Education

Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is authored by Emily Courey Pryor, executive director of Data2X. Imagine you are a government official in Nairobi, working to deploy resources to close educational achievement gaps throughout Kenya. You believe that the literacy rate varies widely in your country, but the available survey data for Kenya doesn’t include enough data about the country’s northern regions. You want to know where to direct programmatic resources, and you know you need detailed information to drive your decisions. But you face a major challenge—the information does not exist. Decision-makers want to use good data to inform policy and programs, but in many scenarios, quality, complete data is not available. And though this is true for large swaths of people around the world, this lack of information acutely impacts girls and women, who are often overlooked in data collection even when traditional surveys count their households. If we do not increase the availability and use of gender data, policymakers will not be able to make headway on national and global development agendas. Gender data gaps are multiple and intersectional, and although some are closing, many persist despite the simultaneous explosion of new data sources emerging from new technologies. So, what if there was a way to utilize these new data sources to count those women and girls, and men and boys, who are left out by traditional surveys and other conventional data collection methods? Big Data Meets Gender Data “Big data” refers to large amounts of data collected passively from digital interactions with great variety and at a high rate of velocity. Cell phone use, credit card transactions, and social media posts all generate big data, as does satellite imagery which captures geospatial data. In recent years, researchers have been examining the potential of big data to complement traditional data sources, but Data2X entered this space in 2014 because we observed that no one was investigating how big data could help increase the scope, scale, and quality of data about the lives and women and girls. Data2X is a collaborative technical and advocacy platform that works with UN agencies, governments, civil society, academics, and the private sector to close gender data gaps, promote expanded and unbiased gender data collection, and use gender data to improve policies, strategies, and decision-making. We host partnerships which draw upon technical expertise, in-country knowledge, and advocacy insight to tackle and rectify gender data gaps. Across partnerships, this work necessitates experimental approaches. And so, with this experimental approach in-hand, and with support from our funders, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Data2X launched four research pilots to build the evidence base for big data’s possible contributions to filling gender data gaps. Think back to the hypothetical government official in Kenya trying to determine literacy rates in northern Kenya. This time, a researcher tells her that it’s possible – that by using satellite imagery to identify correlations between geospatial elements and well-being outcomes, the researcher can map the literacy rate for women across the entire country. This is precisely what Flowminder Foundation, one of the four partner organizations in Data2X’s pilot research, was able to do. Researchers harnessed satellite imagery to fill data gaps, finding correlations between geospatial elements--such as accessibility, elevation, or distance to roads--and social and health outcomes for girls and women (as reported in traditional surveys) – such as literacy, access to contraception, and child stunting rates. Flowminder then mapped these phenomena, displaying continuous landscapes of gender inequality which can provide policymakers with timely information on regions with greatest inequality of outcomes and highest need for resources. This finding, and many others, are outlined in a new Data2X report, “Big Data and the Well-Being of Women and Girls,” which for the first time showcases how big data sources can fill gender data gaps and inform policy on girls’ and women’s lives. In addition to the individual pilot research findings outlined in the report, there are four high-level takeaways from this first phase of our work: Country Context is Key: The report affirms that in developing and implementing approaches to filling gender gaps, country context is paramount – and demands flexible experimentation. In the satellite imagery project, researchers’ success with models varied by country: models for modern contraceptive use performed strongly in Tanzania and Nigeria, whereas models for girls’ stunting rates were inadequate for all but one pilot country. To Be Useful, Data Must Be Actionable: Even with effective data collection tools in place, data must be demand-driven and actionable for policymakers and in-country partners. Collaborating with National Statistics Offices, policymakers must articulate what information they need to make decisions and deploy resources to resolve gender inequalities, as well as their capacity to act on highly detailed data. One Size Doesn’t Fit All: In filling gender data gaps, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Researchers may find that in one setting, a combination of official census data and datasets made available through mobile operators sufficiently fills data gaps and provides information which meets policymakers’ needs. In another context, satellite imagery may be most effective at highlighting under-captured dimensions of girls’ and women’s lives in under-surveyed or resource-poor areas. Ground Truth: Big data cannot stand alone. Researchers must “ground truth,” using conventional data sources to ensure that digital data enhances, but does not replace, information gathered from household surveys or official census reviews. We can never rely solely on data sources which carry implicit biases towards women and girls who experience fewer barriers to using technology and higher rates of literacy, leaving out populations with fewer resources. Big data offers great promise to complement information captured in conventional data sources and provide new insights into potentially overlooked populations. There is significant potential for future, inventive applications of these data sources, opening up opportunities for researchers and data practitioners to apply big data to pressing gender-focused challenges. When actionable, context-specific, and used in tandem with existing data, big data can strengthen policymakers’ evidence base for action, fill gender data gaps, and advance efforts to improve outcomes for girls and women.

