The cracks are already visible all across Europe. It was first Greece, then Portugal and Italy, with Spain waiting in the queue. The current situation of Europe reminds me of the situation post World War II – wherein most European economies and societies were in complete anarchy! Since the last five years, European nations have been facing major economic setbacks, which have been triggered by political mismanagement and have impacted their entire social structure to a large extent. Today, fallouts of erstwhile strong economies are leading to a cascading effect and sending tremors across the continent!

Amongst all of them, Italy makes an interesting case because as a nation, it has been ranked among the top 25 most developed nations, has one of the best quality-of-life (features among the top ten in the quality-of-life index) and has a per capita GDP at par with other developed nations of the world. This fourth largest European economy is today struggling with a $2.2 trillion debt which is more than 120 per cent of its GDP. In spite of being one of the major manufacturing hubs of the region and boasting of big labels in the fashion and automobile industry, it has miserably failed to keep a balance between expenditure and income. UniCredit SpA (UCG) and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP) – two of Italy’s biggest banks – recently collapsed while five other large Italian banks have lost around 30 per cent of their share value since the beginning of 2011. Today, 20 per cent of their GDP is made up by the parallel economy and corruption ails the system. So much so that investors too are now shying away, which is evident from the fact that today Italy ranks lowest among OECD countries in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index; for that matter, Italy has seen a fall in all attributes since the last year’s ranking, with a drop of 10 points. The overpaid bureaucracy and corrupt political system have been instrumental in systematically destroying the nation, bit by bit!

The situation in Italy has been worsening with every passing day. More than 500,000 youths (aged less than 30 years) lost jobs between 2009 and 2010, in a nation that once had the lowest unemployment rate (around 8.5 per cent) in the entire Europe. Among this, the worst hit were pregnant women (around 800,000 pregnant women left the job as they were denied medical leaves) and low-cost skilled labourers. This not only led to a drop in family incomes, but also prevented hundreds of parents from sending their children to school. As a result, in the last year, the average school drop-out rate was around 20 per cent! And mind you, in Italy, the first six years of primary education are free.

Italy also fears that in the next few months to come, around one-fourth of the entire population may get trapped in the clutches of poverty. As per official figures released in July 2011, the poverty rate increased by 5 per cent and touched a figure of 29.9 per cent among households of 5 and more members. This is evident from the fact that in order to meet their daily consumption, the household savings rate in Italy has been experiencing a steep decline. The savings rate that once oscillated between 25 to 34 per cent is now around 8-9 per cent! Needless to state that given the state of the socio-economic condition, societal crime too has increased in the nation. More and more unemployed youth attempted suicide in 2009 and 2011. On an average, 250 additional cases of suicides were reported in Italy every year starting 2009 – and 75 per cent of all cases were attributed to youth who were unemployed or lost their jobs. This is not all; kidnapping, assaults and sexual crime too saw a huge surge – around 25 per cent – since 2009. The cases of drugs abuse, teen pregnancy, drug addiction, alcohol abuse and depression have also seen an unprecedented rise in the last couple of years.

Add to this the problem of demographic replacement. According to a report published by the ISTAT (The Italian National Institute of Statistics) this January, the population growth is into a deep mess. Previously, due to migration, the population growth and the natural dynamic (the gap between birth and death rate) were positive. But then, after a huge protest against immigrants (due to the indigenous population losing jobs) the population growth started to decline. ISTAT reports that since the last four years, the natural dynamic is negative with the death rate surpassing the birth rate by 30,000 units; the average birth rate of women fell down to 1.40 by the end of last year. More and more parents are opting to not produce babies as they fear the high cost of medical and child-care. The government is also incapable of giving incentives for reproduction, as it did earlier, and had to discontinue their “fund for the newly born” scheme.

Now, more and more aging Italians are depending on the state pension for their living. The recent bill to increase the retirement age (in order to reduce government burden) saw a huge resistance and was therefore dismissed. Today, Italy has more people who derive pension from state than youths who contribute to the economy. Around 15 per cent of total GDP is used for fulfilling the targets of pensioners! Thus, a huge fraction of population that could have added to the economy is sitting idle at home at the cost of the entire nation. Not only this. The rich are also playing their cards well. Tax dodging has become a very common phenomenon among the upper strata of the society. The rich are transferring their money to tax havens and are stealing huge taxes. According to media reports, tax evasion to the tune of $140-150 billion is being practiced every year since the last 2-3 years. And all this under the aegis of the Italian premier – Silvio Berlusconi.

He was not only accused of corruption and tax stealing but has been more famous for his sex scandals. Now, with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gone, it’s time for someone to take his place with the right intent and credentials. Italians are heavily banking upon the reputed economist and ex-EU Commissioner, Mario Monti. Severe austerity measures are needed and only Monti can deliver it – that’s what the entire Italian population is hoping for! He would be pushing for refinance of 200 billion euros of government bonds in April as an austerity measure and would try to regain market confidence by that time. Italy has to fix its problems on its own – as a bail-out is a difficult proposition for the country – because unlike Greece, Italy is a large economy. The silver lining however is that Monti has time till 2013! However, the political forces (including Berlusconi’s party) will be keeping a close eye on Monti’s performance and any slip-up from him on his promises can invite severe reproach from them! Therefore the chances of public gripe are high, and a small mistake can lead to huge political disturbance and mass public protest.

As I said earlier, not only Italy, even other nations like Spain are on the verge of a disaster! This is of serious consequence as it is unlikely that EU has the resources to pull up Spain as they did Greece. At the same time, Ireland’s ravenous resources are drying up, compelling them to take up the frantic measure of asking European Financial Stability Facility for a probable bailout. By 2014, Irish debt is expected to touch 180 per cent of it GDP – that will enable EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) to ask for severe cuts in public spending, leading to a probable viscous cycle of recession. Similar is the situation for Greece and Portugal – and all three need to restructure their debt immediately to avoid a catastrophic default! However, this debt restructuring requires commitment from European leaders, especially from Sarkozy and Angela Merkel who still tend to treat this as a liquidity problem. Another struggling European economy is Portugal with its current borrowing cost at a humungous 3,686 per cent as it plans to borrow as much as 1.25 billion euros repayable in 2014 and 2020! Portugal and Ireland are in such an economic quagmire that it may be very difficult to find solutions! However, the last probable recourse for these debt-trapped countries is IMF – as this organization has bailed out Greece with $145 billion, albeit putting conditions of austerity that the new government in Greece has promised to follow.

