So, can we dare to be optimistic? Well, the thesis of "The Bottom Billion" is that a billion people have been stuck living in economies that have been stagnant for 40 years, and hence diverging from the rest of mankind. And so, the real question to pose is not, "Can we be optimistic?" It's, "How can we give credible hope to that billion people?" That, to my mind, is the fundamental challenge now of development.
Možemo li se usuditi biti optimitični? Glavna teza "The Bottom Billion" je da milijardu ljudi živi u državama koje stagniraju već 40 godina, i zbog toga se udaljuju od ostatka čovječanstva. Pravo pitanje nije: "Možemo li biti optimistični?" nego, "Kako možemo dati nadu toj milijardi ljudi?" Po meni, to je glavni izazov našem razvoju.
What I'm going to offer you is a recipe, a combination of the two forces that changed the world for good, which is the alliance of compassion and enlightened self-interest. Compassion, because a billion people are living in societies that have not offered credible hope. That is a human tragedy. Enlightened self-interest, because if that economic divergence continues for another 40 years, combined with social integration globally, it will build a nightmare for our children. We need compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get ourselves serious. That's the alliance that changes the world.
Ponuditi ću vam recept, kombinaciju dvaju faktora koji su promijenili svijet na bolje, suradnju suosjećanja i prosvijećenog osobnog interesa. Suosjećanja, jer milijardu ljudi živi u društvima koja ne nude vjerodostojnu nadu. To je ljudska tragedija. Prosvijećenog osobnog interesa, jer ukoliko se ovo ekonomsko udaljavanje nastavi kroz slijedećih 40 godina kombinirano s globalnom socijalnom integracijom, će dovesti do noćne more za našu djecu. Potrebno nam je suosjećanje da počnemo, i prosvijećeni osobni interes da se uozbiljimo. To je savez koji mijenja svijet.
So, what does it mean to get serious about providing hope for the bottom billion? What can we actually do? Well, a good guide is to think, "What did we do last time the rich world got serious about developing another region of the world?" That gives us, it turns out, quite a good clue, except you have to go back quite a long time. The last time the rich world got serious about developing another region was in the late 1940s. The rich world was you, America, and the region that needed to be developed was my world, Europe. That was post-War Europe.
Što znači ozbiljan pristup pružanju nade za najsiromašnijih milijardu stanovnika? Što možemo napraviti? Dobro je promisliti, "Što je bogati svijet napravio kada smo zadnji put ozbiljno pristupili razvoju druge regije svijeta?" To nas stavlja na jako dobar trag, jedino što se moramo vratiti nešto dalje u prošlost. Zadnji put je bogati svijet ozbiljno pristupio razvoju drugog dijela svijeta u kasnim 1940-ima. Taj bogati svijet je bila Amerika a regija koju je trebalo razviti je bila Europa. To je bila poslijeratna Europa.
Why did America get serious? It wasn't just compassion for Europe, though there was that. It was that you knew you had to, because, in the late 1940s, country after country in Central Europe was falling into the Soviet bloc, and so you knew you'd no choice. Europe had to be dragged into economic development.
Zašto je Amerika ozbiljno pristupila problemu? Nije bila samo suosjećajna prema Europi. Već zbog toga što je Amerika znala da mora, zbog toga što je kasnih 1940-ih zemlja za zemljom u središnjoj Europi padala pod sovjetski blok, i Amerika je znala da nema drugog izbora. Europu se moralo ekonomski razviti.
So, what did you do, last time you got serious? Well, yes, you had a big aid program. Thank you very much. That was Marshall aid: we need to do it again. Aid is part of the solution. But what else did you do? Well, you tore up your trade policy, and totally reversed it. Before the war, America had been highly protectionist. After the war, you opened your markets to Europe, you dragged Europe into the then-global economy, which was your economy, and you institutionalized that trade liberalization through founding the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. So, total reversal of trade policy.
I što je Amerika napravila, zadnji put kada je ozbiljno pristupila problemu? Pa, imala je veliki program pomoći. Hvala vam. Taj program je bio Marshallova pomoć; moramo tako nešto ponovo napraviti. Pomoć je dio rješenja. Ali što je Amerika još napravila? Pa, potpuno je promijenila svoju trgovinsku politiku. Prije rata, Amerika je bila protekcionistička zemlja. A nakon rata je otvorila tržište prema Europi, uvukla je Europu u tadašnju globalnu ekonomiju, koja je bila američka ekonomija, inisitucionizirala je liberalizaciju trgovine kroz osnivanje "Općeg sporazuma o carinama i trgovini". Potpuno zakretanje trgovinske politike.
