A Teacher Writes to Students Series (14): Innocenti Research
By Annavajhula J C Bose, PhD
Department of Economics, SRCC, DU
Even as you still have the innocence of childhood, you must know well the stark realities that most children are afflicted with deplorable health issues, survival issues, educational lack, labour exploitation, and violence and abuse in our country which fares poorly on social indicators of development. How to integrate economic and social policies to deal with such issues and problems of young lives is a worthwhile concern, which is not part of the stylised, non-heterodox theories of mainstream economics.
For example, how the well-being of children affects and is affected by wider societal (especially economic) development; whether and in what ways children have benefited from economic growth; and which policy directions can help to make economic growth deliver advantages for poor children in developing countries, is a relevant multidisciplinary agenda worth pursuing as Boyden and Decron (2012) of Oxford University had pointed out.
In this connection, the many working papers of Unicef’s Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, are a goldmine for you to study, move on, and become an economist of social development in general or of child welfare in particular. Reading these papers will give you insights into what is to be done when you draw on Dreze-Sen research, much to the consternation of Indian governments obsessed with growth, that India is not a social development leader. In terms of sanitation and child nutrition, India fares worse than most of its neighbouring countries (barring Pakistan). And there is growing evidence that India’s poor social indicators, relative to neighbouring countries with lower per-capita GDP, are closely connected with various forms of economic and social inequality, which the Indian power-elites don’t want to address.
Here I take up one Innocenti working paper by Mehrotra (2000). It has some interesting revelations about how emulative social development outcomes had come about, in ten developing countries such as Costa Rica, Cuba and Barbados from Latin America and the Caribbean; Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mauritius in Africa; Kerala state (India) and Sri Lanka in South Asia; the Republic of Korea and Malaysia in East Asia. They have little in common, except in one crucial respect: they have all managed to exceed the pace and scope of social development in the majority of other developing countries. Their children go to school and their child mortality rates have plummeted. In the space of fifty years in the post-colonial epoch, these countries have made advances in health and education that took nearly 200 years in the industrialized world. Indeed, many of their social indicators are now comparable to those found in industrialized countries.
What did these countries do?
They adopted policies that have contributed to their successes in social development – policies that could be replicated elsewhere! Despite this knowledge available, India pursues growth without development!
These countries did not give priority to achieving economic growth or macro-economic stability first, while postponing social development. They demonstrate that it is possible for countries to relieve the non-income dimensions of poverty, and achieve social indicators comparable to those of industrialized countries, regardless of the level of income. The poor should not have to wait for the benefits of growth.
These countries demonstrate five principles of good social and economic policy: 1. The pre-eminent role of public action, regardless of whether it took place in a centrally planned economy or a market economy. The experience of the industrialized countries from a comparable period of development offers the same insight; 2. While the level of social spending is important for health and education outcomes, the equity of the intra-sectoral spending pattern matters even more. The social investment was also protected during times of economic crisis as well as structural adjustment; 3. Efficiency in the utilization of human and financial resources needs to be practised if social spending is not to become a burden on the state exchequer. A number of specific good practices in both health and education sectors ensured both allocative and technical efficiency in resource use; 4. There seemed to be a sequence of social investment: educational achievement preceded, or took place at the same time as the introduction of health interventions. The separate sectoral interventions had a synergistic impact on health, educational and nutrition status of the population, i.e. the sum of their impact was greater than the effects of the individual interventions; and 5. Women were equal agents of change, and not mere beneficiaries of a welfare state.
Underlying each of these principles were specific good practices of social policy. The worst manifestations of poverty – preventable child deaths, the powerlessness of illiteracy and debilitation of ill-health – were relieved for almost the entire population. However, with the exception of Cuba, Mauritius, Korea and Malaysia, income-poverty remained more stubborn, although it certainly declined in most of these countries. Where income-poverty has been resistant, the pace of economic growth has been relatively slow. In fact, if there is one over-arching principle emerging from the historical experience of these high-achievers, it is that there is little prospect of the synergy between economic growth, income-poverty-reduction and health/education advance being realised without integrating macro-economic and social policy. If economic growth is the dominant objective with macro-economic policy determined first (with the Ministry of Finance in the lead) – with social policy trailing behind – this synergy cannot take place.
It follows from the experiences of these ten countries that economic growth is a necessary condition of sustained improvement in health and education indicators and in the quality of social services, but it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the ‘take-off’ in social development.
It is not easy to answer the question as to what kind of political system (as opposed to political commitment) is most conducive to the replication of these good practices. While ‘voice’ in the decision-making process is a pre-requisite, the more difficult question is how that voice is articulated. Clearly, a democratic system alone is not sufficient, though it was definitely helpful.
It is safe to say that the causes and driving forces behind social success were historical, and very specific to the country in question. The social forces that combined to produce the revolutionary changes within a matter of decades in these high-achievers can be understood in a national context, but can hardly be replicated. Social forces cannot be conjured up, nor can any amount of social engineering help to create them.
Policies, however, can be replicated.
Exploration of social and economic policies favourably affecting children’s rights is a socially useful research agenda, which you can take up.
References
Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen. 2013. An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton University Press.
Jo Boyden and Stefan Decron. 2012. Child Development and Economic Development: Lessons and Future Challenges. Young Lives. UK. May.
Santosh Mehrotra. 2000. Integrating Economic and Social Policy: Good Practices from High-Achieving Countries. Innocenti Working Paper 80. UNICEF. October.
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