Notwithstanding, if other countries follow suit and keep clamouring up to IMF for financial support, this trend could wreck IMF too, as they are already immersed in debt, which even the US dominated financial behemoth cannot handle! EU nations can’t even manipulate their currencies to boost their international trade – as they no longer have their own currency but follow the EU model.
It is a grave situation as the sinking ship of Europe can send ripples across the entire world! Therefore, it should evoke the concerns of not only Europeans but of the entire world! Europe’s crisis is the catalyst for sloppy stock markets across the globe, from New York to Shanghai. The European bond markets are reacting negatively too – the sagging economies of Greece, Italy, and Spain are issuing most of their bonds with a high chance of defaulting as they are rolling over huge existing debts! Without being cynical, it seems increasingly unlikely that Europe’s crisis is solvable in the near future; Europe will be a hotbed for social unrest and protest rallies that have already started and are going to be stronger with time. The ripple effects of the Occupy Wall Street campaign are a reflection of an angry outcry against unemployment, inequality, hopelessness and shattered dreams. According to the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, more economic contraction is likely by early 2012 as a direct fallout of the European debt crisis. Few European countries enjoy investors’ confidence, forcing them to turn towards BRIC countries like China. The Bank of China has stopped forex trading with heavily indebted Societe Generale and BNP Paribas as an outcome of the downgraded credit rating by Moody’s. Clearly, the impact of the European crisis is spreading beyond their domestic borders. The worth of China’s exports is also suffering from veritable losses as EU is its largest trading partner and inflationary pressures are also swelling because of the debt crisis! When the crisis began, among a plethora of other countries, it impacted India’s trading too – as trade credit eroded substantially, forcing India’s Central Bank intervening with a fiscal stimulus to save the day.

Apart from economic turbulences, most of these European nations are suffering from a disturbing political environment that can do more harm. Particularly in the Nordic countries, there has been a rise of right-wing parties like The Progress Party in Norway (famous for mass murderer Anders Breivik), the Geert Wilders (famous for its anti-Islam propagandas) and similar other parties. Sex scandals, highly paid political staff and corrupt bureaucracies are allowing such parties to make their presence strong, which in the long run would destroy the very essence of the European society.

The article is sourced from SBWire.com

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When I went to China a decade back, what I saw hit me very hard. I felt that if all of us in Delhi were to work 24×7 for 25 years, it would still be tough to convert Delhi into Beijing. That’s the China I was expecting to see when I went there again last month. What I saw instead was an extra 25 years of growth in the last 10 years!!! If ten years back, there were gigantic roads but less cars, this time the roads were filled with American cars; brands which American companies haven’t even cared to launch in India! If the last time I saw high-rise buildings, then this time I saw ten times more of them! If the last time I was amazed with Beijing, then this time I realized that we couldn’t even become Guangzhou if we worked 24×7 for the next 50 years. I believe that every Indian politician must have a visit to China as a mandatory part of his induction process into the Parliament (especially the Communists of India who have also so shamefully cheated their respective states year after year), so that they are firstly aware of how they and their predecessors have cheated this country and secondly to know where a country can reach in no time!

They say now that the Chinese economy has caught up with the American economy. In our book The Great Indian Dream, we had written ten years back about the same concept; and today I write that the Chinese economy has left the American economy far behind. Their products are so undervalued that no kind of calculation can show the real value of their humongous economy! And come to think of it, even a few decades back, China was seen with lot of scepticism owing to their political structure and a gargantuan population which was increasing by the day! But when we look at the nation today we realize that it took China just a few years’ time to give this huge population a purchasing power and lifestyle that even many in the West are deprived of and to create an unfathomable miracle! What China did and is doing now is beyond the imagination of many nations; they created this gigantic economy by systematically planning at every micro level – and most importantly, taking its citizen along this growth path! Today, an average Chinese living in Beijing, or Shanghai is almost as well off as an average American living in New York or an average British living in London! So what exactly did China do?

Amongst a host of other things, China’s opening up of its Iron Curtain and freeing its economy from the shackles of central control in the late 1970s while still retaining its commitment to the poor literally brought about the miracle. Unlike in India, their very carefully planned liberalization allowed the nation to experience rapid strides in growth and above all lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty! Millions of peasants were granted freedom from the massive poverty by being allowed to follow their dreams. This freedom and shackle-free life led to rapid development in the manufacturing and service sectors in the last 20 years! All this came as a celebration of new hope for Chinese masses and a new beginning of entrepreneurial freedom! The new spirit and the new mission were well supported by increasing investments in infrastructure, education and various other social sectors that symbolized the Chinese rise in world forums and made China one of the most sought-after investment destinations. The freedom from poverty in turn also helped develop the agricultural sector – as the policy of ‘farmers can make their own economic decision’ led to millions of farmers’ poverty cycle being alleviated! The rural household income doubled from 343.4 RMB ($55) in 1978 to 735.7 RMB in 2003. Between 1990 and 2005 the average per capita growth of Chinese economy was a staggering 8.7 per cent (highest among major economies)! The World Bank’s stipulated poverty line of $1 a day in Purchasing Power Parity corresponds to around 2,836 RMB per year (as per 2007 estimate)! As per this definition, China’s proportion of population below poverty line was 64 per cent in 1981; this dropped to an unbelievable 10 per cent by 2004 (India still has more than 40% of its population languishing below the poverty line as per purchasing power parity)! That’s Chinese poverty eradication – an exemplary and remarkable performance which is often quoted as a miracle – and an inspiration and case study for all developing countries across the globe.

The poverty alleviation programs undertaken by the authorities in the last three decades have contoured the modern China that is sparkling with confidence. Today, every Chinese is free to travel to any city to try and make a living there (Of course, cities do have resident permits; holders of such permits get subsidies in health facilities etc). Yet, one cannot find a single, real, poor person in the cities. No beggars, no slums and nobody sleeping on the streets! When poor can migrate freely, cities are bound to have slums if real poverty exists. In China, people come to cities for a better life and not because they were dying in the villages. The programs for poverty alleviation in China are carried out in 592 key counties over and above 74 counties in Tibet. In the distribution of prosperity, the Central and Western counties were the weakest links always. To address the economic gap, the central authorities from 1986 issued subsidized loans to the poor people – that was augmented from 1.05 billion RMB in 1986 to 5.5 billion RMB in 1996! Similarly, the “Food for Work” scheme was another flagship program in China where government spent 33.6 billion RMB between 1986 and 1997. Unlike other parts of the world where most of such programs are littered with corruption, the Chinese were successful in creating productive assets like roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructures across the nation. In the agricultural sector, reforms in agricultural taxes and other fees were implemented to relieve the farmers. In 2000, all the fees were abolished and replaced with a single slab agricultural tax – and later on in March 2004, amidst fear of WTO repercussions, the central government decided to eliminate the agricultural tax completely within the next 5 years. In the same year, more agricultural subsidies were introduced, which was followed by increased spending on rural infrastructure amounting to $25 billion!

Finally, priority was given to improving transport infrastructure like building the expressways – these were increased from 147 km in 1988 to 25,130 km in 2002. In fact, it was not as simple as it sounds. Initially, the poverty reduction was uneven and was signified by widespread disparities between urban and rural population and also among different regions!

