A DIFFICULT PUZZLE: CAN WE SAY NO TO INVESTMENT? -CONTRIBUTION FROM AN ENVIRONMENTALIST

 

BY

 

Oweyegha-afunaduula

Secretary

National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE)

Kampala , UGANDA

 

Website: http://www.afuna.org or http://www.afuna.o-f.com

Email:afunaduula2000@yahoo.co.uk or afunaduula@afuna.org

Tel: +256 78 555 222 or +256 71 845461

 

 

4th February 2005.

 

Paper Presented in a Debate on “Uganda's Investment climate and the possibilities for targeted investment versus a broad-based policy to encourage seemingly random investment in any sector” and Organised by the Strengthening the Competitiveness of Private Enterprise (SCOPE) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) at SCOPE Headquarters, Kampala, Uganda, 4 February 2005.

 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

 

This debate on Investment organised by SCOPE (Strengthening the Competitiveness of Private Enterprise) is quite timely from the point of view of the National Association of Professional Environmentalist (NAPE). NAPE in general and I in particular may be said to hold quite strong views on the value, quality and effectiveness of investment in Uganda as far as environment and development is concerned.

 

NAPE and I belong to a growing school of thought, which holds that the overblown preference for foreign investment is promoting political, environmental and business corruption and benefiting mainly those in power, their sycophants and of course the foreigners who find influence pedalling and political protection of their business interests valuable to them, and are, therefore, undermining true development -development that enhances the quality of life of the absolute majority..

 

Our persistent, consistent, nationalistic and patriotic questioning of the AES Nile Power/Government/World Bank love-affair with regard to the ill-fated Bujagali dam process and our current intellectual engagement on the Owen Falls Extension Dam reflects the concerns of this school of thought on investment at the moment.

 

Fortunately, the proponents and architects of the modernisation-privatisation model of development and agents of market-based foreign investment are also beginning to see that full-blown privatisation and exclusion of public leadership of the economy is failing to deliver social goodies. Even welfare schemes to wipe out the negative effects of full-blown privatisation are only blocking correct thinking about alternatives since they are turning out to be cases of development symbolism, giving us, the victims, the dangerous illusionary hope that things will be better soon. Our view is that there should be positively synergetic, reciprocal leadership of the economy between and by the private and public sectors in the true spirit of interconnectivity, interdependence and partnership in development.

 

Therefore, when I received an invitation from SCOPE through Pamela, to participate in this debate I thought that it was important that I grace it with my presence and active participation.

 

I understand that SCOPE is a USAID funded activity to strengthen the ability of selected Ugandan sectors to organise and function as competitive clusters in order to better compete in regional and world markets. This is obviously in line with the economic and market choices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

 

I also understand that this particular media cluster is a loose association of business journalists and that it has regular interaction with the SCOPE technical team to dialogue about competitiveness issues, including approaches, frameworks, sector strategies, private/public partnerships, among others, but especially to update the media on developments in Uganda's competitiveness framework and priority-sector progress towards sustainability in world markets. I have no doubt whatsoever that the dialogue has accumulated enormous information on both the positive and negative impacts of the market way.

 

I am definitely happy to learn that you sometimes get opportunity to interface purely on an intellectual level and debate topical economic issues like production organisation, agricultural subsidies, regulatory frameworks, standards, markets, et cetera. This is as it should be. Indeed intellectual poverty is a critical issue undermining progress in development dynamics, particularly in the area of business negotiations. Intellectual dependence is dangerous since its effect is to subject its victims or sufferers to the intellectual styles of others, which rarely rhyme with their (victim's) realities. Development driven by exogenous intellectual styles will benefit the owners of these styles far more than the “intended” beneficiaries. In this case it stops being development and translates into de-development. Continuous investment then serves de-development, not development!

 

It is interesting to learn that apart from the media, we have, at this debate, policy-makers, the private sector and other economic sectors, including Agriculture, Manufacturing, Services and Tourism. This diversity of economic sectors promises to give us a lively debate on Uganda 's Investment climate and the possibilities for targeted investment versus a broad-based policy to encourage seemingly random investment in any sector. Indeed the whole of Uganda 's economy appears to be adequately at this debate, although the sector nowadays collectively referred to by our President as “ Peasants” does not seem to be present.

