replaced. Currently 150 so-called obstruction lights – the red lights warning air traffic about tall buildings and masts – are being replaced by LED at the airports in Copenhagen and Roskilde. While the traditional light sources for obstruction lights are 80 Watt, the new LEDs are only 9.6 Watt. This results in an annual saving of 92,000 kilowatt hours, equal to 52 tons of CO2.

Attentive visitors to Copenhagen Airport may have already noticed that the light is automatically switched off during periods with plenty of daylight. This reduces annual power consumption by 20-25 percent for the installations involved. Light dimmers have already been installed in certain areas of the airport, to gradually reduce the level of artificial lighting based on the level of daylight and save even more power.

The future
There is more focus on climate and energy savings now than when many of the world’s busiest terminals were designed and built, making it no surprise that modifications are necessary. New initiatives are constantly being introduced to further lower the Copenhagen Airport’s carbon emissions in future years, putting this airport as the frontrunners of the pack when it comes to energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

A new voluntary charges agreement was introduced last October at the airport, with the introduction of an environmental emissions charge. Under this agreement, airlines will pay a charge to Copenhagen Airport based on their emissions of NOx, which are chemical substances formed as by-products of combustion processes.

In 2008, Copenhagen Airport was a co-signatory to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body clearly committed to saving energy and reducing carbon emissions. The aviation industry jointly committed itself for the first time, three years ago now, to take action to mitigate its impact on the climate. Copenhagen Airport has reduced CO2 emissions per passenger by 65 percent since 1990, and by 2012, electrical power consumption at Copenhagen Airport will be cut by 10 percent, an amount corresponding to the power consumption of 1,100 Danish households. Airports around the world should be looking towards this airport for innovation, bold developments and facts and figures to back up the best-held intentions.

Baby steps for female financiers

Posted on by Ben Debski

In a dimly lit room at the back of an Afghan house, 21-year-old Zahara is crouched on a plank of wood weaving a large carpet on a loom that she was able to buy using a microfinance loan of $1,100. Zahara started weaving carpets when she was 10 and did not go to school, but the loan from non-profit development group BRAC allowed her to start her own business about 18 months ago and she has since taken out two more loans of $330 each.

“When I first got the money, the carpets I was making were small and now I can make bigger carpets,” said Zahara, who heard about microfinance loans from her neighbour in Kabul. “Before I made carpets for other people and now I make them for myself.”

More than 1.5m loans worth $831m have been given out in the past seven years, said the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA), which was set up by the government in 2003 to coordinate the  various sectors in Microfinancing.

30 years of drawn-out conflict have shattered Afghanistan’s economy and infrastructure, leaving two-thirds of the roughly 30m population illiterate and at least a third in dire poverty.

Aside from security fears, microfinance is facing a shortage of skilled people to run programmes, as well as challenges in reaching sparsely populated rural areas and religious concerns among conservative Muslims about paying interest. “If you talk to the real villagers, they need money,” said Fazlul Hoque, head of non-profit development group BRAC in Afghanistan, which is responsible for half the country’s 430,000 microfinance clients. “We need to establish a credit culture.”

Unlike traditional bank loans which require paperwork such as proof of identification and income, many microfinance lenders simply require borrowers to become part of a support group and verify their ability to repay.

The average annual income in Afghanistan is $370, according to the World Bank. But Hoque said the default rate on BRAC loans was extremely low, around three or four percent. 

Microfinance – developed more than 30 years ago by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts – traditionally targets women. MISFA said 60 percent of current Afghan clients are women. “Women are ignored, so one of our social missions is to bring them out, so that there will be a kind of dignity of women, they can have a better position in the family,” said Hoque, adding that more than 80 percent of BRAC’s clients were women.

But the independent Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) said it would take more than just easy access to microfinance to further empower women and build their social status. “Credit can be a means to assist women to achieve more decision-making power and autonomy, but there needs to be a purposeful, culturally attuned strategy in place to support this process,” said Paula Kantor, an AREU visiting researcher and former director of the unit.

More than credit
There are enduring limits on women’s rights across Afghanistan more than nine years after the strict Islamist Taliban were ousted after more than five years in power, during which women were made to wear all-covering burqas and were rarely allowed out in public for education or work. A U.N. report recently found that millions of Afghan women and girls suffer from traditional practices such as child marriage and ‘honour’ killings, and that authorities are failing to enforce laws protecting them.