Did you do anything else? Yes, you totally reversed your security policy. Before the war, your security policy had been isolationist. After the war, you tear that up, you put 100,000 troops in Europe for over 40 years. So, total reversal of security policy. Anything else? Yes, you tear up the "Eleventh Commandment" -- national sovereignty. Before the war, you treated national sovereignty as so sacrosanct that you weren't even willing to join the League of Nations. After the war, you found the United Nations, you found the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, you found the IMF, you encouraged Europe to create the European Community -- all systems for mutual government support. That is still the waterfront of effective policies: aid, trade, security, governments. Of course, the details of policy are going to be different, because the challenge is different. It's not rebuilding Europe, it's reversing the divergence for the bottom billion, so that they actually catch up. Is that easier or harder? We need to be at least as serious as we were then.
Da li ste još što napravili? Da: potpuno ste okrenuli svoju sigurnosnu politiku. Prije rata, sigurnosna politika je bila izolacionistička. Nakon rata postavili ste 100 000 vojnika u Europi na 40 godina. Potpuna promjena sigurnosne politike. Još što? Da: odbacili ste jedanaesti amandman- državni suverenitet. Prije rata ste toliko čuvali vaš nacionalni suverenitet da se niste željeli priključiti Ligi naroda. Nakon rata, osnovali ste UN, osnovali ste Organizaciju za Ekonomsku suradnju i razvoj, osnovali ste IMF, poticali ste Europu da stvori Europsku zajednicu. A sve su to sustavi međuvladine pomoći. Još uvijek najvažniji elementi učinkovite politike su: pomoć, trgovina, sigurnost, vlade. Naravno, detalji politike će biti različiti, zbog toga što je izazov drugačiji. Izazov nije ponovna izgradnja Europe, već smanjivanje razlike za najsiromašniju milijardu, tako da dostignu nivo razvoja. Da li je to jednostavnije ili teže? Moramo biti ozbiljni barem kao onda.
Now, today I'm going to take just one of those four. I'm going to take the one that sounds the weakest, the one that's just motherhood and apple pie -- governments, mutual systems of support for governments -- and I'm going to show you one idea in how we could do something to strengthen governance, and I'm going to show you that that is enormously important now. The opportunity we're going to look to is a genuine basis for optimism about the bottom billion, and that is the commodity booms. The commodity booms are pumping unprecedented amounts of money into many, though not all, of the countries of the bottom billion. Partly, they're pumping money in because commodity prices are high, but it's not just that. There's also a range of new discoveries. Uganda has just discovered oil, in about the most disastrous location on Earth; Ghana has discovered oil; Guinea has got a huge new exploitation of iron ore coming out of the ground. So, a mass of new discoveries. Between them, these new revenue flows dwarf aid. Just to give you one example: Angola alone is getting 50 billion dollars a year in oil revenue. The entire aid flows to the 60 countries of the bottom billion last year were 34 billion. So, the flow of resources from the commodity booms to the bottom billion are without precedent. So there's the optimism.
Danas ću se osvrnuti samo na jedan od ova četiri. Odabrati ću čimbenik koji zvuči najslabiji, čimbenik oko kojeg se svi slažu - vlade, međusobni sustavi pomoći za vlade - pokazati ću vam ideju pomoću koje je moguće ojačati vlast, i pokazati ću vam zašto je, u ovom trenutku, to izrazito bitno. Prilika na koju ćemo se ugledati, je iskrena osnova za optimizam kod najsiromašnije milijarde, a to je procvat proizvoda široke potrošnje. Procvat proizvoda široke proizvodnje dovodi ogromne količine novca u mnoge, ali ne i sve, zemlje najsiromašnije milijarde. Djelomično dovode novac zbog toga što su cijene takve robe visoke, ali nije samo zbog toga. Postoji i cijeli niz novih otkrića. Uganda je nedavno otkrila naftu, možda na najpogubnijem mjestu na Zemlji; Ghana je otkrila naftu; Gvineja je otkrila ogromne rezerve željeza. Velik broj novih otkrića. Ovi prihodi su znatno veći od pristigle pomoći. Samo da vam dam jedan primjer: Angola ima godišnji prihod od nafte oko 50 milijardi $. U protekloj godini cjelokupna pomoć za najsiromašnijih 60 zemalja je bila oko 34 milijarde $. Ovako velik prihod od resursa je bez presedana u najsiromašnijim zemljama. Tu leži optimizam.
