Rich vs poor

India’s technological and aviation hub, Bangalore, played host to a
three-day World Bank conference on development recently. The Annual BankConference on Development Economics (ABCDE) was held outside Washington for the first time.

Policy issues relating to poverty and accelerating development, and world trade barriers were discussed. The keynote speakers were Nicholas Stern, the World Bank chief economist, Aziz Premji of Wipro, and Sadiq Ahmed, WB chief economist in South Asia.

According to Stern, rich nations should ease trade restrictions and increase aid to countries engaged in fundamental reforms and support capital flow to these nations. He stated that the rich nations have trade barriers precisely in place where developing countries have comparative advantages namely the agriculture and textile sector.

The World Trade organisations (WTO) launched the liberalisation talks in Doha, 2001, but have not seen any progress in the last three years. According to Stern, the expansion of market access in agriculture is of fundamental importance.

It is felt that the easing of barriers could result in lifting at least 300 million people out of poverty by 2015 but the international aid would have to double to about 1000 dollars a year . A visible movement forward on agriculture, trade and intellectual property rights and on medicine will push the agenda forward.

The next WTO meet is slated for September in Cancun in Mexico.

According to Aziz Premji, chief of Wipro , delivering a keynote address at the meet, the disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world is frightening. “Seventy five per cent of the national wealth of western Europe is in the form of its human resources, 23 per cent is in the form of industrial produce and 2 per cent is in the form of natural resources.

“For West Africa the same percentages are 60, 19 and 21. Clearly all the economies which have prospered in the century have done so due to their ability to tap human resources,” he added.

Human developmet is a broader goal than mere economic development and one has to question the improvement of the same in a given geographical location according to Premji.