AREU senior research officer Sogol Rand has been studying microfinance and gender in Afghanistan and said that when a loan helped improve a family’s economic situation it reduced domestic violence, but when a family found it difficult to repay their loan, the violence increased. Microfinance also faces a religious hurdle because Islamic law prohibits the payment or acceptance of interest fees. Some microfinance organisations try to work around this by calling an interest payment an administrative or service charge.

MISFA is working to develop a loan that would be compliant with Islam, while some smaller microfinance groups such as FINCA, which has about 9,000 Afghan clients, already offer such loans.

“There are indeed a number of Afghans who do not participate in mainstream microfinance… for fear of social pressure,” said MISFA Managing Director Katrin Fakiri. “Potential borrowers must have a choice between Islamic or conventional loans.”

Skills and knowledge
Fakiri said the Afghan microfinance sector was consolidating to ensure it grows responsibly and to address its challenges, the most obvious of which was poor security limiting expansion. “What makes this worse is the fact that many government entities at the regional level have no adequate knowledge of microfinance, its social mission and the fact that it is a government-supported national programme,” Fakiri said. “As a result, support for microfinance on the ground is weak.”

But the biggest problem was finding people with the skills to run the programmes. Fakiri and Hoque said a lack of educated staff created other issues such as mismanagement, miscommunication and misperception.

Fakiri said MISFA was educating local government and microfinance staff about the sector and had teamed up with the Central Bank of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Banking Association and international donors to create the Afghanistan Institute of Banking and Finance, which offers a basic microfinance course.
Safia, 32, took out a BRAC small business loan for 70,000 Afghanis ($1,555) so she could improve her beauty shop in the Kabul neighbourhood of Polisukhta. A large vase with fake pink flowers adorns the window of Stara Beauty Parlor, where Safia and her employee do hair and make-up.

Safia had to ask permission from her husband to get the loan, but said her success had earned her more respect from him. Posters of heavily made-up women with elaborate hairstyles decorate the shop walls and a thin curtain in the front window hides customers from people passing on the busy street outside.
“When I got the money it helped me to do a lot of work in my shop,” said Safia, a mother of two. “I will be able to make an independent future.” •

An all-time high

Posted on by Ben Debski

If one thing appalls foreign health officials and activists more than anything else about Moscow’s response to its heroin problem, it’s the ban on methadone. The World Health Organisation regards methadone as essential in combating heroin dependence, but in Russia anyone caught using it or distributing it can face up to 20 years in prison – as harsh a sentence as that for heroin.

Called a replacement drug, methadone is taken by mouth – so reduces the risk of HIV infection by using shared needles – and is used around the world to treat opiate addiction. Russia is one of just three countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to ban the drug, alongside Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where heroin consumption is relatively low. China, which has over one million registered heroin addicts, with unofficial estimates running several times over that, has more than 680 methadone sites.

Methadone is a potent synthetic opiate in its own right, but it can eliminate the agonising withdrawal symptoms that addicts experience when they quit heroin. Its main advantages are that it has to come from a healthcare source, in controlled doses and without needles. That gives addicts some chance, over months or sometimes years, to go clean for good.

In Tver, Yuri Ivanov, a doctor and the deputy head of the state-run Tver Regional Narcology Clinic, is dumbfounded by the ban. “Why do civil servants limit me from doing my work?” he asks in his dimly lit office in the crumbling grey clinic, which sits off an unpaved muddy lane in the centre of the city. “All that they are trying to do is the opposite of what we need. It is hard for me to understand… The situation is going backward. When there is no real medicine, they go right back to drugs.”

Ivanov sometimes resorts to giving his patients tropicamide, a drug used by eye surgeons to dilate the pupils and which has a similar effect to heroin. Addicts talk of their rare encounters with methadone users with a sense of wonder and even magic. “All of us know about this drug methadone and all of us want it. People come through who have done it and we can instantly see how much brighter and better they live,” says Tver addict Valera in jittery sentences, high after shooting up twice by midday, in an interview in the back of his tobacco-stained car.

But Moscow won’t be swayed. “The medicine has become more dangerous than the illness. It would be replacing one evil with another,” said the anti-drugs baron Ivanov. “And why on earth would we do that?” Gennady Onischenko, the country’s top doctor, repeatedly dismisses methadone as “still a narcotic”.
In a major government anti-drug strategy launched last June, there was no mention of substitution therapy, even though Moscow says it is now focused on reducing the demand for drugs.

That means that Russia’s measly four federal and 77 regional rehabilitation centres will continue to treat addicts with basic psychotherapy, counseling or simple, traditional painkillers.

