2021's Presidential Hot Topics

At tonight's presidential debate between US President Trump and former Vice President, Joe Biden, the candidates have their last chance to detail how they would meet the challenges the country will face in 2021 and beyond. What are those challenges? The Foreign Policy Association has released the following list of the global issues their groups will be discussing when they meet remotely next year. It would be interesting to see if you can check off any of these issues discussed at tonight's presidential debate. 1. The role of international organizations in a global pandemic. 2. Global supply chains and national security. 3. China and Africa. 4. Korean peninsula. 5. Persian Gulf security. 6. Brexit and the European Union. 7. The fight over the melting Arctic. 8. The end of globalization. The US presidential candidates touched on all of these topics, except the supply chain, which is complicated by moral as well as economic and political considerations: and Brexit and the EU, which is not of much interest to US voters. COVID-19 and China were discussed, but not in relation to international organizations or Africa. North Korea, with an economy crippled by sanctions and crop damage from unusually punishing typhoon rain, needs help, maybe from China, but possibly from selling weaponry to would-be nuclear states using hard-to trace cryptocurrency. The future of the oil industry discussion involved both the Persian Gulf and the effect of climate change melting in the Arctic. The future of globalization involves jobs, always a subject of US presidential debates. For information about how to engage in the Foreign Policy Association's discussion groups, go to fpa.org.

Fashion in Today's Political Climate

The political climate dictated the suit President George Washington wore to his first Inauguration. Rather than fabric imported from England, his three-piece brown suit was made of woolen broadcloth woven in the new United States. Centuries later, Dior marked the end of rationing after World War II by using yards and yards of fabric in his long, voluminous skirts.

     In today's political climate, a wide variety of elements cause heightened global concern for fashion's marketers and consumers. They are expected to pay attention to their social and environmental responsibilities. Among these concerns are: employment of marginalized workers at fair wages, working conditions, landfill waste, water consumption and chemical contamination, air pollution, energy usage, and animal welfare. To deal with these concerns, brands are developing standards they expect members of their supply chains to meet. Standards might require the use of:

• Fair labor practices outlined by the International Labour Organization
• NO restricted chemical substances, such as sunscreens that contain the oxybenzone that harms coral reefs; and NO animal fur or exotic leather
• Organic cotton and recycled materials
• Humane methods for obtaining down, fur, and wool
• Resource-conserving farming and manufacturing practices in terms of water, energy, and chemical usage

Suppliers that fail to meet supply chain standards are not used. Of course, standards are meaningless unless companies empower inspectors to monitor and confirm compliance. Also, bad publicity for any supplier in a chain reflects poorly on the final product and a consumer's willingness to buy it.

     How do consumers know if the products they purchase conform to the standards they support? Besides seeing good and bad publicity, advertising, sales promotion offers, and reviews by other consumers, shoppers check labels for such things as the percentage of recycled material used, faux fur, and which countries they prefer to make their clothes. They notice if marketers give back to the community in service and donations to charities. But they also shop for products marketed by vendors and organizations, such as: Sudara (sudara.org) Punjammies sewn in India by women rescued before they are lost to the sex trade; Combat Flip Flops (combatflipflops.com) shoes, clothing, and jewelry (made from melted unexploded ordinance-UXO) by local entrepreneurs in conflict zones; SERRV (serrv.org) and Novica (novica.com) clothing and handcrafted jewelry; and the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTOMarket.com).

     From May 21 to May 25, 2018, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition will meet in Vancouver, Canada, to urge wider use of its HiggIndex hang tags that assign numbers, the higher the better, that represent how eco-friendly garments are.

World's Water Glass: Half Full

Around the world, people who have taken to heart United Nations statistics about water, 663,000,000 people don't have access to safe drinking water and 80% of untreated human wastewater discharges into rivers and seas, are coming up with creative methods to reach the U.N.'s goal: universal access to safe, affordable water.

     Members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), which includes religious orders, are activist shareholders in key companies. At corporate meetings, they file resolutions requiring corporations to hold suppliers responsible for safe water practices, since, under the U.S. Clean Water Act, companies can be charged with criminal violations in federal courts. Tyson Foods, for example, has paid millions in fines for dumping fish-killing water from its chicken slaughtering and processing facility into a Missouri creek.

     Even if ICCR resolutions don't gain enough support for a vote at a corporate annual meeting, ICCR members meet with corporation executives directly. They successfully pressured the Campbell Soup Corporation to monitor activities in its supply chain. Farmers who fail to meet Campbell's standards for water conservation practices are no longer suppliers. In Africa and Central Asia, ICCR members help villagers who wash in polluted water where mines and tanneries dump harmful chemicals, contact executives in multinational corporations and present their cases for pressuring suppliers to treat water responsibly.

