Let the Markets Decide A Conclusion or a Question Mark ?

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Let the Markets DecideA Conclusion or a
Question Mark ?
Dr Mahesha Ranasoma
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Assumptions about market led growth

• Rapid and broad based economic growth reduces
  poverty
• Trade, investment, access to information and
  rapid technology change provide expanded economic
  opportunities
• Equity, wealth creation, innovation and
  technological learning will come from market led
  structural reforms
• Opening the economy foster domestic competition
  and inflows of technology, innovation and
  technological learning
• Globalization and current market dynamics offer
  new opportunities
• Supportive macro-economic environments are
  important but countries also must encourage
  private enterprise led-growth.

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Let the Markets Decide ?

• Markets alone will not take the benefits of
  technological progress to the poor and poor
  countries (Director of UNDP HD Report 2001)
• Rich nations spend 600bln on defence, 300bln on
  agricultural subsidies. We need a new global
  equilibrium, a new balance in the relationship
  between rich and poor nations (World Bank
  President, 2003 Local newspaper)
• After a decade of unprecedented economic growth,
  fuelled in large by new technologies, the
  American poverty rate is still 12 essentially
  where it was before the computer revolution began
  in the mid-1970s. If it is possible for
  technology to act as a major catalyst in
  eradicating poverty, as some claim, it is fair to
  ask why this has not happened in the US under the
  best economic conditions (Finacial Daily from
  The Hindu, 2001)
• ICT offers an exciting possibility for overcoming
  poverty, but this potential will remain vastly
  unexplored if left to market forces (Senior
  Education Specialist)

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Brochure on Asian Summit on Youth
Entrepreneurship and Employment29-30th October
2003-New Delhi

• Asia has 300 million unemployed youth in the
  18-35 age group
• Youth unemployment and under-employment in South
  Asia is as high as 50-60
• Millions of young Asians work for less than a
  dollar a day
• Though 20 of all young people have the potential
  to become entrepreneurs, only 5 do. In
  motivating the other 15 to take to
  entrepreneurship and create employment, lies the
  challenge of change.

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Brochure on The Youth Employment Summit on 11th
October 2003, New Delhi

• There are a billion youth (14-24 yrs) and of this
  850mln live in developing countries with low
  infrastructure for education, skills training,
  and services for promoting employment.
• In India, the unemployment rate among the youth
  is 59 (the general unemployment rate is 13).
• 25 of Indians live below the poverty line, over
  50 of them are below the age of 20 years.

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Let the Markets Decide ?

• Can we regard markets as an efficient mechanism
  that will deliver technological solutions to
  poverty reduction ?
• Governments are the largest developmental
  agencies and the biggest stakeholder, but is
  there a balance needed between the level of
  government intervention and free market forces in
  the context of technology for poverty reduction?
• Does youth unemployment ring a bell about the
  future poverty ?
• How can we address the emerging new dimension of
  future poverty, namely, the digital divide or ICT
  poverty ?