October 2010

It shouldn’t be news when a wealthy person donates money to a cause, and in many ways it isn’t. Yet, once in a while the cause is the highlight. Pierre Omydyar, founder of eBay, will through the Clinton Global Initiative invest $55-million in technology to promote government transparency and also to help people rise out of poverty. Government transparency while sometimes an issue in the U.S. is more likely to be one in many developing nations where institutions and legitimacy aren’t as settled as they are in the West. The issue of transparency is not only vital to good governance it is also important if more nations are to be able to fulfill their share in making development efforts successful. About $30-million which will be spent over three years are slated to go to organizations using technology about how people are governed and enable them to have greater say in the process. This actually continues Omydyar’s philanthropic work in the area of government transparency. The remaining $25-million will be used towards cutting edge efforts to use mobile technology to expand access to thing like banking, health care, agriculture or commerce.
Hopefully others will join in for although $55-million is a sizable sum, it is rather small if its intent is to be accomplished.

Less than a month after the demise of Lehman Brothers Iceland’s banking sector had a meltdown in September 2008. Geir Haarde the then prime minister nationalized the 3 largest banks in an effort to stabilize the situation but the Atlantic Island nation ended up with billions of dollar in debt instead. Haarde was ousted in 2009 and now Iceland’s parliament has voted to press charges against him in an effort to take a concrete step to make politicians accountable for the 2008 banking crisis and its aftermath. It is a controversial move and the measure passed by a narrow margin since some do not see this as criminal negligence. Regardless of Mr. Haarde’s case the whole issue of holding politicians accountable even in a court of law is worth pondering. Making such accountability a criminal offense does seem harsh, however. And yet it brings to mind that in the U.S. private individuals have yet to be held accountable criminally or otherwise for their role in the banking demise, though their actions had a harmful impact on many thousands. Did we go too far in the other direction?