Turns out improving global nutrition offers tremendous bang for the buck, according to the Copenhagen Consensus. But in addition to offering a good humanitarian value per dollar, apparently food corporations can also make better nutrition part of their business plans.
This reminds me of a piece I noticed back in December: Kazakhstan’s government made a decision to invest in iodized salt, and saw an almost immediate improvement in childhood IQ. That means a little money spentiodizing salt from the Aral sea remnants will have a huge economic and industrial pay off in 15 years, when all those smarter children enter the workforce. It is a no-brainer long-term investment.
The idea of deliberate investments in better consumption to further human development isn’t new, and the profitable use of these investments has become something of a hot topic. Indeed, combining several strains of the latest economic development thinking leads to ideas like using microfinance to fund local supply chains with higher-quality food—a situation where everyone gains, and not just financially.
Getting decent quality food to the so-called “Next Billion” is a huge deal. It’s also not as hard as we might imagine. In Tajikistan, for example, there is a number of producers of tomatoes and cows, yet in the bazaars, canned tomatoes come from Iran and dairy comes from Russia and Kyrgyzstan—a missing market. This is mostly an artificial situation, and can be remedied.
First, the lack of funding from investors and financial institutions constrains the technology upgrades needed to bring the production up to the world standards.
Second, setting up well-organized supply chains is difficult.
Finally, the regulatory environment for business is unfriendly. To start a business you have to go through a complicated and expensive business registration procedure, after which you need to obtain a license often followed by an additional set of permits and certifications. After that you face a host of inspections by different regulatory bodies, including very frequent ones from the tax authorities. The entire process is extremely complicated, time consuming, and expensive, and creates a disincentive for entrepreneurs to enter the market.
The World Bank is working to get Tajikistan to revise its agricultural system, from regulations to investment rules, in the hopes that modeling it more after a western agricultural market, with relatively buy-in required, will improve both availability and quality. In other words, Tajikistan must change its regulatory structure to allow a freer market to spring up. Though of a different kind, it is a total win-win like those “minor investments” in child nutrition (salt, better ingredients)—higher profits, improved selection, and larger overall tax revenues for the government. Especially when such a minor investment can result in such a tremendously positive change, there is no reason not to try.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
{ 6 comments }
Errr…did you mean missing market or missing government? You seem to be making a stronger case for government intervention.
Public health hasn’t actually done all that well If you look at the Millenium Development Goal indicators for central Asia.What has happened in Central Asia since it became “free” is much more akin to “demodernization”, as Stephen Cohen describes it. I’d strongly recommend Eric Sievers book “The Post-Soviet Decline of Central Asia.”
http://www.amazon.com/Post-Soviet-Decline-Central-Asia-Sievers/dp/0415406064
Or better still. ask some locals in most any part of Central Asia whether they would prefer “the market” or “the government” to help them out of their pickle. Now there’s a really radical thought!
Oh, I forgot. They are Soviet laggards. Or unenlightened. Kind of like Chavez. Or something.
Actually, government in Central Asia is the primary reason development has flagged. Notice that it was the post-Soviet Despots, who didn’t have any experience in liberal governance, who stubbornly clinged to power at the expense of their people.
For example, government heavy-handedness has kept Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan desperately impoverished. Years of civil war ruined Tajikistan. And in Kazakhstan, society only began improving when foreign companies were allowed in invest in its oil assets — an indication that more, rather than less, private investment would be good for the countries there.
My argument is that government plays a role, yes (I am not a die-hard libertarian). But it must play an appropriate role, as enforcer of contracts and basic minimums, not as a barrier and limiter of private transactions.
And of course locals will be nostalgic for the Soviet Union. Hell, my grandparents are nostalgic for the Depression. That doesn’t mean the 1930′s were a better time, nor does it necessarily mean they were any better off. When I was in Kazakhstan, my students were evenly split: all the Kazakhs loves independence, a lot of the Russians hated it. One girl’s family lost a lot in the collapse of the USSR, a few other kids’ families had become very wealthy.
Chavez? Majorly OT. This is about human development factors, not petty ideological disputes over Latin America.
Hi Joshua,
I still disagree. Few points
1. I think it is a big assumption that anyone anywhere in Central Asia ever actually wanted liberal governance. Look at the results of the referendum in 1991. Big YES! to keeping the USSR. Everyone knew that Central Asia received huge subsidies from Moscow until that time. But that time, with all its good and bad has well and truly gone.Est chto est.
