“ABOUT LIBERIA AND JAPAN ”

Madam President, welcome back home from Japan and other places. Japan is now the second economic power in the world, next to the United States of America . During the 1950s, Liberia had the highest per capita economic growth rate in the world, with Japan taking second place. Today Liberia remains one of the least developed countries, one of the poorest countries in the world.

What did Liberia do with that number one per capita economic growth rate in the world during the 1950s? The record shows that the Liberian experience exhibits growth without development. Whether there was the world class economic growth of the 1950s, the medium growth of the 1960s and the low to negative growth of the 1970s and 1980s, there has been no economic development, as the people continue to become poorer and poorer, while the few rich become richer and richer. The world class per capita growth rate experience has worked well for the few rich at the expense of the poor masses.

Since the end of the Second World War, with the establishment of the Britton Woods Institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the poor countries of the world continue to be dominated by policies of the Bank and the IMF. Poor countries are members of the Bank and the IMF, giving them voting rights to participate in the highest decision-making of these two corporate profit-making institutions. However, given the dominant voting power of the United States of America and the other industrialized countries, poor countries, with their largely undemocratic postures, usually side with their former colonial masters. Therefore, at the level of states, poor members and rich members continue to have an identity of interests.

For half a century, the World Bank and the IMF have launched numerous policies but they all gravitate towards a centrality: the production of raw materials for export. The policy labels change from time to time, giving the impression that something fundamentally new is going to happen, only to find the gravitation towards the same model of production of raw materials for export. During the early 1980s, when the European Union was trying to give an impression of doing something fundamentally new, the government of France let the cat out of the bag by stating that what Europe needs is to exploit Africa's raw materials for export to Europe and the markets in Africa for Africans to import Europe's manufactured products. So the dominant bottom policy line remains the production of raw materials for export.

Newly two months ago, when the World Bank President declared that the current price crisis has led to widespread social unrests that could lead to war, with over 100 million people confronted with starvation, he was in fact admitting that World Bank and IMF policies have failed. Successful development policies do not lead to social unrests and war. Successful development policies lead to peace and the sustained improving in the living standards of the vast majority of the people.

Experience demands that we learn from the conclusion of the Greek philosopher Plato, who, 2508 years ago, said that chaos would come to any society where the few benefit at the expense of the masses. We have already had 50 years of World Bank/IMF policies that continue to make matters worse for us. We do not need 100 years to give these policies a chance to work as that would be not only unscientific but would be even moor horrific for the future of Liberia. Might we not begin to look unto ourselves for better living, as looking principally unto others continues to fail us? Even the Prime Minister of Britain, in rather surprising move, is calling for the revamping of the World Bank and the IMF, saying that the times for which these institutions were established have now elapsed and they must be transformed to meet the challenges of the new times. Certainly, poor member countries of the Bank and IMF, like Liberia , can not be seen demanding anything less than the call of the British Prime Minister.