Spirit and intent of Economic Development

Inclusive development supported by integrated public policies for every social stratum is expected to yield well being, economic growth, trade and environmental prosperity at local and national levels. 

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon which intertwines with social, economic, and governance parameters.  It is in the weak enabling conditions to earn livelihood to live a life with dignity prevails poverty.  Indeed economic growth is a means to poverty alleviation but economic growth considered synonymous with economic development does not necessarily guarantee equitable livelihood condition nor does it by itself eradicate poverty. 

In the first place, alleviating poverty requires exhaustive understanding of the cause and condition that produce and reproduce disadvantaged conditions forcing certain individuals and families to experience impoverished life.  To address this multidimensional phenomenon it is inevitable to have disaggregated policy instruments. 

Public policy arising from socioeconomic engineering has been the universal instrument to stop the creation of poor.  While public policies are designed to create rich it should not leak and also create the poor.  The desire is also that it should not also create a feeling of deprivation that create corrupt attitude.

Equal access to economic and social resources provides enabling condition for poverty alleviation but it alone also is not a panacea.  The clubs of rich, middle class, and poor have differential capacity to exploit the equal access made available to economic and social resources. 

Indeed education is the engine of innovation, employment and economic growth.  It is a paramount factor for ensuring better employment but education independent of economic plan and activities in medium and long term potentially yield causes for problem.  The inability to base education on national, regional and global economic trends anchored on market needs, economy of scales, and value chain is a major challenge and in it there is solution.

The question is how to break the cycle of poverty and unemployment.  In the first place it is an intellectual challenge.  Naturally, providing right education is the first battle front that needs to be won.  To whatever fallout that form residues at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid, they should be equipped with skills through continuous capacity building.  It is crucial to enable access to employment such that everyone is on economic locomotion.  In this context the sufficiency and quality of vocational, technical and community training institutions focused on technical skills and enterprise management becomes crucial.  The targets are those who would not make up to school certificate and those at the bottom rung in high school performance. 

By nature we are good at noticing and responding to rapid change but not so good at responding to things that change slowly.  It is in that slowness we lose opportunity to ensure resilience and remain relevant.  The determinants are our capacity to foresee inevitable change and undergo desired change which determines the degree of our relevance, which in turn determines our own well being. 

As we adapt to change, structural redundancies are created which needs to be cashed into opportunity or else it turn out to be liabilities that eat up all the benefits and cause whole system degenerate.  It is true particularly in aging organizations.  There is a direct correlation between institutional governance and the ability to sustain pressure on competitiveness and competence. 

The DNA to ensure quality life is composed of conditions for functioning of market, growth of private enterprises, strength of civil societies, welfare system and more.  And the limiting factors for these conditions are rule of law, technical and managerial competence, organizational competence and behavior, accountability, transparency and access to information which determines the extent of success of prudent macro-economic policy.