Creative Financing for Sustainable Development E-FORO del BM (en inglés)

Autor: Willi Noack

Publicado: http://www.worldbank.org/devforum/forum_financing.html

Subdesarrollo está en la mente.
Willi Noack

“Creating a positive policy environment is fundamental to achieving sustainable development. Without an appropriate policy framework, private sector resources will not be forthcoming, and public sector resources will continue to be used sub-optimally. Moreover, it can help channel economic activities toward environmentally sustainable activities.”

The above quotation chosen from your themes seems to me of mayor importance. Lawrence Harrison, a former USAID official, pointed out that underdevellopment is mainly a question of mentality and very much so in Latinamerica. If this is to be assumed to be correct, the key question becomes “How to change personal and social behaviour”? Moral suasion has no impact whatsoever. It has to be the mixture of both, incentives and punishment. Corruption is so popular for example in Bolivia, because it is highly profitable, without danger of severe punishment and contributes even to a higher social ranking. To change this situation and “create a positive policy environment”, it is necessary to use firmly the concept of imposing CONDITIONS to be fulfilled when soliciting foreign aid, services from the local government etc. as a condicio sine qua non. Examples have been the halfheartily postulated Bolivian Strategy to reduce poverty, and he, with severe consequencies, imposed policy on Argentine, which is absolutely necessary to urge the ruling classes to reform structures which enable the corruption and thus the efficiency of public investments. Especially the case of Argentine is worth to be analized carefully: the alliance of government, parliament, justice, great enterprises and a great percentage of he population of operative inferior hands will not obey to the necessity of reform a totally rotten social structure. (Doubts about timing and dosification may be allowed, though).
It is repeated that there is no voluntad politica , no desire of politicians, to implement reforms of the structures responsables for the underdevelopment. If this is so, reforms have to be the condition for receiving help,– take it or leave it. At local level: if the government would conditionate any kind of help or service with the fulfilling of obligations of he citizen asking for, there would be a fair chance of changing mentalities and behaviours. (e.g. to get the permission of leaving the country, one has to proof that tax paying is updated….)

I regret my poor English but I felt too much tempted to make a contribution which reflects my experiences of having been living in Bolivia for 20 years as to maintain silent. I believe that the discussion lacks of courage to name things by their names, there is too much highflying theory in the discussion and we all know, that there is no therapy without a correct diagnostics.

What we urgently need is a CHANGE MANAGEMENT taking in account the reality of structures wholely rotten which have to be improved against the sabotage of an old boys network of privileged sectors (mainly friends of mine…)
Willi Noack

coordinador@eforobolivia.org

fecha: 2002-04-04 04:39:17
autor: Willi Noack