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Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

Maria Gloria Macaraeg Macapagal-Arroyo (born April 5, 1947 ), often referred to as PGMA or GMA, is a Filipino academic and politician who served as the 14th president of the Philippines from 2001 to 2010. She is the longest-serving president since Ferdinand Marcos. Before her presidency, she was the 10th vice president of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001 under President Joseph Estrada, becoming the first female vice president. She was also a senator from 1992 to 1998. After her presidency, she was elected as the representative of Pampanga's 2nd district in 2010 and continues to serve in this role. She also served as the Speaker of the House from 2018 to 2019, and as Deputy Speaker from 2016 to 2017 and 2022 to 2023. Alongside former president Sergio Osmeña, she is one of only two Filipinos to hold at least three of the four highest offices: vice president, president, and house speaker.

Arroyo is the first president to succeed the presidency as the child of a previous president; her father was Diosdado Macapagal, the country's ninth president from 1961 to 1965. She studied economics at Georgetown University in the United States, where she became friends with her classmate and future U.S. president Bill Clinton. She then became a professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, where her eventual successor, President Benigno Aquino III, was one of her students. She entered government in 1987 as assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry under President Corazon Aquino, Benigno's mother.

After Estrada was accused of corruption, Arroyo resigned from her cabinet position as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and joined the opposition against the president. Estrada was ousted by the Second EDSA Revolution in 2001, and Arroyo was sworn in as president by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. on January 20. The Oakwood mutiny occurred in 2003 during her administration. She was elected to a full six-year term in the controversial 2004 presidential election and was sworn in on June 30, 2004. A long-time opponent of the death penalty, she abolished capital punishment in 2006 after commuting the death sentences of over 1,200 prisoners.

On November 18, 2011, Arroyo was arrested and held at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City on charges of electoral sabotage but released on bail in July 2012. These charges were later dropped for lack of evidence. She was rearrested in October 2012 on charges of misuse of $8.8 million in state lottery funds. She was given hospital arrest due to life-threatening health conditions. During the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the Supreme Court acquitted her by a vote of 11–4. Also, the Supreme Court declared the Department of Justice's 'hold departure orders' unconstitutional. Arroyo's lawyers stated afterward that she no longer needed her medical paraphernalia.

Arroyo is a member of the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language and supported the teaching of Spanish in the country's education system during her presidency.

Early life
Arroyo was born as Maria Gloria Macaraeg Macapagal on April 5, 1947, in San Juan, Rizal, Philippines, to lawyer Diosdado Macapagal and his wife, Evangelina Guico Macaraeg Macapagal. She is the sister of Diosdado "Boboy" Macapagal Jr. She has two older siblings from her father's first marriage with Purita de la Rosa, the sister of Rogelio de la Rosa, Arturo Macapagal and Cielo Macapagal Salgado. She was raised mostly in Lubao, Pampanga and during summer vacations, she lived with her maternal grandmother in Iligan City.

She moved with her family into Malacañang Palace in Manila when her father became president. A municipality was named in her honor, Gloria, Oriental Mindoro. She attended Assumption Convent for her elementary and high school education, graduating valedictorian in 1964. Arroyo then studied for two years at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. where she was a classmate of future United States president Bill Clinton. She then earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Assumption College San Lorenzo graduating magna cum laude in 1968.

Personal life
In 1968, Arroyo married lawyer and businessman Jose Miguel Arroyo of Binalbagan, Negros Occidental. They have three children: including Juan Miguel (born 1969), and Diosdado Ignacio Jose Maria (born 1974). She received a master's degree in economics at the Ateneo de Manila University (1978) and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of the Philippines Diliman (1985). From 1977 to 1987, she held teaching positions in several schools, including the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University. She became chairperson of the Economics Department at Assumption College.

In 1987, she was invited by President Corazon Aquino to join the government as assistant secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry. She was promoted to undersecretary two years later. In her concurrent position as executive director of the Garments and Textile Export Board, Arroyo oversaw the rapid growth of the garment industry in the late 1980s.

Senator (1992–1998)
Arroyo entered politics in the 1992 election, running for senator. At the first general election under the 1987 Constitution, the top twelve vote-getting senatorial candidates would win a six-year term, and the next twelve candidates would win a three-year term. Arroyo ranked 13th in the elections, earning a three-year term. She was re-elected in 1995, topping the senatorial election with nearly 16 million votes.

As a legislator, Arroyo filed over 400 bills and authored or sponsored 55 laws during her tenure as senator, including the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, the Indigenous People's Rights Law, and the Export Development Act. The 1995 Mining Act, which allows 100% foreign ownership of Philippine mines, has come under fire from left-wing political groups. Arroyo was also openly against the implementation of capital punishment in the country, advocating instead for better criminal rehabilitation during her time as Senator.

Vice presidency (1998–2001)
Arroyo considered a run for the presidency in the 1998 election, but was persuaded by President Fidel V. Ramos and leaders of the administration party Lakas-NUCD to instead seek the vice-presidency as the running mate of its presidential candidate, House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. Though the latter lost to popular former actor Joseph Estrada, Arroyo won the vice presidency by a large margin, garnering more than twice the votes of her closest opponent, Estrada's running mate Senator Edgardo Angara.

Arroyo began her term as vice president on June 30, 1998, becoming the first female to hold the post. She was appointed by Estrada to a concurrent position in the cabinet as secretary of social welfare and development. As vice president, she was noted by political observers to continuously take a neutral stance on issues facing the government.

Arroyo resigned from the Cabinet in October 2000, distancing herself from Estrada, who was accused of corruption by a former political supporter, Chavit Singson, Governor of Ilocos Sur. She had initially resisted pressure from allies to speak out against Estrada, but eventually joined calls for Estrada's resignation.

Succession
The last quarter of 2000 up to the first week of January 2001 was a period of political and economic uncertainty for the Philippines. On January 16, 2001, the impeachment trial also took a new direction. Private prosecutors walked out of the trial when pro-Estrada senators prevented the opening of an evidence (a brown envelope) containing bank records allegedly owned by President Joseph Estrada. With the walkout, the impeachment trial was not completed and Filipinos eventually took to the streets in masses to continue the clamor for President Estrada's resignation.

From January 17 to 20, 2001, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gathered at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the site of the original People Power Revolution. The clamor for a change in the presidency gained momentum as various sectors of Philippine society – professionals, students, artists, politicians, leftist and rightist groups – joined what became known as EDSA II. Officials of the administration, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP), the latter led by Panfilo Lacson, also withdrew their support for President Estrada.

Days after leaving Malacañang Palace, President Estrada's lawyers and allies questioned the legitimacy of Arroyo's presidency before the Supreme Court, with Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago among the more outspoken politicians to call for his reinstatement as president. Estrada reiterated that he had not officially resigned as president and that at most, Arroyo was just serving in an acting capacity. The high court, however, voted unanimously to uphold the legitimacy of Arroyo's succession. As a consequence, Estrada no longer enjoys immunity from charges being filed against him.

In the last week of April 2001, the Sandiganbayan ordered the arrest of Estrada and his son, then mayor Jinggoy Estrada, for plunder charges. A few days later, Estrada supporters protested his arrest, gathered at the EDSA Shrine, and staged what they called, EDSA III – comparing their actions to the People Power revolution of 1986 and January 2001.

