Testimonials Jean Drèze  Is a development economist teaching and working in India. He was interviewed in Allahabad, India on the 23rd February 2011 Growth will not take Care of Social Welfare Q: The general perception of media people about India is that India is growing and they expect this growth of the economy to gradually pull the people out of the poverty. And this is a good thing, because it is a natural growth, and if we interfere with that growth, if we take away the resources from this growing business and we give directly to the poorer, that means we involve the State. And the State is very famous for corruption, inefficiency. So, if we let the spontaneous growth where the business is driving, it will percolate down to everybody. If instead we divert the resources to assist the poor person, it will drag the growth. What do you think about it? A: I think your …. of the mean stream …..of lead … of what is happening is quite correct. There is a doing well in growing and things will take care themselves. But I thing it is really disconnected from reality and if you look at the progress of social indicators and the space of poverty reduction in the last twenty years when India has being enjoying… growth, it is being really dismal for them, (for the nutrition) indicators and barely improved over twenty years of rapid growth. Is not that things are not improving at all, they are improving, I mean after all even in war time people’s living condition sometimes improves. So the fact that they are improving is not a vindication of the current (economic) policy. The policy is how fast are improving and what is the living condition of the people still today. And I think if you look at the experience, when you look at the (competitive) experience of (the States) in India, you look around in South Asia, you compare India with China or you look even at the historical experiences of the rich Country, of the so called capitalist Country of today, the message comes again and again, that if you want rapid improvement in people’s living condition, in education, heath, nutrition and so on, than there has to be a huge amount of State involvement and a fair politic intervention. That comes out even in the history of the rich Countries, look at the health care systems: all of the so called capitalist Countries of western Europe and North America, with the partial exception of the United States, have hugely develop health care system with virtually universal accesses and the share of public health expenditure in total is very large, usually more than fifty percent going up to eighty or ninety percent, in some Countries, where in India the share of the public sector in health expenditure is only about fifteen to twenty percent. Even in the … Socialist Countries. So whether you look at those historical principles or you compare India with China or even with the South Asian neighbours, whether you look at the comparative experiences within India, for example with the State of Kerala, which was, not so long ago, as poor as most of the States in India, but vastly better social indicators, in terms of life expectancy, of child mortality, of education, of nutrition and so on, or the States like Himachal Pradesh in the north of India which now has good indicators as Kerala, in spite of being very poor, not so long ago, you look at these comparative experiences is the same issue again, that public intervention is fundamental if you want to achieve rapid improvement in living conditions and development in the full sense of the term. And I think today there is a great danger of forgetting that historical lesson, and of having this illusion which you are describe very well, that growth has to solve all the problems. And if we count on growth alone, I think we are going to see the continuation of these really small patterns, where the minority of the population is enjoying transformation of living conditions they would not dreamed of twenty or thirty years ago, while, for the large majority of the people, things will continue much as before. We called it the welfare state and it has a kind of paternalistic (ring). Don’t call it welfare state, call it social solidarity, call it we will bring every one at least to have unconditional access to the basics, to health, to education, to social security, some form of nutrition support. These thing has to be provided through some kind of political intervention. There is no alternative to that  see full interview: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL46EDF7CD88112E51

 

Testimonials Julian Parr,  Regional Manager, South East Asia for Oxfam GB. What are the factors establishing Coherence for Development?    It's about supply and demand. There is no point in putting together a robust act or legislation to bring about change if you cannot implement the act. You need to educate the population.  If you look at the domestic violence bill against women, there is not point in educating a population of what their rights are if those rights are not supported and recognized by police station, by local magistrates, you have almost achieved nothing. In fact, you have given knowledge out, but you have raised exceptions to that without any realization of change and that will create frustration.  The challenge is to look at both sides of the value chain... so you have to look at national and state policies but in order for them to be effective  you need to educate the public about their rights and the access to their rights. see full interview: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF143F55954667298

Testimonials Jyoti Sapru was interviewed by Fausto Aarya De Santis in May 2010  in New Delhi, India Challenges facing Gender Discrimination and Empowerment see full interview: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8D888077C6583305

 

