Pages
Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 3
(12 of 13 pages)
Speaker (from the floor): I think you will find in the very early development
of democracy in Switzerland and Iceland for instance it was quite pre-industrial and the United States was becoming
industrial in the latter part of last century where democracy was established 100 years earlier and the political
leaders were actually large estate owners not factory owners.
Speaker: Just for a quick proposition about debt reduction. It is clear in the text here but I would like
to make sure that in final declaration that the forum encourages the debt reduction in order for emerging democracies
to sustain political and economic reforms and to also encourage foreign investments in these emerging democracies
since the stability created by the political provision we have to buy internal and external investments. Just to
make sure that the forum is aware of the weight of the debt in budget of the emerging democracy. In my country
it is almost 26% and I am sure in others if we take in the first world the weight of the debt and the weight of
paying the administration, what is left for investments really reaches 20% from the annual budget. So I would like
to make sure that the forum draws their attention to this trend and encourages debt reduction assistance.
Speaker: In closing I would like to highlight the fact that yes it seems we are in consensus with the principal
and that we need political transition where there is no democracy. When I refer to political transition I refer
to the entrenchment of democratic culture in terms of participation of the civil society in terms of accountability
of the government to the civil society or the stakeholder in terms of transparency. This is how I see the whole
process. As far as economic restructuring is concerned I see this in the light of stimulating economic growth which
is fair in the sense that we should establish some kind of social net for the valuable groups and I also in fact
see economic restructuring to have a kind of a human face as a social net.
Dr. Abdul Karim Al-Eryani: There has been some discussion about the chicken and the egg. I think that the
egg depends on the chicken in this case. We are all different chickens. We are not the same chicken. Therefore
each one of us is talking about the experience of their country and we cannot universalize the experiences. As
I said in Yemen unification immediately brought with it a totally new political system and as a result the country
in my view is highly homogeneous. There was no conflict with regard to the political system. It brought with it
as well national discussion on economic reform. During the first correlation between 1990 and 1993 the country
and parliament produced a program for reform. In fact if you read between the lines it is the prescription that
was unveiled. It is a prescription from IMS that was veiled. In the second correlation we discussed the rejection
of the child. Who is going to adopt this child. I think there always has to be courage and unity among the government
to implement any program.
My last words about the hardships brought by these programs no doubt we are all convinced that the social safety
net is the best way to alleviate these hardships. Yemen has three programs in the social safety net. The first
one is the search and development fund. This fund is driven from the society for what they need and the fund implements
what they need but they have to maintain the infrastructure that they have asked for. I think this has done very
well. Second program is the social work program which is creating work opportunities and I think it is doing well.
The third one is poverty alleviation which is direct donations to poor families. I am afraid that as we life subsidies
from commodities we will find ourselves bound by the same restraints to pay for these poverty programs which are
direct paying to families. I wish to advise other countries that are entering a program such as this to be very
careful. Managing the poverty alleviation program by direct payment from the government budget can become a financial
burden and it will become eventually a focus of corruption.
[TAPE FLIP]
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