Thousands of protesters demanded the release of Estrada. Eventually, they also called for the ouster of Arroyo and the reinstatement of the former. On May 1, 2001, they marched towards Malacañang to force Arroyo to give in to their demands. Violence erupted when the protesters attempted to storm the presidential palace and the military and police were ordered to use their arms to drive them back. Arroyo declared a state of rebellion because of the violence and prominent political personalities affiliated with Estrada were charged and arrested. The so-called EDSA III was the first serious political challenge to the Arroyo presidency.

Corruption charges and Oakwood Mutiny
The Oakwood mutiny occurred in the Philippines on July 27, 2003. A group of 321 armed soldiers who called themselves "Bagong Katipuneros" led by Army Capt. Gerardo Gambala and Navy Lt. Antonio Trillanes IV took over the Oakwood Premier Ayala Center (now Ascott Makati) serviced apartment tower in Makati to show the Filipino people the alleged corruption of the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration, believing that the president was going to declare martial law.

2004 presidential election
Article VII Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution explicitly states that the president of the Philippines can only serve for one term. However, the same provision also implicitly states that a president's successor who has not served for more than four years can still seek a full term for the presidency. Although Arroyo fell under this category, she initially announced on December 29, 2002, that she would not seek the presidency in 2004. She emphasized that she would devote her remaining months in office to serving the people and improving the economy of the Philippines.

In October 2003, Arroyo changed her mind and announced that she will run in the May 2004 presidential elections and seek a direct mandate from the people. She explained, "There is a higher cause — to change society...in a way that flourishes our future". With her decision, the initial criticisms hurled against Arroyo centered on her lack of word of honor.

As predicted by SWS exit polls, Arroyo won the election by a margin of over one million votes against Poe. However, the congressional canvassing was quite contentious as opposition lawmakers in the National Board of Canvassers argued that there were many discrepancies in the election returns and that insinuations of cheating were raised. On June 23, 2004, Congress proclaimed Arroyo and Noli de Castro as president and vice president, respectively.

2004 presidential election rigging allegations
On June 30, 2004, in a break with tradition, Arroyo first delivered her inaugural speech at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila. She then departed for Cebu City for her oath taking, the first time that a Philippine president took the oath of office outside of Luzon.

Allegations of cheating against Arroyo gained momentum one year after the May 2004 elections. In a press conference held on June 10, 2005, Samuel Ong, former deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) claimed to have audio recordings of wiretapped conversations between Arroyo and an official of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Virgilio Garcillano, a former COMELEC commissioner, would later be identified as the official talking to Arroyo. According to Ong, the recordings allegedly proved that Arroyo ordered the rigging of the national elections for her to win by around one million votes against Poe.

The recordings of Ong became known as the Hello Garci controversy and triggered massive protests against Arroyo. Key members of her cabinet resigned from their respective posts and urged Arroyo to do the same. On June 27, 2005, Arroyo admitted to inappropriately speaking to a COMELEC official, claiming it was a "lapse in judgement". She, however, denied influencing the outcome of the elections and declared that she won the elections fairly. Arroyo did not resign despite the pressures coming from various sectors of society.

The Hello Garci controversy became the basis of the impeachment case filed against Arroyo in 2005; attempts to impeach Arroyo failed later that year. Another impeachment case was filed against Arroyo in 2006 but was also defeated at the House of Representatives.

In October 2007, lawyer Alan Paguia filed an impeachment complaint against Arroyo in connection with the issue of bribery. Paguia's complaint was based on the revelation of Pampanga Governor Ed Panlilio that various governors received half a million pesos from Malacañang. The impeachment case, as of the middle of October 2007, has already been referred to the House of Representatives Committee on Justice.

2006 State of emergency

On February 24, 2006, a plot to take over the government was uncovered by authorities, allegedly headed by Gen. Danilo Lim and other rightist military adventurists. General Lim and some of his men were arrested. To face the threat posed by enemies of the state, Arroyo issued Presidential Proclamation 1017 and used it as basis in declaring a state of emergency throughout the Philippines. According to Arroyo, this declaration was done to quell the military rebellion, stop lawless violence, and promote peace and stability. Presidential Proclamation 1017 also empowered the government to enforce warrantless arrests and take over strategic private utilities companies. Several members of the Senate, including Franklin Drilon, Francis Pangilinan, and Pia Cayetano, condemned the proclamation as it contravenes "the fundamental guarantees of the Constitution, particularly the basic civil liberties enshrined therein."

The state of emergency existed for about one week with the purpose of curbing further violence, illegal rallies, and public disturbance throughout the Philippines. The police and the military dispersed demonstrators and protesters, especially those along EDSA. Aside from General Lim, prominent personalities were also arrested in connection with their alleged participation in the attempt to overthrow the government.

Presidential Proclamation 1017 was lifted on March 3, 2006, but members of the opposition, private lawyers, and concerned citizens challenged its constitutionality before the Supreme Court. On May 4, the high court declared the proclamation constitutional; however, it also ruled it was illegal for the government to implement warrantless arrests and seize private institutions and companies.

Charter change
Arroyo spearheaded a controversial plan for an overhaul of the constitution to transform the present unitary and presidential republic with a bicameral legislature into a federal parliamentary government with a unicameral legislature.

Economy
Arroyo, who earned a master's degree and doctorate in economics, made the Philippine economy the focus of her presidency. Annual economic growth in the Philippines averaged 4.5% during the Arroyo administration, expanding every quarter of her presidency. This is higher than in the administrations of her three immediate predecessors, Corazon Aquino (3.8%), Fidel Ramos (3.7%), and Joseph Estrada (3.7%). The Philippine economy grew at its fastest pace in three decades in 2007, with real GDP growth exceeding 7%. The economy was one of the few to avoid contraction during the 2008 global financial crisis, faring better than its regional peers due to minimal exposure to troubled international securities, lower dependence on exports, relatively resilient domestic consumption, large remittances from four-to five-million overseas Filipino workers, and a growing business process outsourcing industry. Arroyo's handling of the economy has earned praise from former US president Bill Clinton, who cited her "tough decisions" that put the Philippine economy back in shape. Despite this growth, the poverty rate remained stagnant due to uneven distribution of income.

A controversial expanded value added tax (e-VAT) law, considered the centerpiece of the Arroyo administration's economic reform agenda, was implemented in November 2005, aiming to complement revenue-raising efforts that could plug the country's large budget deficit. Her administration originally set a target to balance the national budget by 2010. The tax measure boosted confidence in the government's fiscal capacity and helped to strengthen the Philippine peso, making it East Asia's best performing currency in 2005–06. The peso strengthened by nearly 20% in 2007, making it one of Asia's better performing currencies for that year, a fact attributed to a combination of increased remittances from overseas Filipino workers and a strong domestic economy.

Early in her presidency, Arroyo implemented a controversial policy of holiday economics, adjusting holidays to form longer weekends with the purpose of boosting domestic tourism and allowing Filipinos more time with their families.

Public perception

The Social Weather Stations public opinion group has conducted quarterly surveys tracking the net satisfaction rating ("satisfied" rating minus "dissatisfied" rating") of President Arroyo. She began her presidency in the first quarter of 2001 with a net satisfaction rating of +24. Her rating first dipped into the negative in the first quarter of 2003, making Arroyo the only president to achieve a negative net satisfaction rating in SWS opinion polling. Her rating rebounded well into the positive in 2004, in time for the presidential election where she won election to a new six-year term. However, net satisfaction sunk back into negative territory in the fourth quarter of 2004, and has remained negative since, dipping as low as −38 in the second quarter of 2008. Her net satisfaction rating in the first quarter of 2009 was −32.

