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Canada & the UN > Newton Bowles Reports
ANNEX 4 Failing Currencies, Recriminations, Who's to
Blame? Potential for Development So, I concluded, transitional policies would have to focus on conflict management, on the adoption of a new agenda, on the integration of development and peace, on the acceptance of the role of culture in politics, and on establishing new public institutions able to cope with this agenda. When all this had been accomplished, a solid basis would have been established upon which development cooperation could flourish: Development cooperation is not out of date, it is not a thing of the past, but neither of today. However, development cooperation will be very necessary in the future, and hopefully possible. Was I overly pessimistic five years ago? The answer is: yes and no. First, even since 1992, quite a few nations have suffered from disruptive domestic conflicts. Some have been contained or resolved, for instance the apartheid conflict in South Africa or the civil wars in Mozambique, Mali and Guatemala. Others have continued or worsened, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the civil wars in Sudan and Afghanistan. In other societies violent wars have commenced or restarted: genocide in Rwanda, massacres in Algeria, violence in Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and Kenya. Simply counting the number of civil wars fought in a specific year does not answer the question of whether or not the overall trend is upward or downward. Anyway, at present, more violent conflicts within nations manifest themselves than during the cold war. The potential for such conflicts is growing and surfacing more easily, violence between identity groups within nations is not on the international agenda, or only in exceptional cases. And when it is, the international community finds itself at a loss: Rather than contributing to the containment of the conflict, it becomes itself a party to it or affected-- divided or paralyzed-- by it. So I consider my pessimism at the time justified in that violent conflicts have remained a very substantive hallmark of the 90s. However, looking back, I may have been too gloomy concerning the potential for economic and social development. The fears I expressed five years ago have not been realized: Remarkable economic development has taken place in the early 1990s, partly made possible by rigorous adjustment policies in the decade before, which resulted in a fair degree of macro-economic stability as a necessary prerequisite for lasting economic growth. During the past decade there has been a great deal of macro-economic growth. Remarkable progress has been made in terms of life expectancy, food security, literacy and levels of education, though the number of income-poor people is still increasing to almost 1.5 billion. This is true for almost all parts of the world: Africa, South America, Eastern Europe and most industrialized countries. As a matter of fact most countries are better at stimulating economic growth than an equitable distribution of affluence. This failure directly contributes to the increasing sharp economic and social polarization with societies. The income ratio of the wealthiest 20 percent of the world population as against the poorest 20 percent has grown from 30:1 in 1960 to almost 80:1 at present. Hence in many parts of the world macro-economic growth continues to go hand in hand with the grossest social abuses. But there is growth and this is also expressed in the growth of world
trade. The volume of world trade is presently expanding at roughly twice
the pace experienced at the beginning of the decade. And the value of
world trade continues to expand faster than world production for the
seventh year in a row. |
