Folks,
    Sorry for cluttering your mail boxes with this again but the first one 
was not good enough because it was sent from a very wacky PC. Anyway it is a 
forwarded mail from Mr Martin Wolf of the Financial Times reacting to Mr 
Ousman Manjang's interesting and contrary views on Professor Kanbur's 
resignation from the UN's Development Report team and NGO matters in 
Developing countries. Many thanks for putting up with this.
Hamjatta Kanteh

*****************************************************************************
Dear Mr Kanteh,

First, I agree that my views of NGOs were too simplistic. I accept that some 
are more pro-growth than others.

As to the attachment, I found it interesting. I don't really accept that 
there 
can be sustained growth that is not also development. But this may be largely 
a 
matter of definition. I agree that societies must make their own choices. I 
also agree that everything cannot be privatised - and have never said so. But 
I 
think that you can't expect western taxpayers to fund programmes with which 
they are entirely out of sympathy. So if a country wants to pursue a line 
entirely of its own, it can also do so on its own.

Yours,

Martin Wolf




[log in to unmask] on 06/24/2000 10:56:40 PM
To: Martin Wolf/LONDON/FINANCIAL TIMES@FT
cc:  
Subject: RE: Your Views On Prof. Kanbur's Resignation


Dear Mr Wolf,
    I write to inform you that your views on Prof. Kanbur's resignation from 
the World Bank's Development Report team was forwarded to an online community 
of Africans/Gambians both home and in the Diaspora and it was greeted with 
both enthusiasm and controversy.
    Even though I subscribe to the central conceit of your argument against 
NGOs, I find your judgement too sweeping because there are indeed NGOs out 
there which are not really anti-growth and not inherently anti-capitalist or 
science.
    One of the most lucid and contrary views we had on the mailing list which 
I am a member of came from a gentleman by the name of Ousman Manjang, who 
runs an NGO back in the Gambia. The gentleman used to be part of the African 
Diaspora but back home now running a very successful NGO. See below a pasted 
copy of his views. I thought you might be interested in seeing such an 
intriguing but contrary view to yours. I hope it provokes a response from 
you. If it does, I would be more than glad to forward it to him and the 
mailing list.
Whilst anticipating your kind and favourable response, i remain,
Sincerely,
Hamjatta Kanteh

*****************************************************************************
Dear List members,

As a member of the NGO community in The Gambia I cannot resist the temptation 
to
comment on this write-up by Mr. Wolf on Prof. Kanbur´s resignation . I think 
the
statement made by Mr. Wolf implying that there exists NGOs that are "anti
-growth" is  not only  unfounded but tendentious and not very objective. 
Perhaps
it had better remained in the factional pamphleteering that currently rages
within the bank and other Breton Wood institutions. No NGO committed to
development can fail to see the interrelationship between growth and 
development.
There can be growth without development, but there can't be any development
without growth. So the exclusivity is not necessarily mutual! It is just a
question of emphasis here, mark you.  Because growth does not necessarily 
lead to
development, pro-growth "hares" tend to forget about development. And because
development necessarily implies growth, the pro-development "hounds" tend to
forget about growth. To make matters more difficult, while growth is 
quantifiable
and an easily measured quantity, "development" is a more philosophical
phenomenon, difficult to define, somehow rooted in the formulator's vision, or
perhaps we can say, a calculus with indeterminable variables. Even Mr. Wolf
himself does not seem to be free from his "own" perception of development 
that is
also rooted in a certain vision,  a world view, I dare say, even a  way of 
life .

Read him writing that the bank cannot be fence-sitting:  "It does mean that 
the
Bank is a component part of the western system of market-oriented institutions
and ideas. It must not cut itself off from these roots."

This is where the problem lies. The assumption of a papal role by a western
institution, armed with the magic wand of market fundamentalism, convinced of 
the
belief that only its own single totalitarian model of social organisation is
right and universally applicable; and that it alone can salvage humankind, are
only too apparent. The standardized prescription peddled by the bank and IMF 
the
world over for decades, is  in fact not only a programme of economic
reorganisation , but more fundamentally, it is an onslaught on the forms of
social organisation and the way of life of non-western peoples. It is an 
attack
aimed at breaking the solidarity-web of closely knitted communities, in order 
to
promote egoism that will keep the fire burning under the "lazy niggers" and
hoping that when they jump, some profit, somehow, somewhere, will be made. Or 
in
other words, strip man of all his social ethos, let go his animalistic 
instincts,
and there will suddenly be competition just before development. What could be
more neanderthal-like than this?

Sections of the world NGO-community do not agree with Mr. Wolf on this.
Development, we say, does not necessarily have to take the western model. One 
of
the greatest illusions of the past century, or the last millennium, I dare 
say,
has been the belief in a uni-linear pattern of historical evolution for all 
human
communities under the sun . All the great orthodoxies of the past centuries 
have
insisted on this. It is about time, we begin to revisit this precept.  The
opinion-builders of the West and their banks are yet to sober up from the
hang-over from their victory of the cold war. Though that war was essentially 
a
long fought war between two geographic zones raging since the break up of the
church to its orthodox and catholic factions in the middle ages, it had for 
the
most of the 20th century appeared as one of modes of social and economic
organisation. The contention has succeeded in impressing an overdue emphasis  
and
preoccupation with forms of ownership in even current economic thinking. The 
West
has simply picked up one of the icons of the Cold War to toot as a magic wand 
of
timeless and universal applicat ion. Privatisation for privatisation's sake,
seems to be the song.

Look at Liberia of the 1950s and and 1960s and you will see a premonition of
latter-day thatcherism. Even the fire services, prisons and police department 
ran
as enterprises. It is not only the state-owned economies that failed in Africa
but even the private-owned ones. The cause has to lie deeper than the 
harangues
of the Cold War.

Look at the recent season of groundnut trading in The Gambia, representatives 
of
western donor countries had, through the Agric Business Plan Agency, insisted 
on
absolute government non-involvement. Even the newly created Federation Of
Agricultural Cooperatives (FACS), legally the owners of all the infrastructure
related to groundnut trading in The Gambia, were barred from directly
participating in the trade through the use of the threat of the STABEX 
withdrawal
due to suspicions of being close to government.. This, even though, the three
so-called private operators had little capital of their own to invest in the
groundnut trade. A timid government, arms twisted,  had to use public funds to
finance the three. A reported D113 million of public funds was used for a 
venture
that everyone was going to even pay off.That is what I call fundamentalism.

Members of the NGO community, the world over, are for growth, but we are not 
for
growth that will annihilate half of the population to keep the other half
prosperous. Yes, we are for growth , but we are not for growth that will
unavoidably impose alien lifestyles on all the peoples of the world. The more
globalised the world becomes, the more we must learn to share each others joy 
and
sorrows in a globalised  world rich with various ways of  living and 
life-forms.
This may sound idealistic, but which isn't.


NB: Please note that the above are wholly and solely the opinion of the writer
and not the organisation.
Thanks for taking your time.
Ous



hkanteh

hkanteh





*********************************************************************
* Please visit the web site of the Financial Times at:              *
*                         http://www.ft.com                         *
*                                                                   *
* This E-Mail is intended for the use of the addressee only and may *
* contain confidential information. If you are not the intended     *
* recipient, you are hereby notified that any use or dissemination  *
* of this communication is strictly prohibited.                     *
* If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us       *
* immediately then delete this E-Mail.                              *         
                           *
*                                                                   *
* [log in to unmask]                                                 *
*********************************************************************



hkanteh

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------