The vacuum created by the lack of effective substitution therapies was highlighted in an incident last October in the Ural Mountains town of Nizhny Tagil. Anti-drugs activist Yegor Bychkov, 23, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for kidnapping drug addicts. Bychkov said he had received permission from the addicts’ parents to forcibly take their sons and chain them to steel bed frames while they underwent a painful detox. Anti-drugs chief Ivanov praised Bychkov, saying he had acted in good will; the head of the parliamentary health committee Olga Borzova said the state was to blame for his arrest as he had become very desperate.

The global fight
The Russian Orthodox Church  also weighed in. Though its official stance is against sex education and regards heroin use as a sin, it has set up rehabilitation centres which offer religious guidance. The church also holds discussions with the UN over the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Unfortunately, those sorts of initiatives may be risky. Almost two years ago, the General Prosecutor’s Office was ordered by Russia’s Security Council to beef up prosecutorial measures against non-governmental organisations which advocate substitution therapy. Since then, activists distributing free needles have been detained on charges of aiding illegal drug use.

“Russian government officials consistently promote falsehoods about harm reduction, and deter those who speak in favour of them,” the IHRA’s Rick Lines says. “Speaking honestly about the vast body of evidence supporting the effectiveness of methadone is a dangerous thing to do [in Russia].”

That may be why relations between the UN’s Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – which has been pushing for methadone legalisation – and Russia’s health ministry ruptured at the end of last year. The Global Fund provides the most finance for HIV/AIDS prevention in Russia and granted $351m to Russia for 2004-11. Now $16m of that allocation remains, and is at risk of being cut this year.

Worse, say global health experts and local NGOs, is the health ministry’s decision to scrap the Global Fund’s needle distribution, HIV awareness and medication programmes. “They proved ineffective and we shall not continue them after 2011,” said Alexander Vlasov, the ministry’s spokesman.

In October last year, the health ministry directly accused the Global Fund of making the HIV epidemic worse. “In the regions where these (Global Fund needle) programmes were operating, the spread of HIV infection increased three-fold,” minister Tatyana Golikova told a respected narcology conference.

The fund says it is keeping up a dialogue with the Health Ministry. But global health experts warn that the decision to end the Global Fund’s work in Russia will be catastrophic. “Russia will fall behind and lose the achievements made so far,” warned IAS president Katabira. “We will not be able to recover the situation.”

The clearer energy solution

Posted on by Ben Debski

In an era of global challenges requiring global solutions, cutting carbon emissions is possibly our greatest yet. Glass can play a vital role in this challenge; providing carbon saving solutions on two fronts. It can make a huge contribution to saving energy in buildings, as no other material has a more powerful influence on the energy performance of a building than glass. It is also a key component of the solar panels used to generate renewable energy, which also cut fossil fuel consumption. Furthermore, as the energy consumed in the manufacture of high performance glass is quickly paid back through the lifetime of most of the products, it is an effective, ‘energy-balanced’ solution.

The incentives are clear; with the stark realities of climate change making the need to reduce emissions a global political priority, governments are increasingly turning to legislation in order to achieve these reductions. The Kyoto protocol, adopted in 1997 and enforced in 2005, sets binding targets for controls and cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and this has led to the development of numerous initiatives to encourage greater energy efficiency in buildings. For example, the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive aims to ensure all new buildings in Europe are ‘nearly zero energy’ by 2020, while the 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) in the USA is expected to achieve a 30 percent increase in energy savings in both residential and commercial buildings compared to its 2006 predecessor.

A recent study from the European Commission suggests that buildings account for up to 50 percent of energy consumed in the EU, significantly more than the 36 percent consumed by the transport sector. Since regulations are already in place to ensure new buildings are energy efficient, the challenge lies in improving the performance of existing building stock worldwide, especially in developed countries. The majority of these buildings were constructed at a time when energy efficiency was not a concern for architects and designers, resulting in significant energy waste. Older homes may not be benefitting from the insulating effects of efficient double-glazing, while the larger glazing areas of commercial properties may not have been designed as efficiently as possible, thus requiring additional heating or cooling systems to provide a comfortable environment.

There is, however, real scope for glass to be used effectively to reduce the carbon footprints of these buildings. An independent study on low-e insulating glass commissioned by European trade association Glass for Europe shows that, within the EU alone, fitting energy efficient glazing to existing and new buildings could save up to 97m tonnes of CO2 emissions annually by the year 2020. This equates to almost a third of the annual carbon emissions reduction target of 300m tonnes set out in the EU Directive. Industry studies also show that this glass will offset the extra CO2 emitted during its manufacture compared with an equivalent single glazed pane within four months of installation.