The coastal cities dotted with foreign funds and SEZs were responsible for the urban-rural divide that led to the cash-strapped hinterlands languishing behind. The problem was further compounded by the low skill level of masses, lower advancement of infrastructure, and dearth of proper transport!

Even rural areas did not have a homogeneous income and lifestyle distribution. The rural industries, which began after liberalization, were mostly concentrated in the eastern region – thus generating income gaps among regions. Realizing the plight of rural China, the government introduced the “three-farm policy” to augment the agricultural produce and to make the farmers richer. The strategy was implemented with increased investment in rural areas, introduction of modern technology of farming, providing clean and corruption free administration, and financial help to the farmers. There is every reason to believe that the Communist Party of China took it vert seriously. The Chinese Premier of 2001, Zhu Rongji mentioned agricultural reform as the first task in the work report at the National People’s Congress. This policy of agricultural reforms was reinvigorated in 2004 with the introduction of newly set policy reforms for the sector. As I mentioned earlier, in 2005, finally all taxes from the agricultural sector were abolished! This move was complemented by a massive drive to improve rural infrastructure, provide safe potable water, clean energy, and construction of roads to improve transportation and communication. With all these steps in place, there was an unbelievable rise of income among rural folks; and with the rise of purchasing power, improvement in social sector like education, health, and sanitation, curbing of rural migration, and transforming of the socio-economic environment became inevitable.

Most importantly, China had designed their poverty eradication flagship program in such a way that once people got out of the poverty bracket, they couldn’t fall back to the same state again in the future, which is unfortunately the case in many countries like India. With the amount of FDI flowing into China, the ever increasing employment opportunities and a booming manufacturing sector ensure that people become self-sufficient to maintain their levels of purchasing power parity. Thus, China has been able to not only alleviate poverty but also has made sure that its citizens make continuous improvements at the same moment.

China’s rapid progress that beats any other country in the world in poverty eradication, has been riding the wave of incredible growth not just in agriculture but also in manufacturing and services, where similar miracles have been witnessed! Between 1980 and 2002, the manufacturing sector registered the highest sector growth, with a compound annual boost of 11.3 per cent closely followed by the service sector with 10.4 per cent, while the agriculture sector between 2003 and 2008 experienced a massive growth rate of 18.4 per cent. The sector wise share of the total GDP on an average boils down to “industry” with 46.8 per cent, “services” with 43.8 per cent and “agriculture” with 9.6 per cent.

In the manufacturing sector, China hasn’t look back from the liberalization that commenced in 1978. By 1994, FDI flow in China eclipsed 6 per cent of GDP. Foreign firms entering the country brought with them new technologies, technical knowledge and modern management practices. During this time, Chinese exports of finished merchandise skyrocketed; and by 2004, the manufactured merchandise share exceeded 90 per cent of the exports.

This happened because of the brisk pace of industrialization – and as it is imperative in such a situation, the industrialization was also accompanied by financial market liberalization. High domestic savings led to enormous public spending on infrastructure and a huge pool of labour could be harnessed optimally by prudent labour reforms! From 1980s through 1990s, reforms to strengthen the pricing system and market institutions were implemented along with slacking of the State’s control on resource allocation. This was followed by banking sector reforms and reforms on public sector enterprises, leading to much of the State-owned factories being closed down. The government’s increasing decontrol over the economy led to rising private capital flow and comparative decline of public sector units. The share of State-owned units in gross industrial output value was only 28.2 per cent, a fall of 49.4 per cent over the previous two decades. During the two decades ending in 1999, private funds in gross industrial output value rose from a moderate figure to 56.3 per cent! Cumulative FDI those two decades was a staggering $400 billion! Thus, the high manufacturing sector growth was directly responsibly for steeply reducing poverty by directly creating employment for millions – this had a cascading effect on the higher purchasing power among China’s populace that fueled further growth!

The manufacturing sector growth was initiated by opening up foreign direct investments in specific ‘Special Economic Zones’ (SEZs) – and as a windfall, foreign funds started to flow. China opened up its economy using SEZs to every nook and corner of the country. All these together enhanced the investors’ confidence in China that turned the country into a manufacturing behemoth. Today, major brands across the world are now outsourcing their production through China! The coastal towns have been the jewel in the crown attracting an array of mammoth investments in manufacturing. For records, 90 per cent the said investments are private sector contributions, unlike popular belief.

The tertiary sector in China – often overshadowed by its much famed manufacturing sector – also developed rapidly in the liberalization phase, constituting 40 per cent of GDP, a figure that had grown from a mere 20 per cent at the beginning of the liberalization period! It is astonishing but true that from the mid 1990s onwards, the tertiary sector in China employed more people than either manufacturing or agricultural sector; employing 250 million people by the end of 2007. The number denotes 32.4 per cent of the entire employment roster and an augment of 20 percentage point from 1978. The two biggest components of the service sector are wholesale and retail (accounting for 7.4 per cent of GDP) and transport, storage and postal (accounting for 5.9 per cent of GDP). These sectors have a direct link with the manufacturing industries and form the front-runners in the Chinese export spree. After joining WTO in 2001, China claimed that it had liberalized in 9 service sectors and 84 sub-sectors that included construction, education and environment beside many other sectors in the same lines! As per data released by WTO, China’s exports of services touched $91.5 billion in 2006 with a rise of 23.7 per cent over the previous year making them the eighth largest exporter in the world! We all know China’s dominance in exports, but what is more surprising is that China’s imports of services has surpassed its exports as of 2006! The exact import figure reached $100.3 billion with a 20.6 per cent increase over its immediate previous year, ranking China 7th in the world! Total number of projects in 2006 was a humungous 15,024, an increase of 7.04 per cent over the year before, involving a capital utilization of $19.5 billion. In 2007, the total value of outsourced services was $465 billion – that subsumes IT applications with $90 billion, business processing with $170 billion, IT infrastructure with $85 billion and design and research with $120 billion, creating unprecedented employment opportunities for the Chines!

In fact, the Chinese plan has been so systematic, scientific and meticulous that one should not even think of comparing China with any other nation.

And in the same lines, it is foolish to even compare India with China. Except for comparable population, there is nothing worth comparing. In China, the investment rate vacillated between 35-45 per cent in the last two-and-a-half decades in comparison to India’s 20-26 per cent. And mind you, Chinese investment means real investments, unlike ours wherein a majority of it is sucked up by unbridled corruption and inefficiencies! Even though the Incremental-Capital-Output-Ratio has been similar in both nations, China’s investment on infrastructure is phenomenally larger than ours – India’s average of 2 per cent of GDP is paltry compared to 19 percent of China! No wonder, China is flooded with FDIs (being the second largest recipient of FDI in the world) which in turn provides enough revenue to further boost infrastructure investment and create mass scale employment opportunities.

