Knowledge as Aid

By: Bikal Dhungel

Development Aid is the most controversial among all forms of development cooperation. It has many drawbacks and dozens of scholars are providing evidences of its failure and problems it has caused. May be it is money that corrupt people. Argument goes, Development Aid is the money given by poor people of rich countries to the rich people of poor countries. Others claim that aid mostly goes to countries that are strategically important and only a tiny amount goes to countries that really need support. Controversies remain, and aid institutions are questioning their own policies if money alone can solve the problem of poverty. When James Wolfensohn became the president of the World Bank, he started to initiate the campaign of 'Knowledge as Aid' and attempted to make the World Bank itself as a Knowledge Bank.

It is knowledge that empower people. It is the source of all forms of progress. The World Development Report of 1998/1999 starts with the following sentence: ' Knowledge is like lights, weightless and intangible, it can travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere'. Knowledge about how to treat any disease saves human lives, knowledge about how to do farming can provide food to the people, knowledge about technologies cause technological progress and at the end, knowledge will increase the welfare of the people. Knowledge about the worldly problems will help to solve them. The difference between rich and poor countries is not only the amount of capital they possesses but also the level of knowledge they have. The knowledge gap between rich and poor countries is huge. 300 years ago when industrialization began, the world was less connected than today. Developments in one part of the world did not spread. As a result, the technological know how did not spread much from Europe. It spread only to few geographical boundaries and across the ocean when Europeans emigrated to Australia or the Americas. Today, the world is bit different. We have information and communication technology that reduced the distances. What happened in Australia immediately arrives to Europe through communication mediums. Similarly, knowledge acquired in the US can easily reach India. So, there is a golden opportunity to develop, to narrow the North-South gap. This will contribute to economic growth and human well-being.

Almost all of knowledge production takes place in rich countries because they also invest heavily in research. Poor countries are free riders. If they have appropriate mechanisms, they can free ride and profit from the efforts of rich countries. But how can they do this best ? How can they make use of the knowledge created in rich countries for their good ? For this, first of all, some fundamental things should be done, that is, ensure that everybody in their countries are educated by introducing universal education. They should make sure that no one is discriminated in learning. They should build life long learning schemes. Only then they can make use of knowledge from abroad. For example, if a housewife in rural Nepal is able to read English and has a computer with internet facility, she can read about Child Nutrition for her children. She can read about the precautionary methods of diseases, she can also learn about the mushroom farming at home with low costs. Students can get online degrees from other countries, policy makers can read the publications to make better policies, entrepreneurs can learn about technologies abroad etc.

How can governments play their part ? Governments should first ensure that they are open enough to the rest of the world. They should do public investment in open learning. They should monitor the learning and make sure that they are welfare maximizing. If there are biased information, wrong information which are in circulation, they should also prohibit these information. Countries that achieved high economic growth had interventionist states. Sometimes there was too much intervention but this was for good. Basically, it was knowledge that drove their growth. In all these countries, there was scarcity of land. Land is important for economic growth but even without it, the progress in knowledge based economy was able to overcome this constraint.

Very important thing however is, the knowledge that was acquired in advanced countries cannot be copied one to one in poor countries. It might not suit well. Taking an example of Green Revolution, the technology discovered by Norman Borlaug has perhaps saved the mankind from Malthus's theory. He predicted terrible human disaster as population was growing geometrically and land was limited. Borlaug's technology which enabled higher yield ensured that people have enough to eat. The technology spread quickly to the rest of the world. However, it could not be used immediately in other parts. First the local condition had to be studied, the local climate had to be studied. If it will suit in that particular region had to be studied in detail before using Green Technology there. There were also places where Green Technology didnt work may be because of different climatic conditions or something else. So, the lesson from here is, take the knowledge acquired in other countries, check how you should refine it again to use in local context, and then only imply it. By this way, any kind of risk could be managed well.

To conclude, knowledge is important, probably the most important driving force of economic growth. When a country closes itself to the rest of the world, it will not enjoy the free flow of knowledge. If a country aims to develop, it should open up, it should get ready to learn. The duty of a government is to ensure that its citizen learn in a best way possible. It should provide the basic infrastructure required for that. International organisations should help governments who are unable to achieve this in their own. Donor countries should rethink their aid policies. Either they should pump money to developing countries that didnt show any significant outcome in the last few decades or they should stop giving money and give knowledge instead. Either they should focus on providing infrastructures like helping to build telecommunication lines or provide computers and send experts in every sector instead of giving money and letting them do things themselves. Of course there is no evidence that knowledge based aid will be effective as it has not been implemented yet but the recent development in the world shows that information technology can indeed change the world for better. The mobile phones have empowered women, it has educated the people in most rural parts, it continues to change things. Knowledge aid will at least not harm poor countries and at least donors will not loose their money. They have the knowledge anyway and if others in poor countries can make better use of it, it can only be a win-win situation.