Whatever the requirement, wherever in the world, glass products offer effective solutions. In cold climates, low-emissivity glass prevents heat escaping, while still allowing solar heat to enter the building. In warm climates, solar control glass minimises heat entering the building, while still letting lots of natural daylight in. This means buildings are always comfortable for their occupants, without the need to compromise on building aesthetics, and that they require less heating, cooling and lighting through traditional carbon-intensive methods. Also, energy efficient glazing products can be retrofitted to improve the efficiency of existing structures. For example, Pilkington Spacia, the world’s first commercially available vacuum glazing, offers the thermal performance of a conventional double glazing unit despite being no thicker than a single pane of glass. This allows architects to balance historical preservation with modern comfort and needed environmental requirements.

These are not just solutions for the future; the technology found in these products is available today. As an integral and important element of solar panels, glass can help in the shift to ever ‘cleaner’ energy generation. The NSG Group offers a wide range of high-tech functional products used in the three leading technologies that convert solar energy into electricity: thin film photovoltaics, crystalline silicon photovoltaics and concentrated solar power applications, and the group’s products are also used in solar applications that generate hot water. The glass used in these applications also provides a healthy return on the energy investment used in its manufacture, and during its lifecycle a solar panel can produce over 15 times this amount of energy. This is an industry sector set to grow massively over the coming years, as forecast by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), the world’s largest industry association devoted to the photovoltaic market. Just last year, the market roughly doubled compared with 2009, and as the ramifications of the Kyoto Protocol and other guidelines hit home, 2011 is set to be an even bigger year.

These are not just solutions for the future; the technology found in these products is available today. Unlike many of the other potential solutions to the carbon emissions problem mooted, which often require further advancements in their respective fields or significant investment in infrastructure before they can be rolled out globally, all of these glass products are already on the market. However, for both energy saving and energy generation applications, key stakeholders such as homeowners and power companies face the same concern; cost. While the long-term financial benefits of energy efficient buildings are clear, particularly to owner-occupiers, the initial cost of replacing an entire building’s windows can often be prohibitive. Similarly, until the price of fossil fuels becomes too steep, power companies will be reluctant to invest significant amounts of money in solar power.

There is no doubt that glass has a key role to play in reducing carbon emissions. With its global network of production and distribution capabilities, and commitment to effective lobbying for a greener energy future, the NSG Group will continue to create and promote the effective solutions required for this. The onus to implement these technologies now lies with individuals, businesses and governments. Individuals and businesses must recognise the intrinsic value glass has in the battle to cut emissions and save money, and governments must strike the right balance between legislative demands and financial incentives to ensure their efficiency targets are met. If this happens, glass will continue to transform our lives well into the 21st century.

In 2006, Pilkington plc was acquired by the NSG Group of Japan, and the name Pilkington was retained as a brand for the group’s building and automotive products. Today the NSG Group is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of flat glass products for the building trade, the automotive industry and technical applications. For more information: www.pilkington.com

Sustainable when needed

Posted on by Ben Debski

Caixa Geral de Depósitos is the leader of the largest Portuguese financial group and therefore has added responsibility towards the society which it is a part of. It meets the challenges facing it by making decisions based on a criterion of ethics and economic rationality, thereby contributing to a more balanced society and Portugal’s sustained economic development.

In its business activity CGD seeks to achieve a balance between solidity, profitability and growth, always within a framework of prudent risk management, good governance and a high sense of social responsibility, in order to foster sustainability.

Integrity, trust, transparency and ethics are values present in all CGD actions. They foster excellence of service, citizenship, inclusion and equal opportunities. CGD’s sustainable development is based on four essential pillars ensuring that it is economically profitable, financially viable, socially fair and environmentally correct.

When implementing its strategy in the different fields of sustainability, CGD has been playing a dynamic role in the creation and sponsorship of distinctive, innovative projects and in the promotion and support of enterprising initiatives by different spheres aimed at integration and the creation of added value for all its stakeholders.

Environment
CGD considers the environment to be a decisive factor in the creation of value and the sustainability of its business. CGD’s strategy for climate change, the Caixa Carbono Zero Programme (Caixa Zero Carbon Programme), is designed to reduce the environmental impact of its activities and instill good practices in its stakeholders.

Community
The commitment to the community is based on playing an active role to meet society’s real needs. Social responsibility is one of the strategic aspects of the intervention.

Microcredit
Microcredit for people wishing to set up their own businesses has resulted in some real success stories and comes from CGD’s support over time of more disadvantaged sectors of the population.

Solidarity
By promoting best practices in its response to the challenges of Portuguese society, CGD directly sponsors charitable and volunteer initiatives and institutions.

