Social Development in Small States

1. Social Development in Small States Naren Prasad United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Geneva, 15 May 2008

2. Literature on small states • Interests in small states from 1960s-1970 • many international conferences • London Conference in 1962, in Barbados (in 1972 and 1974), and the Canberra conference in 1979 • 1960s: country size & viability • 1970s: socio-economic development • 1980s: geopolitical security • 1990s: economic & environmental vulnerability • Barbados 1994, Barbados Plan of Action (10+) (Mauritius Strategy) • No discussion/research on social development issues in a coherent way • 2000s: new regionalism, WTO conformity, Vulnerability to terror

3. Two quotes…. • Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture as the little creep through, the great break through and middle-sized alone are entangled in. William Shenstone (1714-1763), (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things • “The history of economics in the real world is, after all, none other than a continual attempt to distort the free market to one’s perceived advantage” • Baldacchino (1993, p. 38) • Erik Reinert (2007), Ha-Jhoo Chang (2003, 2007)

4. Commonwealth Secretariat • Sustained Commonwealth Secretariat scholarship • Vulnerability: Small States in the Global Society (1985), A Future for Small States: Overcoming Vulnerability (1997), Small States: Meeting Challenges in the Global Economy (2000).

5. Pessimism…. reversed • Early titles bleak • Vulnerability, viability, fragile, paradise lost, handicap, problems, • Recently • Resilience • Briguglio and Kisanga (2004), Briguglio, Cordia et al. (2006) • Resourcefulness • Baldacchino

6. Current knowledge on small states • We know the inherent problems associated with smallness (& islandness) • Policies designed to overcome them • Social and Economic policies • exchange rate regimes & stabilization, financial globalization, labour market, market reform, human capital, … • Development Strategies: • OFCs, EPZs, tourism, Remittance, niche, rent

7. Small states performance - history • A look at 1950s to see how countries have performed overtime…..

11. Importance of Aid

14. UNRISD research: social policy • Will investigate why some small economies are successful, while others not so • Explain through • democracy (‘social pacts’ or societal corporatism) • welfare regime • power of jurisdictional resourcefulness • levels of social cohesion • “When all you have is a hammer, all problems start to look like nails” (M. Twain)

15. Social Policy in a Development Context Series

16. Theoretical framework • Social policy: “… is state intervention that directly affects social welfare, social institutions and social relations. It involves overarching concerns with redistribution, production, reproduction and protection and works in tandem with economic policy in pursuit of national social and economic goals” (UNRISD 2006, p. 1) • Transformative social policy: lessons from UNRISD Research

17. Approach • comparative analytical economic development • political and economic history • combine both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis • Contemporary development discourse emphasises on putting in place institutions that are: • Developmental (high growth, structural transformation) • Socially inclusive • Democratic

18. Countries • Caribbean • Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Dominica/St. Lucia • Pacific • Vanuatu/Solomon, Fiji, Kiribati/Tuvalu, Samoa/Tonga • India Ocean/Africa • Mauritius, Seychelles, Lesotho/Swaziland • Mediterranean • Cyprus/Malta

19. Achieve • Contribute towards the empirical literature on small states • Understanding of social policies in small states from a comparative perspective • unmask the complexities in designing social policies within different socio-economic, institutional and historic settings • Findings will provide lessons for other countries

20. Country studies • General development strategies • Social situation • Social policies • Management of crisis • Policy implications • The role of economist is to “advise, assist, guide, correct, flatter and cajole the rulers into doing their jobs properly” (Reinert 2007, p. 97)

21. Provisional Findings • State-led provision of social services • Strong political leadership • State capacity & infrastructure to deliver • State as organizer, provider, ability to regulate & stimulate non-state actors

23. Provisional Findings • Priority given to universal education & health • Literacy, basic education, primary health care • A United Nations Report (1951) showed that social factors are prerequisites for economic development • in order for “progress” to happen, the “social, economic, legal and political institutions must be favourable to it” (p. 13). • Recommendation 1 “… to remove the obstacles to free and equal opportunity…. including progressive taxation and program for mass education” (p. 93).

24. Provisional Findings • Spending and resources allocated to education and health sector • Democracy, ideology, free media matters

30. Social cohesion

31. Provisional Findings • History and colonial experience matters • Social policy is a complex process, determined by the historical, political, economic and institutional context. • History, especially colonial experiences shape to a large extent the contemporary policy making and institutional process • types of political regime and how power is distributed among groups also determines how national resources (spending for example) are allocated • Parliamentary Westminster type democracy, Caribbean islands also inherited the welfare state politics of the British Labour Party after independence

32. Provisional Findings • Sugar plantation colonies • Population wiped out, countries went to war, cultures destroyed, trade & multinationals expanded, slavery, migration… • Sugar has shaped our culture, landscape, politics, geography, economics, race, music, health, food & drink in way that no other commodity has in human history • Sugar exports contributed to economic and social development

33. Provisional Findings • Caribbean, Mauritius, Seychelles doing better than Pacific islands • Most of Caribbean countries (Mauritius, Seychelles) were directly ruled, compared to indirect rule in Pacific • Creating different institutions and states • More developmental like Mauritius or Barbados, political & electoral system… • major components of developmental state: • a determined developmental elite • relative autonomy • a powerful, competent and insulated economic bureaucracy • the effective management of non-state economic interests

34. Growth performance

35. HDI