Twitter has gotten more and more political as the years go on. Today, it has become the battlefield for ideological combat with much at stake. We look at what Elon Musk’s free speech platform means for global development.
Also in today’s edition: We go deep into the odd and widely differing numbers on world hunger, and behind the scenes at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.
Boss tweet
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter a couple of months back, he seems to have made it his mission to allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry back on the site regardless of why they were previously blocked. Of course, when I say Tom, Dick, and Harry, I mean Donald, Jordan, and Kathy — among others.
Although he claims his purpose is to encourage and protect free speech, many are aghast at the site’s new direction. Others, of course, are happy with the change. My colleagues Catherine Cheney and Omar Mohammed delve into the murky depths of Musk’s “digital town square” to find out what is going on.
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The $44 billion price tag paid for Twitter allowed Musk — well, sort of — to sweep into the building and fire more than half his staff, including those involved in content moderation. Let’s face it, Twitter could be a pretty nasty place before Musk took over too, but critics say his involvement has dealt a weighty blow to efforts to curb harmful content, including disinformation, hate speech, and incitement of violence.
Content moderation requires machine learning, but also human review, says Melissa Ingle, a former Twitter senior data scientist who monitored algorithms and content — one of the 4,400 employees fired by Musk.
“I don’t have Elon’s bird’s eye view of things at Twitter,” she tells Devex, adding that moderation was “far from perfect” before the takeover, but it will be even tougher now. “He has stated publicly he only wants to ban calls to violence or things that are illegal,” she says. “In my opinion, even that cannot be handled.”
Dig deeper: What the shake-up at Twitter means for global development (Pro)
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Musk mandate
Way before Musk bought Twitter, he got into a spat on the site with World Food Programme chief David Beasley after the latter noted in a CNN interview that $6 billion from the world’s richest people could address the needs of 42 million people in danger of starvation.
“If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it,” Musk tweeted. Musk never made any donation, writes Devex contributor Sophie Edwards, but the exchange highlights the confusing and often contradictory numbers surrounding how to feed the world.
Sophie questions how even the data on how many around the world are going hungry can be so gaping. The Global Report on Food Crises says 193 million people were “acutely food insecure” in 2021, WFP says the number is currently 349 million, and the United Nations report puts it at 828 million in 2021.
With those stark numbers, not even Musk’s fortune would dent world hunger — especially now.
Read more: Why are there so many different measures of food insecurity? (Pro)
Fishing for investors
Leaders from Africa are in Washington this week to drum up fresh policy ideas and partnerships at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. My colleague Adva Saldinger found herself breaking bread — in fact, it was salmon — with Rwanda’s Finance Minister Uzziel Ndagijimana, who tells her that he’s at the summit looking for investment, particularly in the agriculture sector.
Rwanda has overhauled regulations to make it more business-friendly, is building a new airport, and trying to position itself as a logistics hub, Ndagijimana tells Adva.
Adva will be at the summit all week, so stay tuned for further lunch dates — and send any tips to adva.saldinger@devex.com.
Mottley view
Low-income nations struggling to meet hefty debt payments could spiral into social unrest, Mia Mottley warned at an International Monetary Fund event yesterday.
The Barbadian prime minister has become a voice to be reckoned with among Caribbean and other vulnerable countries, especially with regard to climate change and global development finance.
“We can’t bring back a country after a social implosion in under a generation,” she cautioned, urging more debt restructuring for those under pressure. She also called on high-income nations to step up their commitments to a new IMF trust and provide long-term capital for vulnerable countries, especially on climate, writes my colleague Shabtai Gold.
Read: Mottley — rich world must 'put more into the pot' for development
Peeking at the map
World Bank chief David Malpass said a draft road map to guide the anti-poverty lender’s reform should head to the board next week. At a town hall meeting with staff yesterday, Malpass said the plan will allow the bank to focus more on so-called global public goods, especially climate.
At the same time, the embattled bank president insisted there would be no change to its focus on traditional "poverty alleviation and shared prosperity," which is at the "core" of the lender's mission, sources tell Shabtai. Malpass and the board face a Christmas deadline imposed by key shareholders.
Think big by going small
USAID Administrator Samantha Power made a commitment to have at least a quarter of the agency’s funding go to local groups by 2025.
Now she appears to have corralled a group of donor countries at the Effective Development Cooperation Summit underway in Geneva in a group declaration of support for locally led development, the first of its kind.
Read more: Samantha Power takes localization global
Experts from World Connect and Spark MicroGrants say one way to accomplish localization goals is to scale up successful models for small grants to communities and NGOs in the global south.
“We have to bin this myth that communities don't have capacity,” Frank Kasonga, the Malawi country director at World Connect, told my colleague David Ainsworth during a recent Devex Pro Live event. “In fact, they have assets and capacity that no outsider can possibly possess or bring to the table in quite the same way.”
Watch: What does effective local funding look like? (Pro)
Step by step
No. 6 in Devex Global Voices of 2022: Resolve to Save Lives’ Marine Buissonniere and Dr. Tom Frieden share reasons why The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is well positioned to take on pandemic preparedness, and the five steps it could take to maximize the likelihood of success.
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In other news
IMF has approved a $319 million loan for Rwanda to finance projects tackling climate change. [Bloomberg]
UNFPA is appealing for $1.2 billion to support 66 million women, girls, and young people in 65 crisis-affected countries. [UN News]
The International Rescue Committee has released its Emergency Watchlist report for 2023 with Somalia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan topping the list. [DW]
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About the author
Helen Murphy
Helen is an award-winning journalist and Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development in the Americas. Based in Colombia, she previously covered war, politics, financial markets, and general news for Reuters, where she headed the bureau, and for Bloomberg in Colombia and Argentina, where she witnessed the financial meltdown. She started her career in London as a reporter for Euromoney Publications before moving to Hong Kong to work for a daily newspaper.