This article was co-authored with David Brady, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. MILAN – US President Donald Trump owes his electoral victory largely to the older white middle- and working-class voters who have missed out on many of the benefits of the economic-growth patterns of the last three decades. Yet his administration is preparing to pursue an economic program that, while positive in some respects, will not deliver the reversal of economic fortune his key constituency was promised. Trump gave voice to a group of voters who had long faced worsening job prospects and stagnant or even declining real incomes – trends that have accelerated since 2000. As the number of middle-class jobs fell, the middle-income group shrank, exacerbating income polarization. This phenomenon, while particularly severe in the United States and the United Kingdom, can be seen in various forms throughout the developed world. The economic challenges facing developed-country middle classes are largely the result of two factors: the rapid loss of white- and blue-collar routine jobs to automation, and the shift of middle and lower value-added jobs to countries with lower labor costs. The latter pattern depressed income and wage growth not only in the tradable sector directly, but also in the non-tradable service sectors, owing to the spillover of displaced labor. The result was surplus labor conditions in the middle- and lower-middle-income ranges, not dissimilar to the surplus labor in early-stage developing countries, where it suppresses income growth (for a period of time) even as the economy expands. A decline in the bargaining power of labor and a falling real minimum wage may have also contributed to income polarization, though these are probably secondary factors. Though the challenges facing the middle class are well documented, US leaders have largely failed to recognize fully the struggles of middle-class households, much less implement effective countermeasures. This has contributed to a growing sense of hopelessness – particularly among men – which has manifested in rising non-participation in the workforce, aggravated health problems, drug abuse, elevated suicide rates, and anti-government sentiment. Countries that experience high and rising economic inequality often face political instability and policy dysfunction. As policymaking becomes erratic, loses credibility, and becomes choked by gridlock, growth suffers, and the chances of achieving a prosperous form of inclusiveness decline. The result is a vicious circle, in which government finds it increasingly difficult to do what is needed. But government intervention is crucial to tackle the problems facing developed-country workers today, which markets can’t address alone. Whether by renegotiating trade arrangements, investing in infrastructure and human capital, or facilitating redistribution, government must work proactively to achieve a rebalancing of growth patterns. The Trump administration now faces at least two major challenges. The first is to steer the political process away from paralyzing polarization, toward some vision of an achievable and more inclusive growth pattern. The second challenge – conditional on achieving the first – is to respond to the legitimate concerns of the voters who helped Trump reach office. On the first challenge, the signs so far are not encouraging. The electoral process is essentially a zero-sum game for the participants. But governance is not a zero-sum game. Treating it that way produces gridlock, political fragmentation, and inaction, undermining efforts to address critical challenges. To be sure, elements of the Trump administration’s proposed economic policy, if implemented, would surely have a positive impact. For example, with the support of a Republican-dominated Congress, the Trump administration could finally be able to end America’s excessive reliance on monetary policy to support growth and employment. Moreover, the public-sector investment in infrastructure and human capital that Trump has promised, if properly targeted, would raise returns on – and thus the level of – private-sector investment, with tax and regulatory reform providing an additional boost. Some renegotiation of trade and investment agreements could also help to redistribute the costs and benefits of globalization, though any changes should fall well short of protectionism. And the impact of the Trump administration’s economic policies is likely to be buoyed by the economy’s natural structural adaptation to technological development. But this will not be enough to combat the forces that have been squeezing American workers. Even if the Trump administration manages to boost economic growth, thereby diminishing the “surplus labor” effect and generating jobs, the labor market will struggle to keep up. At a time of rapid and profound technological transformation, the US also needs a strong commitment from the public and private sectors to help workers adapt. A useful first step would be substantially increased support for training, retraining, and skills upgrading. In his book Failure to Adjust, Ted Alden, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, observes that the US spends just 0.1% of its GDP on retraining, compared to 2% in Denmark. And Denmark and its Nordic counterparts seem to have done better than most in balancing imperatives like efficiency, dynamism, structural flexibility, competitiveness, and economic openness with the need for social-security systems that support adaptation to a shifting employment environment. Furthermore, some income redistribution will be needed, in order to enable low-income workers to invest in themselves – which is impossible when they have just enough to cover their basic needs. Here, conditional cash transfers for training and skills acquisition could be beneficial. Universal access to high-quality education is also critical. Right now, when some part of the US educational system fails, the well-off bail out to the private system, and the rest are left behind. That’s individually rational, but collectively suboptimal. Indeed, without high-quality education at all levels – from preschool through university or the equivalent professional training – it is nearly impossible to achieve inclusive growth patterns. Finally, the Trump administration should rethink its proposed deep cuts to funding for basic research, which would undermine innovation and economic dynamism down the road. While weeding out less promising programs is certainly acceptable, as is fighting vested interests, the money saved should be redirected to more promising areas within the sphere of basic research. The Trump administration’s current economic plan may be pro-growth, but it is incomplete on inclusiveness. Shifts in trade policy cannot be depended on to rebalance growth patterns in favor of middle- and lower-income households. They may even pose a risk to growth. This article originally appeared on project-syndicate.org.

I delivered a short talk yesterday, March 21, at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, as part of a panel discussion arranged by Professor Al Teich on the impact of the Trump administration's immigration and visa policies on foreign students, scientists, and other researchers. My remarks are below: I must admit I had rather naively hoped that I would never participate in this sort of conversation again. As a reporter for the Financial Times, I had covered in great detail the fallout for universities and for U.S.-based businesses of the various decisions that were made to restrict travel to the United States after 9/11. When I joined the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007, I spent another year researching the topic and turned it into a book, The Closing of the American Border (with apologies to Alan Bloom) that was published in 2008. The book documented the serious costs of some of the post-9/11 travel restrictions—research projects that were shot down because professors or graduate students ended up stuck outside the United States, lengthy visa processing delays for those who were admitted, the cancelling of scientific conferences in the United States because participants could not get visas to come here, and for several years the first reduction in the number of foreign students studying in the United States since the end of World War II. But even as I told all these stories in my book, I had some underlying sympathy for the George W. Bush administration and what it was trying to do. The 9/11 attacks, which I covered as a reporter, were obviously horrific, not just for the loss of life but for the sense of incredible vulnerability that many Americans felt in the aftermath. All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers had arrived in this country on legal visas, and it was evident to anyone paying attention that our visa and border security systems were hopelessly inadequate. The student visa rules were no exception—the first al-Qaeda attack in the United States, the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center, was master-minded by a Jordanian who had received a visa to attend Wichita State University and then just disappeared into the country. There was no system in place for tracking foreign students, and no real system even for verifying the legitimacy of the institutions they were attending. And the universities for a long time resisted any efforts to improve monitoring of student visa holders, not wanting to be in any way deputized by the federal government in the service of immigration enforcement. So while some of the Bush administration initiatives were crude, they were mostly understandable under the circumstances. President Bush was very much committed to restoring U.S. openness, and as new and improved screening procedures were put in place, the cruder mechanisms—mostly intrusive screening requirements based on nationality, what we today would call “extreme vetting”—were replaced with intelligence-drive targeting. And as the visa delays receded and the procedures improved, foreign students and scientists returned fairly eagerly to the United States. By 2007 the foreign student numbers had reached the pre-9/11 level, and again began to surge