education | Normative Narratives

January 26, 2015
by bzupnick 3 Comments

Economic Outlook: Business Tax Reform is a Social Justice Issue

Since President Obama’s SOTU address, the term “middle class economics” has penetrated mainstream political discourse. These were not all new ideas, but rather a catchy phrase to sum up the priorities of the Obama administration and provide direction for the Democratic party going forward.

Of course, in a functioning democracy, broad based growth is not (or should not be) a partisan position. A recent NYT news analysis article highlighted how the G.O.P. has, in recent years, attempted to re-brand itself to be more appealing to low and middle class Americans (i.e. engage in “middle class economics”).

One potential avenue for such re-branding is compromising on a long overdue overhaul of the American tax system (the last major overhaul was in 1986). According to a recent Al Jazeera America poll, a majority of self-proclaimed Democrats (79%) and Republicans (68%) are “somewhat” or “very” willing to have their congressional leaders compromise on taxes.

Fortunately, bipartisan support for tax reform is not limited to the general public. Both the Democratic party and the G.O.P. have powerful voices in the Federal Executive and Legislative branches (respectively) advocating for compromise on tax reform:

G.O.P Stance:

“Though there are disagreements on the details, there is bipartisan support for tax reform in Congress,” said Orrin Hatch, Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, at a conference for tax lawyers, analysts and economists.

“Members of both parties have expressed their support for a tax overhaul. And, I believe there is real momentum to get something done on tax reform this year, if we remain committed. And, believe me, I’m committed,” he said.

The U.S. tax code has not been overhauled thoroughly in 28 years. In that time it has become riddled with loopholes. As a result, tax avoidance is a growing problem.

At the same time, tax experts also generally agree that the system is so complex and often contradictory that compliance costs are excessive and economic productivity is harmed.

Hatch has laid out basic principles for reform. At the conference, he said he has the impression that Democratic President Barack Obama might be willing to do a deal on business tax reform alone, setting aside individual income tax issues.

“We need to lower corporate tax rates and transition toward a territorial tax system,” Hatch said. A territorial system is one that would exempt all or most of the foreign profits of U.S. corporations from the corporate income tax.

Democratic Party Stance:

Let me (Secretary of Treasury Jacob Lew) say at the outset that our entire federal tax code needs to be overhauled. It has been almost 30 years since we last rewrote it, and since then, the tax system has become heavily burdened by loopholes and inefficiencies

I continue to believe that the best way to achieve reform today is to start with pro-growth business tax reform that protects and strengthens the middle class, lowers rates, simplifies the system, levels the playing field, and eliminates unfair and inefficient loopholes.

The fact is, there is a growing bipartisan consensus in Washington on how to achieve business tax reform, and we have a unique opportunity now to get this done.

On paper, we have one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world, but in practice, there is a wide disparity in effective corporate tax rates. Some corporations pay little or no income tax at all, while others pay the highest rate in the developed world.

Moreover, our business tax system is far too complicated — particularly for small businesses. One estimate suggests that a small business, on average, devotes hundreds of hours plus spends thousands of dollars, to comply with the tax code. We can and must reduce this burden.

Our business tax system actually skews business decisions in ways that make it harder for the economy to grow. Too many investment decisions are shaped by tax considerations when they should be driven by what will best enhance productivity and growth. Our tax code should favor the best businesses that create the most economic value — not those that are best at taking advantage of tax deductions.

The international tax system is often looked at in terms of either what is known as a territorial system, in which a company located in a particular country only pays taxes on income earned in that country, or a system like that of the United States, in which that company must pay tax on worldwide income, regardless of the country where it is earned. The President’s proposal strikes a sensible balance, and would move us towards a more hybrid system. What that means is we would create a new minimum tax on foreign earnings and make it simpler for a business to bring income back to the United States. It would also tighten the rules so that companies cannot use accounting techniques to avoid paying taxes, such as shifting profits to low-tax countries (inversions).

