Seriously?! SERIOUSLY?!

A guy walked up to me on the road yesterday and said: "I hope this isn't too creepy, but I wanted to tell you I think you're cute."

Yeah, quite ridiculous!

But then again, not really. I actually wanted to tell the guy, and I would have if I'd not tried to act aloof, that I appreciate and advocate his courage to do what he felt compelled to, even if it risked embarrassment. And I do! However, the "Seriously?!" reaction does not arise from this incident but from what I've been up to the past few days. VERY incredible things that fully deserve a strong reaction!

I feel like I have learnt a lot and thought a lot and grown a lot over the past week. Its been slightly over a month that I've been here, and looking back at my Expectations for the summer, I have already achieved the 'Breakthroughs in my mind', 'Thinking critically about the work of IFIs/iNGOs', gaining contacts and carrying myself well, among many others. Again, incredible stuff!

Capstone Events
1. Oil and Mining Booms and Sustainable Development in Peru conference, co-organized by World Resources Institute (dream organization?), Bank Information Center, John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (dream grad school?), Oxfam.

2. Meeting at Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) with reps from the Treasury, US Executive Director's Office

3. Meeting at IDB with BigShots like the Vicepresident of the Andean Region, Vicepresident of IIRSA (Integrated Infrastructure for the Region of South America) etc etc. On our side were the authors of the 2 reports released at Event #1, a delegation from Peru, Vince McElhinny and Paulina Garzon (more on these 2 later)

4. Meeting with Sandra Lazarte, Latin Am Division, WWF

5. Meeting at World Bank with Juan Carlos Belausteguigoitia, Lead Environmental Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Sustainable Development Network, World Bank Group, and Transport Dude

6. The 5th Rights and Resources Initiative's (dream organization #2?) Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change, a follow-up from climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Cancun, Oslo, Bonn and a point of moving forward.

People Who Deserve Mention
1. Paulina Garzon, my boss and most accomplished yet humble lady
Former President of Acción Ecologica, Co-founder of the Center for Economic and Social Rights Ecuador, now Policy Director of Amazon Watch.

2. Vince McElhinny, Manager of Latin American Program, Bank Information Center (BIC). He basically IS civil society. He represents NGOs/civil society in meetings with Banks and IFIs and governments, and the way in which he does it is very admirable. With all likelihood of meetings with high-ranking, mostly proud & defensive people turning into confrontations, he knows how to respectfully disagree, challenge, and provoke, all in a very eloquent manner. A lot of respect to Vince, a close partner of Amazon Watch

3. Marc Dourojeanni, Professor at the National Agrarian University of La Molina, Peru, started the first Environmental Unit at the IDB, 15 years between the IDB and World Bank, author of Amazonía Peruana en 2021, now retired but very active in civil society. Part of our delegation at meetings with IDB and World Bank .. Used to be on their side, but now has obviously turned over to the good side :) Great motivator/speaker, enthusiastic, humble

4. Tim Clairs, Environmental Finance Advisor, UN-REDD, UNDP, Bureau for Development Policy
Hugh Grant lookalike!! Very charismatic, charming, iterated several times that he was open to recommendations, conversations (rare at such dialogues, even though they're called...dialogues). A fresh breath of air, I guess, after hearing the World Bank and IDB being all defensive and resistant. Of course, they're completely different types of institutions, so no fair comparison there. Well, Tim = Ouxiang! His resume includes experience with UNEP and UNDP-GEF.

Intellectually, work-wise and academically, learning curve has been very steep. New concepts, mechanisms, personalities & organizations thrown at me, each having their own complexities. I'm more sure of my interest in natural resource management, its relation to rights and how international institutions and civil society have been involved + the dynamics of this. I'm churning out ideas for my thesis/independent study senior year, gathering contacts that might be valuable for carrying out research in the US and in S. Am, and becoming a lot more enlightened about the Banks I used to have romanticized ideas about, and about the crucial position of NGOs/civil society.

Main issues that have come up/Things to think about
1. Infrastructure projects in the Peruvian Amazon: #1 Enemy, #1 destructor of the rainforest and communities who live in it, and the country as a whole because Peru depends so heavily on it.

2. REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), which is an up-and-coming mechanism that puts a value on stored carbon in standing forests, thereby promoting their conservation. Event #6 was all about REDD. Present at the Dialogue were representatives from all spheres: international institutions (UN, World Bank), US govt, govt officials (Norway, Cameroon etc), local NGOs (US & abroad), indigenous federations, academia.

3. In the Dialogue, I am SO glad the informational technology and science aspects were given some space. GIS, Remote Sensing, measuring deforestation, participatory and community mapping, the more techy/sciency part of me got super excited that I could follow everything. And not just follow- there is a pertinent and growing need for such analysis and execution, i.e. demand for me?? Thank you interdisciplinary education.

4. Transparency, accountability, ground truth, local involvement, scaling up and transferability-- common topics came up again. Sad story though: when asked for successful stories worth learning from, WB and US govt representatives had nothing to offer. Seemed pretty bleak to me

5. US Dept of State, Office of Global Climate Change rep mentioned how the US approach is the tendency to be practical, such that it is hard for them to accept broad philosophical statements because it looks for real steps it can take. Which is true and points accurately to the fact that language is such an easily manipulable thing.

6. The complexity of civil society involvement. Which NGOs should be given the voice, Who is the best representative of indigenous communities? This question was posed by a US govt person, to which an indigenous person retorted, more or less: We have been organizing ourselves since a long time ago and are perfectly capable of doing so. Just as complex international organizations have a structure, so have we been able to select our own leaders. Another lady brought up the importance of not seeing 'community' as a homogenous unit, which is indeed the tendency when thinking about actors. Within community there is great disparity- women are silenced, community leaders may not represent all opinions of the community fairly.

7. There is a weird national-international dynamic. National governments obviously fail sometimes, producing failed states, to which the response is often: the international community should step in and.. put pressure on the state, or put in place a universal instrument that states can comply to and work towards. At the same time, the international community is way beyond being able to control national processes, international agreements are mostly voluntary, and even when countries ratify them they don't necessarily adhere (read: Peru and the Universal Declaration of Indigenous Rights).

I am elated to find myself at the very heart of the REDD conversation. Suddenly so much attention is being paid to natural resources (like Spears said, after pushing this topic for decades, there is suddenly so much $ available to protect the forests and they don't know where to strategically put it), and the next few years will see the take-off of REDD all over the world. Common vocabulary in such discussions also now include: safeguards, rights-based approach, participation, transparency, accountability etc, concepts that were completely absent just a few years ago- this is a huge advancement! Seems like the world's social consciousness has been awakened; what an opportune time to be an advocate in this field.