Thus, they have created a cycle of fortune which India could not imitate. China’s growth pattern has also been different from that of India’s! China started with the development of its primary sector; and in the last 25 years, moved to the secondary sector, a move that made the country literally “the workshop of the world”! The enormous success of its manufacturing sector has ensured the doubling of employment and tripling of output in the last two decades. Comparatively, India jumped from the primary sector straight to the tertiary sector with little growth in manufacturing! In spite of the primary sector’s share in national income plummeting from 60 per cent in 1950s to 25 per cent in 2003, the sector still employs 60 per cent of the Indian workforce – this is causing low productivity employment for a majority of Indian labourers. The trade policy and trade pattern differs too. The relocative capital that entered China and thereby took exports to an enormous level, has been possible because of cheap labour, world class infrastructure, excellent transport facilities, and cheap housing, that substantially brought down labour cost. India’s public provisions on the other hand have been rather ordinary, which have not been able to buttress export oriented industries, resulting in lower level exports, investment and growth.

Consequently, India’s poverty reduction has been much less successful than China’s – as poverty is rampant and extensive with 41.6 per cent of the population lying beneath the international poverty line of $1.25 a day. India’s own version of poverty line, as recommended by the Planning Commission – of Rs.26 a day for rural population and Rs.32 a day for urban population – is all of a laughing stock. As compared to this, as I mentioned earlier, China’s proportion of population below the international poverty line is a mere 10 per cent!

India was almost better off than China even till the 1960s! But after fifty years, China is now a massive, real superpower which has the strength to even look down upon the Americans, while we are in a make-believe world and don’t even know what’s the true meaning of a superpower. We don’t even know where China has reached. If we want to change India, we need to take every Indian politician to China – from Sonia Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi to Lal Krishna Advani to Prakash Karat to Mamata Bannerjee… Because when they talk of poverty eradication, I find it a joke, for they do not even remotely know the meaning of poverty eradication or how soon it can be done – or how much of their type have betrayed this nation. They need to be taken to a city like Guangzhou and be taken on a crisscross ride on the city’s roads so that they can see how they could be traveling on those roads for three hours, and yet not come across any road twice – with only world beating infrastructure peppered throughout. Comparatively, they should feel dwarfed with their deeds (Bangalore, our pride, might finish only in the very outskirts of Guangzhou).

Our politicians should be taken to Guangzhou’s annual Canton fair (where I too went) so that they realize how to attract foreign buyers. Delhi’s so called trade fair complex “Pragati Maidan” looks like a prehistoric, dirty relic in front of the facilities at the Canton fair. Our politicians should be made to stand in front of the Bund Street in Shanghai and shown how one side of the street can be made into replica of Geneva which is ten times better, and the other side (with a river) can be made to look far better than New York’s skyline in only a matter of twenty years. And that’s why there are no revolts in China, which the capitalists keep dreaming of – while people in the West are today demanding to occupy the Wall Street. Because the lack of freedom of expression in China is similar to say in Dubai – where you can’t speak negatively about religious issues – in China, you cannot speak negatively about the premier (actually you can do that too, but it’s just that you cannot attempt a movement against the high command), but you can write about corruption in the government in the papers; you can criticize their policies; you can migrate from villages to cities; you can go abroad; you can even buy Gucci and drive a Mercedes! There are no revolts because every citizen of China sees a committed political party; they are seeing their brothers and sisters becoming better off by the day. And when they come to cities, they see how these are being transformed into leaner, more modern and bigger than the New Yorks and Londons of the Western world. It’s a shame that in India, we can’t boast of the same. What a gigantic betrayal of a nation.

The article is sourced from SBWire.com

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A few days back, the world population touched the 7 billion mark. No wonder the debate has gained momentum about how this growing population would put unprecedented pressure on already scare resources. The riots over food (in Egypt), water crisis and deaths due to curable diseases in developing countries have raised concerns over the population explosion. With the 7 billionth living child hailing from a country like India (and some other nations, symbolically chosen by the UN), the blame of populating the world and causing the global crisis is being shifted back to the developing nations and citizens of the Third World! But then, the moot question is – is the earth really not ready for 7 billion people and is nature really stretched for generating resources for all? Are the citizens of developing nations consuming more and is the population expansion in these countries the real reason behind the growing resource crunch?

Last year in August, Obama blamed India and China for the global food prices hike and commented, “As you see more and more demand placed on our food supplies around the world; as folks in China and folks in India start wanting to eat more meat and commodity prices start going up…” In 2008, a Wall Street Journal article concluded how human population growth will get limited with “the rising consumption trends of large developing nations such as China and India.” On hindsight, the answers to the questions I asked one paragraph above are – as often touted by heads of developed states – yes! But then, the analysis reveals a completely different picture.

The stark truth is that the total food grain consumption of an average American is more than 5 times that of an Indian (per capita Indian consumption of food grain is 178 kg per year, while it is 1,046 kg for an American) – this was revealed by the US Department of Agriculture in 2007. According to the same source, an American’s grain consumption per capita per day is thrice as much as an average Chinese’s! According to WHO, the per capita per day grain consumption figure for the developing countries is a measly 2681 kcal in 1997-99; estimated to be slightly better in 2015 at 2850 kcal – while the developed countries were way ahead with 3380 kcal as far back as in 1997-99, a figure that’s expected to be 3440 kcal in 2015. The most repugnant situation is in sub-Saharan Africa which has a per capita food consumption as low as 2195 kcal; South Asia has a slightly better figure of 2403 kcal per capita per day! With a per capita per year food grain consumption of only 162 kg, Africa is a land of the hungry and destitute, and a showcase for the world to see the plight of the hungry in harsh contrast to the luxury of the developed world!

The entire hypothesis gets more transparent with the fact that the entire shortage and hue and cry over the food crisis is a gift of the West. Researches by Stockholm International and the Food and Agriculture Organization show that the world is not facing any food crisis; but in reality, the food crisis is due to wastage of food. The total food produced across the world is enough to feed the world comfortably. A 2002 report by FAO substantiates the above hypothesis by stating that across the globe, “agriculture produces 17 per cent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, which is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day…” A Stockholm International reports states that US alone wastes around 30 per cent of food and water that can fulfil the needs of around 500 million people – or shall I say, a figure equal to the population of a country like Singapore or two Botswanas or four Swazilands for that matter. As per the latest study conducted by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (in 2011), the total food wasted by consumers in developed nations is equal to the entire food produced in sub-Saharan Africa. For the uninitiated, around 239 million people sleep hungry every night in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is not all. Europe annually wastes around 280 kg of food per person while the figure reaches 295 kg per person in North America. In contrast to this, Sub-Saharan Africa (in spite of being more populated) wastes 160 kg food per capita per year – less than half of what is wasted by an average American. UK alone wastes 6.7 million tonnes of food per year. Per capita food produced in developed nations is around 900 kg a year while that in poor nations is just around 450 kg a year. This is the very reason why today, the number of overweight and obese people outnumbers that of malnourished.

