The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a means for industrial nations, known as Annex 1 countries, to meet their greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets by taking credit for reductions from projects they fund in developing countries. The idea is that projects to reduce emissions will cost less to develop and implement in the developing countries where technology is further behind. Industrialized countries can achieve more reductions via investment in the developing countries, achieving greater emissions reductions for less sunk cost. At least this is the idea under the Kyoto Protocol. A researcher at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD), Michael Wara says this, in fact, is not how the CDM is working.

Wara lectures at Stanford Law School, teaching the popular class International Environmental Law. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Wara also has a PhD in Ocean Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His doctoral work on the interaction between climate change and oceanatmosphere dynamics in the tropics echoes in his current research on the CDM. He understands the science of greenhouse gases and how they affect Earth and its climate. One of those greenhouse gases is HFC-23, a byproduct of manufacturing refrigerants. HFC-23 is one of the gases countries targeted to reduce under the CDM; it can be eliminated rather easily and has been seen as the “low hanging fruit” of the CDM. In fact, more than half the greenhouse gas reductions of CDMs to date have been reached via reducing HFC-23 in developing counties. For the reductions, the project sponsor countries receive credits to put toward meeting their own reductions targets. These credits are called Certified Emission Reductions or CERs.

This is where Wara noticed a big discrepancy between what was credited through the CDM and what was actually happening on the ground. The CERs are not just feel-good pieces of paper that countries collect as proof of their doing good but are certifications of equivalent reductions of one metric tonne CO2 emissions. Carbon is the standardizing greenhouse gas and so regardless of what greenhouse gas is reduced with the CDM the sponsoring country is credited with CERs. But these “carbon credits” have a value—carbon is a traded commodity on many global markets. Wara could directly compare the CDM effect versus the credits issued. Since the cost of implementing the reductions was known or could be calculated, and since the credits were standardized to a greenhouse gas being traded on an open market, Wara could quantitatively critique the CDM.

Wara’s finding showed a major flaw in the CDM design. Looking at the large percentage of greenhouse gas reductions met within the CDM by eliminating HFC-23, the value of the credits created by these reductions were more than four times as valuable as the cost of implementing the reductions. This is not small change, as billions of dollars worth of CERs have been credited for the projects. What is more, the credits for eliminating the HFC-23 byproduct of manufacturing refrigerant were far more valuable than the refrigerant itself, creating incentives to build these manufacturing plants in order to cash-in on the CERs. Exposing these loopholes has brought attention to Wara’s work. He has presented his findings at numerous conferences and published his report (Nature 445, 595-596 (8 February 2007) doi:10.1038/445595a) and derivatives broadly. Wara continues to study the CDM and the global market for greenhouse gases and the post-Kyoto regime for reducing their emissions.

On November 15, 2007, FSI held its third annual international conference, Power and Prosperity: New Dynamics, New Dilemmas, examining seismic shifts in power, wealth, security, and risk in the global system. Acting FSI Director Michael A. McFaul, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry offered stagesetting remarks before a capacity crowd of business and civic leaders, diplomats, policymakers, faculty, and students. Interactive panel sessions encouraged exploration of contemporary issues with Stanford faculty and outside experts.

“For more than two centuries , a debate has raged in our country over whether the Congress or the president has the power to start, conduct, and terminate a war,” stated former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. The issue has been made urgent by what is called the “War on Terror,” regarded by many as almost unlimited in duration and geographic scope. “One frontier issue is whether the commander-in-chief authority gives the president the power to override the Constitution,” he said, specifically “whether or not the president can authorize torture that may offend the Constitution, wiretap American citizens, and suspend habeas corpus.”

Christopher and former Secretary of State Jim Baker are heading a new National War Powers Commission to study and resolve these issues. Planning to do something of a prospective nature, they will focus their recommendations on the 2009 Congress, seeking to bring to bear the collective judgment of both the president and a Congress traditionally reluctant to exercise the power it has under the Constitution.

“I spent most of my adult life under the dark cloud of a nuclear holocaust, a war that threatened no less than the annihilation of humanity,” said former Secretary of Defense William Perry. Now the Cold War is over, but its end did not bring about the end of history. “History is being written every day in the streets of Bagdad, in the deserts of Darfur, in the nuclear test range of North Korea, and in the nuclear laboratories of Iran.”

Perry identified four potential security threats: the danger of a nuclear terrorist attack, drifting into a new Cold War, drifting into an environmental disaster, and the danger that radical fundamentalists will gain ascendancy in the Islamic world. “There is a fundamental conflict between our need to keep nuclear bombs out of the hands of terrorists and our need to reduce carbon emissions,” he stated, for the global movement to increase nuclear power could increase terrorists’ ability to get fissile materials. “The solution must lie,” he advised, “in establishing international protocols for how nuclear plants are operated and nuclear fuel supplies are controlled.”

A complementary route is to work to reduce and then eliminate nuclear weapons. Getting to the political will to take those steps was a major objective of a January 4, 2007, Wall Street Journal op-ed, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” published by Perry, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, and conferences at Stanford. “This conference can teach us what to do,” Perry said, “what is needed is the political will to do it.”

Gi-Wook Shin, director of FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, chaired Plenary I, “Asia’s Triple Rise: How China, India, and Japan Will Shape our Future.” “While our policymakers are preoccupied with the Middle East, Asia is going to have much more impact on our future,” Shin said. Asia is experiencing a unique moment in Asian and world history. Can three great nations rise simultaneously, creating a regional architecture for stability and security? What role can the United States play?

“There are two defining characteristics of today’s world,” said J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. ambassador to China, “America’s role as the sole superpower and China’s precipitous rise to power and influence.” Roy traced China’s resource demands, military development, and global economic impact and evaluated China’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. “While we see a more powerful and prosperous China as a security threat,” he stated, “the case could be made for a more optimistic scenario in which growth creates a sizable middle class, greater global dependence, and a more open society as the fifth generation of Chinese leaders takes over, the first to mature in a period of openness to the world and the power of modern democracies.”

“The only democracy in the world with which the United States had endemically bad relations during the Cold War was India. Happily that has changed,” said Robert Blackwill, former U.S. ambassador to India. He addressed our many areas of common interest: the fight against global terrorism, energy security, a healthy global economy, and shared democratic values. Analyzing the pending civil nuclear cooperation deal, he placed India’s need for 15–20 new nuclear reactors in the context of domestic growth. Some 450 million people make less than $1.50 per day; India will not tolerate outside direction to slow growth. “The United States and India are natural allies,” he concluded.

“The India entering its seventh decade as an independent country is one that is open to the contention of ideas and interests within it and outside … wedded to the democratic pluralism that is its greatest strength and determined to fulfill the creative energies of its people. Such an India truly enjoys soft power in today’s world.” former under secretary-general of the united nations shashi tharoor“Japan has resumed a solid growth track,” said Michael H. Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Japan. The country seeks respect and wants a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, which it deserves. Japan’s economy is four times the size of China’s; Japan’s military budget is just 1 percent of GDP, yet it is the third largest in the world and the most sophisticated in Asia. Japan has the resources of a great power—huge financial reserves, modern science and technology, and enormous aid and investment flows. As Japan assumes a more robust international role, we should expect the Japanese to “hedge their bets,” he said, balancing strong U.S. ties with other nations and competing with China in pan-Asian community building efforts. Japan-U.S. relations should not be forgotten, he advised, as we focus on China and India.

Shashi Tharoor, diplomat, historian, and former U.N. under secretary-general, mused about “India’s Future as a Great Power.” Asking what makes a country a world leader, he acknowledged that India has the world’s second largest population, fourth largest military, status as a nuclear power, and the fifth largest economy. Yet a nation that cannot feed, educate, or employ its people cannot be termed a “great power,” Tharoor noted. He suggested that India’s greatest asset is its “soft power”— its liberal democracy, social and cultural diversity, and enormously popular culture. All hold important lessons. “The India entering its seventh decade as an independent country,” he said, “is open to the contentions of ideas and interests within it and outside … wedded to the democratic pluralism that is its greatest strength and determined to liberate and fulfill the creative energies of its people. Such an India truly enjoys soft power in today’s world.”

