 Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Feidell here on ThinkTech, and we're doing ThinkTech Global now today, this hour, with Keith Bettinger, who joins us by Skype, and you'll be delighted the quality of the Skype, from Bangkok, Thailand. He's our man in Bangkok. He's with USAID. He's a contractor out there, and he's doing capacity building on environmental issues. We're calling this show, what is it? Financing Climate Adaptation. Welcome to the show again, Keith. Great to have you. Thanks, Jay. It's a pleasure to be here. As always, it's nice to see everybody at ThinkTech again. Yeah, fabulous. Anyway, part of the family, you know what I mean? So tell us about USAID. Tell us about your experience, you know, in Thailand. Well, I've been over here for about two months on a one-year project, which might be extended pretty significantly after that. But what we're doing here in Bangkok and Thailand is we work for the regional development mission for Asia, and that's an arm of USAID. Normally USAID works with country missions. So, for example, Cambodia has a country mission. Myanmar, Burma has a country mission. India has a country mission. And those country missions for USAID handle most USAID programs that are run in those countries. Now, the mission that I work for, the RDMA, the Regional Development Mission for Asia, is a regional mission that covers all of Asia and even some of the Pacific. So my program that I'm working on doesn't focus specifically on one country, but rather is a regional initiative. And so we have a pretty significant geographic area that we're looking at, something like 22 or 23 countries ranging from India all the way up to Mongolia, encompassing all of the Pacific Islands and virtually every country in Southeast Asia. It's up for Thailand. And what this project does, it's a climate change adaptation project, and we call it, for short, USAID Adapt Asia Pacific Project. But the long name, I always forget the long name, but it's a project preparation facility for Asia and the Pacific. And the idea behind this is that climate change adaptation is a growing area. It's a recognized need in the world today because we're committed to some degree of climate change into the future. For example, sea level is going to be continued to rise for at least 500 years into the future. So because of greenhouse gas emissions that we've already admitted into the atmosphere, there's some level of climate change that we're definitely going to experience. And so that's what adaptation efforts are all about. So my program is a manifestation of USAID's efforts to engage with lesser developed countries on behalf of the American people. So it's a part of the United States overseas development assistance effort. So USAID is a government agency under what department? Under the State Department. So when we hear about foreign aid, that's kind of a general term or overseas development assistance. Virtually all of the foreign aid that the United States gives, that's non military, is channeled through the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. So that's a raison d'etre of that department. And the way that USAID operates is they have programs that they want to run, and they bid those programs out, and there's a number of companies out there in the private sector that specialize in doing these USAID contracts. And my company is one of these. So USAID, in most cases, does not directly implement programs, but rather they administer the programs. Let's talk about your career for a minute, because I like people to know how they could, you know, on this kind of bandwagon. It sounds like a great career to me. You were at UH before, you had some passing connection with the same program there. How did that work? And how did you get from there to Bangkok? Well, that's a good question, Jay. People, first, I started off saying that I love my job. I think I have the greatest job in the world. I'm energized every day that I do it, and I get a chance to do pretty incredible things in my mind anyway. And people are always asking me how they can get my, do what I'm doing. And it's difficult to give a formulaic answer, because I look back on my own path and see, you know how it is. Your life kind of meanders, and doors open up, and sometimes you walk through doors, and there's a lot of contingency associated with that. So I always say that I'm very, very fortunate in doing what I do. A lot of things have had to break right for me. So I've been a beneficiary of a lot of chances. But just to answer your question, I was at UH to do my PhD in geography, which is geography is interesting academic discipline because it's an integrating discipline. So in geography, if you're doing it right anyway, you kind of are becoming an expert in a lot of different things. And the mental skills that you're developing is really how to take information and take tools from a lot of different disciplines and integrate them, right? So that's kind of what I specialize in. And that's one of the things that we do in geography. So for a long time, I was a lecturer in geography. I worked at Capulani Community College and at Leeward Community College, also at UH Manoa, and was part of the community at all three of those places. But when I finished my PhD, I was was looking for kind of a more permanent, more substantial employment, because that's piecework doing lecturing at each of those at each of those at each of those institutions. So I just happened into I actually what happened, Jay, was I had I had won a pretty prestigious fellowship to do some great some some research work in Indonesia after after my after my PhD. And that was I was convinced that that was going to lead to a career in academia, because what that was going to enable me to do research and publish papers. And that's what you do to get a job in academia. Now, these days, it's really hard to get a job in academia. So that's what I needed that I needed to go out and do research work. I needed to continue to feed my CV. But then my research fellowship, the permission to do the work in Indonesia fell through. It just was not forthcoming. And so I ended up having to turn down that research fellowship. And that was for me, that was really crushing blow, because I didn't know I didn't know what I was going to do after that. Because