The Aftermath...

Soon will arrive the days when all start to think about development processes once the Millennium celebrations are over. The state's and peoples' concern being the economic development of Ethiopia and increasing the standard of living of the people, one is bound to attempt to expound the manners by which such economic growth could be achieved in few decades that other countries have attained over many years.
Britain had attained her economic growth in the 1800s through the industrial revolution. Japan, by contrast, attained hers through imitation of foreign technologies and protecting her domestic industries from imports and then developing tremendous expertise in manufacturing and electronics. Can we today become protectionists at a time of world globalization?
On the other hand, do we go in search of different patterns of development because that we are a poor nation? The fact of the matter remains that whether in China or India, Ethiopia or Tanzania, no matter how rich or poor a country is, the same fundamental process of economic growth and development that helped shape Britain and Japan many years ago still holds water for a developing nation. The difference rests on the propensity of their transparency to accept such a growth programme in an atmosphere of relative tranquility.
The whole issue of such a programme being the intent to increase the national income of the country, so that real personal income would augment, the correct application of the four wheels, or factors of growth is inevitable. As a generalist, while consulting some of my economic literature, I have arrived at examining the work of the eminent and Nobel Prize winner Paul A. Samuelson and his associate, William D. Nordhaus, who have written the relationship of the four wheels of growth in terms of an aggregate production function (or APF), which relates total national output to inputs and technology. They have expressed AFP algebraically as: Q=AF (K, L, R) where Q=output, K=productive services of capital, L=labor inputs, R=natural-resource inputs, A represents the level of technology in the economy, and F is the production function. As the inputs of capital, labor, or resources rise, we would expect that output would increase, although output will probably show diminishing returns to additional inputs of production factors. The economists affirm that one can think of the role of technology as augmenting the productivity of inputs. They expound that productivity denotes the ratio of output to weighted average of inputs.
Driving the issue home, the four wheels of development, namely, human resources, natural resources, capital formation and technology, if properly put to use, the economic growth of Ethiopia to the desired level is certain to come. Human resources development should be a result of planned action, where it should be both quantitative as well as qualitative. As I have stressed it in a different context, such development should pay heed to ethical factors, discipline and belongingness; it should produce motivated and result-oriented labor force, free from dislike of work and disinterest in customers' affairs. Qualitatively, it should produce a new-mind set ready for a paradigm-shift and attuned to technological changes and innovation.
As to natural resources, I have no fight with the already adopted economic orientation of the country, except to say that efficient use of the resources should be applied to accelerate development through proper follow-up and the updating of policies where such current instruments prove inadequate to measure-up to present-day requirements. Secondly, awareness should be developed in the absence of some indigenous resources that other elements can easily be substituted.
Capital formation is the third factor of growth. This is where Ethiopia should continue to work hard. The nascent development efforts of the State where a network of road system, construction of hydro-electric dams including irrigation, communication and transportation system, as well as essential factories such as cement and sugar, are really in the right direction to tell as to what the next steps should be. In addition, the alternative energy resources which are in the pipeline are to be encouraged. These investments which are called "social overhead capital" are essential in laying the framework for a thriving private sector. So people should be encouraged to save and/or invest in meaningful endeavors.
The last part consists of technological change and innovation. Without this input growth of living standards is hard to achieve. Where the world's population is getting closer through globalization or modern world economic orders like WTO, the place given to the fast pace of technological change is immense. At a time when the industrialized world has gone far in computer, information and communication technologies, the developing nations should strive, at least, for the minimum of these technological changes.
Of course, technological change are so fast today that the 1960s fastest computers are replaced by tiny notebook computers, and fiber-optic lines can carry 10,000 simultaneous conversations that required 10,000 paired copper-wired lines in an earlier period. No wonder if these statistical realities have already changed.
Therefore, it is in this esprit-de-corps that government and all intelligent Ethiopians should think, work and march forward ensemble in the aftermath of the Ethiopian Millennium celebrations.