Lynn Eden, associate director for research at CISAC, chaired Plenary II, “Critical Connections: Faces of Security in the 21st Century,” examining security risks posed by Iraq, nuclear weapons, and food security and the environment—issues, she noted, “that are also central themes of the Stanford International Initiative: improving governance, pursuing security, and advancing human well-being.”

“There are now multiple indications that conditions on the ground in Iraq have improved quite substantially,” said Hoover Institution denior fellow and CDDRL faculty member Larry Diamond. Violence is down and there is a return to something approaching normalcy, as a result of the 30,000 “surge” in U.S. troops and a more effective counterinsurgency strategy adopted by General David Petraeus. The new military-sized force and strategy come at a propitious moment, when the Sunni Arab heartland has turned against Al Qaeda. As Al Qaeda has been weakened, fear, fatal bombings, and Iraqi and U.S. fatalities have declined significantly. The problem is that strategic military gains have not been matched with requisite political progress: enacting an oil revenue sharing bill, reversing de-Baathification, and scheduling provincial elections. “The harsh fact is that military progress on the ground is not sustainable,” warned Diamond, “without political progress toward reconciliation in Bagdad and the provinces.”

“As Americans, we have not thought systematically about what it means when we use the phrase ‘Islamic fundamentalism.’ We tend to treat it holistically. If we are going to understand this threat, we have to disaggregate that big thing called ‘the Muslim world’—we have to know the difference between Islamic fundamentalist, Islamist, and liberal Muslims.” acting fsi director and political science professor michael a. mcfaulAssessing nuclear proliferation, CISAC Co-Director Scott D. Sagan said, “In 1963, John F. Kennedy famously relayed his nuclear nightmare that by the 1970s there might be 15–20 nuclear weapons states. Was Kennedy’s fear inaccurate or only premature?” Today there are nine nuclear states, but the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is cracked and challenges abound. The A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan exported nuclear technology to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. North Korea withdrew from the NPT and conducted a 2006 test, before agreeing to dismantle its nuclear program. Iran has rejected international demands to suspend uranium enrichment. The United States has not lived up to its NPT commitment to work toward eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. For Sagan, keys to nonproliferation include a successful U.N. 2010 NPT Review Conference, peaceful resolution of the North Korean and Iranian crises, developing control of the international fuel cycle, and American ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Turning to human security, Rosamond L. Naylor, the Julie Wrigley Senior Fellow at FSI and the Woods Institute for the Environment, reported that 1 billion people face acute risks every day from hunger, infectious disease, resource depletion, climate change, and civil conflict. Incredibly, 15 percent of the world’s population lives on less than $1 per day and 50 percent live on less than $2 a day. Three billion people are vulnerable to disruptions in food prices because of competing biofuels and climate change. While terrorism kills 3,000 people each year and battle deaths claim 20,000, more than 6–8 million people die every year from hunger and malnutrition. “What can be done?” asked Naylor. We urgently need to conserve our genetic crop resources and invest in rural development, agriculture, and education.

Gilles Kepel, professor and chair, Middle East and Mediterranean Studies, at Sciences Po, delivered the dinner keynote, “Islamic Fundamentalism: On the Rise or the Decline?” “As Americans we have not thought systematically about what it means when we use the phrase ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” said Acting FSI Director Michael McFaul. “If we are going to understand this threat, we have to disaggregate that big thing called ‘the Muslim world’—we have to know the difference between Islamic fundamentalist, Islamist, and liberal Muslims.” Gilles Kepel, a leading author and scholar of the Middle East, who has “invested tremendously in the study of Islam,” was invited to fill that void. “When it comes to understanding Islamic fundamentalism, Paris is the 21st century,” said McFaul. “I see it as a real challenge to all of us to learn from our French colleagues, and tonight I promise you, you will learn from one of our French colleagues.”