House of Representatives (2010–2019)
In November 2009, Arroyo formally declared her intention to run for a seat in the House of Representatives representing the 2nd district of Pampanga, making her the second Philippine president – after Jose P. Laurel – to pursue a lower office after the expiration of their presidency. A petition seeking to disqualify Arroyo from the race was dismissed by the COMELEC for lack of merit, a decision which was later affirmed by the Supreme Court. With little serious competition, she was elected to Congress in May 2010 with a landslide victory. After receiving final military honors at the inauguration ceremony of incoming President Benigno Aquino III, she headed straight to San Fernando, Pampanga for her own oath-taking as congresswoman.

Despite being considered the strongest contender for speaker of the House, Arroyo declined to seek the position, hoping instead to take on a role similar to Sonia Gandhi, who was influential as merely the head of her party. On her first day as a lawmaker, Arroyo and her son Dato filed a resolution calling for Congress to call a constitutional convention to propose amendments to the existing constitution.

While still confined in the Veterans Memorial Medical Center for hospital arrest, Arroyo successfully earned a second term as congresswoman for Pampanga's second congressional district at the conclusion of the 2013 Philippine mid-term elections on May 13, 2013, defeating the ruling Liberal Party's Vivian Dabu, who was the provincial administrator under former Governor Ed Panlilio. She was re-elected in 2016 for her third consecutive term, running unopposed.

2011 spinal surgery
In early 2011, Arroyo was diagnosed with cervical spondylosis or cervical radiculopathy. She was rushed to the St. Luke's Medical Center in Taguig on July 25, 2011, minutes after the State of the Nation Address by Benigno Aquino III. Doctors performed a five-hour spine surgery on July 29, 2011. Two more surgeries occurred in August 2011, which aggravated her hypoparathyroidism. The House of Representatives, under the leadership of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, Jr., issued a travel permit allowing her to have treatment in Germany despite the Department of Justice hold departure order.

2011 hospital arrest
Arroyo was arrested on November 18, 2011, after a Pasay court issued a warrant of arrest against her, following the filing of a complaint for electoral sabotage by the COMELEC. The arrest warrant was served at the St. Luke's Medical Center in Taguig where Arroyo had been confined. Days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued a resolution enjoining attempts by the Department of Justice to prevent her departure from the Philippines to seek medical treatment overseas.

She was transferred to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City on December 9, 2011. Arroyo was released from hospital arrest on bail on July 25, 2012.

On October 29, 2012, she refused to enter any plea on charges she misused $8.8 million in state lottery funds during her term in office. As of December 2013, she was still in custody at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center. On July 19, 2016, the Supreme Court dismissed the corruption charges and ordered her release from the hospital where she had been detained since 2011.

2014 medical problems and reapplication for bail
Arroyo was transported to St. Luke's Medical Center for tests and treatment and returned to confinement at the Veteran's Medical Center after medical incidents in May and June 2014. In June, after the second of these incidents, her attorneys renewed application for bail. In September, a third medical incident caused her to be again rushed to St. Luke's for treatment and returned to confinement at the Veteran's Medical Center.

2015 United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
In a case filed by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared Arroyo's hospital detention arbitrary and violative of the international law on human rights. It recognized that the charges against Arroyo were politically motivated since she was detained as a result of her exercise to take part in government and that the detention was arbitrary and illegal under international law because the Sandiganbayan court failed to take into account her individual circumstances when it repeatedly denied her bail.

2016 Supreme Court acquittal
On July 19, 2016, a few weeks after Duterte was sworn in as president, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the dismissal of plunder case against Arroyo, gathering a vote of 11–4 which was read by spokesperson Theodore Te.

She would later be assigned by Duterte's party, PDP-Laban, as a high-level member of the House of Representatives after winning her third term as congresswoman in the House. She was given committee chairmanships, among many other roles.

House speakership (2018–2019)
Arroyo was elected as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines. The election pushed through on July 23, 2018, due to a controversial majority manifesto and vote that ousted Pantaleon Alvarez. In August 2018, amid rumors that she was gunning to become prime minister under a proposed federal government, which she was advocating in the House, Arroyo stated that she will retire from politics and would not pursue any position after the May 2019 elections.

In January 2019, her speakership passed a House bill which lowered the criminal liability to twelve years old. She had a net satisfaction rating of −4 in September 2018, which further dropped to −21 in January 2019, becoming one of the most unpopular House speakers in Philippine history. Her leadership also spearheaded the changing of House rules in relation to Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALNs), requiring a ₱300 fee for access, which amounts to ₱87,300 for the SALNs of all 291 members of the House of Representatives, making it difficult for the poor to monitor corruption in the House.

In February 2019, Senator Panfilo Lacson accused Arroyo of adding an additional pork barrel of ₱60–160 million in the national budget.

Political retirement
Arroyo, although not holding any elective position, has been participating as a member of Lakas–CMD. As of June 2019, she is working on a memoir narrating her experiences as president, which she plans on limiting to 200 pages for consumption by the general public.

On November 26, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Arroyo as presidential adviser on Clark programs and projects.

House of Representatives (2022–present)
Arroyo came out of retirement to seek a comeback to the House of Representatives in 2022, running unopposed for the 2nd district of Pampanga. Her legal counsel, Peter Paul Magalang, filed the certificate of candidacy on her behalf. She has declared support to the candidacies of Bongbong Marcos for president and new Lakas party-mate Sara Duterte for vice president. She also joined the caravans and campaign sorties of their UniTeam Alliance.

On May 10, 2022, Arroyo was proclaimed as representative of the 2nd district of Pampanga, succeeding her son Mikey once again for a fourth nonconsecutive term. Although she assumed office on June 30, 2022, she took her oath of office on May 26 in Lubao and on June 13 before outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte at the Malacañang Palace. Arroyo said she will join her fellow representatives in passing the legislative agenda of the administration of President Bongbong Marcos and will continue to push for projects aligned with the Pampanga Megalopolis program. She initially aimed to regain the House speakership in the 19th Congress, soon after Marcos was elected, but later rescinded after realizing that Marcos wanted his cousin and her Lakas partymate, Rep. Martin Romualdez (Leyte–1st), to become the next House Speaker. She instead endorsed the speakership bid of Romualdez.

On July 25, 2022, Arroyo was named as Senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives under the new speakership of Martin Romualdez in the 19th Congress.

Arroyo became part of President Bongbong Marcos's delegation member of all his international trips beginning on November 16, 2022, the first day of his working visit to Thailand for the 2022 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. She has also joined him in his visits to Belgium, China, Davos in Switzerland, Japan, the United States, and Indonesia. Marcos also described her as his "secret weapon."

Her only daughter, Evangelina Lourdes Arroyo-Bernas, was made the country's ambassador to Austria in December 2022. She defended accusations of nepotism noting her daughter's qualifications.

