(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Last autumn and this winter, the book The Bottom Billion has been the starting point for great uproar, a number of debate meetings and newspaper comments, both internationally and in Norway. The book is Collier's proposal for how the poorest billion people can get out of, precisely, poverty, and it is now coming out in Norwegian with the title The poorest – the way out of disability. Ny Tid reviewed the English edition in January this year, see excerpt below.
Development Minister Erik Solheim declared early on that he is a fan, and therefore invited Collier to Oslo 12. October last year. Solheim believes Collier has broken new ground and is pointing out a third way in the development debate, between the left-hand unconditional aid and a right-wing site that believes free trade solves all problems.
Solheim has also written the foreword to the Norwegian edition, where he says that this is a book "that came at just the right time in the Norwegian debate, and has become an important input in the work of designing a new Norwegian development policy".
Since the book was first published in 2007, the global food crisis has led to hunger and riots in at least 22 countries. The debate about what can be done has stalled, and on 2 May this year, Ny Tid published a new column by Collier, in which he updates and applies the thoughts from the book on the food crisis. Collier believes that the cure for rising prices is to increase supply, and that the most realistic way to achieve this is to use the Brazilian model with large, technologically advanced agricultural enterprises that can supply the world market.
- Realize the realities
"Collier's easy-to-understand style is due to simplification and manipulative selection," replied John Y. Jones of Networkers Southnorth in New Time on May 16. Jones refers to both The Bottom Billion and the new article, and believes that Collier's recipe will not benefit the poorest, but that it is the large companies that will benefit from the policy Collier argues for.
When the book is now launched in Norwegian, Ny Tid contacts Paul Collier and updates him on the debate in Norway.
– Norway can afford to maintain inefficient agriculture, but it does not have Africa, says Collier.
– An important cause of poverty is that the poor do not have access to markets. Market access is a necessary step on the long and difficult road out of poverty. The idea that African countries should continue with small-scale farming and self-preservation while lifting themselves out of poverty is a European romantic illusion, which has already cost Africa dearly. It's time to stop doing stuff like that and realize the realities, ”says Collier.
- In response to your chronicle, John Y. Jones writes that you want to give international companies the freedom to move forward in the pursuit of necessary new markets. Are you the biggest friend of the big companies?
– Now it's probably not that companies in themselves are necessarily evil, says Collier.
His point is that companies can create jobs, which is a desperate need in Africa, where less than one in ten are wage earners.
– Too many must try as what we often call self-employed, in practice it means self-storage farmers. Companies can provide financing, technology and access to markets much easier than smallholder farmers, says Collier.
Africa today has less agricultural industry than it did 60 years ago. Collier believes that smallholder farming is not innovation-friendly and investment-friendly. At the same time, there are large areas, including in Africa, where fertile land could have been utilized more productively if it were managed in a responsible manner by large companies, Collier believes.
Erik Solheim also wrote an answer to Collier's article, but unlike Jones, Solheim, not surprisingly, largely agreed with Collier's analysis of the food crisis. In the answer, published in Ny Tid on 16 May, Solheim writes that food production must be increased, and that "increased production requires a drastic increase in investment in market access".
But exactly trade policy is a sore point for Solheim, several critics believe. Among other things, the African Common Council claims that Solheim is sitting in a government that pursues a development-friendly trade policy that does not at all give poor countries increased market access in rich countries in the north.
Norwegian agricultural support does not primarily go to district settlements, Norwegian subsidies are mainly related to production volume. Therefore, the Joint Council believes that Norway supports and legitimizes the EU and US agricultural policy. For decades, the EU and the US, due to production subsidies, had large overproduction of agricultural products dumped on the world market. This ruined the price level, and outcompared many African countries that have not had the opportunity to build a robust agricultural industry, the Common Council believes.
When Ny Tid raised this question with Solheim on March 14 this year, he chose not to answer, but passed the ball on to the Minister of Agriculture, who represents Norway in the World Trade Organization. That Solheim can afford not to enter into the concrete discussion about the consequences of Norwegian trade policy shows how short this debate has come in the Norwegian public.
Perhaps Collier's book can help remedy this. The Norwegian translation probably comes after the fierce debate has blown over, but on the other hand the publication can bring the book out to a larger audience.