Of course, there are tax expenditures that make sense and that need to be protected — like the New Markets Tax Credit, expensing for small businesses, and the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit. But these tax incentives cost money and need to be paid for to maintain adequate revenue levels. And we cannot apply a double standard, as some have proposed, where we permanently extend business provisions without paying for them, without permanently extending critical improvements to the EITC, child tax credit, and college credits that help working families at the same time.

Secretary Lew laid out the five pillars of the administration’s proposal for a new business tax system:

1. Lower rates and close wasteful loopholes.
2. Build on the resurgence of manufacturing in the United States.
3. Reform the international tax rules that encourage companies to shift income and investment overseas.
4. Simplify and reduce taxes for small businesses.
5. Fix “our broken tax code and increase investment in a way that maintains current revenues.”

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Sounds like both parties want many of the same things.

However, “revenue neutral” business tax reform does not go far enough. Looking at the Federal OMBs Historic Tables (p34-35) tells the story. Since 1934, individual income taxes have consistently made up 40+% of government receipts, while corporate income taxes have varied from as high as 30% to around 10% of receipts in recent years.

True this declining share is partially due to rising Social Security taxes, but since those are split evenly between employers and employees, it is clear that the burden of financing our government has shifted from corporations to people and small businesses. Looking at contributions as a % of GDP (p36-37) further supports this narrative.

These meager contributions by corporations are symptoms of an outdated and unfair tax code, and should not be enshrined in a new one.

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Lower tax receipts skew the debate over how to invest in America and her people. Operating from a position of high debt and primary deficit, it is easy to drum up fears that accommodative economic policies will result in rising borrowing costs, ballooning deficits, and [hyper]inflation (despite the fact that America is facing the opposite–historically low borrowing costs, a shrinking deficit, and a very strong dollar).

Implementing business tax reforms would help push America into primary surplus, changing the context of this national debate.

I do not claim to know the exact amount or proper allocation of resources between public goods (education, infrastructure) and welfare programs needed to achieve greater “equality of opportunity” / social mobility. But I can say with confidence that more resources need to go to these causes, as the status-quo has long failed the vast majority of Americans.

The sooner we can have a clear-eyed debate on what policies are needed to promote broad based, sustainable American growth, the better. Holding back this debate, aside from uncompromising politicians, is a failure to overhaul our tax code.

In the interest of balance, work also needs to be done on individual tax reform, to fix high marginal tax rates affecting people who benefit from welfare programs. However, the importance of this issue has been, in my opinion, overblown by those on the political right.

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Lastly, the Congressional Budget Office’s use of “dynamic scoring”, as it as been pushed through by the G.O.P. dominated congress (using it for tax proposals but not for spending bills) is another impediment to achieving social justice through tax reform and fiscal policy.

Van Hollen (D-MD) added that while the bill requires the CBO to run dynamic analyses on major bills, it specifically excludes appropriations bills. He said that exemption shows that Republicans want to downplay how federal spending on education, infrastructure and other areas can also help the economy.

Ryan replied by saying that exemption is there because subjecting all spending bills to dynamic scoring would create significantly more work for the budget office. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) proposed an amendment to include major spending bills, but the House rejected it 182-214.

Ryan’s argument is unfounded and offensive to the talented people employed by the CBO. It is a weak attempt to defend wealthy interests, while downplaying the awesome potential of the American people.

Ideally, this method would be implemented for both tax and spending proposals. If that is not possible, dynamic scoring should not be used at all.

July 17, 2014
by bzupnick 2 Comments

Economic Outlook: Malnutrition and Sanitation in India

Original article:

So why was Vivek malnourished?

It is a question being asked about children across India, where a long economic boom has done little to reduce the vast number of children who are malnourished and stunted, leaving them with mental and physical deficits that will haunt them their entire lives. Now, an emerging body of scientific studies suggest that Vivek and many of the 162 million other children under the age of 5 in the world who are malnourished are suffering less a lack of food than poor sanitation.

Like almost everyone else in their village, Vivek and his family have no toilet, and the district where they live has the highest concentration of people who defecate outdoors. As a result, children are exposed to a bacterial brew that often sickens them, leaving them unable to attain a healthy body weight no matter how much food they eat.

