The intensifying great power competition between the People’s Republic of China and the United States has meant the possibility of future war in the Indo-Pacific region has become a regular feature of Australia’s national discourse.

It is surprising, then, how little attention has been given to what day-to-day life could look like if a war actually did break out.

While such a war is not inevitable, scrutinizing what it might look like should be an urgent priority so we can take the necessary steps to improve Australia’s preparedness and ultimately our deterrence.

I previously worked in the Department of Defense analyzing what would be required to mobilize Australia’s privately held industrial base and civil society to support various wartime scenarios. From this experience, I believe the government has a detailed understanding of how war could impact domestic supplies of critical goods and international freight transporting supplies to Australia.

What is missing, however, is a frank engagement with industry and the public about the hardships that may arise during a crisis and how our industrial base needs to be recalibrated to address these vulnerabilities.

Shortage of critical goods

There are three categories of goods that would be most impacted by war:

• energy and fuel
• pharmaceuticals and raw materials
• smart devices and their components.

These are utterly indispensable to our daily lives and the continuity of our society. Yet, Australia currently lacks the ability to produce enough of these goods domestically to endure the supply disruptions that a conflict would bring.

For example, as a member of the International Energy Agency, Australia has an obligation to maintain sufficient reserves of refined fuel to meet its needs for 90 days. In practice, however, Australia has arguably never met this requirement.

Indeed, our domestic capacity for refining fuel has gone backwards and sufficient storage facilities have yet to be established. Recent unpublished estimates from the energy sector I’ve seen suggest if supply lines were cut today, Australia would only have enough fuel to meet just days or weeks of demand.

Once road freight is impacted by a lack of fuel, supermarkets would start experiencing shortages of basic goods. Air travel would collapse. Non-essential retail businesses and most personal vehicle travel would likely cease, as fuel would need to be rationed for freight, emergency services and the military.

It’s important to emphasize that Australia’s low onshore capacity to refine and store fuel would mean these dire impacts could be expected from even a relatively short-lived crisis disrupting our maritime supply lines.

When it comes to pharmaceutical products, the vast majority (90%) are also imported. China is an essential source of many of Australia’s medicines, which means they’d be inaccessible if a war erupted between Beijing and Washington.

Australia has the facilities and expertise to produce a wide range of pharmaceuticals, but scaling up capacity would take time. Disruption to the availability of medicines could therefore have catastrophic impacts on the welfare of Australians and potentially spark a panic.

Australia’s access to digital devices and components is also highly reliant on foreign imports, especially from China. While shortages of this kind would not be as immediately life threatening, there would still be a significant change to how Australians live.

More worryingly, smart devices have been embedded in the operational technology of most Australian industrial systems, such as food processing, waste management, water treatment, freight management, transport or pharmaceutical manufacturing.

A prolonged disruption to our technology supply chain could have devastating effects on our economy and essential services, as we would be unable to replace or upgrade key components. This problem would be exacerbated by our nascent capacity to disassemble and recycle the salvageable components of electronics, such as semi-conductors. Currently, we largely ship discarded devices overseas.

A ‘first 90-day’ crisis plan

While these scenarios are indeed alarming, we can take heart from the fact that Australia’s maritime supply lines are highly adaptable.

A war over Taiwan or in the South China Sea would have a far greater impact to global shipping than the COVID pandemic. However, the pandemic demonstrated the capacity of international shipping and air freight to recalibrate and adjust as key markets were disrupted by lockdowns and other response measures.

The result was that after a period of shortages, the arteries of international trade to Australia were restored.

Given these complexities, Australia needs to focus its national preparedness and mobilization planning around the uncertain period between a crisis occurring and international shipping being re-established.

From my examination, such planning is not taking place to a sufficient degree.

The former secretary of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzullo, has similarly suggested such planning is overdue.

I believe the government should adopt a “first 90 days” national mobilization plan designed with industry partners. The aim: to ensure Australia’s survival during the first 90 days of a war or similar catastrophe in our region.

Such a plan should be centered on increasing the domestic stockpiles and manufacturing capacity of the three most essential categories of goods mentioned earlier—fuel, pharmaceuticals and smart devices (and components). This would give us the capacity to sustain Australia through the initial period of a conflict as we wait for international supply lines to adjust.

Australia must also look for ways to diversify sources of these goods away from China because of the high likelihood of disrupted maritime routes through Southeast Asia. This diversification would ensure critical supply chains are more resilient in those first 90 days and beyond.