In a December 2001 manifesto, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s mentor and Al Qaeda ideologue, admitted Islamic jihadists had failed to mobilize the masses to overthrow their corrupt rulers, “the nearby enemy,” and establish Islamic states, Kepel began. By inflicting a massive blow on 9/11 on “the far enemy,” the United States, they would demonstrate that America was weak, Islamic militants were strong, and the masses could revolt against their leaders without fear. The Muslim world and then the whole world would become ruled by Shariah under Islamist aegis. Kepel then asked, “Have they succeeded in what they set out to do?”

“After 9/11, we had a clash of two grand narratives: ‘jihad and martyrdom’ where the apostate regimes of the West and the Middle East were about to fall and ‘the War on Terror’ in which the roots of terrorism would be eradicated and autocratic regimes would tumble, bringing about democracy and a transformation of the Middle East.” professor gilles kepel, institute of political studies, parisKepel’s answer was no. Since 9/11, he said, “There have been two grand narratives: the narrative of jihad and martyrdom preached by Zawahiri and bin Laden, arguing that the rotten regimes of the West and the Middle East would fall, as jihadists waged copy-cat bombings in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, suicide operations, and so forth” and “the narrative of the American-led War on Terror,” hammering that the roots of terrorism would be eradicated and autocratic regimes would tumble, bringing about democracy and the transformation of the Middle East.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq opened a new area for radical Islamic mobilization. But the two clashing narratives gave ground to something unexpected: the rise of Iranian influence in the region and “a golden opportunity not for Sunni Islamic fundamentalists but for the radical Shia in Iran,” who after the 2005 election of President Ahmadinejad found they could engage in nuclear blackmail with the world and threaten the United States with the activation of Shiite militias in Iraq, where American forces would be at a disadvantage fighting two enemies at the same time.

While Zawahiri continues to paint the “triumphal march of Sunni fundamentalism,” Kepel stated, “the discrepancy between his world view and reality is growing bigger and bigger.” To date, the bigger winner from 9/11 is not Al Qaeda but the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran and Hezbollah have become the heroes and champions of the Muslim world. This fragmentation in the Muslim world, pitting Shia against Sunni, has weakened the Sunni radical movements’ ability to mobilize. How the confrontation plays out, he concluded, will determine the future of the Middle East.

POWER AND PROSPERITY: NEW DYNAMICS, NEW DILEMAS

INTERACTIVE PANEL DISCUSSIONS ON CRITICAL ISSUES
In an FSI conference highlight, participants engaged in spirited debate on leading issues with Stanford faculty and outside experts. Audio recordings of the plenary and panel discussions are available below.

IS DEMOCRACY GOOD FOR HEALTH?
Alan M. Garber, Grant Miller, Douglas K. Owens, and Paul H. Wise

NUCLEAR POWER WITHOUT NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION?
Scott D. Sagan, David G. Victor, Robert Rosner, and Siegfried S. Hecker

A CHANGING CONTINENT? OPPERTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR EUROPEAN UNION EXPANSION
Katherine Jolluck, Mark Leonard, Monica Macovei, and Wolfgang Münchau

GROWING PAINS - GROWTH AND TENISIONS IN CHINA
Andrew G. Walder, Jean C. Oi, Scott Rozelle, and Xueguang Zhou

AUTOCRATIC HEGEMONS AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST: DEALING WITH CHINA, IRAN, AND RUSSIA
Kathryn Stoner, Larry Diamond, Michael A. McFaul, and Abbas Milani

FOOD SECURITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND CIVIL CONFLICTf
Rosamond L. Naylor, David Lobell, and Edward A. Miguel

FACES OF ENGERY SECURITY
David G. Victor, Bryan J. Hannegan, and Chris Mottershead

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THE MIDDLE EAST
Allen S. Weiner, Byron Bland, Bruce Jones, and Lee D. Ross

