By Francis .E. Ogbimi
African and Latin-American nations and some nations in Asia have been moping, drifting and stagnating because they have been thinking and doing things that do not promote sustainable economic growth and industrialization (SEGI). Nations need good development guide because the development process may be likened to a journey. One travelling needs a correct traveling-guide, otherwise he/she cannot reach his/her desired destination or he/she may indeed make the T-junction error. For one who turns left instead of turning right at the T-junction, the more the effort he/she puts up, the further away he/she becomes from his/her desired destination. A World Bank study entitled, “Can Africa claim the 21st century?” carried out in year 2000, revealed that Africa was poorer in year 2000 than she was in the 1970s. The Vanguard newspaper, Nigeria, July 11, page 24, carried a news item entitled, ‘World moving backward in efforts to eliminate hunger, malnutrition – Report.’ The report jointly issued by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, FAO; the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD; the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF; the UN World Food Programme, WFP; and the World Health Organisation, WHO, provides fresh evidence that the world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. According to the report, the number of people affected by hunger in the world rose to as many as 828 million in 2021, an increase of about 46 million since 2020 and 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
International concern about poverty began after World War II with the creation of the United Nations, UN. The UN charter mandated the world body to promote higher standard of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development (UN, 1968). During the 2000 Millennium Summit in New York, the International community pledged to reduce the number of poor people in the world by half in 2015. In 2001, the UN reviewed the goal of reducing absolute poverty in the world by 50 per cent and announced that the goal will not be achieved till 2030. In the light of the 2022 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, SOFI, report, the UN goal to reduce poverty in the world has become a mirage as Obasanjo described it in year 2000. Why has the effort to reduce poverty in the world been a mirage? In our book, “Causes and Remedies for Poverty in Africa (Ogbimi, 2018),” we stated that our research showed that the management of economies in the world has been characterized by poverty-promoting thoughts and activities. The solution to the global problems of poverty therefore, is to replace the poverty-promoting thoughts and activities with industrialisation-promoting thoughts and activities. For, industrialization is the solution to the problem of poverty. Since the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) failed in 1990, the world became a capitalist one. The capitalist claimed that the crude exploitation of the labour by means of low wages and poor conditions of service allowed for increased savings and the aggressive entrepreneurship that gave rise to the Western industrial revolution. Is it true that mere capital investment promotes SEGI? No! It is a fallacy. Abramovitz (1956), Solow (1957), Gerschenkron (1966) and Ogbimi (2018) showed unequivocally that mere capital investment does not promote SEGI. Poverty is a characteristic feature of a capitalistic economic system. Whenever poverty is not prevalent in an economic system then the economic ideology cannot be capitalism. Poverty is growing in the world because the world is increasingly capitalistic.
All the rich nations in the West and Asia were poor agricultural/artisan nations for centuries. The rich Western and Asian nations toiled for about 2000-3000 years before achieving the modern industrialisation. When they achieved the modern industrialisation, they began to apply theoretical science to solving problems including production and became highly productive. They then built relevant infrastructure including the banking and finance industry. Thus money (capital) in the West and Asia is the aftermath of the industrialisation. Theory: Industrialisation is the solution to poverty. Any nation planning to reduce/eliminate poverty must promote rapid industrialization. How is industrialization promoted? Science is the knowledge of nature. Technology is the application of science to solving problems. Technological growth is a learning process. All human beings are born as crying babies. The healthy baby soon begins to babble, that is, to learn how to talk, acquires the capabilities to talk and then talks (Ogbimi, 1990). A baby who could not babble grows up to be a dumb adult. Every other capability including those for producing the scientific goods Nigeria and other African nations import are acquired through learning. No one or nation is born with production skills. As the citizens of a nations learn, they accumulate knowledge, skills and competences (KSCs). As the KSCs accumulate, a point is reached where all the KSCs form an invisible KSCs-network and the nation achieves industrialization. The transformation may be likened to that which the spider achieves when it transforms many of its silk-threads into the web. Whereas the single silk-thread the spider spins apparently does not do much for the spider, the web made from many of the silk-threads catches the small creatures on which the spider feeds. So the single knowledgeable, skilled and competent individual does not solve the problems of a nation but the combination of many millions of knowledgeable, skilled and competent people transforms a low-productivity poor agricultural/artisan economy into a high-productivity industrialised rich economy.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 (seventeen). They are: 1) No poverty, 2) Zero hunger, 3) Good health and Well-being, 4) Quality Education, 5) Gender Equality, 6) Clean Water and Sanitation, 7) Affordable and Clean Energy, 8) Decent Work and Economic Growth, 9) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, 10) Reduced Inequality, 11) Sustainable Cities and Communities, 12) Responsible Consumption and Production, 13) Climate Action, 14) Life Below Water, 15) Life on Land, 16) Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions and 17) Partnerships for the Goals. How does the UN expect the poor nations to achieve these goals? The UN from the SDGs document printed from the internet believes that fund raising, expanding international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries, encouraging capital to support income-generating activities and market based solutions will enable developing countries to achieve the SDGs.
Economists and other social scientists and related intelligentsia/intellectuals like accountants, bankers, lawyers, administrators populate the UN. Our research showed that economics has many debilities which make economists not to be able to manage any type of economy well. But two of the debilities are particularly incapacitating. Economics and economists lack a sense of history. Economists also lack the understanding of the science that underlies industrialization. The UN SDGs only encourage developing nations to erect structures for clean water and sanitation and to build: roads and bridges, dams, power plants, cities, etc., without encouraging them to make effort to achieve SEGI. All structures experience depreciation. A developing nation emphasizing the erection of structures may therefore be likened to one trying to fill a profusely leaking water-tank with water – a futile effort.
It is learning (education, training, employment and research) and industrialization that poor nations need to reduce/eliminate poverty, not the beautiful UN SDGs. Our research results also suggested that the higher the learning rate the sooner a nation achieves industrialization. The developing countries will achieve industrialization rapidly, if they mobilize ALL their citizens for learning.
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