The question is, how is it going to help their development? It's a huge opportunity for transformational development. Will it be taken? So, here comes a bit of science, and this is a bit of science I've done since "The Bottom Billion," so it's new. I've looked to see what is the relationship between higher commodity prices of exports, and the growth of commodity-exporting countries. And I've looked globally, I've taken all the countries in the world for the last 40 years, and looked to see what the relationship is. And the short run -- say, the first five to seven years -- is just great. In fact, it's hunky dory: everything goes up. You get more money because your terms of trade have improved, but also that drives up output across the board. So GDP goes up a lot -- fantastic! That's the short run. And how about the long run? Come back 15 years later. Well, the short run, it's hunky dory, but the long run, it's humpty dumpty. You go up in the short run, but then most societies historically have ended up worse than if they'd had no booms at all. That is not a forecast about how commodity prices go; it's a forecast of the consequences, the long-term consequences, for growth of an increase in prices.
Pitanje je, kako će to pomoći njihovu razvoju? To je velika prilika za razvoj koji će omogućiti transformaciju. Hoće li se ta prilika iskoristiti? Sad u igru ulazi malo znanosti, i ovaj dio sam napravio nakon izdavanja knjige "The Bottom Billion", pa je ovaj dio novi. Promatrao sam odnos između viših cijena izvozne robe, i gospodarskog rasta zemalja izvoznica te robe. I promatrao sam globalno - sve zemlje svijeta u zadnjih 40 godina, i promatrao sam veze. Kratkotrajno - recimo, prvih 5 do 7 godina - stvari idu super. Sve ide gore. Dobivate više novca zbog toga što su se vaši uvjeti trgovine poboljšali, i dovodi do ogromnog rasta proizvodnje. Pa BDP raste jako brzo - fantastično! To se događa kratkoročno. Ali, što se događa dugoročno? Nekih 15 godina kasnije. Kratkoročno, sve je super, ali dugoročno nije tako dobro. Kratkotrajno idete prema gore, ali zatim većina država kroz povijest, je završila puno gore nego da uopće nisu otkrili te resurse. Ovo nije predviđanje kako se kreću cijene roba; već predviđanje posljedica, dugoročnih posljedica, rasta temeljenog na povećanju cijena.
So, what goes wrong? Why is there this "resource curse," as it's called? And again, I've looked at that, and it turns out that the critical issue is the level of governance, the initial level of economic governance, when the resource booms accrue. In fact, if you've got good enough governance, there is no resource boom. You go up in the short term, and then you go up even more in the long term. That's Norway, the richest country in Europe. It's Australia. It's Canada. The resource curse is entirely confined to countries below a threshold of governance. They still go up in the short run. That's what we're seeing across the bottom billion at the moment. The best growth rates they've had -- ever. And the question is whether the short run will persist. And with bad governance historically, over the last 40 years, it hasn't. It's countries like Nigeria, which are worse off than if they'd never had oil.
Što krene po zlu? Zašto postoji ovo "prokletstvo resursa"? Promatrao sam i to, i ispada da je kritičan problem vlast, početna razina ekonomskog upravljanja kada dođe do otkrića resursa. Ukoliko imate dobru vlast, nema ogromnog kratotrajnog rasta. Stvari krenu nabolje kratotrajno, a dugoročno postaju još bolje. To su npr: Norveška - najbogatija zemlja Europe. To je Australija, Kanada. "Prokletstvo resursa" se isključivo događa u zemljama ispod određenog praga uprave. Kratotrajno se situacija poboljšava. To se trenutno događa u najsiromašnijim zemljama. Najbolje stope rasta. I pitanje je da li će se to održati. A s lošim upravljanjem, gledano u zadnjih 40 godina, stvari se nisu poboljšavale. Radi se o zemljama kao što je Nigerija, kojima bi bilo bolje da uopće nisu pronašle naftu.
So, there's a threshold level above which you go up in the long term, and below which you go down. Just to benchmark that threshold, it's about the governance level of Portugal in the mid 1980s. So, the question is, are the bottom billion above or below that threshold? Now, there's one big change since the commodity booms of the 1970s, and that is the spread of democracy. So I thought, well, maybe that is the thing which has transformed governance in the bottom billion. Maybe we can be more optimistic because of the spread of democracy. So, I looked. Democracy does have significant effects -- and unfortunately, they're adverse. Democracies make even more of a mess of these resource booms than autocracies.