On May 17, 2023, she was demoted by the House leadership from senior deputy speaker to a regular deputy speaker to unburden her heavy workload that came with the title. She switched places with fellow Pampanga Representative Aurelio Gonzales Jr. of the 3rd district. Later on November 7, 2023, she was expelled by the House from her position as a deputy house speaker, after she failed to support a resolution that aimed to uphold the House's "dignity, integrity and independence" and to support the speakership of Martin Romualdez, as she was abroad when it was signed. This followed the criticism from her political ally, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who objected the House's decision to reallocate the confidential funds originally for the offices of his daughter, Vice President and concurrent Education Secretary Sara Duterte. Arroyo was replaced by Representative Tonypet Albano (Isabela–1st).

Scouting
Arroyo was the second chief girl scout of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines.

Approval ratings
In July 2008, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) said that Arroyo registered a net satisfaction rating of minus 38 in a survey conducted in the last week of June, making her the most unpopular president in the country since democracy was restored in 1986.

Foreign honors

 * Brunei: Member of the Family Order of Laila Utama
 * 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic: Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of Duarte, Sánchez and Mella
 * 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea: Grand Cross of the Order of Independence
 * Holy See: Recipient of the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice
 * 🇯🇵 Japan: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum
 * 🇷🇴 Romania: Collar of the Order of the Star of Romania
 * 🇪🇸 Spain: Dame of the Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic

Honorary degrees

 * Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from La Trobe University in Australia (2000)
 * Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan (2002)
 * Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Old Dominion University in Virginia, United States (2003)
 * Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Fordham University (2003)
 * Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from University of San Francisco in California, United States (2004)
 * Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Mapua Institute of Technology in Manila, Philippines (2004)
 * Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Kyungsung University in Pusan, South Korea (2005)
 * Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand

Recognitions

 * Time magazine's "People Who Mattered" list for 2005
 * Forbes magazine's 100 Most Powerful Woman in the World (from 2004 to 2009) – she ranked 4th in the 2005 list
 * Member, Council of Women World Leaders
 * Don Quijote International Award (category: mejor labor institucional – Best institutional work) from Spain's King Juan Carlos (April 15, 2010)
 * Teodora Alonzo Award by the Philippine Order of the Knights of Rizal
 * Fourth Patron of the Royal Institution Singapore, an unaccredited institution of higher learning

title: Gloria Macapagal Arroyo


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Talk:Gao Xingjian

Untitled
Hi, I am really pleased that we have an article for him, since he is an important author (and a good one too), but why on earth does the English language Wikipedia have a list of his works in German? Danny, 06:17, 2 March 2003

 * It doesn't make sense, especially without the German titles. I've removed that section. —Babelfisch 03:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I remember vaguely that years ago the Chinese authority protested that the Nobel Prize was awarded to Gao purely by political reasons. In response, the French government said that Gao is a French citizen now and the Chinese government has no right for such a comment. Can somebody find the source? --210.22.158.132, 06:39, 8 April 2005

I don't know how many people here have read his work. I did, and I have to say it's very mediocre. There are far better Chinese writers, for example, Mo Yan, Yu Hua. —This unsigned comment was added by the anonymous user 129.110.241.143 (talk • contribs) 00:18, 7 April 2006. This IP address is registered at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The sources of a lot of the material in this article are not cited. For example, where does the poem 'Sky Burial' come from? To my knowledge, he had to burn all of his early works in poetry before being investigated, and has since published nothing in the medium. Lordrsb 15:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

 * I did a bit of research and found the website from which this poem was quoted. I editted 'Gao's Poem' section (renamed 'Poem by Gao Xingjian') to give a more informative and objective introduction, and also cited my sources - having to add a 'References' section myself. Perhaps someone else might do the grand job of re-editting this article and citing all the sources.... Lordrsb 14:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Is Mr Gao a Hakka?
As Mr Gao was born in the Hakka region of Jiangxi, is he a Hakka person? 86.183.0.173 (talk) 22:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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title: Talk:Gao Xingjian


text:
Horst Köhler

Horst Köhler (born 22 February 1943) is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU (of which he is a member) and the CSU, as well as the liberal FDP, Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Convention on 23 May 2004 and was subsequently inaugurated on 1 July 2004. He was reelected to a second term on 23 May 2009. Just a year later, on 31 May 2010, he resigned from his office in a controversy over a comment on the role of the German Bundeswehr in light of a visit to the troops in Afghanistan. During his tenure as president, whose office is mostly concerned with ceremonial matters, Köhler was a highly popular politician, with approval rates above those of both Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and later Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Köhler is an economist by profession. Prior to his election as president, Köhler had a distinguished career in politics and the civil service and as a banking executive. He was president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 1998 to 2000 and head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2000 to 2004. From 2012 to 2013, Köhler served on the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Early life
Köhler was born in Skierbieszów (then named Heidenstein), in the General Government area of German-occupied Poland, as the seventh child of Elisabeth and Eduard Köhler, into a family of Bessarabian Germans from Rîșcani in Romanian Bessarabia (near Bălți, present-day Moldova). Horst Köhler's parents, ethnic Germans and Romanian citizens, had to leave their home in Bessarabia in 1940 during the Nazi-Soviet population transfers that followed the invasion of Poland and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which awarded Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. As part of the Generalplan Ost, they were resettled in 1942 at Skierbieszów, a village near Zamość, Poland (then part of the General Government). As the Wehrmacht was pushed back and the first parts of Poland had to be abandoned in 1944, the Köhler family fled to Leipzig. In 1953, they left the Soviet Zone – via West Berlin – to escape from the communist regime. The family lived in refugee camps until 1957, when they settled in Ludwigsburg. Horst Köhler hence spent most of his first 14 years as a refugee.

Studies and military service
A teacher recommended that the refugee boy Köhler should apply for the Gymnasium, and Köhler took his Abitur in 1963. After two years of military service at a Panzergrenadier battalion in Ellwangen, he left the Bundeswehr as Leutnant der Reserve (Reserve Lieutenant). He studied and finally gained a doctorate in economics and political sciences from the University of Tübingen, where he was a scientific research assistant at the from 1969 to 1976.

Career in the civil service
Köhler joined the civil service in 1976, when he was employed in the Federal Ministry of Economics. In 1981, he was employed in the Chancellory of the state government in Schleswig-Holstein under Prime Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg. The following year, Köhler was made head of the Ministers office in the Federal Ministry of Finance, upon Stoltenberg's recommendation. He rose to Director General for financial policy and federal industrial interests in 1987. In 1989 he became Director General for currency and credit.

Secretary of State in the Ministry of Finance
A member of the CDU since 1981, he was Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Finance from 1990 to 1993, and as such, the administrative head of the Ministry and the deputy of the Federal Minister of Finance (Theodor Waigel). In that capacity, he served as a "sherpa" (personal representative) for Chancellor Helmut Kohl, preparing G7 summits and other international economic conferences. As secretary of state, Köhler negotiated both the German-German monetary union and the final withdrawal of Soviet troops from the GDR in 1994. Besides, he was chief negotiator for the Maastricht Treaty on European Monetary Union, which led to the creation of the euro as the Union's single currency.

Köhler also played a central role in organizing the enormously expensive privatization of state businesses in Eastern Germany. He organized the Treuhand, the agency charged with selling 11,000 rusting and moribund companies.

Career in banking 1993–2000
Between 1993 and 1998 he served as President of the association of savings banks in Germany, Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband.