from there. There was a lot of willingness on the part of many of those I interviewed—even those whose lives were truly upended by their visa problems—to forgive the United States for what was seen as a understandable over-reaction in the aftermath of a genuine crisis. They were almost all genuinely willing to give this country a second chance, and grateful for the opportunities it had opened to them. I fear that the world—and especially those best and brightest we are trying to attract to our universities—are not going to be so forgiving this time around. There is no 9/11 that can be used to justify the new restrictions, just a change in the political culture of this country that was reflected in the November elections. Instead of improving intelligence-based targeting, this administration is reverting to crude tools—the travel ban targeted at specific countries, stepped up immigration enforcement, building a wall along the border with Mexico, and generally increased harassment in entry procedures, mostly targeted at those with Muslim-sounding names. Having watched this story play out before, this is what worries me most—that the impact is going to be much deeper than the fairly narrow scope of some of the measures would indicate. I am sure we will get into specifics about how many students will be directly affected by the travel ban—assuming it gets through the courts, which I think it will. But the reverberations are going to be far broader. Many of those who were affected by the post-9/11 restrictions came from countries with no connection to Islamic radicalism at all, including China, Russia and India. They were caught in the general slowdown of visa processing that accompanied the ramped-up security measures. That is likely to happen again, particularly if Congress takes an axe to the State Department budget as the president has requested, which will sharply reduce the number of consular officers. Those from many other countries were just put off by the newly aggressive attitude of Customs and Border Protection officials; we are seeing that again, with searches for flights to the United States from overseas falling sharply. There will be students affected by reductions in work opportunities—DHS has just shut down “premium processing” for H-1B visas, which is going to leave many foreign students who had expected to start working this year in limbo. The administration has signaled its intention to crack down on what it sees as fraud in the H-1B program, and is also opposed to the expansion of the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program for foreign students—which allows them to work in the United States while remaining on a student visa—that occurred under the Obama administration. All of these, and other measures not yet foreseen, will send a message to foreign students that the United States is harder to enter as a student, and the prospects for remaining and working afterwards are diminished. That will keep many bright students away, even from those countries not directly targeted by these measures. We are likely to see similar effects in reducing scientific collaboration between U.S. and foreign researchers. And let me just close with a quote on what’s at stake in all of this. It is not just the well-being of our universities, though I care very much about that. It is really about the future of our economy. This is a quote I used in my book from the economic geographer Richard Florida, who makes his home in Toronto I would note. He wrote: “In today’s global economy, the places that attract and retain talent will win, and those that don’t will lose. Today, the terms of competition revolve around a central axis: a nation’s ability to mobilize, attract and retain human creative talent. Every key dimension of international economic leadership, from manufacturing excellence to scientific and technological advancement, will depend on this ability.” In other words, if you wanted to lead the United States away from greatness and into mediocrity, these sorts of travel and immigration restrictions are a pretty good way to achieve that goal.

A nation’s laws are not handed down from on high – they are the creation of flawed human beings working through flawed political processes. Successful political leaders understand this reality, and try to work within its limitations. Those who ignore it risk creating damaging social conflict. And that is what the Trump administration is risking with its new approach to enforcing U.S. immigration laws, which were outlined in a series of memos just released under the signature of General John Kelly, the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The short version of the memos and the further explanation offered today by DHS is this – the law is the law, and it is going to be enforced. No more “prosecutorial discretion” of the sort used by the Obama administration to deport convicted criminals while leaving the undocumented single mothers and the Little League coaches alone. Illegal means illegal – if you are in the United States unlawfully, you will be removed. What’s not to understand? But what Secretary Kelly and the Trump administration fail to understand is that enforcing the letter of U.S. immigration laws – many of which are half a century or more out-of-date and were often poorly drafted to start – does not enjoy widespread support in this country. The compromise that has existed since at least the mid-1990s – toughening the border to deter illegal entry, removing illegal immigrants who pose a genuine threat, while mostly leaving the hard-working ones alone – has been messy but has worked tolerably well. And it accurately reflected the country’s ambivalence. There was not sufficient public support for a broad legalization, but neither is there support for a mass deportation campaign aimed at the country’s 11 million illegal migrants, many of whom have been here for decades. Of the two, polls suggest much greater support for legalization. President Obama tried to ride that support to persuade Congress to pass a comprehensive reform of the nation’s immigration laws, including legalization. He came very close – winning a bipartisan 68-32 vote in the Senate in 2013. He attemped to win votes from enforcement-minded Republicans by ramping up the number of deportations to record levels of more than 400,000 per year – earning the moniker “deporter-in-chief” from immigration advocates. Yet he still fell short in the Republican-controlled House, which refused to take up the bill. Obama also moved on his own, implementing through executive order the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to provide temporary legal status and work permits for those brought illegally to the United States as minors. While arguably an abuse of executive authority, Obama protected what was the most sympathetic class of unauthorized migrants – those brought here by their parents as children. President Trump has so far shown no willingness to tear up that order, aware presumably of the angry backlash it would generate. Obama tried to go further after the collapse of the effort in Congress – issuing the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) order, which would have extended similar protections to the parents of U.S.-born children. Politically, that was a bridge too far, and quickly resulted in a lawsuit supported by 26 states. A Texas judge blocked implementation, and when he was upheld by the appeals court and by a divided Supreme Court, the Obama administration backed down. The Obama administration ended much where it had begun – with continued efforts to bolster border enforcement, and a deportation policy focused on serious criminals. Now the Trump administration, acting on the narrowest of possible mandates, has decided that Americans are ready for a radical move to tougher enforcement. The memos signed by Secretary Kelly show a breathtaking audacity. Among the highlights: • DHS plans to hire 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, nearly doubling the size the agency responsible for arresting and removing illegal migrants. • The administration plans to all but eliminate “prosecutorial discretion.” Instead, “all those in violation of immigration law” now face the likelihood of removal if encountered by law enforcement. • DHS plans to hire another 5,000 Border Patrol agents in order to “effectively detect, track and apprehend all aliens illegally entering the United States.” No one with serious knowledge of the border region believes that such a 100 percent apprehension rate is remotely plausible. • DHS plans to crack down on asylum seekers from the violent Northern Triangle countries of Central America, who are now arriving at the border in numbers that approach illegal entries from Mexico. DHS is threatening, for example, to track down and prosecute parents in the United States who hire smugglers to free their kids from the threats they face in Central America. These are only a sprinkling of the proposed measures, all of which promise a broad crackdown on those in the United States illegally, and a far more aggressive effort to keep out not just those trying to enter the country illegally but those fleeing violence and persecution as well. What the Kelly memos guarantee is widespread resistance. Fortunately, there are many obstacles. Congress will need to appropriate the enormous funds that will be needed to finance the expensive build-up Kelly has proposed. The government will need far more immigration judges and it will be difficult to fill that need quickly. State governments and civil rights groups will challenge the measures in the courts. Farmers that rely on immigrant labor will protest. Cities that are home to most of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants will resist, as will police forces that must work with immigrant communities, and churches that shelter migrants out of religious conviction. Together, there are many ways to resist a larger and more aggressive federal government determined to enforce the letter of the nation’s broken immigration laws. “The law is the law” makes a nice sound bite. But it does not reflect the political reality of the immigration issue. Past presidents have learned that lesson. Trump will too.