Larry Diamond—Hoover Institution senior fellow, CDDRL democracy program coordinator, and former senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq—has just discussed causes and consequences of corruption and international efforts to control it with a room full of visiting fellows. This is not just a group of learned political scientists, however, and Diamond does not hesitate to follow a sophisticated piece of analysis with a hard-nosed, view-from-the-ground assessment. He has, for instance, just told the fellows what he thinks of a major development institution. (“I think the World Bank needs to be ripped apart and fundamentally restructured.”) He has extended the concept of a “resource curse” to include not just oil but also international assistance. (“In many countries, aid is like oil; it’s used for outside rents.”) He has recommended that institutions learn the “dance of conditionality” and exercise selectivity, choosing countries to invest in based on demonstrated performance. But the 27 fellows around the table know a thing or two about corruption. Most of them face it in their home countries; many of them have made fighting it part of their work. And almost all of their hands go up to tell Diamond that there is something he missed, or something he got right.

This year’s 27 Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development—outstanding civic, political, and economic leaders from developing democracies—were selected from more than 500 applicants to take part in the program, which FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted July 30–August 17, 2007. They traveled to Stanford from 22 countries in transition, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And like their academic curriculum during the three-week program, which examines linkages among democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, their professional experiences and fields of study center on these three areas, assuring that each fellow brings a seasoned perspective to the program’s discussions.

“Should the United States promote democracy? Can the United States promote democracy?” The curriculum for the first week focused on defining the concepts of “democracy,” “development,” and the “rule of law” and identifying institutions that support democratic and market development. Using selected articles and book chapters as starting points for discussion, CDDRL Director Michael A. McFaul and Marc Plattner, National Endowment for Democracy vice-president for research and studies, began the weeklong module with an examination of what democracy is and what definition or definitions might apply to distinguish electoral democracy, liberal democracy, and competitive authoritarianism. Another question discussed was whether there was such a thing as Islamic democracy, Asian democracy, Russian democracy, or American democracy.

Faculty including Diamond, CDDRL associate director for research Kathryn Stoner, Stanford president emeritus and constitutional law scholar Gerhard Casper, Stanford Law School lecturer Erik Jensen, and economists Avner Greif and Seema Jayachandran “team-taught” individual sessions as the week progressed. Fellows and faculty discussed how to define and measure development, the role and rule of law in societies, how legal systems affect democratic development, constitutionalism, electoral systems, parliamentary versus presidential systems, horizontal accountability, and market development. Fellows worked in groups to discuss and present their conclusions about an issue to their colleagues, comparing experiences and sharing insights into how well political parties and parliaments constrained executive power and how civil society organizations contributed to democratic consolidation.

In addition to discussing their personal experiences with democracy promotion, economic development, and legal reform, fellows met with a broad range of practitioners, including USAID deputy director Maria Rendon Labadan, National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman, U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, IREX president Mark Pomar, Freedom House chairman and International Center on Nonviolent Conflict founding chair Peter Ackerman, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict president Jack DuVall, The Orange Revolution documentary filmmaker Steve York, and government affairs attorney Patrick Shannon. Guest speakers talked about their fieldwork, offered practical advice, and answered fellows’ questions.

This component grounded the classroom discussions in a practical context. “It was important for our visiting fellows to interact with American practitioners, both to learn about innovative techniques for improving democracy practices but also to hear about frustrations and failures that Americans also face in working to make democracy and democracy promotion work more effectively,” explained McFaul. “We Americans do not have all the answers and have much to learn from interaction with those in the trenches working to improve governance in their countries.”

As the program’s curriculum shifted to democratic and economic transitions for week two, McFaul and Stoner-Weiss balanced the structure of the classroom with guest lecturers, a documentary film premiere, and field trips to Google headquarters and San Francisco media organizations to put into practical context the components discussed theoretically in the classroom. The field trip to San Francisco included a session with KQED Forum executive producer Raul Ramirez, a briefing with the editorial board at the San Francisco Chronicle, and a discussion of links between violence against women and children and poverty, health, and security at the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