“These children’s bodies divert energy and nutrients away from growth and brain development to prioritize infection-fighting survival,” said Jean Humphrey, a professor of human nutrition at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “When this happens during the first two years of life, children become stunted. What’s particularly disturbing is that the lost height and intelligence are permanent.”

“Our realization about the connection between stunting and sanitation is just emerging,” said Sue Coates, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene at Unicef India. “At this point, it is still just an hypothesis, but it is an incredibly exciting and important one because of its potential impact.”

Half of India’s population, or at least 620 million people, defecate outdoors. And while this share has declined slightly in the past decade, an analysis of census data shows that rapid population growth has meant that most Indians are being exposed to more human waste than ever before.

Other developing countries have made huge strides in improving sanitation. Just 1 percent of Chinese and 3 percent of Bangladeshis relieve themselves outside compared with half of Indians. Attitudes may be just as important as access to toilets. Constructing and maintaining tens of millions of toilets in India would cost untold billions, a price many voters see no need to pay — a recent survey found that many people prefer going to the bathroom outside.

One analysis found that government spending on toilets pays for itself in increased tax receipts from greater productivity, but the math works only if every member of a family who gets a toilet uses it.

“We need a cultural revolution in this country to completely change people’s attitudes toward sanitation and hygiene,” said Jairam Ramesh, an economist and former sanitation minister.

India now spends about $26 billion annually on food and jobs programs, and less than $400 million on improving sanitation — a ratio of more than 60 to 1.

The present research on gut diseases in children has focused on a condition resulting from repeated bacterial infections that flatten intestinal linings, reducing by a third the ability to absorb nutrients. A recent study of starving children found that they lacked the crucial gut bacteria needed to digest food.

Just building more toilets, however, may not be enough to save India’s children.

Phool Mati lives in a neighborhood in Varanasi with 12 public toilets, but her 1-year-old grandson, Sandeep, is nonetheless severely malnourished. His mother tries to feed him lentils, milk and other foods as often as she can, but Sandeep is rarely hungry because he is so often sick, Ms. Mati said.

“We all use the bathroom,” she said.

The effluent pipe that served the bathroom building is often clogged. Raw sewage seeps into an adjoining Hindu temple, and, during the monsoon season, it flooded the neighborhood’s homes. The matron of the toilet facility charges two rupees for each use, so most children relieve themselves directly into open drains that run along a central walkway.

Much of the city’s drinking water comes from the river, and half of Indian households drink from contaminated supplies.

“India’s problems are bigger than just open defecation and a lack of toilets,” Dr. Laxminarayan said.

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When determining the efficacy of social programs, one must consider both supply and demand side factors:

Supply Side — Investment in public toilets, clean water / sanitation infrastructure.

Demand Side — People in India do not seem to think funding for sanitation is a priority. An Educational / media / social media campaign to increase demand is required alongside greater investment (supply side). Furthermore, even a small fee can be enough to discourage toilet use when an alternative (public defecation) exists, particularly in a country such as India where extreme poverty makes such fees prohibitory to society’s most vulnerable.

My World 2015 survey results show global demand for nutritious foods and sanitation / clean water at roughly same priority level across level development / education level–this is clearly not the case in India.

In a democracy such as India, supply side impediments can sometimes be caused by (or blamed on) inadequate demand (voters do not think the issue is important). Therefore, people must be better educated about the costs of open defecation and benefits of modernized sanitation systems.

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There are temporal / necessity reasons that nutritional support receives such greater attention and resources compared to sanitation support. There is no substitute for food–without food, people die relatively quickly (typically 10-14 days). One can always defecate in public, with little immediate risk to their health (although, as the article highlights, there are real health problems and externalities associated with public defecation).

Furthermore, compared to food delivery, the upfront costs associated with sanitation infrastructure may seem very high (even if, as the article proposes, these costs “pay for themselves” in the long run). One potential solution could be the proliferation of composting toilets, which do not need to be attached to plumbing systems.

Sanitation is, of course, not a substitute for nutritious / vitamin fortified foods. Even with perfect sanitation services, people can still go hungry / be malnourished. They are compliments; investing in sanitation yields greater returns on investments in nutrition, education, etc. Public resources must more closely reflect that (reduce the 60:1 discrepancy).

