Impoverished local communities are playing a major role in their own economic salvation, reports Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs orrespondent,in Shanghai
Just as it was the task of the 19th century to abolish slavery and the 20th century to eradicate fascism (although both of these phenomena linger in the shadows) so it may be the responsibility of this era to bring an end to world poverty.
The challenging idea which emerged from an international conference in Shanghai, China, this week was that this objective may be more than just a pipe dream. Look at China, delegates were told, where up to 400 million people have been brought above the poverty-line in the last 20 years.
The man who kept saying this was the same individual who had the idea for the conference in the first place, the president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn. Listening to former investment bankers praising self-professed communists is not an everyday experience, but Wolfensohn repeatedly spoke at the Shanghai Conference on Poverty Reduction of his admiration for China's economic miracle.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "Some men see things as they are and ask why; others dream things that never were and ask why not." The quotation could have been invented with Wolfensohn in mind. The Australian-born naturalised American may be in his early 70s but he exudes a youthful enthusiasm for the task of lifting the poor once and for all out of the doldrums and placing them firmly in the economic mainstream.
It's a vision that is shared by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has issued a clarion call to world leaders to attend a special summit in New York on September 20th. In an impassioned speech to the Shanghai conference he lambasted developed countries for their protectionist agricultural subsidies which can mean that farmers get $2 a day for each cow they own, while much of the world's population is getting by on less than $1.
The turnout of western leaders for the conference was disappointing. It was as if they knew there was not going to be any good news for them and that, if any of them turned up, he or she would only catch the flak for the others. It may be different for President Lula's September conference. It coincides with the UN General Assembly, so many world leaders will be present in New York in any case.
The Shanghai conference was jointly sponsored by the World Bank, which provides assistance to developing countries, and by the Chinese government. Although there was the usual quota of jargon, nevertheless some fundamental messages came through.
One of these was that handouts from the rich countries, although helpful, are not sufficient for poor countries to improve their lot. With proper guidance, leadership and resources, local communities throughout the world can play a major role in their own economic and social salvation.
The World Bank has been highlighting specific instances where impoverished or hardpressed communities in developing countries have been lifting themselves up, not entirely by their own bootstraps but with a little help from their friends in high places.
One such community is in the Karnataka region of India, where agricultural methods have been augmented by computer technology. The Bhoomi Project (bhoomi means land in Sanskrit) involves transferring land records from fusty files onto computer. This simple act has brought about a minor revolution in the lives of these Indian farmers. Constant access to land records is required in order to negotiate loans for seed and other agricultural purposes.
Now, instead of having to make the long and expensive trek to a government office in the city or, worse, negotiate locally with a corrupt administrator, farmers can obtain copies of their records at one of the many computer and Internet outlets that are sprouting up throughout the region, with assistance from the state government and Bill Gates's Microsoft company. Farmers can also regularly update their records with the latest crop yields and other data.
The Internet is also a useful guide to weather trends. Technology alone cannot save people from poverty but, if properly used, it can help. In addition to the benefits for farmers, communities involved in the Bhoomi Project are taking advantage of a number of spin-offs, for example, the presence of a computer with Internet access in the village means students and others can take classes in new technology and families can maintain contact with relatives in other places by e-mail.
For an Irish person, it is difficult to study the Bhoomi Project without being reminded of our own highly successful scheme for rural electrification in the middle of the last century, which in its own way engendered a revolution in rural areas of Ireland.
When James Wolfensohn sees an initiative such as the Bhoomi Project he is not content to regard it as a local, regional or even national success story. He wants to see it replicated in all the comparable poor areas of the world. Today Karnataka, tomorrow Honduras, this is his Big Idea. It is also clearly the reason why he was happy for the conference to be held in Shanghai: he sees the Chinese as a prime example of people who take an idea, try it out locally and, if it works, apply it on the largest scale possible.
Another initiative being promoted by the World Bank is the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP) in Indonesia. Kecamatan is the Indonesian word for "a cluster of villages". The procedure is a simple one. The bank lends money to the Indonesian government which, in turn, offers it on a competitive basis to groups of villages in one of the country's many underdeveloped areas. Villagers present their projects for consideration by their peers at a district meeting and the best plans are approved for financial backing. The villagers will make a contribution, usually by supplying labour. The project could be something as mundane as building a new, properly-paved road where there has always been a dirt-track, but it can make a huge difference to people's everyday lives. The best Irish parallel would be with the Tidy Towns Competition because you see the same kind of local pride, initiative and hard work, but with a far bigger funding dimension.
The KDP Project is now in operation on a wide basis in Indonesia. Similar projects are under way in Afghanistan and the Philippines. This is yet another example of what World Bank jargon calls "scaling-up", namely, the application of a workable idea on a larger scale.
Inevitably, there are problems and snags. Corruption is an ever-present danger and, for that reason, every effort is made to minimise bureaucracy and maximise local control. Indeed, just prior to the start of the Shanghai Conference, the World Bank was hit with allegations by an American academic that about $100 billion from its development funding over the years has been lost through corruption. Wolfensohn claims the figure is absurd and points to the procedures his organisation has established in order to eliminate corruption.
Not everyone shares Wolfensohn's admiration of the Chinese leadership, which has been heavily criticised internationally for its human rights record.
Given the amount of money at its disposal, the World Bank could potentially exercise leverage on different countries to make improvements in human rights, but the organisation steers clear of this area which is seen as a political matter and therefore regarded as outside its remit. This is not a perspective calculated to appeal to human rights activists and there is a continuing debate on the subject.
But if China is very far from being a paragon of political freedom, there is no denying its economic and social achievements in recent decades.
Shanghai is a dazzling showpiece of modern capitalism, ironically created under authoritarian communist auspices. The city skyline displays virtually the entire spectrum of modern high-rise architecture and there is an energy and vitality in the air that makes even Manhattan seem sedate.
As our own Seán Lemass said, "a rising tide lifts all boats" and the poor have benefited from the surge in China's economic fortunes. You need to think big when you have a population of 1.3 billion people and the current Chinese leadership has certainly shown itself capable of that. While there are other aspects of their policies that would certainly not appeal to other countries, one of the purposes of the Shanghai Conference was to encourage the rest of us to think big also. Eliminate world poverty: why not?