Postoji prag vladavine prava iznad kojeg i dugoročno zemlje napreduju, a ispod kojeg dugoročno nazaduju. Samo da odredimo taj prag, radi se o razini vlasti u Portugalu u 1980-im. Pitanje je, da li su najsiromašnije zemlje iznad ili ispod tog praga? Došlo je do velike promjene u odnosu na 1970-e, a to je širenje demokracije. Pa sam pomislio, možda je to čimbenik koji je transformirao nivo vlasti u najsiromašnijim zemljama. Možda možemo biti optimističniji zbog širenja demokracije. Promatrao sam. Demokracija ima velik utjecaj - ali nažalost učinci demokracije nisu dobri. Ukoliko dođe do otkrića resursa, demokracije naprave veći nered nego autokracije.
At that stage I just wanted to abandon the research, but -- (Laughter) -- it turns out that democracy is a little bit more complicated than that. Because there are two distinct aspects of democracy: there's electoral competition, which determines how you acquire power, and there are checks and balances, which determine how you use power. It turns out that electoral competition is the thing that's doing the damage with democracy, whereas strong checks and balances make resource booms good. And so, what the countries of the bottom billion need is very strong checks and balances. They haven't got them. They got instant democracy in the 1990s: elections without checks and balances.
U tom trenutku, htio sam napustiti istraživanje, ali - (Smijeh) - ispada da je demokracija ipak nešto složenija. Zbog toga što postoje dva aspekta demokracije. Postoji izborno natjecanje, koje određuje način stjecanja moći, ali postoji i različite provjere i kontrole vlasti, koje utječu na način kako koristiti tu moć. Ispada da je izborno natjecanje čimbenik koji oštećuje demokraciju, dok jake provjere dovode do dobrog iskorištenja novo otkrivenih resursa. Znači da najsiromašnije zemlje trebaju jake provjere i kontrolu vlasti. Ali nemaju ih. Imaju instant demokraciju 1990-ih: izbori bez ikakve kontrole.
How can we help improve governance and introduce checks and balances? In all the societies of the bottom billion, there are intense struggles to do just that. The simple proposal is that we should have some international standards, which will be voluntary, but which would spell out the key decision points that need to be taken in order to harness these resource revenues. We know these international standards work because we've already got one. It's called the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. That is the very simple idea that governments should report to their citizens what revenues they have. No sooner was it proposed than reformers in Nigeria adopted it, pushed it and published the revenues in the paper. Nigerian newspapers circulations spiked. People wanted to know what their government was getting in terms of revenue.
Kako možemo povećati vladavinu prava i uvesti provjere i kontrolu? U svim najsiromašnijim zemljama, postoje intezivne borbe za to. Najjednostavniji prijedlog je da bi trebali postojati međunarodni standardi, koji će biti dobrovoljni, ali koji bi trebali ocrtavati najvažnije točke odluke koje se redom trebaju ispuniti da bi se iskoristili prihodi od resursa. Znamo kako ti međunarodni standardi funkcioniraju zbog toga što već postoji jedan. Naziva se "Inicijativa transparentnosti ekstraktivnih industrija". To je vrlo jednostavna ideja da bi vlade trebale izvještavati svoje građane o prihodima. Čim je ova inicijativa predložena prihvaćena je u Nigeriji, čija je vlada objavila prihode u novinama. Naklada nigerijskih novina je naglo porasla. Ljude je zanimalo koliki su prihodi od resursa.
So, we know it works. What would the content be of these international standards? I can't go through all of them, but I'll give you an example. The first is how to take the resources out of the ground -- the economic processes, taking the resources out of the ground and putting assets on top of the ground. And the first step in that is selling the rights to resource extraction. You know how rights to resource extraction are being sold at the moment, how they've been sold over the last 40 years? A company flies in, does a deal with a minister. And that's great for the company, and it's quite often great for the minister -- (Laughter) -- and it's not great for their country. There's a very simple institutional technology which can transform that, and it's called verified auctions. The public agency with the greatest expertise on Earth is of course the treasury -- that is, the British Treasury. And the British Treasury decided that it would sell the rights to third-generation mobile phones by working out what those rights were worth. They worked out they were worth two billion pounds. Just in time, a set of economists got there and said, "Why not try an auction? It'll reveal the value." It went for 20 billion pounds through auction. If the British Treasury can be out by a factor of 10, think what the ministry of finance in Sierra Leone is going to be like. (Laughter) When I put that to the President of Sierra Leone, the next day he asked the World Bank to send him a team to give expertise on how to conduct auctions.