Why talking about preparedness is important

There is a critical need to include industry in such preparedness and mobilization planning. Yet, from my experience, many business leaders are in the dark about what security interventions the Commonwealth may initiate in wartime to keep Australia ticking. There appear to be two reasons for this.

First, there’s a view in government that this kind of talk would cause alarm. The opposite is true. Clarity about our nation’s contingency planning in a crisis can only improve market confidence.

And second, policymakers may fear that any discussion about diversifying our key supplies away from China would harm our relationship with Beijing. It may also signal Australia is preparing for aggression.

Again, I believe the opposite is true. For many years, China itself has been on-shoring its key supplies to make its economy more resilient to stormier weather. Australia could simply point to China’s example as demonstrating prudence—hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

Ultimately, strengthening our preparedness through a “first 90 day” policy would make our deterrence more credible by showing we take the prospect of war seriously.

This would complicate the planning of would-be adversaries by ensuring Australia could not be easily isolated and neutralized. It would also show to our people, allies and adversaries alike that while Australia does not want war, we intend to endure it should one arise.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Agriculture is hugely important to Nigeria. It makes up about a quarter of the country’s economy, and almost half of the population are smallholder farmers. Most farm on less than 10 hectares of land.

It can be a tough way to make a living. Smallholder farmers in Nigeria regularly lose crops and livestock to floods and droughts. For instance, Nigeria lost over 1.7 million metric tons of grain to drought in 2021.

Extreme weather events can devastate farmer families for a long time because agriculture is their main source of income. But research shows that up to 82.7% of Nigeria’s farmers are not insured for this damage. Research has also pointed out some obstacles to traditional insurance for small farmers in African countries. Premiums may be too expensive, and claims difficult to make.

An innovative form of insurance called index insurance has gained traction in developing countries in the past decade. Payouts are triggered automatically when specific weather conditions, such as rainfall levels or temperature thresholds, are met, eliminating the need for individual claims. This system ensures quicker compensation based on objective data, reducing delays and administrative costs. This has been found to work well in Kenya and Ethiopia.

We conducted research with 392 farming households across Kwara State, in the central region of Nigeria, to investigate what they needed and valued in an insurance product. They were livestock farmers who had already tried traditional insurance. We wanted to know what they thought about index insurance as an alternative, and how much they would be prepared to pay for it.

It’s important to know more about these farmers and how they see things before trying to make a financial product like this available.

Our research found that these Nigerian farmers were willing to pay 1.3% of their livestock value to adopt index insurance. This is less than the cost of traditional insurance, which is usually 2%–5% of the value of the livestock.

In addition, the study highlights three key points. First, farmers who can get loans are more likely to use index-based livestock insurance because they are in a better financial position. Second, being part of local economic groups makes farmers more likely to adopt this type of insurance, as these groups help them learn about and access the insurance. Finally, farmers who live closer to weather stations have easier access to weather data, which helps them see the benefits of the insurance, and they are more likely to adopt it.

How index insurance works

Index insurance pays out based on data from weather stations, satellites and remote sensing technologies that indicate looming droughts or severe storms. Once the key indicators from these sources hit a certain trigger point, insurance payments are automatically sent out fast to smallholder farmers who are most affected. Farmers do not need to make claims after the disaster, and insurance companies do not have to visit farms to verify claims before they pay out.

Index insurance does not prevent actual damage to crops or animals, but it helps farmers and ranchers recover more quickly. It is a financial safety net that covers the costs of replanting, buying new livestock, and other recovery needs, and helps create a more stable long-term supply of food.

Having insurance can also allow farmers to access credit more easily to invest in new agricultural technologies or inputs.

Livestock farmers in Kwara State

Rainfall is very important for livestock farming in Kwara State because it directly affects crops and grazing that livestock need for food. The rainfall and temperature trends in the area have varied considerably over the past decades, leaving farmers vulnerable to climate shocks.

We surveyed 392 livestock farmers who had already used traditional insurance and so were familiar with risk management. They knew how well the traditional product had worked for them and could compare it with the idea of index insurance.

Over half (55%) of the respondents rated the effects of weather-related risks on livestock production as extremely severe. Most (74%) named drought as the main risk; many (66%) also named high temperatures.

More than half were educated beyond secondary school but about 53% earned low incomes. A majority (64.5%) belonged to an economic association, which could give them access to resources.