Testimonials Montek Singh Ahluwalia is the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Government of India. He was interviewed in Delhi on the second week of April 2010 by Fausto Aarya De Santis Why do you think certain governments in the world are steadfast in their commitments and others aren't?  We are committed to our goals. MDGs is an UN terminology; if you want to describe our goals as MDGs that is a different issue. I'm making this distinction because in our program we acknowledge the importance of MDGs but we don't call this a commitment because of MDGs... this has been a been part of our planning process for years. Across the world some governments are commitment some our not; in our own country also some state are committed and some are not. Ultimately in a democratic environment whatever a government does is because that is what the people who elected it wanted it to do... because if the government recognizes that if carries on doing this it won't be elected again, it won't do it Does the Government give importance to the inputs and suggestion given by Civil Society? It listens all the time, but what do civil society organizations have to suggest? Usually their suggestion is:  (a) You must have involvement with the local community. We completely agree with that. The central government keeps telling the state "please empower your local community". The central government doe snot have the power to do that, only the stare government has. (b) You should involve the NGOs, and we agree with that too. When good NGOs get involved they improve the quality of implementation and we encourage people to involve good NGOs. But the central government cannot start saying that this NGO is better than that NGO; it is the local body which controls the decision which has to choose the NGO. The problem is that if local bodies don't want change they will surely not choose NGOs which want change... that is social capital, social harmony.   Difficulties in achieving Human Developments Goals in a Democracy  You must not think of setting right defects as a mechanical task. Many of the human development goals can be achieved top down in an Autocracy, because you can just enforce things. In a democracy you cannot do that. The other way you do that is social mobilization and social pressure. That requires participation, empowerment, capacity building and social homogeneity. see full interview:   http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL073E7C62882137D9

 

Testimonials A.K. Shiva Kumar Is a development economist and Adviser to UNICEF, India. He was interviewed in New Delhi, India on the second week of February 2011 by Stefano De Santis 4   When you invest in public institution, the faith of people goes up    These are the very investments, better health, better education, better nutrition, that you need to accelerate economic growth. The traditional way is to see that when countries become more richer, people will have more income with which to buy more food, more housing, better education and so on and so forth. But there is a very strong connection the other way. Unless the people’s health condition improve and education improves, you are not going to be able to improve productivity and growth.  India spends 5% of GDP on health, which is what China spends, what Thailand spends, that many countries spend. But what is striking about the patterns of health expenditure in India is: 1% is spent by the Government and 4% is private out of pocket. This percent is unusual in most developed countries, if you go to Europe it is the opposite; 80% is covered by the government and 20% is out of pocket. So if you trace back on why is India doing so poorly and why are these MDGs on health so fundamental, I would say, because the Government of India, like in basic education, public spending is one of the lowest in the world. Government of India has committed to increase public spending from 1% to 3% of GDP, they made the commitment in 2005 but we have hardly gone to 1.2% of GDP.  (importance of investing in the government and the responsibility of the government to provide for basic needs and rights) Faith of People in the Government is reinforced by greater investment in it facilities.  In 2005 India launched something called the National Rural Health Mission. And here again you find that in the last 5 years, a great increase the utilization of public health facilities. When you invest in public institution, the faith of people goes up. (example of his faith in Government Health System and People). We are always doing this, check with the government first, get the diagnose right and then get a treatment from the private sector. So the faith of people in the government is phenomenally high and, I think, the government needs to realize that that faith will be reinforced , needs to be reinforced and strengthen, but only if they are accountable.  You cannot talk about development without talking about corruption.  The second problem, if you ask anybody is corruption. And that today across the world you cannot talk about development unless you talk about corruption. I often ask the question, yes, corruption is important; but do you think corruption really accounts for differential performances across countries? So if you take a table and say, here is China, here is India, here is Nicaragua, here is this this… why are the level of life expectancy, opportunity of schooling or maternal mortality rates so different? Can corruption explain the differences across these nations? And I ask these questions always, can we explain, in a way, the difference in human development outcomes only because of corruption? The answer is certainly no. But having said that, it’s equally important for us to say that public resources are very scares, especially in developing countries like India, these public resources must be used efficiently, must yield effective outcomes, must be invested in sustainable initiatives … so how do you ensure that and why is it not happening? A.K. Shiva Kumar 5   How do we Monitor and Evaluate Projects and Programmes?   see full interview:  http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF5005627AE37A91A

 

Testimonials Anurag Behar was interviewed in Bangalore, India on the first week of March 2010 by Fausto Aarya De Santis . At that time he was is the Co-CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation and the Chief Sustainability Officer of WIPRO  and the leader of the sustainability initiatives of Wipro.  if there is a coherence then there will be sustained good effect and if there is no coherence, then there will be sustained good effect. If there is no coherence then there will only be replication. I think at the core of this there are two issues and they are inter-related: - The first issue, and it applies to all the stakeholders: civil society, government, corporate, etc. is that of an openness of mind about intentions, about trust. Too long have we looked at each other as adversaries. We think that the government is bad, the government does not do. Somebody in the government might think that the civil society people are here only to protest and the only thing they know is the activist form of doing things and they cannot contribute. This atmosphere of miss-trust is the first thing that has to be eliminated because that is the heart of the second issue, which is - That if you have mistrust you don’t have dialogue. If you have trust that which builds continuous dialogue, I think that is the simplest, and I would say it is the only mechanism, which makes sure that we are not doing the same thing over and over again with very limited success, but that we are doing things in a coordinated fashion, we are doing things which are complimentary and supplementary, rather than repeating the same things.  see full interview: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL172C9F96542248DD