again, to to to really maintain a career in academia, you have to have this continuity in terms of research and productivity. You have to be a productive scholar and to be a productive scholar, you have to have support. And my support just fell through. And so time, you can't lose time. Exactly. Exactly. You can't have a big gap there. So I was really in a panic to tell you the truth. And I was walking through the East West Center one day. And I saw one of my one of my mentors, one of my PhD committee members that had been and you know him very well, been a very, very important person in my professional and personal development, Dr. Kim Lowry there. And I saw him sitting in the lobby of the East West Center. And I told and I known him for a long time. I considered him a mentor at that time. And I asked him, I said, Kim, you know, my my research funding, my permission fell through and I need to do something. Do you know anybody that's looking for, you know, a hand and a hand in a research project or anything? I'll work for free. Yeah, that's just how desperate I was, Jay. I told him I would work for free. I just need to have my name on some publication. And so he said, Well, in fact, I do have a project that I'm working on. And that and he told me about this climate change adaptation curriculum for a learning curriculum for urban climate change adaptation and resilience, that these West Center under Kim's direction was developing for USA ID to help cities across Asia, the Pacific develop resilience plans, adaptation plans to recognize their most urgent needs. Now, at that time, I had a I had some pretty significant training in like climate science and like that. But in terms of adaptation, this is two and a half years ago, I didn't know very much about it. So I started I started as Kim's assistant. And very quickly, we, I demonstrate an aptitude for this type of work. And so I to make a long story short, after about a year of working for him, I was hired full time by by by the USA ID contractor to continue to develop their program. So Cam actually opened up a door for me. And so when people asked me how I can do, how can I do what you do, Keith? Well, I always point to this, this one happenstance situation where I was desperate down on my luck. And I was just walking through the East West Center, and I saw my my mentor sitting there. And that's, that's what did it for me, you know, like I said, things have to break right for you. And then, you know, you take advantage of doors that open up to you, you work hard. And if you're in, if you're in the right place at the right time, things can happen for you. Absolutely true. And so much so that I'd like to tell you a short story. I was at NYU Law School, which is on Washington Square Park, Manhattan, you know, at the foot of Fifth Avenue down down there. And I knew from high school, I knew Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, that Paul Simon. And I was just taking a break from class, but he was wandering around. And he didn't know what to do with himself. He had he had nothing going. And he said to me, you know, I'm really down on my luck. Things have not gone well since we graduated from high school and college together. And I don't know what's going to happen. I'm so he said, I'm so envious of you, you're gonna, you're gonna take law degree and all this. Next time I saw him was in Mrs. Robinson, you know, the graduate. And from that point on, it was meteoric. And it just, you know, the way it works, it just works that we little opportunities happen, and your life changes overnight. So this sounds like Paul Simon. That's right. I mean, it's not you know, I, I, I'm pretty happy about the way that things things are going. And you'll, and if you get yourself in a situation. That's a fascinating story, by the way, Jane, that's, that's pretty phenomenal. But if you get yourself in a situation, or you're lucky enough to find yourself in a situation where you're exposed to or working with people that are able to identify your skills and your talents. And you make the most of that opportunity. That's that that can make the big difference. So I've been fortunate to have supervisors or to have people working above me that were very good managers. And they were able to recognize the best aspects and qualities that I have that I can offer a team or that I can offer a project and nurture those. And also, make me feel like I was part of part of the team, part of the project and to value my contribution. Well, we're going to go to a break here. But before we do, I wanted to ask you one more question about, you know, your trajectory. And that is this, you're, you're working for a contractor who in turn is in a contract with USAID for the State Department. What kind of a career path does this mean? Is this is this the same kind? Or would you compare it, for example, to life as a PhD researcher at UH Minoa or East West Center? Or is this different? And does this offer real career possibilities going forward for you? That's a good question. Did you say we wanted to take a break or do you want me to? I'd like to know about that. Then we'll come back. Okay. That's a good question, Jay. And to answer, to answer that, it's kind of a complex answer. So the way that this works, my project is five years. And right now, my company is working on a proposal. There's, there's, we know that there's going to be a five year follow up project that does similar things. And so my company will, will, will put in a proposal for that project. My company has put in proposals for projects elsewhere. And so the way that it normally works is that once you're part of their core team of experts, of people that they, that they, that you're a known quantity. And so I will, I will like it's my choice, but I will likely be written into this bid, or to this proposal as somebody that's going to control a certain, that manages a certain part of the project. And so that, you know, in terms of, in terms of a future, if you become identified as somebody that can get the job done and can produce exemplary results, somebody that can be counted on, somebody that is a kind of forward thinking, a good problem solver, just like in any position, any, any, any, any occupation, any field, those are very, very desirable traits. And so what I do, I work very hard, I've tried to be as observant as possible to understand how this business works. And, and, and I do, I know, I know how it works. That's perfect. I know I want to take a short break. And when we come back, I'd like to find out what you do every day, Keith. We'll be right back. Please join us at St. Tech, Hawaii. My program is Asia in Review. And my next program is on November 17, Thursday, 11am. This is Johnson Choi, your host. Thank you for watching Think Tech. I'm Grace Cheng, the new host for Global Connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1pm, where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in and Aloha and thanks for watching. Aloha. My name is Richard Emory and I host Kondo Insider. We talk about issues facing the Kondo Association throughout Hawaii and talk about solutions. When you think about it, about one-third of our population lives in some form of common interest real estate. We broadcast every Thursday at 3pm. Please tune in and thank you. Aloha. Hey, here we are. We're back. We're back live again with Keith Bettinger who joined us by Skype from Thailand. He's our man in Bangkok. He's with US AID as a contractor and he's into climate change adaptation. Make that financing climate adaptation and we are very curious to know exactly what that means and what he does and how is he you know helping those countries within US AID's mission and finally and I'll ask you this later Keith, what can we learn from what he's doing for Hawaii? Anyway, tell us how you spend your day, Keith. Well, that's a good question. I have a lot of things that I do. So my project is basically given me a position and based on work that I've done in the past they have said to me, do your thing. So go do do what you do which is a very good position to be in if you know what you're doing. You don't know what you're doing not so much. But so what my job has been, like I said, I do a number of things. One is content development for capacity building activities. What is that? And so over, well over time we've identified a number of needs in developing countries in Asia Pacific when it comes to climate change adaptation. In actually doing it, implementing it, identifying the where you need to adapt, how you need to adapt, how you write up projects, how you mainstream adaptation into spatial planning processes. What is adaptation? Is adaptation... Well, adaptation is dealing with the effects, the impacts of climate change. So for example sea level rise, we know pretty definitively that the sea level is rising and will continue to rise in the future. What do you think about Hawaii, small island developing states, places in South and Southeast Asia where there's huge agglomerations of people in these low line areas and river deltas, well they're quite exposed to sea level rise. It's not just people, it's infrastructure and like that. We've got, we're experiencing changing seasons. So throughout my region, South and Southeast Asia, it's a monsoonal climate, which means that there's a wet season and there's a dry season. And most of these places are pretty heavily dependent on agriculture. They have been for thousands and thousands of years. It's a big part of the economy but it's also a big part of subsistence. So what we're starting to see is that the... And so people have adapted basically their farming patterns to this wet, dry season regime. Now what's happening in many places is that the dry season is getting longer and the wet season is getting shorter. And it's getting more erratic, the onset times. And so and on top of that you have more rainfall falling in this shorter wet season. And so if you put yourself in the position of a farmer, farmers like to be able to predict things. They like certainty, right? Their output depends on that. And so what we're seeing is all of these factors that farmers used to like to hold relatively constant seem to be changing. And so one part of adaptation then, we mentioned sea level rise, we mentioned these changing seasons, adaptation is how do we how do we help farmers deal with those changes, right? How do we help them... Equip them with the tools and the knowledge that they need not only to cope with that situation but also to continue to thrive. How do you do that? I mean what can they do and how can you help them? It sounds like it's very hard to do that. Well it is, it's extremely hard and it's very very hard to do it well because you run the risk in a lot of cases of kind of you take this piecemeal approach and you're not really you're not really uh you're not really addressing the problem holistically. So when we when we talk about the agricultural sector for example there's what we piece together a number of different things. We have changes in policy, right? That the way that people manage water, right, you can do that on the policy and some demand side measures, you can change the supply of water, you can increase irrigation, you can increase, you can change the way that people use water, drip irrigation, you can change the the the the variety of of seeds that people use so that they're they're they're more drought tolerant. There's market mechanisms that you can encourage through various policies. You can there's some infrastructural solutions but a lot of it is changing behavior by equipping farmers with better market information or better you know extension information about uh uh how to uh how to use new varieties. All of these things to taken together can can can create what I would call an adaptation portfolio for an agricultural sector in say Thailand or California. Well you got to slip into their shoes. You got to you got to understand what it is to be a farmer in that area and then look out and try to figure out how how to protect against risks that they don't know about but that you do. But one thing you mentioned I want to inquire about and that is policies. You want to change policies so as to protect them from that point of view. That means government. So you USAID, the what agency for international development, is going to be interfacing with the Thai government right? Well that's a good that's a good question. Let me let me um uh there's a point for clarification. My office is in Thailand uh it's uh but it is here because of uh I I think it's here I think it's located in Bangkok because of