The average household size may have decreased in developed countries like US or UK, but ironically the average consumption has increased. Thus, a smaller household in a developed country consumes more than a larger household in a developing country. This happens owing to the fact that each household, with all basic consumer items like televisions, energy, oil, refrigerators, cars and others finds lesser users in a smaller family – and therefore the total cost of these items is divided between lesser number of family members, thus increasing the average cost. A survey by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in the US found that “single member households spent an average of $774 on residential energy, while the increase for each additional person above two in the household was only $120 to $160.”

The same goes for water. The acute water shortage is a phenomenon that is mostly predominant in developing countries, with 1.5 billion people worldwide suffering from it. The slew of water shortages, as predicted by various scientists, is likely to affect 3 billion people in the next 25 years. And most of it will have an effect on low and middle income countries, who will find it very difficult to cope with the exploding population. Having said this, it is a rule of thumb that high income countries have a much higher per capita consumption – which makes it most essential that there is effective usage of their water reserves and advanced water management techniques to reduce consumption!

An average person in the developed world consumes 30 to 50 times more water than what is consumed in the developing world. According to UNDP, US leads the way in terms of average water use per person per day (over 550 litres per capita per day), followed by Australia (500 litres), Italy (380 litres) and Japan (375 litres). As against these developed nations leading the table – quite typically – there is a huddle among developing countries at the bottom! At the bottommost of the table is Mozambique (less than 5 litres per capita per day), preceded by Uganda, Rwanda, and Haiti (about 15 litres each per capita per day). If population is a measure, even then US and other developed countries consume more water. With a massive population to look after, China’s average water consumption per person per day is a paltry 86 litres – a misnomer when compared to US or Japan!

The exploding population isn’t only about consumption of water and food – it’s about the sticking point of energy as well! So many wars have been fought, high profile diplomatic endeavours tried, millions made to suffer, regimes overthrown, revolutions fanned – just to satisfy the appetite of wealthy nations’ energy needs! United States is the biggest per capita energy consumer in the world that subsumes 20 per cent of global energy even though it makes up only 5 per cent of the world population.

Although China has tipped US to be the highest energy user, US by far outstrips China in terms of per capita consumption. While for US, the figure for per capita energy consumption in 2009 was 6.95 toe (tonne of oil equivalent), for China it was a mere 1.69 toe! China contributes almost 20 per cent of the global population with 16 per cent of energy consumption, India’s share in the global population is 17 per cent with about 4 per cent of energy usage. While Japan with less than 2 per cent of global population accounts for 5 per cent of consumption, Germany with less than 1 per cent of the population accounts for 4 per cent of energy utilization! That’s the difference of consumption patterns between the developed and developing nations (including emerging economies). The electricity consumption pattern has also evolved in a similar trend with the top four per capita consumers in the world being industrialized nations! Iceland tops the list (31,147.355 kWh per capita) to be followed by Norway, Finland and Canada – while Northern Mariana Islands, Chad, Sierra Leone, and Burundi form the bottom four. US for that matter consumes around 7800 Kgoe (kilograms of oil equivalent) of energy per capita per annum compared to China that consumes 1150 Kgoe per capita per annum. In the same light, countries like Nigeria, Zimbabwe, India, Sudan and Congo consume 780, 750, 520, 480 and 275 Kgoe respectively. Therefore, bigger homes, larger cars, more stores in developed countries lead to not only higher consumption, but also higher wastage of precious resources of energy that in the long run can be too costly for the world!

It takes 10 children in India to match the consumption rate of just 1 child in United States! This again is not all. Given the fact that the developed world’s energy consumption and wastage is far more than that of developing countries, the greenhouse gas emission details also follow the same phenomenon. The per capita greenhouse gas emissions per year in US is 23.5 tonnes while that in China is 5.5 tonnes per capita and in India the figure is merely 1.7 tonnes per capita. Thus, US on a per capita scale emits greenhouse gases that are 4 times China’s and 12 times India’s emissions. On a regional level, America emits 7 times more greenhouse gases than what Asia emits, and 10 times more than what Sub Saharan Africa emits! And this is despite the fact that America’s population is one-fourth that of India’s or China’s. In the next four decades, the world will add two billion more people, thus the stress on resources will increase. Today, more than 5.5 billion people reside in developing nations and this is the part of the world where the resource crunch can be felt – of course at the cost of 2 billion ‘developed’ people’s obscene consumption and over the top indulgences! It’s time for those 2 billion to learn the merits of a term called sustainable development. And now.

The article is sourced from SBWire.com

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After seven odd assassination attempts over the last four decades, it was on October 20, 2011, that one of the most successful Libyan leaders Muammar Gaddafi kissed the most brutal and disgraceful death. Libyan fighters snapped him out of his ‘hole’ and shot him to death. His body, half naked, completely wounded, shambled hairs and bloodied was then delivered as prized possession to Misrata (a city near Sirte) where it was put on public display as a token of victory for the rebels. And with it came an end of the era, which Gaddafi built over 40 years. And with his end, the US again proved its double standards to the world!

Yes Gaddafi was a ruler who made a lot of personal wealth the way perhaps many other rulers in India and many other countries try to do. He ruled with an iron fist but then many other rulers across the world do the same. But here are some facts about Gaddafi. Under his rule and his economic policies, Libya’s human development indicators improved so much that it was ranked as a nation that had highest per capita GDP in Africa, best education index and also an exceptional human development index.

During his rule, women had the best of access to equality in the whole of Arab world. Yes, many people did revolt against him due to his iron fist rule, but that doesn’t necessarily make him the kind of evil that the western media has been trying to portray in the last few months. The ire of the west lies actually in the fact that Gaddafi was the real mastermind behind OPEC that virtually transferred billions of petro dollars from the western coffers to the Arab world. And that is something that the west hasn’t been able to forget or forgive.

Let me state clearly that this is no way an attempt to defend Gaddafi or his iron fist policies. The attempt is to bring forth the American double standards by taking a simple look at the three regimes which have been overthrown in Libya, Egypt and Iraq because there can be nothing more shameful than what US is doing to the entire Middle East and Africa. Not only they have been supporting the dictators with arms but with this act, they have overthrown three most successful regimes of the region to quench their lust for oil.

It is no secret that since decades, US has been a chief supplier of arms to the Middle Eastern countries and especially to those nations where the regime needed it most – to most autocratic and ruthless rulers. In 2009, President Obama has asked Pentagon to sell most advanced weapons to governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. Between 2006 and 2009 US supplied arms worth $47 billion to Middle Eastern nations, which was 54 per cent of total arms purchased by the region. It was the American weapons that were used in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt to curb the pro-democratic movements. And why not; it is these countries that collectively provided US with $70 billion through arms trade.

The Obama administration last November struck a deal with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia wherein Saudi Arabia agreed to purchase arms worth $60 billion over the next 20 years including F-15 fighter aircrafts. This is the same country which is criticized for suppressing women’s rights and discriminating against foreign workers. The nation has also come under international human rights radar for practicing unfair trials and arbitrary detentions.