2. Elections, markets, media, courts, rule of law as understood by liberal democrats are pretty much irrelevant in Central Asia. Just as in the USSR, the real divisions of power are between various clans. Not just family based, but also based around university, army. komosomol and KPSS connections. (See for example Andrew Wilson -virtual democracy, Lucy Earle for Central Asia.)
There is of course a thin crust of donor funded NGOs who talk to each other and are largely firewalled from the local environment by their own ideological and language barriers. There is fortunately, increasing work being done exploring the relevance of NGOs. (eg Tanya Narozhna) At best, they provide an steam outlet, the illusion of activity and pay for people who might otherwise interfere in the smooth functioning of the real business of bandity running the country for their own benefit.
3.Government heavy handedness in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan? Werent these guys big allies prior to the US defeat in Afghanistan? Do you then mean the heavy handedness of the US government?
4. I dont think it just nostalgia for the Soviet Union any more. And Central Asia is not only kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is relatively wealthy compared to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (and probably Turkemenistan, for all we know). It will be interesting to see if Kazakhstan starts to renationalise, its oil industry, as in Russia. “Foreign” investment btw also means Russian and Chinese these days. Further, to characterise pro-Soviet sentiment as split along ethnic lines is, I think, misplaced. To quote a Korean taxi driver in Kazakhstan: “We used to be a superpower. The whole world shook in its boots at the mention of Soviet missiles. Now look at us….”
5. On to HDI. Across almost every indicator there is a dramatic fall in all countries of CA, with kazakhstan being partially cushioned by its oil wealth. Of course the HDI indicators don’t necessarily mean that in 1991 across most of Central Asia there was less communicable disease, regular electricity supplies, clean water, stable employment, gender equality, accessible education and health care, adequate and affordable food supplies.
5. Chavez comparison over the top? Really? If it is about HDI, then the debate is contemporary. It will be interesting to see how Venezualan HDI fares over next 3-5 years. In Central America, as in Central Asia, people have now had sufficient time to make an informed judgement about socialism vs capitalism. This choice in Central Asia is most commonly expressed as”chaos” vs “stability”, rather than “freedom” vs “authoritarianism”. And while many people in Central Asia are supportive of Chavez, the real superhero in that part of the world among Russians and non-Russians alike, is Lukashenko. He is, in the words of many a taxi driver, someone who kept everything in state hands so the crooks couldnt get hold of it. One of the particular things that many Central Asians praise, for example is the high living stand and relative lack of racism in Belarus.
Just some thoughts!
weary dunlop & Josh, Thank you for a very interesting debate! Lots to think about on both sides. (BTW weary dunlop, If you have more complete citations for the NGO articles mentioned, please share them.)
Hi Laurence/Joshua:
Here are references as requested:
1. Author: Tanya Narozhna1
Source: Journal of International Relations and Development, Volume 7, Number 3, October 2004, pp. 243-266(24)
Foreign aid for a post-euphoric Eastern Europe: the limitations of western assistance in developing civil society
2. Earle L. Community development, ‘tradition’ and the civil society strengthening agenda in Central Asia. Central Asian Survey 2005;24:245–260.
In addition:
3. Collins K. CLANS, PACTS, AND POLITICS IN CENTRAL ASIA. Journal of Democracy 2002;13:137-152.
4. Roy O. Soviet legacies and Western aid imperatives in the new Central Asia. In: Sajoo A, ed. Civil Society in the Muslim World. London: , 2002: Tauris, 2002.
5. Sejeroe A. “Imagine what Danish Farmers could do with this land!” A study of a top-down implemented project for bottom-up development in rural Russia. Institute of Anthropology, : University of Copenhagen, 2003:80.
6. Shanin T. Неформальная экономика. Россия и мир. (Informal Economy. Russia and the World. Moscow: Logos, 1999. He has written a fair bit in English, too.
7. Wilson A. Virtual Politics – Faking democracy in the post-Soviet world. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005
8. Saroyan M. Minorities, Mullahs and Modernity: Reshaping Community in the Former Soviet Union University of California International and Area Studies Digital Collection, Research Series #95. , 1997. http://repositories.cdlib.org/uciaspubs/research/95/
(This last one is especially fascinating, given current events)
weary dunlop, Thank you for the references. Now to track down copies…