President Donald Trump's multi-pronged campaign to address the potential threats posed by refugees and migrants has a familiar ring. New border barriers with Mexico, a sharp reduction in refugee admissions, a crackdown on so-called "sanctuary cities," and new restrictions on travel from countries thought to pose a terrorist threat—all these and more were part of the U.S. reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks. But there is one critical difference this time around. In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States had a president, George W. Bush, who believed that America's strength came from its openness to immigrants and to trade. His administration closed many doors in the name of homeland security, but President Bush was eager to open them again as soon as it seemed safe to do so. Donald Trump is no George Bush. As the new president said in his inaugural address: "Protection will lead to prosperity and strength." Unlike President Bush, Trump's goal is not to implement the least disruptive security measures consistent with the U.S. tradition of openness, but rather to invoke security to shut the United States off to the greatest extent possible. For Bush, the walls built to Mexico under his watch were a necessary deviation from his principles; for Trump, the wall will be a proud symbol of a very different set of principles. Trump's announcements are far from a fait accompli, of course. He needs money from Congress to build the wall; big cities like Los Angeles and New York will fight him at every step to prevent deportation of illegal migrants who have not committed other crimes; the State Department and possibly even the Department of Homeland Security will fight against the travel restrictions. American universities, which saw a drop in foreign students after 9/11, will push back, and they have the ear of virtually every member of Congress. The travel industry—the airlines, hotels, and restaurants that benefit from foreign tourists—will also object. The new DHS Secretary General John Kelly expressed skepticism at his confirmation hearing about targeting Muslim nations with new travel and immigration restrictions, and may be a reluctant ally for Trump. Foreign governments will complain vociferously; incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may find many of his working days consumed with soothing hurt feelings around the world. In my book about the post-9/11 years, The Closing of the American Border, I documented the fierce internal struggles in the Bush administration over the new security measures. There were pitched battles between the State and Justice departments for example, with Secretary of State Colin Powell resisting many of the restrictions being pushed by Attorney-General John Ashcroft. State lost many of the early battles, but ended up winning the war. By the end of the Bush administration, most of the restrictive measures had been removed. This will play out differently under Trump. Unlike the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Trump is responding to a crisis mostly of his own imagining. The new measures are being rolled out enthusiastically, not reluctantly. The White House will look for opportunities—such as any new terrorist attacks overseas—to extend additional restrictions. That argues for a very different set of tactics for opponents of Trump's border and immigration strategy. They cannot count on a supportive president who will work to roll back restrictions as the public's sense of crisis wanes. Instead, the president himself will be sowing fear to create a crisis environment that invites still more restrictions. For those committed to American openness—who believe it has been among the greatest sources of American strength—this will be the biggest test in generations. It is a battle that will be much harder to fight without an ally in the Oval Office.

On January 7, The Economist published a short analysis of the poor state of education for most – not all – South Africans. On various league tables, South Africans are near the bottom in educational achievement. However, there is a huge gap between the educational opportunities for white South Africans and everybody else. The Economist notes that of two-hundred black students starting school only one will do well enough to study engineering. The equivalent figure among white students is ten. With the end of apartheid, a school system based on race has been replaced by one based on geography, and, therefore, as in the United States, by social class. Schools in poor areas receive more funding, but schools in richer areas may charge fees. Though virtually all are integrated racially, most white students attend schools of good quality, while few black children do, and they represent over 80 percent of the population, while whites are less than 9 percent. The problem is not one of funding. South Africa spends 6.4 percent of GDP on education; in the European Union, it is 4.8 percent. As I discussed in my recent book, Morning in South Africa, education is one of the largest parts of the national budget. At over 15 percent of the national budget, it is significantly larger than the allocations for defence, public order, and safety. But black educational achievement is much lower than in other African countries. For example, The Economist cites that 27 percent of South Africans who have attended school for six years cannot read, compared with 4 percent in Tanzania and 19 percent in Zimbabwe. For The Economist, the chief culprit is the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), closely tied to the governing African National Congress and riddled with ill-discipline and corruption. The Economist cites other factors as well, ranging from the challenges of overcoming the heritage of apartheid to poor teacher training. But, the focus is on SADTU and the solutions are largely concerned with getting around the union by means of private and “collaboration” schools, the latter funded by the government but run by independent operators. Indeed, The Economist’s Criticism of SADTU recalls that of teachers’ unions in the United States. The Economist does not address the language issue. South Africa has eleven official languages, and English is spoken as a first language by only an estimated 9 percent of the population—mostly white South Africans. By contrast, Zulu is the first language of perhaps a quarter of the population. Yet, English is the international language of business and commerce, not Zulu. This creates its own issue. Because South Africa’s primary education is conducted in eleven different languages, many Zimbweans, educated in English, are more competitive for jobs in South Africa. Language is central to ethnic identity, and in democratic, non-racial South Africa, English is not privileged over Zulu, or Afrikaans for that matter. Language and education policy, like so much else in South Africa is seen through a racial and ethnic prism. Politics is as much at play as educational policy. Yet, only when primary education is conducted in English, the language of commerce, will the majority of South Africans be prepared to work in the modern economy.

