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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 2
(4 of 14 pages)
It's now my pleasure to introduce Ms. Narqui from Mongolia, who's actually been
dealing in a very specific way with the problems of economic reform in a former socialist state. She originally
had training in banking and finance in Moscow, when to be trained in Moscow was to be trained in socialist thinking
and practice of economics, she since has received her Masters in Economics in Australia and has become the Senior
Advisor to the Prime Minister, leading the Advisory Group to the Prime Minister of Mongolia, looking in particular
on financial sector restructuring, energy sector restructuring, and privatization. She's also been the chief author
and coordinator of a new document articulating the priorities of the government for the medium term 1999 to 2002
for economic development and reform. Coincidentally or maybe not coincidentally, she is also the chairperson of,
and I love the name of this group, the Liberal Women's Brain Pool, which is a women's NGO in Mongolia trying to
promote women's participation in decision making. So, Ms. Narqui.
Dorj Narqui: Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be [inaudible] to exchange my thoughts and opinions
and experiences dictated with the political and economic reforms since 1980.
The entire world is aware that Mongolia, an ancient history and culture developed through most of this century
by following a totally different political and economic system, one which is worshipped as taking a political concept
and it was based on strong centered planning of the economy and society.
After 70 years of [inaudible] to strong central planning of the economy, in 1990 Mongolia chose an entirely new
way of development, a decision replacing the will of the Mongolian people and based on respecting human rights
and democracy has changed the history of the system. Nearly 10 years later it is clear what from [inaudible] economic
and social trends and from the [inaudible]of development that the choice was the right one. They should be noted
to explain that the way of choosing wasn't [inaudible]. In all of the Mongolian [inaudible] suffering today, but
leave well longer, this have to maintain our confidence in a better future, even during the worst times of the
transition period. The years from 1990 to 1993 were the most difficult period in our generation. I can assure all
of you that in [inaudible] cutting of foreign subsidies equal to more than 30 percent activity per [inaudible]
is a situation that no one would ever wish for people. This is what happened to Mongolia at that time.
So in addition to the destruction experienced by all nations, which have moved from central training to a market
economy, Mongolia had this and [inaudible] additional experiment and it's a shock to our [inaudible]. The annual
inflation rate reached 325 percent, unemployment counted for over 20 percent of the economic [inaudible]. The stores
had nothing but [inaudible]… [unavailable due to technical difficulties]
Larry Diamond: Thank you, and now we can actually begin to have, I hope, a good conversation here. Let me
say again that we have the moderators for this topic and the five panels try to put the still on many questions
that you found in your orienting material down to basically three. First of all, how can governments build support
for their policies and in particular, how can the people of the society be broadly educated about the need for
economic reforms, in general and specifically? Second, continuing the notion of communication as a two way dialogue,
how can the people be heard, how can they communicate their needs, their desires, so that the process becomes a
democratic one? And third, how can the social justices and problems associated with reform be dealt with and cushioned?
Now, I have a strong hunch that the first and second topics are going to overlap very heavily, but I would very
much to like if I could beg your indulgence to leave the third topic until the last 20 to 30 minutes or our discussion,
so we can focus initially on the politics of economic reform and how the people can be educated, how the people
can be heard, and how economic reform can be done in a democracy.
So who would like to begin. I must apologize again that I was not able to get everyone's name the first time around.
Most of us don't have name cards and so I might ask you again just to give us your name and where you're from.
Please go ahead.
Speaker: [not available due to technical difficulties] economic relations now control the relations between
[inaudible] the developing countries, which are trying very hard to establish democratic principles are the same
countries which were late to come to the first human civilizations, a cultural civilization, and the second civilization,
the industrial civilization, and now we are to start with the third millennium and what we call the third civilization,
which is based on renewable resources on technology and on democracy and on investing in human resources.
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