Page 23 - Acoustics Today Spring 2011

of the U.S. delegation to the 10th ASEAN-U.S. Informal Coordinating Mechanism Meeting that brings together dele- gations from all ten ASEAN countries to review progress in ASEAN-U.S. relations and to prioritize future collaborative efforts. That meeting was co-chaired by Jacky Foo, the Director-General of the ASEAN Secretariat, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, and by Scot Marciel, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and then U.S. Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs who later became the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia. For the most part, I sat silently and marveled at the skill of these two professional diplomats who were able to guide all of the parties from eleven different countries to work together efficiently while maintaining a congenial atmosphere.
Our embassies were very efficient and would typically schedule as many as three official visits every day in different locations. I would be accompanied by a local driver, a “for- eign national” working for the U.S. embassy who could act as a translator, and usually at least one other U.S. embassy offi- cial in addition to the embassy’s Environment, Science, Technology and Health Officer. My weekends were free and that gave me the opportunity to roam around many fascinat- ing Southeast Asian cities on my own.
That trip also exposed me to the crisis management functions performed by the American Services component of our embassies. While in Thailand, political protestors closed both of Bangkok’s airports. I was asked to staff the telephone banks that were providing information to stranded U.S. citi- zens. Eventually, I was able to continue my trip by traveling three hours by car from Bangkok to Pattaya, on the Gulf of Siam, and flying out of U-Tapao, a former Viet Nam era U.S. Air Force base that now serves as a joint civil-military public airport.
I returned to Washington, DC, in December and in January attended an annual cook stove conference near Seattle, WA, that was organized by Engineers in Technical and Humanitarian Opportunities of Service (ETHOS). The ETHOS Conference brings together academics, representa- tives of NGOs involved in cook stove development, testing, and dissemination, as well as many independent folks who develop stoves by trial-and-error with little theoretical guid- ance in their own garages. By February, I was starting to feel as though I had a pretty good handle on the issues, much of the technology, and the most significant players.
Seminars, an International Cook Stove Workshop, and the Research Road Map
Other than the specific source materials (i.e., no JASA articles!), the research phase described thus far is not signifi- cantly different from what we ordinarily do when we address an acoustical research topic. It should come as no surprise that the education and consensus-building phase of policy- making is also similar.
Of course, the first activity always involves writing some document. Since the Jefferson Program is run by STAS, the format of this first exercise was the “Mini-Briefing”. That is a two-page summary that was preferred by Dr. Nina Fedoroff, a very well-respected plant geneticist, molecular biologist,
and science diplomat28 who was the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State and to the Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2007 through 2010. She is currently the president of American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Fedoroff would occasionally brief the Secretary of State and liked to provide that two-page mini-briefing to the appropriate mem- bers of the Secretary’s staff.
Having identified the various stakeholders in the related areas of climate, health, and household energy within the executive branches of the U.S. government (e.g., Department of Energy, DOE; Environmental Protection Agency, EPA; National Institutes of Health, NIH; United States Agency for International Development, USAID; Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and several offices within the State Department), Non-government Organization, NGOs (e.g., UN Foundation, ETHOS, Earthjustice, World Bank, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit,
Fig. 3. (Left–to-Right) Prof. Alexis Belonio, Director, Appropriate Technology Center, Central Philippine University, Iloilo City; the author; Phil Hopke; and Bill Behn; at the ASEAN-U.S. Next-Generation Cook Stove Workshop held at the Asian Institute of Technology in Pathumthani, Thailand. In the foreground is the rice- husk burning “fan stove” that was recognized by the Rolex Award for Enterprise (2008 – Environment Category). The fan and electronic fan control is visible at the base of Prof. Belonio’s stove. [Photo credit: Rolex Awards/Kirsten Holst.]
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