This is International Education Week, an opportunity for the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Education to promote study abroad. As the State Department press release puts it, the week will emphasize “encouraging Americans and international students alike to seek opportunities to study abroad, make connections with peers in other countries, and ultimately to see themselves as actors in and shapers of both their local communities and a globalized future.” The State Department has also announced a partnership with Diversity Abroad to “work toward diversifying participation in international education overall.” Here’s my advice for the U.S. government and for higher education in general: it’s time to actively diversify as well the idea of “abroad,” because for a plurality of American students, “abroad” appears to mean the United Kingdom (UK), Italy, and Spain. These are beautiful countries and terrific places to visit. But if a central reason to encourage study abroad lies in better preparing American youth for a world of global competition, we’d do much better incentivizing knowledge and familiarity with the world’s rising powers. I can think of no better time to do that than during a college semester or year abroad. Sadly, the data tells a different story. More than 300,000 American students studied abroad during 2014–15, the most recent year for which the Institute for International Education’s annual Open Doors report tabulated data. The UK, Italy, and Spain serve as the destination for 32 percent of U.S. students abroad. Things drop precipitously after that, with France, China, Germany, Costa Rica, and Australia combined accounting for a little more than 22 percent, and then a long tail of countries which as destinations hover between 1 and 2 percent of the total. China does comparatively well here, as the fifth most sought-after destination. South Africa is number 11, India number 13, Brazil number 16, and Russia does not crack the top 25 with only 1,187 study abroad Americans. This means that all the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries combined still host fewer Americans studying abroad (27,500) than does Spain (28,325). As it has for every year I have tracked this data, India fares poorly. With 4,438 study abroad Americans, India hosts fewer than half that head to Ireland or to Costa Rica. The number who head to India has steadily ticked up over the years—in 2001–02 fewer than 650 U.S. students selected India as a destination—but its showing by comparison with other countries does not align with India’s growing global role. India looks more like the Czech Republic or like Mexico in study abroad numbers. Source: Institute of International Education. (2016). “Top 25 Destinations of U.S. Study Abroad Students, 2013/14 –2014/15.” Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. Retrieved from http://www.iie.org/opendoors. I recognize that students have many choices before them in how to spend their limited time. And far more programs exist to facilitate a semester in Western Europe than have been in place for India and other less–selected countries. (Anecdotally, I am always surprised to see how comparatively few students head to Japan, one of the world’s largest economies and one with ample study abroad programs.) But in my view, our national preparedness would be better served to see a larger percentage of students heading to the BRICS countries, or to the “CIVETS” (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa) or MIKTs (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey) or any other acronym describing emerging markets or rising major economies. This year’s International Education Week carries the theme, “empowering youth through international education.” American youth would be even more empowered to gain significant exposure to the countries shaping the future they will live in. Top photo credit: Photo by Daniel Oerther licensed under CC-BY-4.0. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

MILAN – It took a long time for widening inequality to have an impact on politics, as it suddenly has done in recent years. Now that it is a central issue, national economic priorities will need to shift substantially to create more equitable, inclusive economies and societies. If they do not, people could embrace explosive alternatives to their current governments, such as the populist movements now sweeping many countries. Political leaders often speak of growth patterns that unfairly distribute the benefits of growth; but then they do relatively little about it when they are in power. When countries go down the path of non-inclusive growth patterns, it usually results in disrespect for expertise, disillusionment with the political system and shared cultural values, and even greater social fragmentation and polarization. Acknowledging the importance of how economic benefits are distributed is of course not new. In developing countries, economic exclusion and extreme inequality have always been unconducive to long-term high-growth patterns. Under these conditions, pro-growth policies are politically unsustainable, and they are ultimately disrupted by political dislocations, social unrest, or even violence. In the United States, rising inequality has been a fact of life at least since the 1970s, when the relatively equitable distribution of economic benefits from the early post-World War II era started to become skewed. In the late 1990s, when digital technologies began to automate and disintermediate more routine jobs, the shift toward higher wealth and income inequality became turbocharged. Globalization played a role. In the 20 years before the 2008 financial crisis, manufacturing employment in the US rapidly declined in every sector except pharmaceuticals, even as added value in manufacturing rose. Net jobs loss was kept roughly at zero only because employment in services increased. In fact, much of the added value in manufacturing actually comes from services such as product design, research and development, and marketing. So, if we account for this value-chain composition, the decline in manufacturing – the production of tangible goods – is even more pronounced. Economists have been tracking these trends for some time. Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor and his colleagues have carefully documented the impact of globalization and labor-saving digital technologies on routine jobs. More recently, French economist Thomas Piketty’s international bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, dramatically widened our awareness of wealth inequality and described possible underlying forces driving it. The brilliant, award-winning young economists Raj Chetty and Emmanuel Saez have enriched the discussion with new research. And I have written about some of the structural economic shifts associated with these problems. Eventually, journalists picked up on these trends, too, and it would now be hard to find anyone who has not heard of the “1%” – shorthand for those at the top of the global wealth and income scales. Many people now worry about a bifurcated society: a thriving global class of elites at the top and a stressed-out class comprising everyone else. Still, despite these long trends, the political and policy status quo remained largely unchallenged until 2008. To understand why it took politics so long to catch up to economic realities, we should look at incentives and ideology. With respect to incentives, politicians have not been given a good enough reason to address unequal distribution patterns. The US has relatively weak campaign-finance limits, so corporations and wealthy individuals – neither of which generally prioritizes income redistribution – have contributed a disproportionate share to politicians’ campaign war chests. Ideologically, many people are simply suspicious of expansive government. They recognize inequality as a problem, and in principle they support government policies that provide high-quality education and health-care services, but they do not trust politicians or bureaucrats. In their eyes, governments are inefficient and self-interested at best, and dictatorial and oppressive at worst. All of this began to change with the rise of digital technologies and the Internet, but especially with the advent of social media. As US President Barack Obama showed in the 2008 election cycle – followed by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the current cycle – it is now possible to finance a very expensive campaign without “big money.” As a result, there is a growing disconnect between big money and political