1 - 7 March 2001
Issue No.523
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 March 2001 Issue No.523 |
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From within
By Aziza Sami
Can eight countries, with a shared Islamic identity but beset by a host of differing internal economic and political problems, consolidate their differences to come together to face the challenges of globalisation? Can conferences elaborating the threat of marginalisation and commending regional cooperation hope to attain much in the absence of radical reforms undertaken in each of these countries?
Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the group of Islamic developing countries known as D8, whose third summit convened in Cairo this week. The conference comes at a critical juncture, and is in part intended to activate recommendations agreed on over the past four years but which have yet to have any impact on the meagre inter-trade levels between D8 members. There have already been positive announcements, including the establishment of an international marketing company to promote export operations. The Islamic Development Bank has announced its readiness to fund projects on the group's agenda. And the private sector within member nations has been promoted as a force towards ensuring economic integration.
But for all of this to bear fruit we must ask if these countries are sufficiently promoting the entrepreneurship and market mechanisms needed to enhance trade and investment. Are their political- economic climates enabling them to negotiate their interests well in the face of increasingly powerful international forces?
Malaysia, recuperating from the Asian financial crisis, still faces intense political unrest, and demands for democratic rule, notwithstanding the qualities of its visionary leader Mahathir Mohamed. Indonesia is beset with strikes demanding an end to political corruption and the resignation of its President Abdel-Rahman Wahid. Turkey suffers problems with minorities and, 70 years after its secular revolution, has yet to reconcile its pan-Turkic and European ambitions. It has, too, just undergone a massive currency devaluation. Nigeria is politically unstable, with multiple challenges impeding its vast economic potentials. Pakistan's political rule is premised on military coups. Bangladesh suffers poverty and lack of pluralism. Iran is in the throes of a confrontation between political liberals and Islamic revolution's conservative old guard. Egypt must yet reform itself in the direction of more democracy.
All these countries face tremendous challenges upon which their economic growth and development will depend. They must raise their meagre inter-trade levels above the current three per cent and mobilise their squandered agricultural and industrial resources by implementing well-structured policies. They must induce the advanced industrial countries to remove protectionist measures and enforce WTO articles extending preferential treatment to developing nations. They must survive the flood of competition from the advanced economies when GATT is implemented in 2005. These countries also face the dilemma of increasing external debt and declining levels of foreign assistance.
There is, too, the prospect of a slowdown in the US economy and the ramifications that this will have for their own target growth figures. Finally, they must survive the almost insurmountable chasm created by the digital divide, growing ever wider given the rapid advances in information technology.
To offset these problems, developing countries must attract long term capital flows, which requires much more transparency and stability than is present in their domestic systems. The harsh truth is that at the moment neither local nor foreign investors are happy.
Egypt now chairs the D8, having succeeded Bangladesh: how energetically reforms are implemented will be a test of the seriousness with which Cairo views this particular role. For any concrete advances to be made on the ground will require, after all, rather more than the holding of conferences and the passing of recommendations.
To address the outside world with a strong agenda is not possible in the absence of substantial internal reform in the direction of democracy. Vital economic activity cannot spring from stagnant political structures. It can only proceed from systems capable of innovation and willing to introduce hitherto unknown levels of accountability and response to rational criticism. When this happens, the D8 countries, led by their governments, will hold a place in the world.
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