A layman’s view of development: Ramesh Shrestha

Rethinking development again

The carriage of human civilization has been on development track for centuries with a steam engine during agricultural revolution to high speed train during industrial revolution. It acquired supersonic speed with the spread of cyber technology. It is now at hypersonic speed with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI).

With all these changes in technology with continuous industrial growth, our GDP grew from linear to exponential scale although the distribution of dividends lacks fairness. Can this race of economic growth remain on this hypersonic track for long without crashing? The Optimists would say Yes, the Pessimists would say No it will crash and the Realists would say Yes, it could, but we must take many precautions to remain on course so that development remains on track and human civilization survives. Remember, there is no reverse gear on this carriage.  

What is development for?

The overarching goal of development is to create conditions for a better quality of life for all. As we note from truckloads of academic research papers and reports from WB and IMF, the global system has created enough wealth to serve the entire world to create a better quality of life for all. There have been abundant recommendations and solutions identified by numerous scholars in every country but their implementation remained insufficient. The aim to achieve the core objective of development by creating equal opportunity for all to improve the quality of life remained unfulfilled. It is not a total failure but it is not a success either. The idea of development has become a range of perception with diverse responses depending on who you ask to justify that we have not failed.

According to one researcher there were more than 80k+ experts from various organizations providing technical assistance to countries in sub-Saharan Africa alone in 1980 with an annual cost of $4 bn (L. Timberlake, 1985). Although no new data is available on such statistics, this number must have swelled over the years with the spread of democracy and freedom globally followed by the spread of private sector and industries contributing to job and wealth creation yet the scope of development remained uneven and unfulfilled. The issue of poverty, crime, corruption and access to basic services to the majority outside urban centers in many countries remained much to be desired with uneven processes.

The World Economic Forum, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the three tenors of global economic music band, especially for low- and mid-income countries. Their emotional and dramatic melodies are played by orchestra members who come from industries, corporate giants, bilateral and multilateral organizations and international NGOs. Their one size fit all musical notes are unable to meet the needs of diverse countries globally, yet, there are no indications of looking for alternatives. Some people or communities are living better today than yesterday but that does not qualify as achieving goals of development for as long as there are extreme disparities in quality and access to basic services and income that cannot sustain a family.

Bottleneck of money 

Money may not be an ingredient in the anatomy and physiology of life itself but it appears to have occupied the center stage of eminence globally on all aspects of human and planetary science. In terms of prominence it has even taken over the three key elements that sustains life on Earth – air, water and sunlight as money now controls the quality of air, water and sunlight, the fundamentals of the environment that sustains and propagates life on Earth.

Money has captured the hearts and minds of all politicians and policy makers alike, way beyond its role in trade and industry sending the idea of development to abysses. Money is creating artificial dyspnea and asphyxia on development. Money has become a predator which not only undermines but it has seized the governance altogether with a serious negative implication on all aspects of development with lobbying/bribery, corruption and bending policies that favors the elites. Of course, money is important but has its importance gone far too far than needed? Beyond morality, ethics?

Human development achieved today's status partly due to excellence in technology and investments as we see in industrialized countries but there seem to be serious hiccups on transfer of technology from developed countries to developing countries, even with copyrights. There is no reason why so many resource rich countries remain poor because of lack of technology. Nigeria discovered its oil reserve in 1958 but it was able to export its processed oil only in 2023. Corruption in policy making by lobbyists of big and powerful entities has made political leaders weak and became hostage to the global economic system. The end result is that the poor remain poor under the grip of the national system under the forces of the international systems designed by the experts nominated by the three tenors.

Then there is the Washington Consensus to compliment the works of the three tenors. This consensus focused purely on monetary aspects of countries and left out normative values of societies for whom it was designed. The end result contributed to widen income gap, weakening of public services and domination of governance by predatory private sector.

From the perspective of a layman

There is enough traditional and modern knowledge with people in every country. There are also required resources, yet, we continue to fail year after year repeating the same cycle of planning and implementing but underachieving to reach the finish line. A layman would say, for us to achieve our goal, stop looking for the best by ignoring the good which is already in our hands. We really do not need more research, more assessment, more feasibility study, etc. What is needed is focus on investment and implementation. Every country has gone through numerous cycles of planning and programming but the implementation remained weak.

Countries are eager to introduce cyber technology including AI. It is not a competition. Countries must be cautious on how far this technology should be absorbed in the system as it may mean job replacement to increase profit. The aim is to create opportunities for everyone to make a living enough to support a family so that people don't become unwanted refugees or hated illegal immigrants in foreign countries seeking a better life.

Needless to say, corruption has become a nuisance in many countries which is bleeding national resources. Controlling corruption will stop leakage of resources required for development. Bottomline is that countries must build a tough practical timeline on implementation of planned activities to ensure that the path of development remains on track.

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