Znamo da ovo funkcionira. Što bi ovi međunarodni standardi trebali sadržavati? Ne mogu proći kroz sve, ali dati ću vam primjer. Prvo je kako izvaditi resurse iz tla - ekonomski proces, vađenja resursa iz tla i dobivanje prihoda. I prvi korak je prodavanje prava na vađenje resursa. Znate kako se prava na vađenje resursa trenutno prodaju, kako se prodaju zadnjih 40 godina? Kompanija doleti, napravi dogovor sa ministrom, i to je super za kompaniju, i često je super za ministra - (Smijeh) - ali nije super za zemlju. Postoji jednostavna institucijska tehnologija koja može to transformirati, zove se "ovjerena aukcija". Javna agencija s najvećim iskustvom na Zemlji je naravno državna blaganja - to jest Britanska državna blagajna. I Britanska državna blagajna je odlučila prodati prava na mobitele treće generacije izračunavajući koliko ta prava vrijede. Izračunali su da vrijede oko 2 milijarde funti. Tada je nekoliko ekonomista reklo, "Zašto ne održimo aukciju? Tako ćemo otkriti vrijednost." Preko aukcije su dobili 20 milijardi funti. Ako Britanska državna blagajna može biti u krivu za faktor 10, pomislite koliko će u krivu biti minstarstvo financija u Sierra Leone-u. (Smijeh) Kada sam to rekao predsjedniku Sierra Leone-a idući dan je zamolio Svjetsku banku da mu pošalje tim koji će ih naučiti održavati aukcije.
There are five such decision points; each one needs an international standard. If we could do it, we would change the world. We would be helping the reformers in these societies, who are struggling for change. That's our modest role. We cannot change these societies, but we can help the people in these societies who are struggling and usually failing, because the odds are so stacked against them. And yet, we've not got these rules. If you think about it, the cost of promulgating international rules is zilch -- nothing. Why on Earth are they not there? I realized that the reason they're not there is that until we have a critical mass of informed citizens in our own societies, politicians will get away with gestures. That unless we have an informed society, what politicians do, especially in relation to Africa, is gestures: things that look good, but don't work. And so I realized we had to go through the business of building an informed citizenry.
Postoji pet takvih točaka odluke; i svaka od njih treba međunarodni standard. Kada bi to mogli napraviti, mogli bi promijeniti svijet. Pomagali bi reformatorima u tim društvima koji se bore za promjene. To je naša skromna uloga. Mi ne možemo promijeniti ta društva, ali možemo pomoći ljudima u tim društvima koji se bore i koji obično ne uspijevaju, jer su im šanse toliko male. I još uvijek, nemamo takva pravila. Ako bolje promislite, cijena objavljivanje ovih međunarodnih pravila je nula. Pa zašto ih nemamo? Shvatio sam da ta pravila ne postoje jer dok u našim društvima ne postoji kritična masa informiranih građana, političari će se izvući s gestama. Ukoliko nemamo informiramo društvo, političari se obično, naročito ako se radi o Africi, služe gestama: stvari koje izgledaju dobro, ali ne rade. I onda sam shvatio da moramo proći kroz posao izgradnje informiranog građanstva.
That's why I broke all the professional rules of conduct for an economist, and I wrote an economics book that you could read on a beach. (Laughter). However, I have to say, the process of communication does not come naturally to me. This is why I'm on this stage, but it's alarming. I grew up in a culture of self-effacement. My wife showed me a blog comment on one of my last talks, and the blog comment said, "Collier is not charismatic -- (Laughter) -- but his arguments are compelling." (Laughter) (Applause) If you agree with that sentiment, and if you agree that we need a critical mass of informed citizenry, you will realize that I need you. Please, become ambassadors. Thank you. (Applause)
Zato sam prekršio profesionalna pravila ponašanja za ekonomiste i napisao knjigu o ekonomiji koju možete čitati na plaži. (Smijeh). Međutim, moram reći, komunikacija mi baš ne leži. Zato sam na ovoj pozornici, što je uznemirujuće. Odrastao sam u kulturi skromnosti. Žena mi je pokazala komentar na blogu o jednoj od mojih posljednih prezentacija, i komentar je glasio: "Collier nije karizmatičan - (Smijeh) - ali su njegovi argumenti uvjerljivi." (Smijeh). (Pljesak). Ako se slažete s tom izjavom, i ako se slažete da trebamo kritičnu masu informiranih građana, shvatiti će te da ste vi potrebni meni. Molim vas postanite ambasadori. Hvala vam. (Pljesak).