     Lack of access to drinkable water in developing countries is especially hard on the women and children who walk miles to wells each day rather than attend school or work for an income. Children also have drowned when water swept them away, while they were filling buckets in streams. Working in villages in 41 countries, including in disaster areas after earthquakes in Mexico and during the war in Syria, nongovernmental organizations, Mother's Hope and Water with Blessings, identify smart young mothers they call "water women" and educate them to share free information about hygiene and how to purify dirty water using a portable filtration system.

     Unlike India and Bangladesh, countries that worry a Chinese dam will cut off their water supply from a river that flows south from Tibet, conflict between Muslims in northern Cameroon and the Christians in the South does not prevent harmonious cooperation on OK Clean Water projects in over 50 villages. First, villagers locate an accessible source of spring water. Then, the OK Clean Water organization's partnership of unskilled workers and skilled help from a local water engineer go to work using local materials. From the top of a hill, gravity carries spring water through pipes to a large storage tank and then to faucets close to villages.

     In The House of Unexpected Sisters, the latest book in an Alexander McCall Smith series, the protagonist describes a system for watering her vegetable garden in Botswana, Africa.
     From a drain in the house, a hose pipe stretches across the dusty garden to raised vegetable beds in the back of their plot. "There the hose fed the water into an old oil drum that acted as reservoir and from which much smaller pipes led to the individual beds. The final stage in the engineering marvel was the trailing of cotton threads from a bucket suspended above the plants; water would run down this thread drop by drop to the foot of each plant's stem. No water thus fell on ground where nothing grew; every drop reached exactly the tiny patch of ground where it was needed."

     Contributions to both kiva.org and Water.org fund small loans to help villagers gain access to safe water. At kiva, for $25, individuals can choose water and sanitation projects in the regions of the world where they want to invest. Kiva gift cards are wonderful holiday stocking stuffers and birthday gifts that help students get involved in solving world problems.

     UNICEF USA (at PO Box 96964, Washington, DC 20077-7399) collects donations of:
$92     for the personal hygiene and dignity kits 2 families need in emergencies
$234   for 50,000 water tablets that purify deadly, polluted water to make it safe for a child to drink
$415   for a water hand pump that provides clean, safe drinking water for an entire community

     Wells of Life (wellsoflife.org), a nonprofit organization that builds wells in East Africa, gratefully accepts donations from those who would like to build a well dedicated to an individual or group. A member of the organization's advisory board, John Velasquez, recently dedicated his contribution for a bore hole and water well in Uganda to a Benedictine nun on her 104th birthday.

     Finally, major research projects are working on large scale government policy solutions to the world's water crisis. Based on studies, mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies have been found to help governments predict the health of streams and rivers all over the world. When these aquatic insects disappear, water is in trouble.

      As urban populations grow throughout the world and pavement covers land that used to absorb water, policies for managing both scarce water and floods become critically important. When Sao Paulo, Brazil, managed a drought by reducing pump pressure at certain times of the day, there were unintended consequences. Homes on higher elevations often had no water, while tanks serving homes in lower elevations never had a shortage. Studies showed a lack of central control over water management in Mumbai, India, gave control to plumbers who knew each area and those who had the political connections to hire them. It is no surprise to find flood conditions require government budgeting for backup energy sources to provide electricity to keep water pumps and drinking water treatment plants working.

     Water is everywhere and so are the people determined to find it, keep it clean, and manage it effectively.

   

   

What Do You Want to Be?

What are you going to be? When the contestants on "Kids Jeopardy" were asked about their career plans, none of the 10-to-12-year-olds said they wanted to work as freight forwarders, to teach English overseas, to manage the first Macy's store in Abu Dhabi, or to cover Iranian elections as a foreign correspondent. Yet, today's wise students need to think globally about their future careers. In fact, a poll conducted by John Zogby (zogbyanalytics.com) in late May, 2014, found that half of the 18-34- year-old smart phone owners expect to live and work in a foreign country at some point in their lives. Nader Luthera has launched coworktheworld.com/apply-now, which is a way to join a group that works anywhere in the world using a laptop and mobile phone.

     There are opportunities offered by professions, such as photographer (See the later blog post, "Take Your Best Shot,") that do not need foreign language translations. Opportunities involving sensors, for example, are worth exploring, since sensors already are being added to clothing to monitor a person's vital signs, and they are being used in fields to monitor a crop's need for irrigation. Nonetheless, youngsters who speak a foreign language, because they grew up with military, diplomatic, executive, and missionary parents stationed outside the United States, have an ear for foreign languages, or spent part of their academic careers in foreign countries, have additional options in what often are invisible international careers.

     It is, for example, a rare child who has been exposed to the physical distribution aspect of international trade, and, for that matter, the business of dismantling and recycling military, outmoded single-hull tankers, cruise, and other ships. And yet, working as a temp for the Matson Line in Hawaii, I found tracking containers and watching giant winches load and unload the 7,500 containers a ship could carry in those days a fascinating field of career opportunities that young people should explore. As a result of the shale oil boom in the U.S., consider how shipping sales reps need to meet the challenge of finding new customers in India and China and how transport experts need to  redirect to these new ports the tankers that used to carry crude oil from West Africa and Latin America to the U.S.