Similarly, US support to Jordan’s government is omnipresent. Last year it gave aid worth $300 million that the government eventually used for curbing political resistance and violating basic rights. Interestingly, the US had made its tie stronger with Turkmenistan that last year received military aid worth $2 million a jump from $150,000 in 2009. This jump is credited to the fact that it eases the flow of arms into Afghanistan and Pakistan and this is in spite of the fact that the 2009 State Department report of the US itself claimed the regime to be an abuser of human rights. Similar is the case of American relations with Uzbekistan (Sanctions against the brutal regime were lifted in 2006 and the Obama administration is all set to refurbish the relationship).

Coming back to the case of Gaddafi, Libya had been a key partner of US in the African region. It is no secret that Gaddafi’s rule of Libya was a transformation from an outcast to a neo-liberal nation for the Western countries. In 1980s through 1990s, Gaddafi’s coveted unflagging support to various national liberation movements that later drew ire from the Western countries, who branded Libya as “terrorist rogue state”! The testimony to it is the bombing by the Ronald Reagan administration that was aimed at assassination of Gaddafi! However, the table was turned in late 1990s – when UN sanctions were lifted in 1999 and US itself abandoned its sanctions against Libya by 2006. It was a case of restoring Gaddafi for American policy benefits! The US also blackmailed Gaddafi to support American policies so that it could give a leeway to Libya on human rights (read, hardliners)! US also had interest in Libya for its arms trade – and essentially suggested – and helped Libya develop its missiles and chemical weapons with American help. Gaddafi chased advanced weapons using petro-dollars and tried to portray himself as the leader of the entire Africa! Gaddafi made windfall gains through oil trade that constituted 30 per cent of Libya’s GDP. The per capita export of oil by Gaddafi eclipsed even that of Saudi Arabia thus allowing the country to achieve the highest standard of living Africa. Now that Gaddafi is gone, Libya is likely to plunge into chaotic misrule. Gaddafi was a secular leader and Libyan Special Services was frontrunner and an ally of United States in fight against terrorism and hunting down Osama Bin Laden. There are now clear fears that after usurping power, the rebel forces can sink into the hands of Islamic hardliners and form another breeding ground of terrorism!

The same story was repeated for Egypt. It has been the beneficiary of $60 billion of US aid in last 30 years! It is a key ally of US in the Middle East and Hosni Mubarak, to a large extent, was an instrumental tool in achieving the same. That was the reason that Obama administration was reluctant to throw its full support behind the Tahrir Square protestors. It is touted that Obama administration helped Mubarak with weapons in suppressing the pro-democracy movement – which eventually made the citizens more hostile towards Mubarak. However, under domestic pressure and to maintain their political image US eventually and conveniently dumped (read: backstabbed) its major strategic ally The change of regime in Egypt – as one would have liked – didn’t really result in a miracle for the country! From the poor peasants to the miniscule business classes – all are facing a huge fall in the living standards they enjoyed before. Moreover, many hardliner Egyptians follow the Salafi brand of Islam (associated as violent jihad against civilians) that is a cause of impediments to the modernization of Egyptian society. Till the end of Mubarak’s regime, it was justified to claim that Egyptian women were one of the most progressive in the Arab world.

Several advancements had been made to improve women’s rights. Several rights such as right to no fault divorce, greater custody of their children were introduced. Under Mubarak’s regime there were handful of women cabinet ministers and about quarter of corporate top posts were occupied by women. Therefore, there was an overall feel-good-factor for women’s rights and women’s voices in Mubarak’s regime. However, after the fall of Mubarak, quite gratuitously, not a single woman was appointed to the committee for drafting the new Constitution. So, the scenario that has unfolded in Egypt is a fierce return of the Salafi image of Islam and is politicizing women as a gambit to dissipate previous progress made for their rights! Apart from intent to discard and abandon women’s rights as equal to men Salafism discounts politics as revisionist and democracy as a domain of the infidels! If the discourse of the present day is allowed to amplify, it can well foretell a day of doom for Egypt – an Afghanistan like situation – terrorized, chaotic and depressed like that of any brutal middle age regime!

Both of these cases were one where US had a little choice as both of these were public outburst against increasingly unpopular rulers. However, in both the case they tried saving these dictators but eventually backstabbed them to keep their hands clean. In the same light, Saddam Hussain, like Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, was supported, sustained, indulged by US only to be abandoned later because of economic and strategic reasons! The US provided Saddam with several billion dollar financial aid, state-of-the-art weaponry, military intelligence and special operations training to be used as bulwark against Iran’s increasing clout under Khomeini. The arms trade of US with Iraq reached sizeable proportions which the Reagan and Bush administrations frequently encouraged, including chemical and biological weapons! Not only weaponry, but US provided all kinds of training as well to Saddam Hussain’s elite Revolutionary Guards on US soil.

A report released in 1994, clearly explained that the biological weapons (disease producing and poisonous) were exported to Iraq under the licensing of US Department of Commerce. However, in 1990 when Saddam attacked Kuwait, American ire fell on Iraq transforming them from an all-weather-friend to an arch rival! After the fall of Saddam Hussain in 2003, the country plunged into total anarchy as terrorism, disorder, bomb blasts, lawlessness, lack of development, utter chaos and misrule became a daily routine. That’s what US did to a perfectly prosperous, wealthy and a progressive nation! Saddam Hussain was a secularist and a liberal leader. He encouraged women’s rights as well. Women were given full time jobs, they were a part of arguably the best education system in the Arab world, were given maternity leave for a whole year, and public day care centers were set up. However, today Sharia law has been enforced where women cannot involve themselves in public life, their freedom of movement has been restricted, abduction and assassination of women is common! The US act in Iraq is a total failure. The people there are far worse off now than what they were during the Saddam regime.

What I am trying to say in simple words is that no doubt Hosni Mubarak, Gaddafi and Saddam were dictators. But they were American allies at one time or other They have been supported and encouraged by America over the years like many other brutal dictators in Africa, Islamic fanatics like Osama and rogue nations like Pakistan. From 1950 to 1989, it is the same US that delivered $1.5 billion worth arms to Liberia, Somalia, Sudan and Congo.

Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani bought arms worth $200 million from these same Americans, who also sold $7 billion worth advanced missile defense system built by Lockheed Martin Corporation to the United Arab Emirates. In fact Egypt itself bought almost 90 per cent of its arms from US between 1989 and 2008. Americans have regularly in past and even now continue to support brutal dictators around the world.

