Owen Barder has a well argued post on Aid versus development in which he outlines eight policies for what I’d call real development.
1. Trade policy – As well as duty-free, quote-free access for all developing countries to our markets, we have to dismantle the complex rules – such as rules of origin and phyto-sanitary standards – which make exports complicated.
2. Agriculture policy – We have to stop dumping subsidized agricultural over production abroad, especially as our aid conditions prevent developing countries from competing with us. We also have to stop using food aid as a welfare system for European and American farmers.
3. Climate change – If anthropogenic global warming is a reality, as is the consensus among scientists, then the harm we are doing to developing countries through climate change will become one of the most important obstacles to development. Probably the most important thing we can do to accelerate development is to stop our own carbon emissions.
4. Conflict – We make and sell the guns that are used in conflicts in developing countries. We buy the oil and minerals over which groups are fighting. We sustain the unaccountable leaders in pursuit of our geo-strategic interests. If we were serious about development, we would by now have stopped the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda – it would be a simple matter for a well-resourced army.
5. Immigration – In the 18th Century, a third of Europeans moved to America, to the benefit of both continents. In the 20th and 21st century we have introduced historically unprecedented restrictions on the movement of people – notwithstanding our rhetoric about globalization. These restrictions may be the single most important factor which explains why poor countries have not been able to converge on rich countries.
6. Intellectual property – Another constraint on the ability of developing countries to close the gap is that there are historically unprecedented constraints on their ability to appropriate technologies. For centuries, new agricultural techniques such as crop rotation spread through word of mouth. During the industrial revolution, America and Europe were able to use technologies from Britain. When Henry Ford invented the assembly line, the idea was rapidly adopted everywhere. But today’s technologies – from business software to pharmaceuticals and biotechnology – are protected by patents that make it impossible for other countries to adopt.
7. Corruption – We often think of corruption as a problem of developing countries, but this ignores the fact that the money for corruption comes from, and often returns to, industrialised countries. Rich western companies pay bribes, in return for access to contracts or minerals. To his eternal credit, President Jimmy Carter introduced the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which made it harder for American companies to pay bribes abroad. But there is much more we could do, if we were prepared to take on the vested interests of our own multinational companies, to reduce corruption in developing countries.
8. International governance – In our own nations, we have long ago dropped the property qualification for representation; but internationally we do not think that it is strange that representation in our main institutions is based on wealth and power. This matters because again and again, the interests of developing nations are ignored, or treated only as a footnote. From banking secrecy to internet peering arrangement, the rules of the game are set by the wealthy in their own interests. Changes to these practices which would be irrelevant to most of us, but could make a huge difference to the prospects for development, are resisted by powerful vested interests from industrialized countries.
You know many of these policies would also benefit less well off Europeans – and I’d add one other – women’s rights an issue overlooked far too often.