In 1998 Köhler was appointed president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and settled in London, where the headquarters of the bank is located. At the EBRD, he took over in September 1998, when the bank was facing annual losses of $305 million, largely due to the financial collapse of Russia. He took stock of the situation, then began to refocus the EBRD's notoriously lax investment policies and tighten up on opulence at the bank itself. At the same time, he was widely reputed to clash with his American vice president, Charles Frank, and other EBRD officials reportedly complained about his temper and management style.

Head of the International Monetary Fund, 2000–2004
Köhler was appointed managing director and Chairman of the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2000. The government of Gerhard Schröder nominated him after their first nominee, Caio Koch-Weser, was rejected by the United States. Though respected, Köhler was not a particularly well known or prestigious figure in international financial circles. At the time, he was one of three candidates for the IMF position, with Japan having put forward its former deputy finance minister Eisuke Sakakibara and several African nations backing Stanley Fischer.

In one of his first moves at the IMF, Köhler joined British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in hosting a gathering of anti-poverty activists to discuss an international campaign to write off billions of dollars in debts that developing nations owe the IMF, World Bank and other government creditors.

Before entering the office of managing director, Köhler had spent time in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and thereafter cited it as an example of the fund's tendency towards intrusive micromanagement. Instead, he intended to focus the Fund primarily on broad economic management and to reduce overlapping activity with the World Bank. Shortly after taking office in 2000, he established the Financial Sector Review Group under the leadership of John Lipsky to provide an independent perspective on the Fund's work on international financial markets, In March 2001, on the group's recommendations, he created the International Capital Markets Department, a unit to anticipate and head off financial crises in countries to which the fund makes loans.

In 2001, Köhler recommended naming Timothy Geithner to replace Stanley Fischer as deputy managing director; instead, the US government under President George W. Bush successfully pushed for Anne O. Krueger to take the position.

In order to accept his nomination as presidential candidate, Köhler left the IMF a year before his term was scheduled to end in May 2005. Among his accomplishments were overseeing debt crises in Brazil and Turkey and expanding debt relief for the world's poorest countries. He had less success resolving the continuing debt problems in Argentina.

He lived in Washington, D.C., from 2000 to 2004.

9th president of Germany, 2004–2010

On 4 March 2004, Köhler resigned his post with the IMF after being nominated by Germany's conservative and liberal opposition parties as their presidential candidate. As these parties controlled a majority of votes in the Bundesversammlung (an electoral college consisting of the membership of the Bundestag and an equal number of delegates appointed by the legislatures of each state), the result of the vote amounted to essentially a foregone conclusion, but was closer than expected. Köhler defeated Gesine Schwan on the first ballot by 604 votes to 580; 20 votes were cast for minor candidates, while one elector was absent because of a heart attack. Köhler succeeded Johannes Rau as president on 1 July 2004, for a five-year term. Germany's presidency is a largely ceremonial office, but is also invested with considerable moral authority. From 2004 until early 2006, Charlottenburg Palace was the seat of the President of Germany, whilst Schloss Bellevue was being renovated.

Upon his election, Köhler, a conservative German patriot, said that "Patriotism and being cosmopolitan are not opposites." Die Welt wrote, "He appeared an enlightened patriot who genuinely loves his country and is not afraid to say so". Presenting his visions for Germany, Köhler also said that "Germany should become a land of ideas", and emphasized the importance of globalization, and that Germany would have to compete for its place in the 21st century. Domestically, President Köhler became concerned with the question of how to preserve and create jobs in an internationally competitive environment.

During his presidency, Köhler gained a reputation for regularly voicing his opinion on foreign policy matters. He called for "globalization with a human face" and became a strong advocate of poverty eradication. In his inaugural speech, Köhler had set his focus on a "fair partnership with Africa" which he described as a question of European self-respect:

"'In my view, the humanity of our world can be measured against the fate of Africa. Do Europe's self-respect, its foundations, values and history, not require it to play an honest and generous role in Africa?'"

Throughout his six years as president, Köhler "worked hard to put Africa on the top of Germany's political agenda", according to Deutsche Welle. One of his trademark projects was the Partnership with Africa initiative, which brought together heads of state, entrepreneurs, intellectuals and students from Africa and Europe to create a "dialogue of equals". Through unapologetic criticism of both Europe's negligence of the African continent and of sensitive issues in African politics, including corruption, Köhler gained wide popularity across Africa.

On the eve of his resignation, Köhler presented his book Schicksal Afrika, an edited volume on the continent's future with contributions from 41 authors, including former African Presidents Thabo Mbeki and John Kufuor as well as Nobel Prize Literature Laureate Wole Soyinka.

By the summer of 2005, he was Germany's most popular political figure, with an approval rating of 72 percent, according to a poll published in Der Spiegel.

In July 2005, he dissolved the Bundestag at Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's request, after the latter had lost a motion of confidence in the Bundestag. This led to early election for the Bundestag in September 2005.

In August 2005, Köhler attended the memorial ceremony for Brother Roger, the founder of the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy.

In October 2006, Köhler made a far-reaching decision by vetoing the bill which would transfer Germany's Air Safety Administration Deutsche Flugsicherung into private ownership. The Bundestag passed this legislation but as president, Köhler was authorized not to sign it into law if, in his opinion, it contravened the constitution. In December 2006 he did not sign the Consumer Information Law (which intended to make information collected by public food safety agencies available to consumers), because the constitution does not allow the federal government to instruct municipal authorities. This can only be done by the German states. There had only been six previous occasions when Germany's president had chosen to reject bills, in most instances less important legislation had been involved. His vetoes were the first notable examples in recent German history.

In March 2007, Köhler turned down a politically contentious request for clemency by Christian Klar, a terrorist from the far-left Red Army Faction. His meeting with Klar had drawn protests from conservative politicians, who said Klar had shown no remorse for his crimes. The president also denied clemency to another member, Birgit Hogefeld.

In his 2007 Christmas address to the nation, Köhler urged the government to push ahead more quickly with reforms. He was also critical of the introduction of the minimum wage in the postal sector (which had led to the loss of 1,000 jobs at Deutsche Post rival PIN Group), stating that "a minimum wage that cannot be paid by competitive employers destroys jobs".

On 22 May 2008, Köhler announced his candidacy for a second term as president. On 23 May 2009 he was re-elected by the Federal Assembly, and was sworn into office for a second term on 1 July 2009.

Resignation
On 31 May 2010, Köhler announced his resignation as President of Germany. This came after German politicians criticised comments made by Köhler in relation to overseas military deployments:

After coming under criticism for his statements that Germany's military missions abroad also served to secure trade, critics accused him of advocating the use of "gunboat diplomacy". He subsequently stated that his comments referred to piracy off the coast of Somalia. Köhler stated that there was no substance to accusations that in the interview he had overstepped his formal role by favoring an unconstitutional position. After getting no substantial support in the dispute, Köhler stepped down on 31 May 2010, issuing a statement saying "I declare my resignation from the Office of President, with immediate effect." The resignation was considered a "surprise", and both pundits and opposition politicians labeled it "an overreaction". The following days he was criticized for not being able to handle criticism while being a rigorous critic himself. His unprecedented act of immediate resignation was also considered showing a lack of respect for his position.

As stipulated by the German constitution, the powers of the vacant office were executed by the current President of the Bundesrat, Jens Böhrnsen, until Christian Wulff was elected president on 30 June 2010. Wulff himself resigned less than two years later after allegations of corruption were levelled against him. Wulff resigned on 17 February 2012 and was succeeded by Joachim Gauck.