“We are building an extraordinary community of democratic activists and officials who have a deeper understanding of the types of institutions that secure freedom, control corruption, and foster sustainable development.” The third week’s curriculum looked at international and domestic efforts to promote democracy, development, and the rule of law. This integrative module drew on the teaching caliber of Stephen D. Krasner (FSI senior fellow), Peter B. Henry (Graduate School of Business), Allen S. Weiner and Helen Stacy (Stanford Law School), and Nicholas Hope (Stanford Center for International Development) as well as Casper, Jensen, McFaul, and Stoner-Weiss. Through case studies and, in particular, comparison of successes and failures in the fellows’ own experiences, faculty and fellows explored and assessed international strategies for promoting rule of law, reconciliation of past human rights abuses, democracy, and good governance. The discussions, occasionally contentious, circled in on a set of central questions: Should the United States promote democracy? Can the United States promote democracy? What are the links between democracy and increasing the rule of law, controlling corruption, rebuilding societies shattered by massive human rights violations, and promoting good governance?

Despite the intellectual rigor of the coursework and discussion, and the exploration of practical applicability with guest speakers and field trips, the Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program was designed as much to stimulate connections among field practitioners and to provide a forum in which to exchange ideas. “Through the summer fellows program, we are building an extraordinary community of democratic activists and officials who have a deeper understanding of the types of institutions that secure freedom, control corruption, and foster sustainable development, and who are keeping in touch with us and with one another,” said Diamond. “When I meet our ‘alumni’ fellows in subsequent years, they speak movingly of the bonds they formed and the insights they gained in these three fast-paced weeks.”

To ensure they fulfill their goal of building a small but robust global network of civic activist and policymakers in developing countries, CDDRL launched a Summer Fellows Program Alumni Newsletter. The newsletter is based on an interactive website that will allow the center to strengthen its network of leaders and civic activists and facilitate more groundbreaking policy analysis across academic fields and geographic regions, the results of which will be promptly fed back to its activist alumni in a virtual loop of scholarship and policymaking. “We envision the creation of an international network of emerging political and civic leaders in countries in transition,” said Stoner-Weiss, “who can share experiences and solutions to the very similar problems they and their countries face.”

 

SSFDD ALUMNI FOCUS: VIOLET GONDA
A producer and pre s ent er for SW Radio Africa (London), Violet Gonda was a Stanford Summer Fellow on Democracy and Development in 2006, the same year her station was named the International Station of the Year by the Association of International Broadcasters. "CDDRL brings together a cross-section of people from different backgrounds, different careers," Gonda said. "Politicians, lawyers, activists ... all in the same room. It is an amazing group of people."

Banned from returning to her home country because of her journalism work at the radio station-"we are welcome in Zimbabwe but only in the prisons"-Gonda "literally eat[s], breathe[s], and dream[s] Zimbabwe." The summer fellows program, she said, gave her a broad perspective on what's going on in other countries; "it is so intensive ... you can really compare and contrast democracy on every continent." One thing Gonda found is that "when you look at these leaders, you'd think they all were born of the same mother ... and the ways people respond to these crises are the same."

Gonda had such a positive experience at Stanford that she decided to apply for, and was accepted to, the prestigious John S. Knight Fellowships for journalists for the academic year 2007-08. "It's always been Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe," she said. "Now I finally have time to sit down and read a book, write an article, go to seminars, sharpen my skills." She is not exactly sitting still however. In December she gave a presentation on Zimbabwe's political situation for the Center on African Studies, and will also be discussing Zimbabwe at the Palo Alto Rotary Club and the Bechtel International Center. "Media in America does not have a lot of international news, particularly on Africa," Gonda said. "So it's a good opportunity to talk about Zimbabwe, and I will take advantage of it."

She is also working on developing new content for SW Radio Africa and plans to interview FSI scholars she met through the summer fellows program so "We are building an extraordinary community of democratic activists and officials who have a deeper understanding of the types of institutions that secure freedom, control corruption, and foster sustainable development." that Zimbabweans can understand what is going on in different countries. Close contact with program alumni means that she has friends and colleagues in other parts of that world who can be called on for their perspective on situations. While SW Radio Africa's mission is "to record and to expose" developments in Zimbabwe, Gonda explained, "it's good to compare, to show people we are not alone, that this is happening elsewhere."