As you all know, I recently graduated from an MSc Development Management at the LSE (that is to say, I took all my exams and handed in my dissertation). I am now in Mozambique promoting the use of solar technology and solar systems in the off-grid rural areas, but during one of the painfully long bus journeys from one city to the next, I started to ponder a bit about what I have learnt in these past 12 months, and how it related to what I saw on the road. A summary:
What is development for me?
In the short run, if we can talk about short and long run, the first item that came to mind was infrastructure, in the broadest possible sense. This undoubtedly includes an established transport system, but also the less tangible but equally important technological network access (i.e. precious internet et al).
It looks easy at first glance: how can you ever have transport of products between cities (or as it is called nowadays: ‘trade’) if there is no road or rail to link these cities together? So first order of business should be to make sure the country is ready for an expansion of rail and road traffic. Equally, building harbors and ports to deal with shipping transport can be one of the main points of action on the domestic agenda.
Obviously, and unfortunately, it’s never this simple. Yes, good road condition is important for intra-city trade and consequently economic development (big leap, I know), but how can a government justify spending millions on that one bridge while half of the population are living on less that a dollar a day and are heavily malnourished? It can’t.
Governments therefore have to cover some middle ground, and try to maximize investments in infrastructure and economic development with the allocated funds, and spend the rest on welfare programs, food supply, sometimes housing, and another hugely important factor: education.
This brings us to the long run. In the long run, I see education, education, and education as the key factors. Development has to come from within the country, and educated people will bring in new ideas, new business opportunities, new growth possibilities. Moreover, this will create a positive spillover effect on the non-educated, who will be able to benefit from these new opportunities (to a lesser extent, granted). I see education as a long run factor, because while the investments in it should be made asap, the returns will not become visible within the foreseeable future.
The case of Mozambique has confirmed the importance of these factors for me. Mozambique is apparently the 7th poorest country in the world, and has a life expectancy of about 40y. The country has been developing at a rapid pace, though development has not only been constrained to within the cities, it has remained limited to one city: i.e. the capital Maputo. While this is somewhat of an exaggeration - cities like Beira and Nampula are definitely growing in importance and status, both domestically and internationally - the contrast and gap between Maputo and Beira, numbers one and two in size, is astonishingly huge.
This contrast however does not even compare to what can be found some 10km outside these development-hubs: a whole lot of nothing! Outside the cities, people live in small villages (for lack of a better word) - with patches of tens of kilometers of nothingness separating them - with no access to electricity, never mind running water. The globalization wave has seemingly overlooked these people, with the odd sign of Savethechildren or World Vision and the millions (seriously!) of yellow and blue painted shacks of mCel and Vodacom the only apparent link with the cities. What is present, is a road in good to excellent condition, though how much this actually is worth if you still have to walk a couple of hours to reach the next village... it even adds another dimension of danger to their lives (see my entry from a week ago!).
On the health issue, even more worrying than the high HIV/AIDS numbers, are the complete absence of flyers and general health information available to the public.
At first sight, Mozambique looks like a country on the up, and even a prime example of how one should develop. A second look however, has taught me two things: firstly, development has started in the cities and has as of yet had little to no effect on the rural off-grid villages; secondly, the development that has happened, is for a large share foreign in nature. While Maputo is rapidly becoming a big and healthy city, most of the profitable businesses are owned by the Chinese, Indians, and South Africans. So while the country of Mozambique is enjoying the benefits of the globalization wave in its cities, the question remains of how much of the wealth that is created actually remains within the country, which could then be used to help exactly those people that are currently being bypassed.
Now, I do not pretend to know everything about Mozambique, and I’m basing this entry on what I have seen and heard over the past month, so please do let me know if you disagree.
Regards from Nampula, 3rd biggest city in Mozambique, with an internet connection that works most of the time. The power has just gone down for the umpteenth time, so I’ll guess I’ll call it a night.
luc