convenience. Okay now Thailand is not a beneficiary of USAID assistance anymore because we think we think of Thailand as having graduated from the the level of of uh of of economy of social development where that is needed. So we don't we don't work directly in Thailand but so let's use another example let's say Cambodia uh and what from from my perspective um we don't want to tell people how to govern. We don't want to tell people um what policies but rather we'd rather uh we would rather empower um them to uh uh and support their decision-making processes. Support processes that are based on based on evidence um and uh we we we want to support the ability to um to use information more effectively uh to um to develop better channels of communication with in in terms of climate change uh with those people that are most affected by by climate change. So to get back to your original question what do I do all day uh I try to figure out how to do these things and then then the second part of the second part of my job is I I work on ways to effectively communicate those lessons to people working in Cambodia and Vietnam and the Cook Islands and Vanuatu and India and Sri Lanka and all of these different countries to try to effectively communicate uh and work with them so that they can incorporate these lessons into their processes of governance. Are they receptive to you? Do they listen to you? For the most for the most part yeah for the most part with that I I I think that that's an effective approach so I'm not I'm not ever going to be in a situation where I'm telling somebody what to do you know I'm not going to be talking down to anybody uh and I and I think that that you know we have a lot of success because we are working to support people uh and countries uh and non-government organizations and governments uh we we are we are we're back stopping people we're not we're not lead you know we're not directing the show we're supporting players. Well this sounds this sounds like uh soft power American soft power. Well if you if I mean if you want to take a 30 000 foot view um sure USAID is definitely part of uh United States diplomatic efforts and uh soft power that's a term that Joseph Nye uses I think. Yes. Um and and I would I would say that yes this is a this is a soft power I am part of a broader uh soft power initiative um but I can tell you like in my day to day work that doesn't really enter into my mind uh I um I I'm a problem solver yeah and and that's I that's I I feel like that's what I get paid to do that's what I like doing um but to get back to your question about are people receptive to it um I think people in general are receptive to solving problems right I I get a chance to work with smart people from come from from Pakistan from India from Sri Lanka from Nepal from every country from 23 different countries and they understand uh I mean these areas are wrapped by climate change you know we have an issue in the United States with climate change denial some people say that it's not happening well I can take you to places where the farmers are experiencing it where they're being where they're being wiped out where people are actually being ravaged by this so we're far beyond that uh we're far beyond this debate about it's not even a debate we're far beyond you know this uh this uh ontological discussion about whether or not the climate is is changing we see it changing and and and there's committed people all over this region all over asian and pacific uh in leadership positions that that have have taken us on that's great understand and uh so when we approach them with the expertise that we've developed over the past five years in this project um uh and with the tools that we develop and we put them ourselves at their disposal yeah um yeah it sounds like the best the best thing we can do extremely receptive to that yeah so let me ask you one one final uh question which i alluded to earlier and that is um you know you're learning a lot you're learning about how to deal with climate how to deal with climate change and the people and and you know the the countries um and tremendous value to them um saving them against uh you know uh a vulnerability that will only increase but what about hawaii you've learned a lot you know hawaii uh what have you learned there that you would bring home back here uh to make us safer uh to make us less vulnerable more resistant resilient than we are uh and certainly we are vulnerable uh that's a that's a good question jay um and i'd like to be able to do that uh work uh work closely with some folks in hawaii that are working on the climate on climate change issues uh and there's some really outstanding people in hawaii talented smart people um that are that are addressing the issue i think one of the things um that i've learned is to really have effective action on adaptation um and uh on climate change in general it's that you have to have some executive buy-in you have to have you have to have a mayor you have to have a governor a president that that understands the issue and takes it seriously and is willing to put themselves out there uh and and use up some political uh capital to get it on a policy agenda because as you know i mean you you know all about what each government there's all sorts of things going on a policy plate is extremely crowded and trying to make room for just one more thing is uh it's very very difficult well this all integrates actually our conversation does integrate we talked about you and your your career potential and your what you're learning uh we talked about climate change and how you're addressing it in in southeast asia and uh in hawaii i i totally agree with you about the leadership aspect so what's clear is when you come back as as the next part of your career pattern uh you have to run for office key uh i think you know they uh i have learned a lot from this uh presidential election that is unfolding right now as you and i are talking and and what i've learned is that if i was subject to the scrutiny that uh that that can't that today's candidates are subject to there is no way that even anybody would elect me as dog catcher okay well there you have it we're gonna we're gonna have to leave it right there Keith Bettington our man in Bangkok with USAID thank you so much Keith it's a pleasure