Land not the economy
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
December 14, 2012 in Opinion
PROGRESSIVE nations are beginning to employ strategic human resources (HR)
concepts to address perculiar national challenges.
OPINION BY BRETT CHULU
A case in point is the government of Singapore who happen to be a member of
a highly respected strategic HR institute. Singapore has a very low
fertility rate of 1.1, which is below the population replacement rate of
2.1. Human capital, being Singapore’s chief national resource, a fertility
rate persistently below the replacement rate threatens to reverse Singapore’s
hard-won economic gains.
Under these circumstances immigration would have to be a key national policy
priority. Accelerated immigration would bring with it the potential
challenges of a society fragmented around national origins, language and
religious persuasion — possibly leading to the development of an enclave
culture fanning social tensions. The question before the leaders of this
nation-state was how to address the twin challenges of future human capital
shortages and a potentially unstable social structure. Multiculturalism was
the answer. To this end, Singapore crafted a deliberate national housing
policy requiring neighbourhoods and housing blocks to reflect
multiculturalism.
Land not the economy
What Singapore lacks, Zimbabwe has in abundance — minerals and land. That
which Singapore has, a strong human capital base, Zimbabwe has too. Sadly,
the irony is, Singapore with a population size of 5,2 million produces a
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about US$250 billion. That’s an astonishing
per capita GDP of close to US$50 000. Contrast that with Zimbabwe — 12
million or so people produce about US$9 billion of GDP (honestly speaking,
no one seems to have an authoritative knowledge of the real figure) — and
this with abundant mineral resources and land.
Singapore’s case clearly demonstrates that land is not always the economy.
Abundant natural resources do not always translate to economic prosperity.
In fact, history has shown that nations with scarcity of natural resources
have been spurred to come up with innovations that have created globally
competitive industries.
Put differently, many nations have turned natural resource scarcity into a
competitive advantage. Britain has some of the world’s top quality clays for
ceramic tiles. However, Italy not Britain is the world’s top producer of top
quality ceramic tiles though Italy does not have high quality clays.
Physical space constraints in Japan have led the Japanese to develop
miniature technologies for everyday home life. That expertise inspired many
Japanese innovations such as Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing systems.
In contrast, other nations where physical space constraint is not an issue
were using Just In Case systems, leading to relatively higher manufacturing
costs. Another famous Japanese innovation was the compact car which not only
economised on space but was also fuel-efficient and more affordable than the
traditional big and fuel-guzzling Western car models. A national physical
resource challenge supercharged Japan’s economic progress and set its
long-time world dominance in electronic and vehicle exports.
Ideas are the economy
We need a decided paradigm shift in Zimbabwe that interrogates the economic
agenda.
Let us imagine a Zimbabwe without diamonds, gold, platinum and other mineral
deposits. Compound that picture and imagine a Zimbabwe without its rich
wildlife. Let’s further complicate that scenario and imagine a Zimbabwe with
rich agricultural land but with a dry climate. We now have a future
imaginary Zimbabwe devoid of its current economic base.
Under these imagined circumstances land ceases to be the economy. What
would we do as a nation when land ceases to be the economy? What sort of
economic agenda would we craft? What sort of a future Medium Term Policy
would Economic Planning minister Tapiwa Mashakada craft? What sort of a
national budget would a future Minister of Finance come up with? What kind
of content would go into a 30-year economic vision such as the current
US$100 billion economy by 2040? Put differently, how will the pillars of
the current Vision 2040 of a US$100 billion economy change if the imaginary
future circumstances we have highlighted became a reality today?
The answer to these questions is that the thrust, content and assumptions
going into our key economic policies will be radically different.
This kind of approach rescues us from the curse of resource-abundance in
which natural resource advantage fails to translate into economic prosperity
and improved living standards.
Imagine the possibilities, for instance, what sort of technologies would we
develop to take advantage of rich agricultural resources constrained by an
imaginary dry climate? One foresees benchmark breakthroughs in science and
technology as a result of our heightened need to guarantee food security
which will result in unique expertise. We could develop a cluster of related
industries leveraging on this core expertise. These related industries could
develop into global exporters. Now extend this kind of thinking to
addressing possible day-to-day constraints people would face as a result of
our imagined national constraints.
In general, this kind of thinking is lacking in our nation.
Land and ideas the economy
Having adopted an ideas-is-the-economy approach, the next step is to then
leverage on the abundance of our natural resources. We then need to imagine
future global social, political and environmental scenarios that will impact
on the world economy. For these scenarios, we then seek how to position our
nation’s natural resources to develop solutions to future global challenges.
If we fail to see the future ahead of time, other nations will develop the
knowledge and expertise necessary to spur future economic growth. As has
been the case in the past, these nations will come to us for our natural
resources.
Chulu is a strategic HR consultant who has consulted to listed and unlisted
companies. [email protected]