Culture
CGD plays a crucial role in promoting different forms of art and providing society with access to cultural events.

Education, financial literacy
CGD’s assistance is constant and innovative and covers a wide variety of areas and information requirements of the general public. It contributes to more financially responsible behaviour and a more prosperous and knowledgeable society.

CGD’s business activity is oriented by the strategic vision established by the Board of Directors. One of its fundamental aspects is a human resource policy based on the company’s culture and values, knowledge, communication, performance and talent management always within the framework of a harmonious work relationship.

Another essential aspect is cultural and social development and the promotion of sustainability, as an internal policy, along with a will to be a national benchmark for good governance and ethical conduct.

The commitment to the community is based on an unshakable defence of the principles of ethics and transparency, respect for the rules governing banking activity, compliance with codes of conduct and good ongoing practices, committed support for social and cultural activities and a response to society’s pressing needs.

This active role in the community makes CGD a social bank that favours the creation of value. In particular, it provides staunch support for social organisations. The Caixa Fã Fund (Caixa Fan Fund) supports structural projects by institutions with credibility and the capacity to successfully execute projects.
Where social issues are concerned, CGD also grants microcredit to people who wish to create their own jobs or set up a small business and who are unable to obtain or have difficult access to ordinary bank loans, resulting in some hugely successful stories.

With regard to culture, CGD plays an unequivocal role as a patron of painting, music, dance, theatre, literature, art and the Portuguese language in Portugal and the rest of the world. The work of CGD, Culturgest Foundation is a fundamental pillar in CGD sponsorship of and involvement in Portuguese cultural life in the service of the Portuguese public and foreign artists and performers. CGD also considers design to be a major agent of change and progress, a catalyst of creativity and a promoter of Portuguese talent.

Sustainability is a strategic priority for CGD. It is accepted at the highest management level and applied throughout the institution. Multidisciplinary teams implement a Sustainability Programme in line with best international practices, the country’s social, economic and environmental challenges and innovation, differentiation and competitiveness, thereby helping CGD to take the lead in sustainable financial activity in Portugal.

Where the environment is concerned, the Caixa Carbono Zero Programme is CGD’s strategy for climate change and the Floresta Caixa Project (Caixa Forest Project) constitutes a contribution towards the preservation of Portuguese native woodland. In this area, CGD and the United Nations Environment Programme-Finance Initiative have the Banca & Ambiente Project (Banking & Environment Project) aimed at keeping banks and the business sector informed on environmental risks.

CGD is also involved in the Carbon Disclosure Project, an initiative that plays a crucial role in the dissemination of information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and strategies for fighting climate change of countless institutional investors all over the world.

In the business area, CGD offers financial products that make a positive contribution to the environmental impact of business activities and help to encourage generally more responsible behaviour. Some of these examples have to do with an increase in Renewable Energy products and a number of lines of credit for small and medium-sized enterprises, which has helped significantly in stimulating widespread entrepreneurship.

This activity on the part of CGD is also aided by the CGD Calculadora de Carbono (CGD Carbon Calculator) on www.cgd.pt, which provides information on everyone’s carbon footprint and shows how much carbon dioxide and other GHGs are associated with daily activities and the Nova Geração de Cientistas Polares Programme (New Generation of Polar Scientists Programme), which was the fruit of a partnership with the Portuguese International Polar Year Committee and represents a very important step forward in the promotion of polar science throughout Portugal.

Also in this area, pursuing its energy efficiency programme, CGD became the first bank in Portugal to generate “clean energy”, when it converted 10 percent of its branch network into microgeneration units using photovoltaic systems.

Caixa has cemented its commitment to sustainability by publishing its Sustainability Report. This publication describes the commitment, the responsible and active participation of Caixa Geral de Depósitos in the different facets of sustainability and the short, medium and long-term pledges that it has made in this field.

Doha’s banking dependence

Posted on by Ben Debski

Doha Bank is one of the largest private commercial banks in the State of Qatar. It was founded in Doha, Qatar on March 15, 1979.

As one of Qatar’s leading financial services company, Doha Bank is committed to making financial services work for customers and clients like it never has before. Through innovative technologies and the ingenuity of its people, Doha Bank provides individuals, commercial, corporate and institutional clients within Qatar and across the globe with new and better ways to manage their financial affairs. The company enables customers to do their banking and investing whenever, wherever and however they choose through an extensive network and multiple access channels.

Qatar’s economy has outperformed the rest of the region with an 18 percent growth in 2010. Qatar’s hydrocarbon exports are expanding at a far more rapid pace than its regional peers that will significantly boost the government’s revenues over the coming years. Qatar has achieved the milestone of 77 million tonnes annual liquefied natural gas production capacity. The country’s strong fiscal performance and ongoing reforms have also been acknowledged by Standard & Poor’s which lifted Qatar’s sovereign rating to ‘AA’ from ‘AA–’ during the year. Qatar has also won the bid for hosting the FIFA 2022 World Cup. This development is going to create immense opportunities for infrastructure development nationwide. Doha Bank has developed its business model to take advantage of this underlying growth of Qatar. Doha Bank has also consistently achieved one of the best returns on average equity and return on average assets among the banks in the Middle East region over the last seven years.

Mr.R.Seetharaman, Group Chief Executive Officer of Doha Bank, said, “Doha Bank has been recognised as a dynamic, modern bank with enduring age-old values. The bank has achieved very impressive results over the last seven years of its history. This has been a combined result of the board’s vision, management and employee dedication and a tremendous customer response. The bank has carved a niche for itself in the GCC focused activities by embarking upon a dynamic growth strategy”.

He also added, “Doha Bank is one of the most renowned banks in the State of Qatar; with a dominant position in the GCC banking landscape with 30 state-of-the-art conventional branches, seven Islamic branches, five e-branches, 14 pay offices, three mobile units and more than 100 ATMs. Doha Bank has been consistently registering a strong performance during the last seven years with a participative leadership philosophy. The Bank has maintained a strong growth trajectory, including total asset growth, loan growth, deposit growth and shareholder equity growth year-on-year”.

The Wholesale Banking Group of Doha Bank is a significant contributor to the asset base of Doha Bank and comprises of six divisions, namely Corporate & Commercial banking, Project Finance, Government & Public Finance, Small and Medium Enterprises, Mortgage and Real Estate finance, Private Banking encompassing service units like Cash Management and Trade Finance. Tatweer, Doha Bank’s ground breaking solution for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) financing in Doha, doubled its clientele base in 2010 from that of 2009. In April 2010, Tatweer launched a “supply chain financing” product as the latest offering serving Qatar’s SME segment.

The Retail Banking Group of Doha Bank provides the most comprehensive product portfolio in terms of product and services range and convenience. It has been the prime mover in the market by the way of opening new opportunities and at the same time ensuring the security of customers. The major emphasis will be to focus on improving its E-channels by adding improved functionality.  Furthermore, an increase and improvement of the bank’s self-service banking initiatives especially in upgrading  its ATM network and increased use of mobile phone technologies are the current priorities of the group.

The International Banking Group integrates the Bank’s international operations, facilitates cross border trade and is responsible for the relationship management with financial institutions globally. Doha Bank has correspondent relationships with more than 300 financial institutions worldwide. The international presence of the bank comprises of branches in USA, UAE and Kuwait and representative offices in China, Japan, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Turkey and the UK The Group also participates in syndicated loans to financial institutions and corporate entities mainly in the GCC and Asian regions. Internationally, Doha Bank is looking to expand in GCC, Central Europe and India.

Continued recognition of the bank’s strength can be gauged from the high ratings, given by international rating agencies, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, Capital Intelligence and Fitch Ratings, who assigned a stable outlook for Doha Bank due to its strong financial fundamentals, asset quality, and robust liquidity.
Doha Islamic, the Islamic Banking arm of Doha Bank, offers over 13 products covering all the financial needs of retail and corporate customers. In 2010, Doha Islamic expanded its outreach to customers by opening two new branches. In continuation of its commitment to customer services, it introduced a young saver scheme called ‘Ajyal’, a savings product with features to suit the young generation of Qatar, as well as a new credit card product named ‘Tawarruq’. A number of special promotions were launched for the bank’s retail customers during the year and two new ATMs were installed in mosques.

Doha Bank was the first bank in the Middle East to establish a 100 percent owned subsidiary insurance company, Doha Bank Assurance Company (DBAC), in line with its strategic vision to become as a one stop financial provider. Licensed by Qatar Financial Centre Authority to underwrite general insurance business, DBAC provides all lines of general insurance including fire, engineering, marine and motor insurance to corporate customers. DBAC, effectively showcasing its business potential, strong capitalisation and liquidity, has achieved a Standard and Poor’s rating of “BBB/Stable” in September 2010. The Company earlier achieved the ISO: 9001: 2008 for “providing General Insurance Services under Regulatory Framework” in March 2010.

Further developments in the insurance sector are the merger of Bancassurance with retail banking. Since the merger, Doha Bank has been proactive in the market by launching various customer focused insurance products. There has been a steady increase in business across all product lines. The retail general insurance business has grown by 25 percent from 2009. Doha Bank also launched a tie-up with Allianz Takaful for Family Takaful Products, launched two new retail insurance products – Sayidaty and Manzilouka, and launched a series of Travel Insurance Plans from Al Khaleej. Formalities related to the tie-up with Zurich International Life for HNW and Al Riyada Clients were completed. Work is in progress to design and develop the new e-Insurance platform.  Retail banking also launched the online lead capture system for insurance products on the group website.

Doha Bank is the first bank in the GCC to launch the “Green Banking” concept whereby the bank’s ultimate goal is to make a long-term positive impact in preserving the environment. As an eco-conscious banking institution, it steers the promotion of the green culture among its citizens, customers and the society at large by continuously spreading the concept of Green Banking through various social and environment-friendly activities, worldwide seminars, and joint efforts like the “Eco-Schools” program with UNESCO, to address issues of environmental concern. The bank also raises funds to support the needy and generously donates to individuals in need as well as organisations. It also promotes art and culture aside from its charitable work and humanitarian activities. Doha Bank maintains its presence and influence in leading by example when it comes to promoting cultural, professional, educational and knowledge forums through generous sponsorships as well as through direct organisation of events.

The success of Doha Bank over the years has always been the vision of its board. Set amidst a fast paced work environment that nurtures a high performance culture, Doha Bank believes in creating an environment in which its employees look forward to work, and it leads its employees towards excellence in every aspect to make them future leaders in the Banking industry.

Doha Bank has been applauded by renowned financial sector analysts and branding strategists for its pioneering and leadership role in taking financial services experience in the GCC region to new heights. The fifth Global Conference on Social Responsibility in September 2010 declared the ‘Golden Peacock Global Award for Sustainability 2010’ to Doha Bank for its continuous growth in the competitive market. In recognition of Doha Bank’s effective branding building journey, the 17th Asia Brand Congress awarded Doha Bank with the ‘Brand Leadership Award 2008’, being the only financial institution to be recognised by the congress. Best Bank in Qatar, Most Innovative Bank, Bank of the Year, Best Trade Finance Provider Award, and Best Environmental Leadership Award are just some of the awards won in recent years by Doha Bank.

Mr. R. Seetharaman goes on to say, “Doha Banks’ signature is sustainable outperformance. We are the trendsetter in introducing many innovative products and services in Qatar. Our consumer-centric technology solutions are credited with being the first introduced in the Qatar market. Performance, innovation, quality and security are the supreme features of Doha Bank and we have been able to demonstrate these parameters consistently.”

Top 5 companies with the highest turnover of CEOs

Posted on by Ben Debski

A 2011 survey by financial publication Bloomberg shows that US companies are producing the highest turnover of CEOs since 2005.  The major reason for this change is attributed to company growth following the recent economic downturn, giving directors and CEOs greater confidence in the market place and this upturn is enabling many companies to restructure their boardrooms.

Costco
The US warehousing giant Costco has recently announced a new chief to step in when 75-year-old Jim Senega, the current CEO, steps down.  The new CEO will be Craig Jelinek who has been collaborating with Senega, the company’s founder, for some time and financial analysts suspect that there will be little change in Costco’s future trading strategy.  Costco’s shares have risen by 39 per cent in the past year and this rise is expected to continue.  Some see Jelinek’s new position as a continuation of ‘the Costco way’.

PG&E Corp
Following the retirement of long standing CEO, Peter A Darbee, the PG&E Corp have just appointed their new CEO, Anthony F Earley Jnr.  The company was looking to appoint someone from outside the organisation to provide the company with ‘fresh eyes.’  Earley’s experience as DTE’s CEO since 1998 has given him the respect of the US business community and he has proven success and experience in the role of CEO.  Earley’s knowledge of the energy sector should be a bonus for PG&E Corp.

Wendy’s
The leading burger and fast food chain Wendy’s has announced that Emil J Brolick, CEO of YUM Foods, has taken over as its new CEO.  Brolick’s first actions on assuming the reins at Wendy’s have been to ‘reinvent the restaurant base’ and revitalise the company’s brand.  Wendy’s has 6,600 global locations and it has previously been seen to be drifting following the death of the company’s founder, Dave Thomas, in 2002.  Brolick aims to revamp Wendy’s so that it becomes the first choice for burger consumers.