For example, providing school meals has been a popular program in developing countries, meant to improve attendance rates. But the ultimate goals of education, human development and social mobility, are decidedly less effective if parasites and infections divert nutrients from cognitive / physical development towards survival.

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This article highlights a general realization in the field of development economics, the need for a context-sensitive, human rights based approach to poverty alleviation and human development.

Without taking into consideration cultural attitudes towards public defecation present in India (but not in many other developing countries), and providing a wide variety a basic services (sanitation, nutritional support, healthcare, education, etc.–a human rights based approach to development that recognizes human rights violations as interconnected), the malnutrition epidemic in India might never improve, regardless of the amount of resources dedicated to nutritional support alone.

The situation in India also presents an prime opportunity for information sharing, what those in the field of development call “South-South cooperation“. This concept is simple; by sharing experiences of what has worked (and failed) in other developing countries, a country may be able to avoid common policy mistakes (and the subsequent misallocation of scarce financial resource). At first this may seem antithetical to a context sensitive approach to human development, but it is not. While lessons learned from other countries through south-south cooperation must be amended to reflect the context of the country considering them (in this case India), this does not mean that there is not real value in the information shared through South-South cooperation.

February 6, 2014
by bzupnick 6 Comments

Economic Outlook: “Supply-Side” Issues Keep 1/3 Of Children Under-Educated

Original article:

“This learning crisis has costs not only for the future ambitions of children, but also for the current finances of Governments,” says the independent Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All,commissioned by the the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

“Around 250 million children are not learning basic skills, even though half of them have spent at least four years in school. The annual cost of this failure: around 129 billion,” it says, noting that in around a third of countries, less than 75 per cent of primary school teachers are trained according to national standards. Some 57 million children are not in school at all.

“These policy changes have a cost,” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova says in a forword. “This is why we need to see a dramatic shift in funding. Basic education is currently underfunded by $26 billion a year, while aid is continuing to decline. At this stage, Governments simply cannot afford to reduce investment in education – nor should donors step back from their funding promises. This calls for exploring new ways to fund urgent needs.”

The report notes that in 2011, around half of young children had access to pre-primary education, but in sub-Saharan Africa the share was only 18 per cent. The number of children out of school was 57 million, half of whom lived in conflict-affected countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 23 per cent of poor girls in rural areas were completing primary education by the end of the decade.

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Supply and Demand Side Impediments to Education:

My professor for Community Economic Development had an interesting way of framing development challenges. She urged the class to think about development challenges as primarily “supply-side” or “demand-side” issues.

As one would expect in a development economics course, education was a recurring topic; was the education-gap primarily a demand-side issue (are parents in the developing world not sold on the advantages of education, perhaps compared to the immediate need for income from child labor), or a supply-side issue (was it a lack of schools, roads, electricity, teachers, etc.)?

Of course, supple-side concerns can perpetuate demand-side issues. For instance, if a parent does not believe their child will receive an adequate education, they may be more inclined to send their child to work instead of school. Therefore, in instances where there is an immediate need for child-labor income, it is all the more essential to ensure that a viable alternative (adequate education) exists.

According to this UNESCO report, the education-gap is primarily a supply side issue. This is encouraging news; given adequate government funding, development aid, and accountable / transparent governance, the education-gap is not an insurmountable problem. There is not some cultural difference holding back educational goals. Given the opportunity, parents will send their children to school (as proven by inputs from “The World We Want” Post-2015 National and Thematic Consultations).

However, even “good governments” that receive development aid face fiscal constraints–notably small tax revenue bases and high borrowing costs. Therefore, these governments must consider innovate means of “stretching a dollar” of education expenditure. One idea worth considering is combining prerecorded classes (taught by an excellent teacher), with an in-person “teaching assistant” to facilitate discussion, monitor homework assignments, and answer basic questions.

Similar to using nurses / physician assistants instead of doctors in certain instances to keep healthcare costs down, using a teaching assistant would put less pressure on finding the elusive “quality teacher” (which tend to be in short-supply even in developed countries). Prerecorded classes could be translated into dialects so that traditionally marginalized groups would have access as well.

This hybrid online / in-person model is not a panacea, but it does present a reasonable substitute for quality education given supply-side constraints. It is certainly an alternative education policymakers in developing countries (and poorer areas in developed countries) should explore.

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The Role of Good Governance:

Governments should have an interest in delivering a quality education to all children. Under-education has both an immediate ($129 billion lost in global put) and future costs (the report said that ensuring an equal, quality education can increase a country’s gross domestic product per capita by 23 percent over 40 years.).

This normative stance requires a long-term and accountable outlook on governance. It is always easier (and personally beneficial) to embezzle development aid than invest in education. This is one reason why democratic governance plays such an important role in development. Governments must be made accountable to their constituents, otherwise socially beneficial policies will be foregone for personal benefits.

Furthermore, when development aid does not go to its intended recipients, it fuels anti-development-aid sentiments. People in the U.S. often argue “why do we send money abroad when we have social problems at home”? When this aid does not go where it is supposed to go (which to be fair, is fairly often), these people see their views as vindicated. Of course it is not an “either-or” situation; there is no reason why the richest nations in the world cannot reach their 0.7% of GDP aid commitment while also addressing domestic concerns. Development aid is a popular scapegoat, not only because the beneficiaries aren’t “us” but “them”, but also because people chronically overestimate the amount we spend on official development aid (ODA).

ODA should be conditional on “good-governance”, including independent oversight of aid-delivery. It is fair for those paying for the aid, and those receiving it. Any government that uses the “national sovereignty” excuse to deny independent oversight of aid-delivery should be found in violation of Article 2.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states:

“Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.”

August 22, 2013
by bzupnick 1 Comment

Transparency Report: Notification, You Have 5 Billion New FB Friends; The Human Right To Internet Access

At the beginning of my internship at the UNDP, I was lucky enough to get the chance to volunteer at and then attend the ECOSOC Partnerships forum. I was assigned to write a few blogs for the event, among a number of other blogs I have written about events at the UN which for some reason I have never shared on NN. Perhaps someday I will release the rest of the “lost UNDP blogs”, but that day is not today. Here are notes from the event Policy Dialogue: “The Changing Face of Technology and Innovation” (full blog):

The second policy dialogue at the ECOSOC youth forum focused on how technological innovations in recent years have helped bridge the “digital-divide” between developed and developing countries. While the gap has not been fully closed, partnerships between the private sector, governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups have helped identify challenges and opportunities in the developing world. By creating differentiated products at lower costs, private companies can gain access to new markets while simultaneously empowering the people in those markets.

Internet access is considered one of the great technological advances of our time. Internet access empowers people; the possibilities are constantly evolving and literally endless. It is an essential component of “E-Governance”, which includes the dissemination of information and a more inclusive and democratic government agenda-setting process. With a greater push for accountability and inclusiveness mechanisms in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, internet access, bolstered by innovations in mobile technology, has become an increasingly important tool for achieving sustainable human development.

But not enough has been done to make internet access affordable for a large portion of the world’s population. According to Mr. Tuli, 3 billion people have mobile phones but no internet access. This is not because of a lack of electricity or communication networks (as evidenced by the fact that they do have cell phones), but because they are priced out of the market. Mr. Tuli went on to call basic internet access a “human right”, to resounding applause from the hundreds of participants in the ECOSOC chamber.

While mobile technology was originally thought of as an educational tool, it has since evolved beyond that (although mobile education is still a proposed root for overcoming education deficits in Least Developed Countries (LDCs)). E-Governance can help disseminate information and promote inclusive governance, creating an enabling environment for sustainable human development. Healthcare providers can connect to information and expert advice in ways that can save lives. E-Finance can help provide capital in a much cheaper and convenient way to previously isolated groups, unlocking the entrepreneurial spirit in the developing world (and making such endeavors potentially much more profitable). Even people who are off traditional power grids (the least developed places in the world without basic infrastructure), mobile renewable energy generators and wireless internet capabilities can help bring ICTs virtually anywhere in the world.

