You could say that dad The Economist's Norman Macrae learnt economics and tech's most exciting future purposes more from Bay of Bengal than any one other natural resource- even when Von Neumann asked norman to survey over 6 decades - what can humans unite with 100 times more tech per decade, Norman never forgot to apply that to Bengali GPS as much as more illustrious spaces such as advice now King Charles and Japan wanted to share or ideas that President Kennedy endorsed

Q&A (especially on 16 mapping/learning trips to Bangladesh) welcome chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk

Dad spent his last days as teen navigating airplanes allied bomber command stationed in burma; so evet flight improved his mind's maps of the coastal belts of the indian subcontinent, se asia down to singapore, chinese mainland over which Japan as war time enemy might fly direct. During downtime between sorties, his desert island textbook was adam smith's moral sentiments; fast forward 65 years his last public birthday in 2008 at London's royal automobile club St hames 5 minutes walk from Economist building and the palace was guested by Muhammad Yunus- 2000 of whose social business books and 10000 dvd interview with his founders Macrae's family gave to youth to help us design the curriculum of 1billiongirle.com who with the same number of boys built quarter of the world's human development - partnering in the deepest solutions of ending village poverty 20219-1970; it tunbed out to be a game of 2 halves- until late 1990s with no electricity grids so networking only by word of mouth and printed pper; then with solar and mobile launching the most extraordinary digital cooperations which in the last 4 years of Fazle Abed life time also became the origin of UN2 digital roadmapping

who were the billion girls- basically mothers to village famili9es in the tropics across the continent either inland or without access to trading ports; they were the unintended historical victims primarily of british, dutch and japanese empires; perhaps that was why even muhmamad yunus would not have enlivened the world's conscience with out Fazle Abed, 12 year an oilman fir royal dutch shell before 1970 on dedicating half a century to supporting women end poverty; although the predigital cooperations of abed were all tested in 100000 person village communities in bangladesh - knowhow was shared with tropical china; it was bangladesh that invented how village mothers could prevent infant deaths from diarrhea - oral rehydration which Unicef James Grant open sourced everywhere- the chinese in gratitude gave bangladesh the best rice crop science (originated by Borlaug alumni from 1950s) for small female farmers to turn into microfranchise businesses; as Abed would say in tropical villages the deepest data/solutions/ scaling replications are not defined by national border or creed but by mother natures coons

what changed the games of billion women empowernent were solar and mobile- now tech's deepest partners could be sought out- abed started the 21st C with the magical idea - a university for all women to  share sdg solutions continuing with the most extremely challenging ones Bangladesh village mothers now discussed through all ages of education- as well as building business solutions, changing eveyone's life as both student and teacher was abed's interpretation of paulo freire and indeed all servant leaders- you can choose from the 30 most exciting cooperations pre-digital and digital womens world has ever co-create at www.abedmooc.com

Before fazle abed - probably 90% of Aid to former british colonies compounded little growth of the peoples

In The Economist of 1970s Norman Macrae launched Entrepreneurial Revolution - a hunt for leaders who designed systems that saved humans from overgovernment or big corporate4s only designed to serve the richest

By father's death in 2010, Sir Fazle Abed was clearly the leader of the ER Hall of Fame 

2022 happy 77 to UN- chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk writes- my purpose is not to argue over 90%- I just feel that you might have hoped every country in Africa was doing much better for and by all of its peoples - here are some clues from my father's 1984 review- you can also download the whole of the book dad and I wrote in 1984 2025report.com - the first 5 chapters on how to help the peoples of Russian from the late 1980s break my heart today and pretty much every year of our book's update on whether there will be a sustainability generation 

EXPONENTIAL CHANGE BEYONG THE EXPERIENCE OF HUMAN RACE

Dad knew quite a lot about Budapest - in 1951 he met Von Neumann at Princeton and adopted Von Neumann's journalistic scoop - ask leaders what they will do with 100 times more tech every decade - that's a billion times more potential impact on 30 year generation- dad went on to be Von Neumann's biographer; in 2022 with von Neumann's family we hope to pilot version 0 of top 20 AI Hall of Fame - which tech wizards are most connecting under 30s with SDGs and www.teachforsdgs.com www.teachforun.com

here is a book review/ article from my father in 1984 NY Times - AID Down The Drain  

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/26/books/aid-down-the-drain.html

REVIEW: Norman Macrae, New York Times 26 Feb 1984

REALITY & RHETORIC _ Studies in the Economics of Development. By P. T. Bauer. 184 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. $15.

IN Hungary in the 1920's, when Thomas Balogh and Nicholas Kaldor were learning socialist economics at the high school attached to Budapest University, the slightly younger Peter Bauer, born in 1915, was imbibing Adam Smithism in the Skola Pia down the road. All three Budapest youths grew up to become professors of economics at Britain's senior universities, and all are now members of the House of Lords.