Post-presidency

Since leaving office, Köhler continues to voice his opinion on selected foreign and domestic policy matters, most notably on Europe-Africa relations, the global fight against poverty and climate change as well as on the need for a new spirit of global partnership.

Between 2010 and 2011, Köhler served as member of the Palais Royal Initiative, a group convened by Michel Camdessus, Alexandre Lamfalussy and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa to reform the international monetary system.

From 2012 to 2013, Köhler served on the United Nations' High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which was co-chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom. The advisory board was established by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to shape the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals. The Panel produced a final report with recommendations and thereby contributed in the making of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by all UN member states in September 2015.

Within Germany, Köhler is widely regarded as one of the country's most experienced experts on Africa, although he himself has publicly rejected this label, saying in his speech "On the impossibility of speaking of Africa": "The more I learned about Africa, the more I realized how much there still was to learn".

On several occasions, Köhler has officially represented Germany as former president. Köhler took part in Namibia's 25th Independence Day festivities and represented Germany at President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta's inauguration ceremony in Mali the same year. Since 2016, Köhler co-chairs, together with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a Special Panel of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

In 2017, Köhler was appointed by António Guterres as his new special envoy for Western Sahara, in charge of restarting talks between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement over the disputed territory. In that capacity, Köhler invited the foreign ministers of Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania as well as the secretary general of the Polisario Front in late 2018 for a meeting in Geneva to broker a settlement over the territory; this marked the first time in six years that the involved parties met for negotiations. In 2019, he left his post on health grounds.

Köhler is also working for numerous charities and non-profit organizations, and continues to hold an honorary professorship at the University of Tübingen, his alma mater. Since his retirement from German and European politics, he has held a variety of positions, including:
 * Scope Foundation, Member of the Honorary Board (since 2020)
 * Aktion Deutschland Hilft (Germany's Relief Coalition), Patron
 * Club of Madrid, Member
 * Deutsche Nationalstiftung, Chairman of the Senate
 * Friedrich August von Hayek Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Hermann Kunst-Stiftung zur Förderung der neutestamentlichen Textforschung, chairman of the Board of Trustees
 * Friede Springer Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2011)
 * Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Wittenberg Center for Global Ethics, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2011)
 * Rotary International, Member
 * Emerging Markets Forum (EMF), Co-chair
 * African Development Bank (AfDB) Special Panel, Co-chair
 * Opera Village Africa, Honorary Patron
 * Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, Patron of the Horst Köhler Fellowship Programme
 * Stiftung Weltethos (Global Ethics Foundation), Member of the Board of Trustees*
 * Club of Rome, Honorary Member
 * University of Tübingen, Honorary Senator

Personal life
Köhler is married to Eva Köhler, a teacher. They have two children, a daughter Ulrike (born in 1972) and a son Jochen (born in 1977), as well as four grandchildren. Köhler is a member of the Protestant Church in Germany. A passionate swimmer, runner and cross-country skier, Köhler chooses to spend much of this time in nature. Together with his wife, Köhler currently lives in Berlin and Chiemgau.

State orders

 * DE-BW Verdienstmedaille des Landes Baden-Württemberg BAR.png Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg (2002)

Federal orders

 * GER Bundesverdienstkreuz 9 Sond des Grosskreuzes.svg Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2004)

Foreign orders

 * AUT Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria - 2nd Class BAR.svg Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria (2003)
 * Order of the Bath ribbon.svg Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (2004)
 * LTU Order of Vytautas the Great with the Golden Chain BAR.svg Order of Vytautas the Great with the Golden Chain (19 October 2005)
 * POL Order Orła Białego BAR.svg Knight of the Order of the White Eagle (2005)
 * ITA OMRI 2001 GC-GCord BAR.svg Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (15 March 2006)
 * FIN Order of the White Rose Grand Cross BAR.svg Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the White Rose of Finland (2007)
 * NLD Order of the Dutch Lion - Grand Cross BAR.png Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (2007)
 * St Olavs Orden storkors stripe.svg Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav (15 October 2007)
 * PRT Order of Prince Henry - Grand Collar BAR.png Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (2 March 2009)

Prizes and awards

 * 🇩🇪 Germany: The National German Sustainability Award (2014)
 * 🇩🇪 Germany: Adam Smith Prize for Environmental Economic Policy (2014), Green Budget Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Germany: CARE-Millenniumspreis (2015), in recognition for his service to poverty eradication and work towards a global partnership
 * 🇩🇪 Germany: Global Economy Prize (2017), IfW Kiel Institute for the World Economy

title: Horst Köhler


text:
Appropriate technology

Appropriate technology is a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and locally autonomous. It was originally articulated as intermediate technology by the economist Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his work Small Is Beautiful. Both Schumacher and many modern-day proponents of appropriate technology also emphasize the technology as people-centered.

Appropriate technology has been used to address issues in a wide range of fields. Well-known examples of appropriate technology applications include: bike- and hand-powered water pumps (and other self-powered equipment), the bicycle, the universal nut sheller, self-contained solar lamps and streetlights, and passive solar building designs. Today appropriate technology is often developed using open source principles, which have led to open-source appropriate technology (OSAT) and thus many of the plans of the technology can be freely found on the Internet. OSAT has been proposed as a new model of enabling innovation for sustainable development.

Appropriate technology is most commonly discussed in its relationship to economic development and as an alternative to technology transfer of more capital-intensive technology from industrialized nations to developing countries. However, appropriate technology movements can be found in both developing and developed countries. In developed countries, the appropriate technology movement grew out of the energy crisis of the 1970s and focuses mainly on environmental and sustainability issues. Today the idea is multifaceted; in some contexts, appropriate technology can be described as the simplest level of technology that can achieve the intended purpose, whereas in others, it can refer to engineering that takes adequate consideration of social and environmental ramifications. The facets are connected through robustness and sustainable living.

Predecessors
Indian ideological leader Mahatma Gandhi is often cited as the "father" of the appropriate technology movement. Though the concept had not been given a name, Gandhi advocated for small, local and predominantly village-based technology to help India's villages become self-reliant. He disagreed with the idea of technology that benefited a minority of people at the expense of the majority or that put people out of work to increase profit. In 1925 Gandhi founded the All-India Spinners Association and in 1935 he retired from politics to form the All-India Village Industries Association. Both organizations focused on village-based technology similar to the future appropriate technology movement.

China also implemented policies similar to appropriate technology during the reign of Mao Zedong and the following Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, development policies based on the idea of "walking on two legs" advocated the development of both large-scale factories and small-scale village industries.

E. F. Schumacher
Despite these early examples, Dr. Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher is credited as the founder of the appropriate technology movement. A well-known economist, Schumacher worked for the British National Coal Board for more than 20 years, where he blamed the size of the industry's operations for its uncaring response to the harm black-lung disease inflicted on the miners. However it was his work with developing countries, such as India and Burma, which helped Schumacher form the underlying principles of appropriate technology.

Schumacher first articulated the idea of "intermediate technology," now known as appropriate technology, in a 1962 report to the Indian Planning Commission in which he described India as long in labor and short in capital, calling for an "intermediate industrial technology" that harnessed India's labor surplus. Schumacher had been developing the idea of intermediate technology for several years prior to the Planning Commission report. In 1955, following a stint as an economic advisor to the government of Burma, he published the short paper "Economics in a Buddhist Country," his first known critique of the effects of Western economics on developing countries. In addition to Buddhism, Schumacher also credited his ideas to Gandhi.