 

I can, therefore, easily understand the reason for choosing the title: “A Difficult Puzzle: Can We Say No to investment?” to guide the debate. And may be it is easy to guess why you thought “another voice” would break the monotony of a seemingly similar voice.

 

A WORD ABOUT USAID IN DEVELOPMENT DYNAMICS

 

I was not surprised to learn that the United States Agency for International AID (USAID) is the financial power behind SCOPE. According to USAID's “ Facts About Aid ” of November 1986, “Through policy dialogue, the United States communicates with governments to eliminate ‘inappropriate' subsidies, price and wage controls, trade restrictions, overvalued exchange rates and interest rate ceilings that curtail economic performance”, although it is also said that the principal purpose of US aid is “to meet the basic needs of poor people in the developing countries” and also that “…to increase the well-being people in the developing countries is a central objective of US assistance policy”.

 

What surprised me, however, was the latest role of USAID of “strengthening the ability of selected Ugandan sectors to organise and function as competitive clusters in order to better compete in regional and global markets”. To us at NAPE, while we know the others are usual roles of the World Bank as well, the latest role sounds/serves a globalising function intended to integrate Uganda into the money or corporate culture. In this, IMF, World Bank and USAID are, therefore, in league. No one should be surprised about this global league.

 

CAN WE SAY NO TO INVESTMENT?

 

This is a timely question. However, we should simultaneously be asking, “Should we say NO to investment?” Both questions are quite relevant in our economic situation. But first, let me point out to you that, in my view, investment is not a bad idea at all if it is purposed for real development and enhancement of the quality of life of the majority of our poor and is, therefore, qualitative in this respect rather than quantitative and qualitative in terms of movement of goods and services an simply promotes a consumer and money culture and Epicureanism. I do not hesitate to say that this latter is actually the case.

 

Well, can we say NO to investment? Good question, but are we empowered and free enough to do so? Will those who thrive by investing in poor countries anything by any means and largely more for themselves to benefit than for those they claim to help ever allow such a possibility to arise? I think not.

 

My view is that investment is the new term for neo-colonialism; an important perspective of international aid business, which, as you know, is the hall-mark of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) and World Bank's economic development philosophy and practice and a principal avenue for globalisation and hence inclusion of everyone and every economy in the global village. Already those who would say NO to investment of the type I am talking about are attracted to the debilitating intellectual tool of “Think Global and Act Local” and, therefore, cannot see the value of the alternative tool of “Think Local and Act Local and only Think Global and Act Local if it is Absolutely Necessary” in mentally, intellectually and psychologically liberating them to say NO. The majority of my audience, I must say, are virtually of this type. What I am saying may, therefore, not even be making sense because they are so “possessed” that their attitude towards the former is fixed.

 

It is difficult to apply the term “sustainability” to development under an investment environment of this type, which emphasises volume and movement of goods and services instead of quality of life of the majority of a people targeted by investment, or who have lost the freedom of choice as to what type of investment and of what quality should be allowed.

It is, however, true that the temptation to use the term “sustainability” to justify human or corporate activities or enhance their acceptability is quite high and increasing. Unfortunately, as this happens, development symbolism and sloganeering is also increasing giving way to plans, policies, strategies, and development projects or investments that would otherwise be inadmissible. In reality the term refers to the capacity of a system (such as an investment regime) in its entirety to endure, last, persist, and survive.

 

Within the time dimension of human perception, it relates to permanence and steadiness of states and processes in contradiction to the fact that there is no steady-state in ecosystems. It certainly became both an ecological and economic catchword of the 20 th century's last decade. However, it is more relevant to talk of self-sustainability in analogy to self-organisation and self-maintenance and then ask: has increasing investment over the years really equipped the Uganda economy with the capacity to self-sustain, self-maintain and self-organise itself so that it is madness to say No to investment?

 

From the environmental viewpoint, environment and development are two sides of the same coin: progress and, therefore, they are good bedfellows rather than enemies. So far, however, investment as it is being pursued is not environmentally-conscious and is sub-served by equally environmentally-unconscious and bankrupt executive, legislative and policy processes. It is undermining the very basis or foundation of sustainable investment and development, thereby throwing into question the logic of foreign investment or foreign aid.