Mobile technology penetration can be very rapid. Competition between private sector actors can drive prices down to affordable levels, and in some cases subsidies can help. Mr. Ogutu told the story of mobile phone penetration in Kenya; 5 years ago there were 20,000 users, today there are over 30 million users. This was made possible by M-Kopa, a company that utilized E-finance to provide pay-as-you-go mobile solar powered electricity to poor people who are not on a conventional power grid. Financing—secured through PPPs—allowed the founders of M-Kopa turn their vision into reality.

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The narrative on bringing internet access to the least developed areas of the world continues a few months later. Not surprisingly, behind the initiative is a large-scale public-private partnership, with publicity magnet Facebook at its core (original article):

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, announced the launch of Internet.org Wednesday, a project aimed at bringing Internet access to the 5 billion people around the world who can’t afford it. The project is the latest initiative led by global-communications giants to combat market saturation in the developed world by introducing the Internet to remote and underprivileged communities.

“The goal of Internet.org is to make Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today,” Zuckerberg said.

“There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy,” he added. “Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges.”

The project will develop lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploy Internet access in underserved communities, while reducing the amount of data required to surf the Web. Other founding partners include Samsung, Qualcomm, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia and Opera.

Facebook and other tech giants, of course, have a significant financial stake in expanding in the developing world. With tech companies reaching market saturation in the United States, countries in Latin America and Africa, for example, offer a big opportunity to attract a steady stream of new users, whose data can be mined by advertisers.

Connecting more people globally has important implications for how people organize their lives, said Patrick Meier, co-founder of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning. Social media has become a lifeline to people affected by earthquakes, floods and conflicts in the developing world, he added.

In places where the state is limited, Meier added, the Internet becomes a way to make up for services the government fails to provide. “When the state is not there, when you talk about limited statehood, you get a void,” he said.

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In addition to acting as a substitute for the state in the context of “bad governance” / conflict / crisis environments, mobile technology should be a tool utilized by the state to promote inclusive and indiscriminate human rights based governance for sustainable human development. ICT connects people, enabling social accountability (people claiming their rights) by overcoming collective action problems. There are also myriad standard of living benefits associated with bringing ICT in the developing world–micro-financing, healthcare, education, media, etc. (OK maybe I am a little biased, I want those 5 billion readers too 😛 ).

Furthermore, by utilizing open-source technology and the collective will and creativity of 5 billion people facing similar problems, innovations in one part of the developing world can be adapted to the local needs of other developing regions. This would further expedite the global development process–open-source technology should be a core feature of the global internet connectivity push.

The possibilities are literally endless, as the utility and functions of the internet continue to evolve at ever faster rates. It should also be noted that new technological capabilities in LDCs will necessitate new policies, laws and oversight mechanisms to ensure gains are shared fairly. However, since these technologies are only new to certain regions, digital accountability mechanisms already exist for these regions to build on.

I cannot stress enough how important bringing mobile ICTs to least developed countries is for sustainable human development, nor can I know how the technology will evolve in the future. Providing access to mobile information and communications technology empowers people, creating an enabling environment for a multitude of interrelated development objectives. These positive forces will naturally synergize, empowering people to challenge power-imbalances and hold powerful groups accountable for their human rights obligations.

ICTs are a natural fit for a large scale public-private-partnership (PPP). Companies can provide most of the start-up capital and technical know-how. Governments can create an education campaign about the benefits of ICTs and how to use them, while also guaranteeing companies market access and security of any capital / infrastructure installations (extremist groups will not like this idea as closing government service gaps will restrict their ability to buy goodwill and recruit new members). As ICTs help sustain the development process, new markets will emerge for communications companies to sell their products and services. This means more profits for companies, more tax revenue for governments, and a higher standard of living for people in LDCs. Not to suggest vested interests will not try to play spoiler (my regular readers by now know this is not the case), but overall a this is a win-win-win partnership.

Due to the indisputable importance of ICTs for sustainable human development, internet access should become an internationally recognized human right. Human rights obligations are primarily the responsibility of the state; in this case however, it seems that states have a willing and capable partner in the private sector. I will continue to keep the NN community up-to-date on this potentially-world-changing initiative.