Of the farmers we surveyed, 303 (77.3%) said they would be willing to adopt the index insurance product. They confirmed they would be able to pay an insurance premium amounting to 1.3% of their livestock value.

The “adopters” tended to have access to extension services and to be members of associations. They also tended to have non-farming sources of income. And they tended to live closer to a weather station. Unexpectedly, having more education did not make a farmer more likely to be keen to adopt index insurance.

Only 80 farmers were satisfied with traditional insurance as a risk management strategy. They said claims were not paid.

Experience in other countries

Index insurance programs have been successfully put in place in Kenya and Ethiopia. In Asia, India, Thailand and Indonesia have also adopted this approach, allowing for swift compensation to those affected by extreme conditions.

In Ethiopia, adoption of index insurance has been found to boost household well-being by increasing food consumption and encouraging the use of better farming technologies. Other research has found that it improved the coping and adaptive capacities of farmers to address weather risks.

What needs to happen next

We believe our case study in Nigeria highlights several strategies for expanding index insurance to smallholder farmers across Africa:

1. Governments and development partners should invest in building insurance providers’ capacity to develop and deliver tailored products.
2. Farmers need education and support to understand how index insurance works and how to enroll in these programs.
3. Public-private partnerships should be established to develop innovative delivery channels and risk management solutions.
4. A major challenge with index-based insurance is getting farmers to trust the system. They might worry about whether the measurements are accurate and if they’ll get fair payouts. To build trust, it is important to be open about how the measurements are made, involve local communities in creating the insurance plan, and clearly explain how claims are handled.
5. Finally, insurance and access to credit should go hand-in-hand when dealing with the risks of severe weather events. Using both can provide farmers with a more complete safety net.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Over the last few weeks, after a massive defeat at the UK general election, several senior staff in the Conservative Party have reportedly taken voluntary redundancy, with more staff cuts expected to follow. Perhaps not surprising, as morale is not likely to be high. But it raises an interesting and broader career development question: is it better to leave an organization in decline or which has suffered a major downturn? Or are there benefits to staying with it?

There are four main questions when it comes to deciding our career path after our organization has undergone a major business failure, downturn or adverse event.

1. What’s happening in leadership?

First, we need to consider: will the old leadership remain in their positions? The likelihood is that they will be replaced, so the next thing to assess is if the new leadership is likely to be more resilient and successful than the former leaders.

Authentic and engaging leaders are more effective, and tend to get the most out of their subordinates, and retain them longer within the organization. As Lao Tzu, founder of the Taoist religion, reflected on leadership: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, people will say, ‘we did it ourselves!'”

2. Am I valued?

More important than what’s happening to the leadership is: will they be more or less likely to value my contribution and skills? That is to say, do I see greater opportunities in the medium to long term by staying rather than leaving?

This, of course, may require staying put for a while, to assess the new management and what opportunities come your way. This reflection period will help you consider your future career decisions. As Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci wrote: “To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgment. Go some distance away, because work will be in perspective and a lack of harmony is more readily seen.”

3. What’s the damage?

Then you need to consider whether your “personal brand” has been damaged by being associated with the failed organization. If you think it has, than leaving may not be the optimal solution, because it may be very difficult getting a job, particularly in the short term.

4. Is this a chance for change?

This will lead to another consideration. Is this an opportunity to do something entirely different, given your skill base, rather than continuing in this function or sector? Would it be best to do something entirely different? As US industrialist Henry Ford wrote: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”

In making up your mind to leave the sinking ship, don’t automatically seek another job in the same role or sector. Take some time to think through a range of options.

A new path

It’s a lie that people hate change. In my book, “The Myths of Management,” co-authored with Stefan Stern, we write: “It’s not true that ‘people hate change.’ Bought new clothes recently? Or even a new car? People hate stupid, unnecessary, imposed change.” We go on to conclude: “They can and will cope with it—even enjoy it—if you give them a chance … and a say in the process.”

Taking control of a new career path means identifying your strengths and weaknesses, as you explore the various options open to you.

First, what would I ideally like to do? Second, what skill base and personality predispositions do I have to do this job or peruse this career option? Will this require training and development to make up for some deficits in my “skills portfolio?”

Third, will this job give me a sense of purpose? As John Ruskin, the social reformer, wrote in 1851: “In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it, they must not do too much of it, and they must have a sense of success in it.” This still holds true today.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.