incentives; and while money is still a part of the political process, influence itself no longer belongs exclusively to corporations and wealthy individuals. Social-media platforms now enable large groups of people to mobilize in ways reminiscent of mass political movements in earlier eras. Such platforms may have reduced the cost of political organizing, and thus candidates’ overall dependence on money, while providing an efficient alternative fund-raising channel. This new reality is here to stay, and, regardless of who wins the US election this year, anyone who is unhappy with high inequality will have a voice, the ability to finance it, and the power to affect policymaking. So, too, will other groups that focus on similar issues, such as environmental sustainability, which has not been a major focus in the current US presidential campaign (the three debates between the candidates included no discussion of climate change, for example), but surely will be in the future. All told, digital technology is shuffling economic structures and rebalancing power relationships in the world’s democracies – even in institutions once thought to be dominated by money and wealth. A large, newly influential constituency should be welcomed. But it cannot be a substitute for wise leadership, and its existence does not guarantee prudent policies. As political priorities continue to rebalance, we will need to devise creative solutions to solve our hardest problems, and to prevent populist misrule. One hopes that this is the course we are on now. This article originally appeared on project-syndicate.org.

Republican candidate Donald Trump has said that, if elected, he would use the expansive powers of the president to block foreign Muslims from traveling to the United States. As an alternative, he has suggested he might block all travel from countries "compromised by terrorism." Again, this would be well within his powers as president. This week, his vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence said Trump no longer favored either approach, though Trump himself has not suggested any softening. With Election Day less than a month away, and the GOP candidate still very much in serious contention, my CFR colleagues Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Rob Kahn and I decided to examine one facet of Trump's Muslim ban proposal—its economic impact. What we found was troubling. First, there is no question that a President Trump would have the authority to carry out such a policy. As we write in the note, the president's powers over who can and cannot enter the United States are "Caesar-like." A comprehensive Muslim travel and immigration ban, even if temporary, would have significant national security and political consequences for the United States, including adverse consequences for U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. Similar, though much less draconian, measures following the September 11 terrorist attacks complicated U.S. diplomacy for much of the 2000s. But a comprehensive ban would also have far-reaching, negative economic consequences for the United States, particularly in travel, tourism, and education. Travel and tourism are the second largest source of exports of goods and services in the U.S. economy. The slowdown in travel in the years after 9/11—a consequence of measures much less extreme than the proposed Muslim ban—has been called a “lost decade” for travel and tourism to the United States. According to the Department of Commerce, in 2015, 77.5 million international visitors traveled to the United States, spending a record $246.2 billion on U.S. goods and services to, and within, the United States, or roughly 11 percent of total U.S. exports. Those same international visitors supported 1.1 million American jobs, or roughly 14 percent of total travel and tourism-related jobs. A Muslim ban, or any targeted or broad-based ban on foreign visitors from countries with significant Muslim populations, would also have consequences well beyond the direct effect on travelers. It would hurt the economies of communities dependent on tourism. A ban on these travelers also would spill over to federal, state, and local budgets via decreased tax revenues. And depending on how other nations react, it could have still broader consequences for travel, trade, and investment. In our note, we estimate that: The direct loss of spending due to a Muslim travel ban could range from $14 billion to $30 billion per annum. Adding in indirect (multiplier) effects that take into account the broader spillover effects on the economy increases this range to $31 billion to $66 billion. The loss of jobs could range from 50,600 to 132,000. In addition, we estimate the loss to education spending to be about 15 percent of the total foreign student spending, or $4.6 billion. Other, but harder to measure, costs include the loss of graduate student researchers in the sciences, and weakening foreign investment as foreign business travelers face new hurdles in reaching the United States. The full study can be read on LinkedIn.com.

Those universities commonly regarded as the best in South Africa have been roiled by student unrest over the past two years. First, it was protests against the symbols of imperialism and racism such as the statue of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Then in October 2015, protests over university fees and tuition hikes began. After reaching a settlement last year the university fees and tuition have been raised once again, inciting major student protests. The students are now calling to make university education free. South Africa is the only sub-Saharan African country that contributes to the journalists’ lists of the world’s top five-hundred universities. For example, The Times Higher Education ranking of top universities in the world includes the University of Cape Town (148), the University of Witwatersrand also known as ‘Wits’ (182), and Stellenbosch University (401-500). All other African universities are ranked in the general category of eight-hundred and above. (Such lists are notoriously contentious and controversial but they do reflect commonly-held perceptions in the developed world.) Apartheid had a particularly baleful influence on South African education at all levels, and the black majority was mostly excluded from higher education, though there were a few black-only universities with limited curricula. At base, the current unrest is a consequence of trying to address those consequences. For background on the challenges to South African education, see chapter 5 of my new book, Morning in South Africa. At present, the center of the unrest is at the University of Cape Town and Wits, though it is often to be found at other formerly white-only universities, as well. As is so often the case in South Africa, an underlying issue is the integration of Black Africans fully into national life, in this case Black students into historically ‘White’ universities. (South Africa is about 80 percent Black, 9 percent is Coloured, and 9 percent White.) With a focus on free tuition, demonstrations have also spread to black-majority institutions. Under apartheid, UCT and Wits were ‘White’ universities. (A few non-Whites were enrolled during the last years of apartheid.) Now, both have non-White majorities, though the percentage of Whites is much higher than 9 percent. But, in terms of administration, faculty, and general atmosphere, they remain ‘White.’ Black students frequently complain that they are marginalized and ‘disrespected.’ Further, university tuition and fees are especially burdensome for students from a poor demographic. Yet, as elsewhere in the world, university education is becoming more expensive and the value of the national currency is falling, with a resulting pressure on administrations to raise tuition and fees. Black students often come from primary and secondary schools little improved over the “Bantu” schools of the apartheid era. The high academic standards which they must meet at UCT and Wits can be a challenge. The universities have financial aid available to help alleviate the economic burden, and there are remedial programs that attempt to make up for weak secondary schools. Nevertheless, for black students, who are often the first of their family to attend a high-quality university, the road is not easy. These issues will be familiar to Americans, where federal and state governments over the past generation has sought to make quality higher education available to those formerly excluded by pervasive racism and, in the southern states, legally-based segregation.