However these three who have been overthrown and killed first, were the most progressive of all regimes when it came to women’s rights-a key factor of judging Arab nations, national income, education and other human development index parameters. The question is: what is it that America wants? It has miserably failed to bring any kind of democracy in the Arab or African world nor does it care. It supports the most brutal of dictators and supplies arms to them for its own profits. But apart from this greed to secure oil pipelines in these nations, is it also that America wants these nations to be ruled by Islamic fanatics rather than progressive dictators- the latter clearly being the better of the two evils- simply because social disturbances and conflicts in these nations allows US defense budget to thrive and be justified.

All I can say is that for the sake of their arms industry and greed for oil, it has been successful in overthrowing three strong and progressive nations of the world and reducing them to dumps. While nation after nation is on the brink of a social collapse; for the US, it is business as usual. And it is time that the world must wake up and act against this unilateral dictatorship in the name of democracy.

The article is sourced from SBWire.com

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This December, I am supposed to be speaking on education in a summit in Africa. As I was researching on what to speak, I realized that while the entire world is leapfrogging to state-of-art technology to impart education to their children, there are a few unfortunate countries – rather, almost an entire continent – still struggling with blackboards and chalk pieces. On the one hand, developed nations are all set to impart knowledge through varied technology platforms, and are modernizing their syllabi to suit the new learning curves; on the other, we have Africa, a continent that has still not been able to teach basic reading, writing and arithmetic to its children. The continent is still lagging behind the rest of the world in school enrollment – evidence to the fact that dramatic global improvements in education haven’t touched the continent yet. In the last 40 years, while most of the world improved its enrolment trends by leaps and bounds, Africa could only showcase discomforting educational profiles – only about half of Africa’s children are enrolled in primary schools, most drop out; and more than 60 per cent of the adults and over 50 per cent of women are rank illiterates!

With these kinds of figures, Africa doesn’t stand a chance to harness its human capital, leave aside meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

There are 15 countries (Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Somalia) with less than 50 per cent school enrolment rates – these have been targeted by the UN System-wide Special Initiative on Africa, by providing educational support for a ten year period. The focus on these 15 countries has become an imperative as their performance in education has been appalling. Enrolment of boys in these nations ranges from 23 per cent to 49 per cent and for girls the figure ranges from a pathetic 13 per cent to 31 per cent! The plan of action is being prepared separately for each country taking into account the fundamental problems of educational access for each of them. The mesh of problems includes very poor students-to-teacher ratio, unqualified teachers and poor provision of text books. This has engendered poor learning methods and poor learning accomplishments. Further, the apathetic governments are doing little to bridge the rural-urban divide and the gender gap (In a set of 19 African countries, female literacy was found to be below 30 per cent). The penetration of educational institutions in rural areas has been a major blotch – with figures suggesting that more than 80 per cent of children without the access of education live in the rural areas. The widespread HIV (even amongst children) epidemic in mostly rural belts has spelled its curse on education too. Western and Central Africa is the worst hit with food crisis, epidemics, violent conflicts, and natural disasters – all have a cascading effect on enrolment rates. On top of that various social taboos and ills, like early marriages, sexual aggression on women and early pregnancies have contributed to gender disparity on education. The little rise in enrolment rates among children is often offset by poor retention rates and early dropouts.

Yes, rising enrolment in higher education lately has been a silver lining for Africa. At present, there are 4 million students pursuing higher education in the continent – that figure can’t be compared when viewed relative to other developing regions in Asia and Latin America. But even among the students pursuing higher education in Africa, there is a low Students’ Course Completion Rate as pursuing education becomes unaffordable to many and hence they drop out. The dropouts are becoming more common because of budget constraints – because unlike in the past, the impoverished African states cannot finance the educational programs anymore; as a result of which, they are increasingly getting dependant on IMF, which puts forward the capitalistic conditions of cost sharing. This is increasing the number of students who need to self-finance themselves! Sensing the opportunity, private players have started mushrooming; with more than 450 ‘private’ colleges and universities in the continent today. In spite of this progress, the millions in need cannot avail of this opportunity as the cost for such programs is beyond their affordability. Besides the high cost of private education, ‘donations’ are also rampant across Africa. Around 90 per cent of parents in Morocco for example pay extra money to get their children admitted to schools.

Global forums viz, the World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF and the UNDP are helping African countries in their sector investment programmes (SIPs) with a focus on achieving universal primary education. To help this cause, Norway has set up a trust worth $7 million to support the SIPs in various countries. Add to this, the UNDP has come out to support African education as well. Ethiopia has been a major beneficiary with assistance from UNESCO and World Bank and was able to manage around 75 per cent of the $1.5 billion needed for its SIP aimed at education; for the rest, 15 multilateral and bilateral donors have contributed $500 million to complete the Education Sector Development Program initiated in 1997-98 as a formulation of SIP. Senegal too has taken steps in improving primary education with a ten year program supported by UNDP. Mozambique has drafted a 5 year education strategy; while Zimbabwe has called for a similar program by UNESCO and UN. Similar SIP formulations are underway in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ghana, Mauritius, and Malawi. These and similar programs unleash new hope for education in Africa – especially if the challenges are tackled by the respective governments.

Amidst all African nations, Tanzania needs a special mention here. There was no dearth in the policies adopted by the government to refurbish their dented political image, but the policies thus designed were half-baked and did more harm than good. Being one of the least developed countries in Africa, Tanzania suffers from myriad social woes. The schooling system had adopted English as their compulsory teaching language and made it a mandatory subject. However, the trainers/teachers available are neither well versed with the language nor with the subjects. The state of English-speaking teachers at the primary level is horrible – this eventually affects the entire education ladder. Students who get promoted at higher levels enter the class without prior preparation and with low proficiency in English. The same is true even for private schools as well. Amidst all these gloomy situations, the Primary Education Development Plan (PDEP; adopted in 2002-2006) and the Secondary Education Development Plan (SEDP; Implemented in 2004) increased the gross enrollment ratios. But then, the number of students passing out remained constant and didn’t match the expectation of the plans. Tanzanian education policies are designed to allow the nation to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal of free primary education for all children by 2015, but then the loopholes and faulty service delivery systems are producing pseudo-educated students. Yet, the compulsory seven years’ education norms have increased the enrolment ratio and today more than 90 per cent of children go to the schools. Overall too, despite the drawbacks, the plan and policies look quite impressive, so much so that on an average most of the children between the age of seven and 13 are in schools. But that’s where it ends, as only 9 per cent of all these children go on to secondary schools – as only primary education for first seven years is free. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) statistics states that between 2005 to 2009, around 83 per cent of children completed primary school but only a very small portion went on to complete secondary education.

The dropout rate is also quite high especially in case of girl students. As most of girls get married at an early age, they are not able to continue their education. The number of primary school dropouts rose to 44,742 in 2006 from 32,469 in 2005 – and most of this was on account of early pregnancies. Shortage of teachers, leave alone the issue of ‘qualified’ teachers, and lack of learning material act as major impediments for schools in rural areas. A survey conducted by Tanzania Uwezo Institute in 2010 revealed that students of schools in 38 districts who completed the seventh grade cannot read even a standard two English book. The teacher-student ratio in rural schools is high at 1:54 (which goes up to 1:91 in some areas), compared to 1:34 in urban schools.