Initially, Schumacher's ideas were rejected by both the Indian government and leading development economists. Spurred to action over concern the idea of intermediate technology would languish, Schumacher, George McRobie, Mansur Hoda and Julia Porter brought together a group of approximately 20 people to form the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in May 1965. Later that year, a Schumacher article published in The Observer garnered significant attention and support for the group. In 1967, the group published the Tools for Progress: A Guide to Small-scale Equipment for Rural Development and sold 7,000 copies. ITDG also formed panels of experts and practitioners around specific technological needs (such as building construction, energy and water) to develop intermediate technologies to address those needs. At a conference hosted by the ITDG in 1968 the term "intermediate technology" was discarded in favor of the term "appropriate technology" used today. Intermediate technology had been criticized as suggesting the technology was inferior to advanced (or high) technology and not including the social and political factors included in the concept put forth by the proponents. In 1973, Schumacher described the concept of appropriate technology to a mass audience in his influential work Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered.

Growing trend
Between 1966 and 1975 the number of new appropriate technology organizations founded each year was three times greater than the previous nine years. There was also an increase in organizations focusing on applying appropriate technology to the problems of industrialized nations, particularly issues related to energy and the environment. In 1977, the OECD identified in its Appropriate Technology Directory 680 organizations involved in the development and promotion of appropriate technology. By 1980, this number had grown to more than 1,000. International agencies and government departments were also emerging as major innovators in appropriate technology, indicating its progression from a small movement fighting against the established norms to a legitimate technological choice supported by the establishment. For example, the Inter-American Development Bank created a Committee for the Application of Intermediate Technology in 1976 and the World Health Organization established the Appropriate Technology for Health Program in 1977.

Appropriate technology was also increasingly applied in developed countries. For example, the energy crisis of the mid-1970s led to the creation of the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) in 1977 with an initial appropriation of 3 million dollars from the U.S. Congress. The Center sponsored appropriate technology demonstrations to "help low-income communities find better ways to do things that will improve the quality of life, and that will be doable with the skills and resources at hand." However, by 1981 the NCAT's funding agency, Community Services Administration, had been abolished. For several decades NCAT worked with the US departments of Energy and Agriculture on contract to develop appropriate technology programs. Since 2005, NCAT's informational web site is no longer funded by the US government.

Decline
In more recent years, the appropriate technology movement has continued to decline in prominence. Germany's German Appropriate Technology Exchange (GATE) and Holland's Technology Transfer for Development (TOOL) are examples of organizations no longer in operation. Recently, a study looked at the continued barriers to AT deployment despite the relatively low cost of transferring information in the internet age. The barriers have been identified as: AT seen as inferior or "poor person's" technology, technical transferability and robustness of AT, insufficient funding, weak institutional support, and the challenges of distance and time in tackling rural poverty.

A more free market-centric view has also begun to dominate the field. For example, Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises (an organization that designs and manufactures products that follow the ideals of appropriate technology), declared appropriate technology dead in a 2010 blog post.

Polak argues the "design for the other 90 percent" movement has replaced appropriate technology. Growing out of the appropriate technology movement, designing for the other 90 percent advocates the creation of low-cost solutions for the 5.8 billion of the world's 6.8 billion population "who have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted."

Many of the ideas integral to appropriate technology can now be found in the increasingly popular "sustainable development" movement, which among many tenets advocates technological choice that meets human needs while preserving the environment for future generations. In 1983, the OECD published the results of an extensive survey of appropriate technology organizations titled, The World of Appropriate Technology, in which it defined appropriate technology as characterized by "low investment cost per work-place, low capital investment per unit of output, organizational simplicity, high adaptability to a particular social or cultural environment, sparing use of natural resources, low cost of final product or high potential for employment." Today, the OECD web site redirects from the "Glossary of Statistical Terms" entry on "appropriate technology" to "environmentally sound technologies." The United Nations' "Index to Economic and Social Development" also redirects from the "appropriate technology" entry to "sustainable development."

Potential resurgence
Despite the decline, several appropriate technology organizations are still in existence, including the ITDG which became Practical Action after a name change in 2005. Skat (Schweizerische Kontaktstelle für Angepasste Technology) adapted by becoming a private consultancy in 1998, though some Intermediate Technology activities are continued by Skat Foundation through the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN). Another actor still very active is the charity CEAS (Centre Ecologique Albert Schweitzer). A pioneer in food transformation and solar heaters, it offers vocational training in West Africa and Madagascar. There is also currently a notable resurgence as viewed by the number of groups adopting open source appropriate technology (OSAT) because of the enabling technology of the Internet. These OSAT groups include: Akvo Foundation, Appropedia, The Appropriate Technology Collaborative, Catalytic Communities, Centre for Alternative Technology, Center For Development Alternatives, Engineers Without Borders, Open Source Ecology, Practical Action, and Village Earth. Most recently ASME, Engineers Without Borders (USA) and the IEEE have joined together to produce Engineering for Change, which facilitates the development of affordable, locally appropriate and sustainable solutions to the most pressing humanitarian challenges.

Terminology
Appropriate technology frequently serves as an umbrella term for a variety names for this type of technology. Frequently these terms are used interchangeably; however, the use of one term over another can indicate the specific focus, bias or agenda of the technological choice in question. Though the original name for the concept now known as appropriate technology, "intermediate technology" is now often considered a subset of appropriate technology that focuses on technology that is more productive than "inefficient" traditional technologies, but less costly than the technology of industrialized societies. Other types of technology under the appropriate technology umbrella include:

 * Capital-saving technology
 * Mid-tech
 * Labor-intensive technology
 * Alternate technology
 * Self-help technology
 * Village-level technology
 * Community technology
 * Progressive technology
 * Indigenous technology
 * People's technology
 * Light-engineering technology
 * Adaptive technology
 * Light-capital technology
 * Soft technology

A variety of competing definitions exist in academic literature and organization and government policy papers for each of these terms. However, the general consensus is appropriate technology encompasses the ideas represented by the above list. Furthermore, the use of one term over another in referring to an appropriate technology can indicate ideological bias or emphasis on particular economic or social variables. Some terms inherently emphasize the importance of increased employment and labor utilization (such as labor-intensive or capital-saving technology), while others may emphasize the importance of human development (such as self-help and people's technology).

It is also possible to distinguish between hard and soft technologies. According to Dr. Maurice Albertson and Audrey Faulkner, appropriate hard technology is "engineering techniques, physical structures, and machinery that meet a need defined by a community, and utilize the material at hand or readily available. It can be built, operated and maintained by the local people with very limited outside assistance (e.g., technical, material, or financial). it is usually related to an economic goal."

Albertson and Faulkner consider appropriate soft technology as technology that deals with "the social structures, human interactive processes, and motivation techniques. It is the structure and process for social participation and action by individuals and groups in analyzing situations, making choices and engaging in choice-implementing behaviors that bring about change."

