PH – Inclusive Growth Or Inclusive Development, Zero Extreme Or Zero Poverty?

On Facebook yesterday, Bruce Tolentino shared “The Philippines IG Inclusive Growth Story” that is actually “a student competition on how the Philippines can achieve high-income status with zero extreme poverty by 2040.” 

From the DoF website:

The Philippine Development Forum – Sulong Pilipinas: Hakbang Tungo sa Kaunlaran is an annual consultative conference that brings together different stakeholders from all over the country. By establishing a strong partnership between the government and different sectors – from business and development partners, to the academe, youth organizations, and many others – Sulong seeks to build a truly inclusive economy, and work towards a comfortable life for all Filipinos[1].

Zero Extreme Poverty 20 years from now – Is that a realistic goal? It is. But I don’t like such a realistic goal – I like the unrealistic goal of Zero Poverty! Why because if you Dream Big, you might as well Dream the Universe.

Also: There is something I do not like in the concept of “Inclusive Growth” – I want “Inclusive Development.”

Inclusive Growth is the result of Gross Domestic Product, GDP. In effect, in GDP the poor are largely excluded as beneficiaries of the overall economic growth. Else, we would not have any poor families today!

Inclusive Development is the result of Gross Domestic Happiness, GDH. Differently, in GDH, the poor are both actors and benefactors of themselves via their own labors.

Here is a practical way of describing or presenting inclusive development – I am quoting Director General of ICRISAT based in India and now PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, in his Manila Times column of Friday, 14 May 2018[2]:

Achieving profitability in the rice industry will need collective action among smallholder farmers, meaning they should organize themselves into cooperatives so they can go into block farming to achieve economies of scale… and have bargaining power in the trading of rice.

Via cooperatives, the poor farmers enjoy inclusive development, because their cooperatives are the merchants themselves and share incomes that sustain the lives of the producers and their families.

GDP admits of classic individual merchants as indispensable to the economy, who take care of their own welfare. Of course.

GDH admits of modern institutional merchants as indispensable to the economy, who take care of the welfare of the merchants as well as the food producers. In fact, the merchants are in effect the food producers themselves, working through cooperatives.

So, in this 2020 student competition, via GDP, we are teaching the students to not thinkbeyond the current dispensation, to think only via classical economic thought.

We are encouraging our students to be conformists, not alas, creative members of society!

The contest guidelines, available online[3], comprise 6 pages single-spaced. Too complicated. No cash awards mentioned. Nonetheless, if the first prize is P3 million, 2^nd prize P2 million, and 3^rd prize P1 million – those amounts will matter much to the student groups who will become winners, but not much to poor farmers who have always been the losers from obstacles to opportunities to options to outputs to outcomes!@517

---

[1]https://www.dof.gov.ph/index.php/advocacies/sulong-pilipinas/

[2]https://www.manilatimes.net/2018/05/11/business/columnists-business/rice-farming-as-agribusiness/398081/

[3]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUQN3F4Phv1o0ApeY-ZfjmpKH8IDYbDZ/view?fbclid=IwAR2mH_ojPVH0ju6nWNuoj2AFR9KTO69aPCJmHWM9oN7lwR8ap3CIoZ5SlL4