Kenya, which shares its border with Tanzania suffers similar problems. Kenya adopted a free education policy a decade back to encourage primary education among its people. But then, like other African nations, many socio-economic problems loomed over the nation and deterred people from sending their kids to schools. More than 1.5 million children are still out of schools and most of these out-of-school children are either employed as child labour or are doing absolutely nothing. Kenya, like a couple of other African nations, provided eight years of free universal primary education, but then these schools do not take care of other peripherals needed for proper schooling. The law only waives off the tuition fees and not the entire expenditure on schooling. Expensive uniform and books keep many children miles away from schools. Even if a family manages to send their children to these schools for the first eight years, they find it extremely tough to continue the education. Since the secondary schooling is extremely expensive, only a small fraction of students opts for the same. More than 300,000 students drop out of schools every year after completing the first eight years and another 100,000 find no seats in institutions of higher learning! This is evident from the fact that that there are only 4,250 secondary schools in Kenya compared to 18,900 primary schools. The country not only faces a shortage of schools, but the schools also face a shortage of classrooms. In 2008, researches estimated that the nation needed around 4,000 new classrooms at secondary school level alone.

Like Tanzania, Kenya also faces problems on quality of education. In 2009, the National Assessment Centre found that 30 per cent of children of standard 5 cannot do simple mathematical calculations. Early marriages and pregnancies also are prime factors which lead to absenteeism among students. Even the youth who complete education find it tough to get a job in the market (due to sub-standard education) and eventually resort to drugs and crime, for fast money. Education in Kenya is confined to a few affluent families and higher education is kept more elite. Such a selective education system has negatively affected the economy of the nation. Shortage of human capital is not allowing the economy to flourish. According to UNESCO, the average contact hours in Kenya’s primary schools are the lowest in the world, where a fraction of the complete syllabus meant for that particular schooling year is imparted. Adding to the woes is corruption that is haunting the entire system. As recent as in June 2011, Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta revealed that over 4.2 billion Kenyan shillings ($46 million) “was missing from the Ministry of Education” that was meant for free primary education and which was enough to educate 4 million children free of cost for a year.

Following the trend, the next country in line is Mali. Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the children in Mali live in the most inhuman conditions. Most of the children in the nation suffer from one or the other disease. Around 80 per cent of children are anaemic. Thus, even if they make it to the school, they find it tough to concentrate and be regular. To top it, the absence of proper teaching resources and near-collapse of infrastructure make a conducive learning environment impossible. Most of children fail to get promoted to higher standard at primary level itself. Only half of the entire strength in a school manages to get promoted to the next level, thus increasing the teacher to student ratio every year at primary level. However extra budgetary allocations over the decades have improved the quality of resources needed for education; yet, the quality of teaching has remained same. The problem in Mali is just like that in Tanzania and Kenya, where families find it tough to afford education and related paraphernalia. As per government estimates of 2010, only 35 per cent of the children at primary level would have been able to make it to secondary level.

It requires no empirical research to conclude that the life is hard in sub-Saharan Africa – abject poverty, AIDS epidemic, violent civil wars, and of course illiteracy. However, the root of all evils is illiteracy and lack of education, due to which 650 million Africans in 50 countries currently don’t stand a chance to remove human rights abuses, economic impoverishment and healthcare misfortunes, to mention a few. Successive dictatorial regimes and embezzlement of foreign aid have made the situation worse. The literacy rate improvement in the last 2 decades has been modicum and uneven, and in no way commensurate to the United Nation’s goal of “Education for All” by 2015! Certain countries have fared reasonably well like Botswana, Mauritius, and South Africa; achieving more than 75 per cent of adult literacy. But there are many other nations with an unfocused education objective. Countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and many others have a literacy rate that is less than 20 per cent!

The lackluster performance of the federal governments in most sub-Saharan nations has prompted the international community to encourage the stakeholders to link educational efforts with other apparently necessary initiatives like healthcare, agricultural procurements, and micro-credit access. After all, education is imperative to manage local crop markets, easing trade, running small businesses and grassroots level governance. Therefore it makes sense too, to link educational initiatives with local development initiatives. The stakes are high – as failing to educate its people can augur disaster for Africa in terms of poverty and economic stagnation – and its tortuous implication will have an extremely high human, social and economic cost. Apart from basic human catastrophes, Africa will be increasingly marginalized in this age of globalization and knowledge based economies. The power regimes that run most African States – where outright dictatorship or at most quasi-democracy is in place – are not overtly anxious to spread literacy – it is relatively easier to rule illiterate people, as the chance of resistance and intellectual debate of faulty policies is less! Being in power is the prima facie reason for most African rulers to keep their population illiterate. Further, knee-deep into debt, these impoverished states face harmful economic sanctions and financial pressures from IMF, so much so that they pay on an average four times the amount on debt servicing than that on education – this has been the situation even in the previous decade; sub-Saharan countries in the decade ending in 1996 spent 0.7 per cent less on education because of IMF regulations. Thus a huge amount of money that can be otherwise used for education is being redirected to the coffers of IMF.

There is no doubt that education brings in higher earnings and increases labour market participation. In Zimbabwe, school fee had touched a figure of $96 per term in 2007 while some elite residential private primary schools were and are charging over $10,000 a term. In Ghana for example, with the average tax rate being 31 per cent on earning, the masses are left with peanuts for spending on education – even after researches have proven that the completion of primary schooling ushers in a 14 per cent increase in earnings. Similarly, in Kenya the average cost of illiteracy is 6.7 per cent of income. The value of losses to Kenya’s GDP from 2000-2020 have hovered around a massive 20-30 per cent because of Kenya’s failure to educate its people. In South Africa, the cost to the economy has been estimated to be around 550 billion rand due to failed educational initiatives. The figure is the gap between what the illiterate South Africans would have earned had they been educated and what they are earning now. Therefore, the micro-economic cost of illiteracy is significant – and the time is running out – the African leaders have to pull up their socks quickly.

Improving education would not only help the domestic market but also the international markets. Of course, dictatorial regimes need to be overthrown; but above all, the developed nations must ensure that instead of pumping in loans (that has attached interests), they should partner with local authorities and set up hundreds of free primary schools. Scholarships at secondary and tertiary levels would also make the condition better. These countries should tie-up with foreign universities and sign exchange programs at all academic levels. But before all this, all social problems that force parents to keep their children at home need to be addressed (early marriage, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS). An educated and endowed Africa would not only act as a global hub but would also help the West in exploiting African resources in a more economically and technologically advanced manner. The equation is even and simple – what the world needs to do is merely balance both sides!

This is what I plan to say in simple words when I speak in Africa in December this year. And I hope the words matter to those who listen.

The article is sourced from SBWire.com

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