The Aga Khan yesterday urged patience for emerging countries as they worked to reconstruct their economies.
“Society does not change that quickly,” he said to reports that some businessmen doubted the Afghan Government’s resolve to create an enabling environment for investment in the country.
“I don’t expect a country that has just come out of decades of civil war to change within a few years,” the Aga Khan, who is the 49th hereditary Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims said during a meeting with journalists in Kabul.
He discussed the Aga Khan Development Network’s involvement in organising the Enabling Environment Conference as part of efforts to reconstruct Afghanistan following years of war.
“Here we are talking about a young government working with a Constitution that has not been tested…. What people are looking for is confidence in the process of change,” he said.
The Aga Khan said it was important for development agents to understand the value systems that drove poor communities and seek how to work with them to their living standards. He said there was need to develop civil society at the community level to help in driving growth.
“Ultimately it is the civil society that brings development. It is not the money, it is the institutions. You need money, but what changes the lives are the institutions,” said the Aga Khan.
He said there were occasions when international development agents had misled emerging countries, citing Africa where countries attaining their independence 50 years ago were discouraged from investing in higher education.
“Experts looked at the cost of producing a Bachelors of Arts graduate on a balance sheet and realised the individual would never bring back the money put in higher education and as a result many African countries did not invest in higher education.
“Several years later experts came back and declared higher education in Africa a disaster,” he said, adding that many of the affected countries were today turning to civil society to help them mount decent higher education.
Meanwhile, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said bold policy reforms, the Diaspora and repeal of foreign investment caps hold key to accelerating growth in developing countries,
Mr Aziz said the countries should gather the courage to make the right decisions to spur development.
The PM told the Enabling Environment Conference in Kabul that experience around the world showed that the three things helped emerging countries sustain their development, especially when taken together.
“In Pakistan we are already seeing the benefit of government having insisted on reforms that saw ministries solely focussed on policy formulation, new institutions created for regulation and business left to the private sector,” he said.
He said the second plank was such countries tapping immense potential in their Diaspora, arguing that there was a living example in China: “The single-most important factor that propelled China’s growth initially was the Chinese Diaspora.”
Ismailimail 