Unfortunately, as I guess the idea of SCOPE assumes, the proponents of the modernisation-privatisation model of development being championed by the IMF and World Bank and implemented by all of us, continue to urge going on as if nothing is grossly wrong. We cannot expect them to say NO. It is as if we are trapped in a vicious circle of loans and more loans and borrowing and more borrowing.

 

Should we then be saying NO? If the investment scenario is as what I have elucidated, then, yes, we should be saying NO to this kind of development. But saying No would mean disobeying what I consider our new colonial masters -the IMF and the World Bank. We were able to resist the colonialists of old but these ones, who are becoming more and more fundamentalist in their purist belief in the market way and in bailing out Western creditors, are more difficult to say NO to. The colonialists of old appropriated much unaccountable power to themselves as they pirated the resources of their victims, but the modern-day colonialists have appropriated to themselves even more excessive power, which cannot easily be resisted. However, unlike the colonialists of old who dictated to their victims, these ones purport to advise them. Somehow the advised continue to accept the advice uncritically.

 

THE POWER OF SAPS AND WAY FORWARD

 

What is the usual advice? Well, who does not know it? Whatever the international economic climate and whatever the local market conditions, the advice goes like this: cut government spending; privatise your public sector organisations: remove subsidies of all kinds; and open up your economy to transnational corporations . This in essence is what structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the IMF and World Bank coerce the poor to do. SAPs require us to value anti-social spending while reducing our social responsibility towards our poor whom its owners use to justify their huge and continuous disbursements of “aid”. This aid more often than not ends up benefiting the most powerful and those who are keen to continue giving it despite dismal positive results.

 

If our NO can be converted into successful convincing of the World Bank and IMF that they should stop forcing our government to cut social spending on health, education and pensions, but instead redirect SAPs to force the World Bank to stop funding non-priority areas such as privatisation of public enterprises, debt-servicing, investment incentivisation or corporate contracts that are obviously anti-social, then we shall begin to make progress. This would mean, therefore, that both SCOPE and USAID rethink and change their priorities. We should be encouraging self-sustenance, self-maintenance and self-organisation of the economy rather than participating in the perpetuation of a dependency syndrome, which, in any case, is not acceptable or sustainable. I seriously think this is what should really be happening for real development to begin taking place in our country.

 

In the meantime, in case we agree that we should all be serious about sustainability or sustainable development with reference to investment, or whatever the case might be, some environmental and ecological advice from one who is both an environmentalist and ecologist is good. However such advice only works if SAPs advice is rethought and replaced. This environmental and ecological advice may be given in form of questions with reference to sustainability:

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

In conclusion, we are in a dilemma. We are trapped by the market networks in very much the same fashion as the spider's cobweb traps a housefly, so that the more we try to escape the more we get trapped. For this reason alone we cannot easily say NO and go away with it. We are extremely ensnared just a few years after the Government of Uganda opened up 100% to the powerful economic forces unleashed by the IMF and the World Bank. The so-called World Trade Agreement (WTA), which Government ratified without serious reflection is likely to make things worse by undermining our participation in regional and global markets as equal partners. Yet we must not give up to these forces completely because they do not have the feelings or sympathy of a human being. This is why I have always urged serious critical and reflective thinking on the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and the New Partnership for African Development, both of which are techno-economic, techno-mechanistic tools that will end up undermining the social responsibility of development by fuelling “business as usual”.

 

We should be saying NO and convincing the World Bank and the IMF to abandon their anti-social stance and fundamentalist, purist market choice of development to accommodate the need for social responsibility as a motive of development. Indeed development is not development unless translated into social terms. Therefore, preoccupation with socially non-priority, obviously anti-social areas such as enhancing capacity to compete in regional and world markets, privatisation of public enterprises, debt-servicing, investment incentivisation or corporate contracts does not only undermine social responsibility but makes development via the market way a pregnant myth. Clearly, our priorities in development must change to serve humanity rather than corporate.

 

If I have turned out to be a pollutant of this debate, it is because you invited a strong believer in the virtue of alternatives. I believe that there are always alternatives. I also believe pluralistic thinking and practice in development should be the way forward, since it helps us to escape being driven by myths and erecting them as the only legitimate doctrines of development. On this one, NO should be a must.

 

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY