Hi everybody,
I found this article on El Periodico. It talks about a plan for development that was presented yesterday by Viva, a Guatemalan political party. The plan, entitled "The National Development Plan: Guatemala 2050" was developed by Korean economist Jin Park. Park's main suggestion for Guatemala is to develop the manufacturing sector.
The plan is arousing a lot of controversy. Many people are saying that Viva should not have brought an economist in from outside the country. Viva chose a Korean because Korea is a country that has had a lot of success in their development. They have very quickly moved from being an undeveloped to a developed country. However, many people are saying that Guatemala needs to develop its own plan for development that will work for Guatemala, not just try to simulate what happened in Korea. Park's plan was developed without any field research being done. It is solely based on interviews with academics, businessmen and political leaders. One criticism of his plan is that it ignores the indigenous population.
I think that Guatemala may be able to use certain elements of Korea's development plan but I think that ultimately they will need to come up with a plan from within the country that's going to work for them. I don't think that there is one simple blueprint for development that works for everybody. The situation needs to be taken into account in every case. Guatemala has a complex history, culture and political environment that will all affect their path to development. It is unrealistic to think that a development plan that doesn't take these factors into account will work.
http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/es/20100925/pais/176570/
Whose is this?
ReplyDeleteSorry! Alicia.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article to think about, indeed because of it's controversiality. One, especially one with a background in development, must question the merit of a plan to encourage the manufacturing sector when we recognize the ills this type of development has caused elsewhere. Economic development focusing on a globalized economy, relying on external income through fossil-fuel based industrialization seems like the exact wrong direction to head when many are worried about peak oil, climate change and food insecurity. Not only is Park's suggestion from an outsider point of view, as Alicia mentioned, it intensifies the main issues which plague our contemporary society. As Vandana Shiva points out in her book "Soil Not Oil", we should be working toward a "paradigm shift from consumptive energy to productive and regenerative energy, from capital-intensive energy to low-cost energy, from labor-displacing energy to livelihood-generating energy" (5). This will be more and more difficult if countries seeking "development" choose the industrial path. This brings to light the question of what "development" really is. The term has largely been equated with industrialization and a fossil-fuel economy and to move away from this will require the paradigm shift mentioned above. However, to view it, as biology does, as "self-directed, self-regulated, and self-organized evolution from within", (Shiva, 13) would imply a much more sustainable, and indeed imperative, post-oil future.
ReplyDelete- Alyssa Kate Nebel