A closely related concept is social technology, defined as "products, techniques and/or re-applicable methodologies developed in the interaction with the community and that must represent effective solution in terms of social transformation". Further, Kostakis et al. propose a mid-tech approach to distinguish between low-tech and hi-tech polarities. Inspired by E.F. Schumacher, they argue that mid-tech could be understood as an inclusive middle that may go beyond the two polarities, combining the efficiency and versatility of digital/automated technology with low-tech's potential for autonomy and resilience.

Practitioners
Some of the well known practitioners of the appropriate technology sector include: B.V. Doshi, Buckminster Fuller, William Moyer (1933–2002), Amory Lovins, Sanoussi Diakité, Albert Bates, Victor Papanek, Giorgio Ceragioli (1930–2008), Frithjof Bergmann, Arne Næss, (1912–2009), Mansur Hoda, and Laurie Baker.

Development
Schumacher's initial concept of intermediate technology was created as a critique of the currently prevailing development strategies which focused on maximizing aggregate economic growth through increases to overall measurements of a country's economy, such as gross domestic product (GDP). Developed countries became aware of the situation of developing countries during and in the years following World War II. Based on the continuing rise in income levels in Western countries since the Industrial Revolution, developed countries embarked on a campaign of massive transfers of capital and technology to developing countries in order to force a rapid industrialization intended to result in an economic "take-off" in the developing countries.

However, by the late 1960s it was becoming clear this development method had not worked as expected and a growing number of development experts and national policy makers were recognizing it as a potential cause of increasing poverty and income inequality in developing countries. In many countries, this influx of technology had increased the overall economic capacity of the country. However, it had created a dual or two-tiered economy with pronounced division between the classes. The foreign technology imports were only benefiting a small minority of urban elites. This was also increasing urbanization with the rural poor moving to urban cities in hope of more financial opportunities. The increased strain on urban infrastructures and public services led to "increasing squalor, severe impacts on public health and distortions in the social structure."

Appropriate technology was meant to address four problems: extreme poverty, starvation, unemployment and urban migration. Schumacher saw the main purpose for economic development programs was the eradication of extreme poverty and he saw a clear connection between mass unemployment and extreme poverty. Schumacher sought to shift development efforts from a bias towards urban areas and on increasing the output per laborer to focusing on rural areas (where a majority of the population still lived) and on increasing employment.

In developed countries
The term appropriate technology is also used in developed nations to describe the use of technology and engineering that result in less negative impacts on the environment and society, i.e., technology should be both environmentally sustainable and socially appropriate. E. F. Schumacher asserts that such technology, described in the book Small Is Beautiful, tends to promote values such as health, beauty and permanence, in that order.

Often the type of appropriate technology that is used in developed countries is "appropriate and sustainable technology" (AST), appropriate technology that, besides being functional and relatively cheap (though often more expensive than true AT), is durable and employs renewable resources. AT does not include this (see Sustainable design).

Determining a sustainable approach
Features such as low cost, low usage of fossil fuels and use of locally available resources can give some advantages in terms of sustainability. For that reason, these technologies are sometimes used and promoted by advocates of sustainability and alternative technology.

Besides using natural, locally available resources (e.g., wood or adobe), waste materials imported from cities using conventional (and inefficient) waste management may be gathered and re-used to build a sustainable living environment. Use of these cities' waste material allows the gathering of a huge amount of building material at a low cost. When obtained, the materials may be recycled over and over in the own city/community, using the cradle to cradle design method. Locations where waste can be found include landfills, junkyards, on water surfaces and anywhere around towns or near highways. Organic waste that can be reused to fertilise plants can be found in sewages. Also, town districts and other places (e.g., cemeteries) that are subject of undergoing renovation or removal can be used for gathering materials as stone, concrete, or potassium.

Related social movements

 * Community-based economics
 * Cosmopolitan localism
 * Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT)
 * National Center for Appropriate Technology
 * Alternative propulsion
 * Alternative technology
 * DIY culture
 * Eco-village
 * Frugal innovation
 * Jugaad
 * Maker Movement
 * Myth of Progress
 * Open Source Appropriate Technology
 * Permaculture
 * Practical Action (charity formerly known as Intermediate Technology)
 * Principles of Intelligent Urbanism
 * Social entrepreneurship
 * Sustainable development
 * Tools for Conviviality
 * Green syndicalism
 * Lifehacking
 * Small Is Beautiful
 * The Appropriate Technology Collaborative

title: Appropriate technology


text:
Venera 3

Venera 3 (Венера-3 meaning Venus 3) was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on 16 November 1965 at 04:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, USSR. The probe comprised an entry probe, designed to enter the Venus atmosphere and parachute to the surface, and a carrier/flyby spacecraft, which carried the entry probe to Venus and also served as a communications relay for the entry probe.

History
In 1965, the Central Committee, frustrated at the poor track record of Sergei Korolev's OKB-1 design bureau, reassigned the planetary probe program to the Lavochkin Bureau. In over two dozen attempts dating back to 1958, Luna 2 and Luna 3 were the only probes to complete all of their mission objectives. In the meantime, the United States had succeeded with the Mariner 2 Venus probe and Mariner 4 Mars probe, and after a long string of lunar probe failures, Ranger 6 successfully impacted on the Moon (with a failed TV system), and Ranger 7 successfully sent back a series of TV pictures.

The Lavochkin Bureau began a comprehensive testing program of the Venera and Luna probes, while Korolev had always opposed the idea of bench tests except on crewed spacecraft. Among other design flaws they discovered was that the Venera landers, after being subjected to a centrifuge test, failed at half the G forces that they were supposed to handle.

Mission
The mission of this spacecraft was to land on the Venusian surface. The entry body contained a radio communication system, scientific instruments, electrical power sources, and medallions bearing the Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union. The probe was sterilised before launch.

The probe's initial trajectory missed Venus by 60,550km and a course correction manoeuvre was carried out on 26 December 1965 which brought the probe onto a collision course with the planet. Contact with the probe was lost on 15 February 1966 likely due to overheating.

The entry probe crashed on Venus on 1 March 1966, making Venera 3 the first space probe to hit the surface of another planet.

Power system
The power system for the carrier spacecraft was notable in that it was the first operational use of Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) solar cells in space. GaAs solar cells, manufactured by Kvant (company), were chosen because of their higher performance in high-temperature environments. Two two-square-meter solar panels charged the rechargeable batteries.

The entry probe was battery-powered using non-rechargeable batteries

Non-scientific equipment

 * Transmitters and receivers at UHF frequency;
 * Telemetry switches;
 * System of alignment and correction station movement: micromotors, gas jets, electrooptical probe position sensors, and gyroscopes;
 * Computer controller of all probe systems.

Scientific equipment
The probe differed from Venera 2 in not having a micrometeorite detector.
 * Three flux-gate magnetometer to measure interplanetary magnetic fields;
 * Discharge counters and semiconductor detector for the study of cosmic rays;
 * Special sensors (traps) to measure the flow of charged particles and determination of low energy consumption of the amounts of solar plasma flows and their energy spectra;
 * Piezoelectric sensors for research micrometeorites;
 * Measurement of emissions of cosmic radio in the wavelength intervals of 150 and 1500 meters and to 15 km.

Lander

 * Photometer
 * Gas Analyzer
 * Temperature, pressure and density sensors
 * Movement detector
 * Gamma Ray Counter

title: Venera 3


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Visual technology

Visual technology is the engineering discipline dealing with visual representation.

Types
Visual technology includes photography, printing, augmented reality, virtual reality and video.

title: Visual technology