"No-strings giving" is transforming philanthropy - The Economist | South-East Asia learns how to deal with China - The Economist | The favourite in Indonesia’s presidential election has a sordid past - The Economist | Underpaid and overplayed: tennis is ripe for disruption

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“No-strings giving” is transforming philanthropy - The Economist (Full Access)

It is certainly difficult to make money. But should money be difficult to give away? In the Gilded Age, industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller worried about waste and misuse; Carnegie wrote in 1889 that $950 of every $1,000 that went to charity was “unwisely spent”. Around the turn of the millennium a new cohort of businessmen-philanthropists such as Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, looked to data and rules as a way to stop waste. Donors ran lengthy application processes, provided funds that were ring-fenced for specific uses and enforced painstaking reporting requirements. In 2006 The Economist called it “philanthrocapitalism”.

Two decades on, however, it has become clear that all this paperwork puts the brakes on giving. The 400 richest Americans have given away just 6% of their combined fortunes, according to Forbes. At the last count in 2022, almost $1.2trn was sitting in American private foundations and $230bn in donor-advised funds, a sort of savings account for philanthropists. Plenty of money is being earmarked for do-goodery. But it is not getting to worthy causes fast enough.

Fortunately, a new generation of donors is once again shaking up the world of big philanthropy, as we explore in our Special report this week. A series of crises, from the covid-19 pandemic to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, has spurred some donors to get money to the needy quickly.

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South-East Asia learns how to deal with China - The Economist (Full Access)

A DECADE AGO Xi Jinping, China’s leader, declared his intention to make a world-girdling web of infrastructure China’s gift to the planet. From the start, South-East Asia was to serve as a—perhaps the—main focus of what came to be called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The region of 690m people was China’s backyard. South-East Asia needed trillions of dollars of infrastructure and other development. China-centred supply chains increasingly ran through the ten-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Some 60m-70m ethnic-Chinese citizens of South-East Asia, many of them successful businessmen, could help China’s mission.

Ten years on, there is no missing the wave of Chinese money that has broken over the region, bringing giant earth-moving machines, Chinese construction crews, Chinese business folk and diplomats, and not a few criminal chancers. Many BRI projects have gone well, bringing roads, railway tracks and power plants. In Cambodia, a new Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville expressway has cut the journey from the capital to the south coast from five hours to two.

But others have provided poor returns. And a few have been grossly wasteful or environmentally damaging—or spread corruption among local elites, and even opportunities for Chinese criminal gangs. Malaysia, for example, has almost nothing to show for around $1.8bn it gave Chinese firms to build two pipelines in its state of Sabah; the project has been shelved.

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The favourite in Indonesia’s presidential election has a sordid past - The Economist (Full Access)

IN A MONTH’S time some 204m Indonesians can vote in a first round to choose their new president. Two of three presidential candidates are emblematic of reformasi—that is, the era of often impressive democratic development since the fall of Suharto, the long-ruling late dictator, in 1998. Ganjar Pranowo, who is 55, and Anies Baswedan, 54, have records as competent elected leaders, respectively as governor of Central Java and as governor of Jakarta, the capital. Both are well educated. Their agendas, in a conservative majority-Muslim country, are broadly secular and liberal, and they stress the rule of law. Unlike other powerful politicians, neither is from a military-and-business dynasty.

Then there is Prabowo Subianto, the problematic favourite. He is polling at 43%, versus 25% for Mr Anies and 23% for Mr Ganjar. After President Joko Widodi, known as Jokowi, who is stepping down, the 72-year-old is the country’s most recognised politician. A former general from a powerful family, he has long revelled in a strongman image—like Mussolini, he rarely appears happier than when astride a white charger. He is immensely rich, with fingers in many pies. He has contested three presidential elections but never been elected to public office. After Jokowi defeated him twice, the outgoing president made Mr Prabowo his defence minister in 2019.

Co-opting your enemies is a notably Javanese trait. Mr Prabowo returned the favour by naming Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the current mayor of Solo, as his running-mate. Mr Prabowo hopes to surf the wildly popular Jokowi brand to victory. In turn, Jokowi hopes to cement his legacy and his family’s influence through Mr Prabowo. That is despite his declaration in 2014 that becoming president “does not mean channelling power to my own children”.

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Underpaid and overplayed: tennis is ripe for disruption - The Economist (Full Access)

REACHING THE top of tennis will make you very rich. Winners of the men’s and women’s singles at the Australian Open, the first of the four annual grand-slam tournaments, which starts on January 14th, stand to win $2.1m each. Novak Djokovic, the highest-ranked men’s player, earned $16m in prize money across the whole of last year. Iga Swiatek, his female counterpart, won $10m. Go down the rankings, though, and the riches fall away dramatically. Liam Broady, the 100th-best male player, took home $440,000. Zac Blair, the 100th-best golfer, won $2.5m.

Tennis is a tough way to make a living. Its players are independent contractors, who must pay for travel, training and coaching themselves. In 2013 the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the global governing body, estimated that less than 5% of all professionals broke even. Needing to earn a certain number of ranking points to qualify for the most lucrative tournaments, most are on the road for 11 months of the year. Careers are frequently plagued by injuries, but many players are forced to grind on through them to earn money. The grind exacts a mental toll. Mr Broady has admitted that the “dog-eat-dog world” of tennis nearly forced him to quit in 2018.

The game’s structure is a big part of the problem. The ATP (which runs the men’s tour) and the WTA (the female tour) organise dozens of tournaments that form the core of the tennis calendar. However, the four grand-slam competitions, which offer the biggest earnings, are all independently owned. And the ITF runs tennis at the Olympics and the two international team competitions, the Davis Cup (men) and the Billie Jean King Cup (women).

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