Lord Balogh and Lord Kaldor were principal tax and microeconomic advisers to Harold Wilson's first Labor Administration in 1964-70; the City of London wailed it was being ravaged by Magyar hordes. Lord Bauer was the first professor of economics to be ennobled by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who does not usually like professors of economics. ''Reality and Rhetoric'' is another (rather untidily updated) collection of his essays explaining how overgovernment stops poor countries from growing richer and why the only successful developers are the laissez-faire Singapores.

Most of his views are very unpopular with professional diplomats. He will not toady to third world governments, because his sympathy lies with their peoples, subjected to what he calls their despotism and kleptocracy. He regrets that international aid is maintaining African, Asian and Central American governments whose economic policies reduce their peoples' living standards by far more than international aid could ever raise them.

Thus, he says, the significant figures for Tanzania, the African country that has received the most aid, are not that its foreign aid in 1980 equaled 18.1 percent of its misreported national income but that it equaled 106.8 percent of its internal tax receipts and 152.8 percent of its export earnings. The money trickling to the people was insignificant compared with the extra tax revenues and foreign exchange put at the direct disposal of the authoritarian Tanzanian Government. During the 1970's, he says, that Government used its aid to collectivize agriculture and suppress private trading activity, with devastating effects on food and other production and distribution, helping to spread famine and uproot people from their homes. Yet President Julius Nyerere is one of the more saintly third world leaders, because he does not use his aid money to finance the heroin trade and does not give to his relations the lucrative import licenses his absurd internal economic policies require.

A similar cleanish record, except on political nepotism, is generally accorded the more democratic rulers of India, which is Asia's largest aid receiver. (In 1980, its aid equaled 1.6 percent of recorded gross national product, 16.8 percent of tax revenues and 31.2 percent of export receipts.) Yet during the 1970's, Lord Bauer points out, India used its aid to wage a war against Pakistan (another large aid recipient), build a nuclear bomb, forcibly sterilize many poor people and pursue extremely wasteful policies of import substitution and other economic controls. It also severely restricted inflows of capital, the shortage of which is the only economically logical ground for aid.

Lord Bauer does not overblame the politicians, who were serving their own self-interest in the normal way, but reserves his fury for professors of economics who have not looked at the now ample statistics of collectivism's perverse effects. His own studies show that ''commodity stabilization schemes'' do not stabilize prices but widen fluctuations in output (and probably in producers' total incomes). He also concludes that marketing boards and state cooperatives reduce the incomes of poor farmers and that computerized state planning in poor countries always has ludicrous results. Kleptocracies are the worst places in which to replace market signals by political decisions that provide more power, influence, jobs and money for civil servants, politicians and their wives. He says the culture of most of Asia and Africa has always been more authoritarian than the West's - thus less conducive to self-reliance, sustained curiosity and experiment - so it is wicked for Western economists to help extend the period of overgovernment that reinforces this disadvantage.

Free marketers who are more optimistic about third world development, including myself, believe that institutional aid should be continued through the International Monetary Fund and other lending agencies but be geared to the requirement that recipients end economic nonsenses. There is obviously no kindness in pumping more government-to- government aid money into countries whose main problems are inflation (stemming from excessive money supply), autocracy and overgovernment. But there does seem a case for not allowing balance-of-payments restraints to dictate excess restrictions in poor countries where a new entrepreneurism is struggling to breathe free. Lord Bauer opposes this view because he thinks that entrepreneurs who use cheap labor and whose activities appear to be profitable will generally get all of the rather little capital they need anyway.

Those who dispute this part of Lord Bauer's generally convincing judgment should read this book, but they may be deterred because the distinguished economist gets cross in such detail with discredited leftist academics of the 1950's and '60s. The eagle should not hunt flies.

CHANGING EDUCATION -easy if you start in the right mind space

In the new nation of Bangladesh the majority of the education system 0 to 17 was designed by for and with village mothers. It was a relentless intergenerational endeavour -once communities across this rural nation  had figured out 6 to 17 they celebrated new millennium by starting redesigning universities which needed village leapfrog models as well as celebrating last mile health innovations (world class one partnerd with Unicef James Grant whose school of public health is a crownj jewel of Brac U) - all of this may sound controversial to nations with hundred year old education systems - so lets just start with the common sense of playschools the way bangladesh's most loving mothers chose to design things - then we can debate if they got anything suboptimal for  your nation's most urgent needs

Welcome to 2020s decade of everyone is both student and teachers (this view was first explored by 1950s alumni of von neumann journalists question ask leaders what they are going to do with 100 times  more tech every decade); by the early 1980s some of these journalists wrote a book 2025report.com  on why education transformation would determine human sustainability as every kind of S in ESG encountered digital -with education needing to  empower everyone curiosity TeachFor: UN   SDGs   AI - strangely the nobel proze's neglection of education was not rectified to 2010s- there are now at least 4 world class annual gatherings celebrating worldwide teachers collaborations - its eyeopening to see how each was partly imspired by Bangaldesg and Fazle Abed - and has become the strongest of 2020s connectors of his legacy as the woorld's largest civil society partnership - which youth as sustainability generation need to change mindsets faster than government or corporate world can around such compasses as climate, borderless love of refugees, humanising AI -with such priorities as AI Pandemic - see Call for AI Hall of Fame  ...