JC Penney Co
JC Penney managed to entice former Apple executive Ron Johnson to become its CEO in 2011.  The company felt that it needed a change of image and Johnson had already proved his mettle when at Apple Inc.  One of Johnson’s first acts has been to invigorate the JC Penney brand and revitalise the company’s stores.  Johnson has seen his mission as providing JC Penney with a similar transformation as he introduced to Apple stores

Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK)
Following the departure of CEO Robert Kelly in 2011, the Bank of New York Mellon Corp has appointed Gerald L Hassell to the post.  Kelly’s departure was sudden and the bank has refused to elaborate on the reasons for this change.  Hassell has worked at the bank since 1988 and he is expected to implement cost-cutting changes within the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.  Many industry insiders believe that the bank will concentrate on internal restructuring under Hassell rather than future acquisitions within the banking or financial sector.

Why high-seas piracy is here to stay

Posted on by Ben Debski

In 2005, the average ransom paid for the release of a ship hijacked by Somali pirates was around $150,000. By the end of last year, it stood at $5.4m. That means revenues for the business of piracy more than doubled every year. The 2005 to 2010 percentage increase is a staggering 3,600 percent.

The ransom numbers come from the One Earth Foundation, a US think tank, and help explain why the business of piracy, probably the world’s most profitable, has been expanding – despite an increased international naval presence in the waters hounded by Somali pirates, despite a string of plans to protect shipping, and despite increasingly exasperated statements from politicians and ship owners.

Talking about pirates off Somalia, who killed four Americans on February 22, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week that “I’m fed up with it.” Piracy is moving up Washington’s list of priorities, according to her. A few weeks earlier, Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary General, noted that “piracy seems to be outpacing the efforts of the international community to stem it.”

Ship owners agree. Early in March, five of the world’s largest maritime organisations, complaining that “2,000 Somali pirates are hijacking the world’s economy”, launched an advertising campaign and a website (www.SaveOurSeafarers.com) demanding tougher action. The group includes the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents about 80 percent of the world’s merchant ships, and INTERTANKO, whose members operate most of the world’s tankers.

In half page advertisements in leading newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the group noted that “even when caught red-handed, 80 percent of pirates are released to attack again.”

The practice, known as “catch and release”, figures in the risk-reward calculations of the piracy business, whose leaders are aware of the thicket of laws, regulations and jurisdictional ambiguities which has made arrest and prosecution of pirates difficult. There are no uniform rules of engagement for the warships on counter-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian ocean. By some definitions, an act of piracy does not begin until grappling hooks are thrown over the sides and the pirates start clambering up.

While the number of navy vessels on counter-piracy patrols has increased (there are about 30 warships on patrol now) so has the area been threatened by pirates, who launch speedboats from mother ships up to a thousand miles from the Somali coast. So, the warships are looking for needles in a haystack.

An enterprise doomed to failure
Which is why trying to end piracy purely with sea-borne operations looks like an enterprise doomed to failure. The key to solving the problem is on land – the fact that Somalia, a failed state, is a sanctuary for pirates. No country is prepared to take action against that sanctuary, where more than 800 seafarers are currently held hostage.

“The problem is being addressed right now only from the sea,” Nikolas Gvosdev, a professor at the US Naval War College, said in a recent radio discussion on piracy. “We are trying to deter attacks. We are trying to protect ships. But the problem lies on land. It lies in villages and port cities, in ungoverned spaces where…this is a profitable business. It is essentially the main driver for revenue in Somalia.”

Donna Hopkins, the US government’s coordinator of Counter Piracy and Maritime Security, has described piracy as “deeply ingrained in the Somali economic and social structure” and said the problem would continue as long as there is no effective government to control territorial waters and the Somali coastline.

When might that happen? Don’t hold your breath. Somalia has had no effective government since 1991 when the Communist dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled. In the two decades since then, the country has been torn by fighting between rival warlords and militias, an Ethiopian invasion to oust Islamists, and battles between militants linked to al Qaeda and what passes for a government.

In the process, Somalia earned the dubious distinction of being ranked the world’s most corrupt country. It came dead last on the 2010 corruption perception index of 178 countries compiled by Transparency International, a watchdog group based in Berlin.

The longer the problem festers, the more difficult it is to resolve. “As pirates become richer, they become harder to dislodge,” says Roger Middleton, the author of a report on piracy by Chatham House, a British think tank. “Pirates can be chased on the ocean, but piracy can only be eradicated on land.”

So what to do? One way would be stepped up military action on land, following the example of a daring helicopter-born French commando raid in 2008 to capture pirates who had held 30 hostages from a French yacht. Another way would be to redouble international efforts to finally help Somalia establish an effective government to tackle the linked problems of piracy, poverty, hunger and war.

Both options require what the ship owners backing the Save Our Seafarers campaign say governments around the world lack – political will.