      Ups and downs in the world economy also provide careers for nimble managers. Soren Skou, chief executive of Maersk, the world's largest container shipping line, reports his industry needed to place a new focus on profit by cost cutting not gaining greater market share. Why? The world's weak economy caused projected annual growth to fall from a high of close to 10% before 2008 to 4% to 5% afterwards. Maersk's cost cutting involved making ships travel slower and scrapping older vessels to take delivery of 20 of the world's largest ships, known as Triple Es, that can carry 10% more volume.  (Maersk has denied charges of bribing a Brazilian official of state-owned Petrobras in order to gain tanker contracts.)

      Supply chain management from raw material to retailer includes job opportunities in the entire process of furnishing information; marketing; moving goods; and providing insurance, security, and other services. Consider all that is involved in the seamless transfer of goods from ship or plane to train to truck. China's COFCO Limited provides an example of a fully integrated supply chain. Through equity participation, controlling interest, alliances, and joint ventures, COFCO employs workers with 70 different nationalities in 140 locations. A new Supply and Value Chain Center at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University in Chicago is among the schools that have recognized the need to train students in the inter-related fields of transportation, distribution, and logistics. Since e-commerce marketers are finding they have to pay more attention to the process of shipping and delivering the goods customers purchase online, there new opportunities for experts in supply chain logistics throughout the world. (See the later blog post, "Problems Present Career Opportunities.")

    What if you were involved in moving cocoa beans from Ghana, Africa, to Hershey, PA, and chocolate bars on to grocery stores everywhere in the world? Maintaining a bare bones inventory would reduce costs, but a tsunami, longshoremen's strike, or any other disruption in the supply chain could wipe out the savings advantage of a just-in-time inventory. Since 95% of the world's export-import trade is carried by ships, the cost savings of using this slow mode of transportation is uncertain. Nonetheless, the Panama Canal is now being enlarged to handle the bulk of the world's ships that carry 13,000 containers. No canal can accommodate the even larger Capesize Triple E ships with a teu* capacity to carry 18,000, 20-foot containers.  How will shipping companies fill this new capacity? Young people need to explore career opportunities that involve understanding and deciding whether or not to rely on distant suppliers or move manufacturing closer to consumers.

         The logistics of moving goods and people throughout the world offers career prospects in other fields, such as livestock exports (See the blog post, "Dairy Cows on the Moove,") and the military. Gen. Colin Powell may not be available to speak about opportunities for the soldier-diplomat, but teachers and parents who organize Career Days need to seek out others who have served in the military.

     Then, there also is the need to expose young people to the experiences of those who joined the Peace Corps, invested in foreign currency (Go to my earlier blog post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market"), worked for international agencies (Check the directories for development organizations at devdir.org), handled intellectural property disputes in China, opened a Gap store in Kuwait (Go to my blog post, "The World of Fashion," for other career opportunities in the fashion field), or found a career in sports (Go to my blog post, "Wide World of Sports").

     Students need information about the competitive exams the State Department holds for college graduates who want to become Foreign Service officers like those who helped broker the Dayton Accords that ended ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Whether or not there is a Cold War or a war on terrorism, national security depends on those, especially those with foreign language skills, who choose a military career or positions at agencies such as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Finance Intelligence, or Energy's Office of Intelligence. Also, be on the lookout for opportunities in a new Technology Corps, proposed by John Zogby, pollster and co-author of The First Globals: Understanding, Managing, and Unleashing Our First Millennial Generation.

     If international economic issues interest a student, there are employment opportunities at the Agency for International Development, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, multinational companies, and firms that invest in emerging markets. Students also might consider applying for positions as UN translators and interpreters or for the limited staff openings in specialized UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization or the World Meteorological Organization.

     To find information about international employment opportunities, students should see if their libraries carry the global jobs kit published by Impact Publications in Virginia. Books in the series cover internships, graduate programs, qualifications employers expect, and application procedures. Careers in International Affairs, an Impact publication, is worth purchasing. Another source of information about international job openings and internships is the Foreign Policy Association's website, fpa.org. At FPAU.ORG, the Foreign Policy Association lists career development training sessions offered for those who want to land a position in the international field. It is a good idea for students to join LinkedIn (linkedin.com), since linkedin.com/edu has a variety of ways to help them find the schools that offer courses in line with career objectives and the top employers of other alums who have majored in given fields. For example, a survey published by linkedin.com/edu/alumni found the U.S. Department of State, various branches of the military, the United Nations, Deloitte consulting, IBM, and The World Bank were among the main employers of those who had majored in international relations and foreign affairs.

     And, again, there are the directories for development organizations listed at devdir.org. Patrick Shields, the Executive Director and CFO of Global Recruitment Specialists, recommends using these directories to look for international organizations that need people who can do what you already have experience doing.

*Teu capacity measures the number of 20-foot long, 8-feet tall and wide shipping containers that a ship can carry.