THANKS TO KIDS 3 TO 6

Young kids teach elders love- from 3 up they are perfectly able to do this in group settings - so what do Teachers at play school need to know how to practice -more at www.abedplay.com direct from alumni of the world's first playschool MA of the SDG generation -see also Abedmooc.com tag 4.5

-a loving safe space for every being

How to be literate before leaving play school (in their sixes for kindergarten and up) 

(this only takes one term  (eg playschools next leavers) and can be group led by those kids who are already literate 21st c montessori so to speak)

Surveys of 5 yeAR olds have show wnat they find most fun - eg arts, musics - if someone has an edge at one of tehse expereintialo skills its trgaic not to have identified this and logged it up with parenst and next school

Although maths is the only subject i got aherad of the class on in 1950s i am not sure- it was to do with confidence, and seeing maths as puzzles (with a puzzle people cekbrate when you didscover the answer instead of marnking your efforts wrong)

Its good news tha basic financial literacy is already possible by age 9 thanks to the cuddiculum that srtarted at an indian orphanage and i8s now hubbed out of netherlands

Really important with playschools is make them as local as possible- no car pooling - ideally make each school closest to each 20 families with a kid 3 to 6- for example why dont mosr family aparments have a playschool- of course whats important is the teacher is independent of he apprtment iself- also you might look and see  if your place has any semi-retiring nurses - many might make good playscool leaders

What so we know about peimary?

….

While some people visited Cambridge's number 1 maths lab DAMPT to study black holes in space, I have been interested in unique purpose of leaders, organisations and networks on earth. I didnt see my father very often as he was chasing the most exciting stories linked to the scoop of meeting Von Neumann in Princeton 1951 and being told to ask decision makers what would they do with 100 times more tech a decade , a million times more a generation of 30 years. Strangely only one us president kennedy accepted that challenge moon race. I guess that made dad even more focused.  By 1983 this tech scenario was easy to conceive (dad and my book 2025report, chapter 7) but scared the heck out of dad as the first 1180 years of Glasgow's machine 1760-1940 had led to him spending hiis last days as a teenager at war allied bomber command  burma campaign  History does seem to sj=how that with new tech -there are those trying to connect good- thoise trying to connect fear and ofetn a far bigger group who are blind because the tech hides (or sunbconsciously diverts) the whole future truth Anyway a billion poorest vailege women have linked the most purposeful colaborations I expect ever to see -  Is there anything that you cant do as a partner of the most collaborative entreprebneur network bridging enviroinmental , societal and goverance challenges tell us if you need more information or if you can help with associated pilot projcets such as Neumann AI Hall of Famew Womensverse.net  or how can you help the younbger half of world be the fisrt sustainability generation

.How did Abed Collabs become world's most empowering -he changed aid across former british empire (which hab stunted growth of majority of humans especiaally Asian women); while post war aid was well intended britain had bankrupted itself as last defemce agiamst hitler- so it could declare colonies independent but not change the rotten borders and top down sysatems it had compounded changing aid started with finding the most trusted partners in solutions ro end starvation and end last mile deaths of infants and mothers- fortunately  or no cost solutions were searchable by abed who had been asia's leading young oil company engineer- the challenge was action learning networks - ironically because bangladesh had been colonised by pakistan after india the new nation's government was so poor that it could only reach the 10% who lived in the cities; so bangladesh women were freed by abed to map bottom up relief and human development - abed designed positive cash flow microfranchises wherever possible- where he sought a grant he aimed to find a partner who desperately wanted to solve the same problem - one quarter of all infants were dying in tropical villages of diarrhea- by showing the world's poorest village mothers could solve that UNICEF led by James Grant became the partner that helped design last mile health service which raised life expectancy by 20 years.   ..Abed as an engineered blueprinted deep data by hand in a way I have never seen others do manually - if you are going to chaange value chains from vailge bootom to top- you going to need to change hos value is governed witin metavilages, across all vilages, national market leaders, worldwide market (as he did for aid). Not everyone likes the idea that bottom up ESG needs to be connected across society's exchnages of food, health, sfateym education as well as finace and local  gov services. But then as we now knbow maths chaos theory is just about an amazon butterfly flappings its wings, its about cirsues like covid (or indeed abusing nature evolutionary rules on climate). If we cant design the most purspoefully colabration networking humans have ever united- we'll be the next dodo. Let's choose who we celebrate now our last chance faces us all