The Five Questions Series is a forum for scholars, government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign policy practitioners to provide timely analysis of new developments related to the advancement of women and girls worldwide. This interview is with Meighan Stone, president of the Malala Fund, highlighting new challenges to universal access to quality education. July 12th was Malala Day, the UN-named day to mark the birthday of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who spends the day each year campaigning for girls’ education. This week, Yousafzai visited the world’s largest refugee camp, a site in Dadaab that hosts displaced Somalians. Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the world saw significant gains in universal access to primary school education. Can you speak about the persistent gaps in girls’ access to secondary education, and why working with local partners to support adolescent girls is so critical? One of the great lessons we saw with the Millennium Development Goals is that when we set an ambitious goal, when we set the bar high, the world actually can develop the right policies, increase funding, and work with developing country leaders and donors bilaterally and multilaterally, to achieve that goal. The tremendous gains in terms of children attending and completing primary school under the MDGs is an instructive example. The challenge is that the MDGs stopped short at the equivalent of grade six. And for any of us, especially as women, thinking what our life would look like if we had finished our education at the age of twelve and the school gate had then been closed to us, and our only options were child labor or child marriage or simply a life of always knowing in our quietest moments that we hadn’t achieved our full potential. It’s devastating. It’s long overdue that the global community set a higher ambition for education, especially as we look towards the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Education that is free, quality, and safe is the unfinished business of education around the world, particularly for girls. It’s important that it’s a modern, relevant education that prepares young women to be in the workforce. It’s also important that it prepare them to advocate for themselves, and hopefully to ultimately change laws and practices in their countries and communities that keep women from fully participating in family life, community life, and in government. To ensure twelve years of education, we must commit to it and also guarantee it. The SDGs set an ambitious target of a full course of secondary education. But from what we’ve been tracking at the indicator level, we’ve yet to see the simple number twelve—twelve years of quality education—put into those indicators. The young women around the world in classrooms and in refugee camps have high ambitions for themselves. It’s only fair that world leaders have high ambitions to match theirs. At the World Humanitarian Summit in May, the Education Cannot Wait fund was launched to help bridge the $8.5 billion annual funding gap for the millions of children living in conflict and disaster. Can you describe how conflict and disaster disrupt children’s access to education? Over twenty-four million children are out of school in thirty-five conflict-affected countries today, and every year that they miss school is a lost opportunity for themselves, their families, and their countries. We hear a lot about the “lost generation” of young people whose education is disrupted by conflict or other emergency. But these young people are not lost. They’re actually right in front of us. If policymakers decided to put resources in place, we absolutely could ensure that these children, especially girls, reach their full potential and don’t pay the price of conflict. Often the largest barrier to a girl in conflict getting an education is funding: lack of funding for schools and for teachers. Of course there are also policy barriers, for example those that keep Syrian teachers from teaching in border countries due to lack of certifications or work permissions, even though they would be well-placed to be teachers to displaced young women. There are some policy challenges we can overcome working collaboratively, and that was part of the focus of the World Humanitarian Summit. But for any partner providing education on the ground in a conflict setting, the primary barrier is funding. Can you share examples or lessons learned from the Malala Fund’s work with displaced Syrian girls in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, in particular? What are some of the challenges that host governments face in providing quality education? Child marriage is one thing that any of us who have spent time in refugee camps with Syrian refugee families see constantly. I was in Istanbul for the World Humanitarian Summit in May and decided to stay an extra day to visit Syrian girls and their families. Displaced families live in parts of Istanbul where there are twenty people to one room without sanitation. If you ask the young women in the house to bring you any book to read, there will be no book. And you’ll sit with a 14-year-old girl who will tell you that she’s forgotten how to write anything in Arabic other than her name. And, in many cases, if that young woman is fourteen or fifteen, she is married. Most of these young women were coming from a good school system in Syria, and had access to safe, quality education prior to the conflict. As we look to the posturing and concern in Europe over the migrant and refugee crisis, and then we look to the border states, it is clear that Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have overwhelmingly had to deal with the most serious demands. In Lebanon, refugees make up 25 percent of the population. Turkey is housing more Syrian refugees than any other country. In Turkey, thousands of young refugees who speak only Arabic are entering a school system in which a young person needs to be able to learn and pass an exam in Turkish. Many certifications do not transfer. And in many host communities, for example in Jordan, some local children already faced challenges in accessing twelve years of quality education. Refugee children stress an already strained system—these are tremendous challenges. How can governments and the donor community more strategically invest in education in emergencies? Half the refugees across the world are children, so this is an issue that the donor community and governments around the world must address. I think the dividing line that we saw previously in our sector, where there was sustainable development on one side and humanitarian or refugee response on the other, is not as clear anymore. There is growing recognition that some of the gains seen in international development in education are being lost because of a failure to respond in a timely way and with the appropriate resources, partnerships, and cooperation on refugee education. So this is a strategic area to invest in. Some people ask Malala, you know, you’ve been talking about girls’ education; why are you now talking about refugee education? And her response is, “I’ve always said that every girl deserves the right for twelve full years of a free, safe, quality education. So every girl therefore includes the 40 percent or more children impacted by conflict who are out of school. Every girl means every girl in a refugee camp, whether she’s in Dadaab or in the Bekaa Valley. Those girls count as well.” Another piece of this issue is that governments around the world simply need to make good on existing