World Perspectives

More BRICS, Same Problems

The BRICS Group, a club of nations with the goal of tilting the international order away from the West, has invited six countries to join and make it an unhappy family of eleven. We previously noted the shortcomings of the original BRICS and the new cousins have similar genetic defects:  Argentina: Has been fiscally irresponsible and so focused on redistribution that it overlooked the importance of productivity gains. Egypt: Perennial autocratic military regime with corruption and other misdeeds keeping a third of the population in adject poverty.  Ethiopia: Domestic violence so concerning that the U.S. is providing temporary protected status for its refugees. Food is a problem too. Iran: A theocratic regime that operates outs...

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Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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