commitments to invest in education. It is an imperative. Coming out of the Syria summit in February, only about 25 percent of the pledged funding came through. The world is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis—if a government pledges funds, they absolutely need to then be distributed and received. As seen in the film He Named Her Malala, Malala’s father has been a remarkable advocate for his daughter’s right to an education. How can other fathers, brothers, and husbands, become champions of girls’ education, especially in traditional societies? At Malala Fund, we all follow the example of and take inspiration from the work of Malala and her father. For far too long people have looked at traditional societies, whether in Southeast Asia or the Middle East, and said that men are “non-traditional allies” in this fight for women’s empowerment and girls’ education. But what we see in Malala’s own family—through the example of her father, Ziauddin, an educator and activist in his own right—is that this is not the case. Our organization firmly believes, that there are more potential allies than conventional wisdom assumes. When you spend time in-country with men, especially young men, there are far more who are persuadable, who are willing to start to think about women differently, than may seem immediately apparent. We should apply the learning from change in our own country to our assumptions in other nations. In the United States, it was not that long ago that there was great resistance to women in the workforce, women in universities. We’ve seen tremendous change in just a generation or two. We firmly and passionately believe this can be the case in many other countries. There are teachers, activists, advocates, lawmakers, leaders, women and men, girls and boys, who believe in girls’ education and want to fight for it. They want to create change in their country and they see the value in educating girls to drive that change. That’s the reason why the Malala Fund’s primary way of working in-country is with local partners: we want to bring resources, capacity building, and partnerships to the very people who are changing their own countries. Today, overwhelmingly, the majority of international development aid or humanitarian aid is channeled away from locally-led organizations: only 2 percent of humanitarian aid goes to locally-led groups. That has to change.

Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is authored by Gary Barker, president and CEO of Promundo and member of the UN Secretary-General’s Network of Men Leaders. This month, more than thirty men allegedly gang-raped a sixteen-year-old girl in Brazil because of her supposed infidelity to her boyfriend. A few months before that, my organization, Promundo, carried out a study finding that nearly half of girls interviewed at a school in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo reported having traded sex for money. In both cases, the response was, appropriately: let’s find the men who did this and hold them accountable. We must hold those men responsible who commit acts of sexual and domestic violence. One of the major advances in women’s rights of the past thirty years has been rolling out laws making it illegal men for to use violence against women and girls, whether in their homes or outside. We know, however, from household surveys we have conducted, that between 20 and 50 percent of men report having used physical violence against a female partner. In some countries, up to one in five men report having forced a woman, including a partner, to have sex against her will. And while we must push for accountability, if we believe that sexual violence and other forms of gender-based violence can be stopped, we must focus on prevention. And that means starting with boys and young men. Whether in conflict or in peacetime, the drivers of men’s use of violence against women are fairly universal. Data from our multi-country study, the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) find that men who witness violence against their mothers growing up are 2.5 times more likely to repeat it later on. Men who experience childhood violence and witness violence against their mothers are four times more likely to report using violence against women. Men who have a sense of entitlement to sex, who hold inequitable values, who think they can get away with it and who have hostile attitudes toward women, are all more likely to use violence against women. Add to that a general lack of accountability of men who use violence, women’s limited economic and social status in many settings, and we have a perfect storm for reproducing violence against women. What works to stop it? A growing body of evidence finds that targeted, well-designed primary prevention can work to change violence-supportive attitudes and reduce men’s use of violence against women. Structured group education with boys in schools, sports settings and communities has been shown to work. Supporting women with economic empowerment and social networks –combined with reaching male partners or husbands with messages about ending violence—show promise. Multi-pronged community mobilization strategies that engage community leaders, the health sector, local business owners, transportation workers, and others in creating an environment of zero tolerance also work. Batterer intervention programs, when connected to communities, can also work to prevent re-incidence. Parent training programs can also prove effective. Emerging data from a randomized control trial that Promundo is carrying out with fathers and mothers in Rwanda finds significantly lower rates of violence by men against women (reported by women) in the intervention group as compared to the control group. Our intervention, and others like it, also find reductions in violence against children, thus preventing future cycles of couple-based violence. With the growing evidence base that primary prevention can work, why are such programs not yet taken to scale? With evidence suggesting that gender-based violence (GBV) can cost 1 to 2 percent of the GDP of some countries, due in large part to women’s lost wages, it is time to think about prevention at a macro-level. Countries should be pushed, as Sonke Gender Justice is doing in South Africa, to create national, costed plans for scaling up GBV prevention and mitigation. Engaging fathers in the process is also critical. Last year we launched the first ever State of the World’s Fathers report to call attention to engaging men in equitable and non-violent caregiving. This year for Father’s Day we are launching the first ever State of America’s Fathers, to focus on leave policies, sharing caregiving equality and the importance of parent training to break cycles of violence. Evidence affirms that providing clear messages to boys and men on how to speak out about violence, reaching them early with messages and discussions about equality and respect, and holding men who use violence accountable can work to break the cycle of violence. That, perhaps, is the key message for Father’s Day: we know that about one in three men worldwide have used physical or sexual violence against a woman or girl. The majority of the world’s men and fathers don’t use such violence. But they also don’t speak out about the violence that other men use. A global prevention movement means that all men and fathers become part of a cycle of change—questioning other men’s violence, speaking out about it, talking to our sons and daughters about it. That is when the cycle of violence, in Brazil, DRC, the U.S., and globally, will end.