The new growth agenda: Beyond the path of least resistance?

1. The new growth agenda: Beyond the path of least resistance? BOND, 22 March 2011 Alex Cobham (acobham@christian-aid.org)

2. 4 points • Don’t take the path of least resistance • ‘More’ is not enough • ‘More(+)’ is not sustainable – on its own terms, or natural resources • The path less travelled…

3. The path of least resistance • ‘More’ is enough • (and let the chips fall where they may) • ‘More’+ is sustainable/inclusive/ etc • i.e. go for growth, but add more aims Don’t take this path!

4. ‘More’ would be enough? (i)

5. ‘More’ would be enough? (ii) • Kuznets is a bust • Initial conditions dominate, e.g.: • Democracy • Female participation • Education ‘More’ is not enough cf DFID: “Growth cannot be achieved without ensuring marginalised and excluded groups are part of human development strategies”

6. ‘More’ would be sustainable – on its own terms? • Growth econometrics offers little • Need longer-term view, focus on individual country experiences: Ranis, Stewart and Ramirez…

7. HD and EG: which is the egg?

8. Performance over time

9. ‘More’ would be sustainable – in the broader sense? • Which countries’ economic growth is taking them closer to sustainability in terms of: • Water • Oil • Metals • Species • …(food?)… • Will we even become serious about measuring this? ‘More+’ is not sustainable

10. The path less travelled (i) Try the following… • Top line: do what has been said forever - treat growth as an instrument not a goal (cf. DFID to EC: “Growth should be treated as one among a number of important goals”)

11. The path less travelled (ii) • Implication: equivalent to changing core business practice of PS, not CSR: so subordinate growth to development goal, rather than growth + nice things • Three key issues of DFID, EC approach: • Development diagnostics - not growth diagnostics • Focus on initial conditions: assessment of likely growth impacts and addressing obstacles to ‘inclusiveness’ before pursuing growth • Seriously address data issue: to be able to measure ‘sustainability’ of growth in a meaningful way before pursuit (of one without the other)

12. The new growth agenda: Beyond the path of least resistance? BOND, 22 March 2011 Alex Cobham (acobham@christian-aid.org)

13. The road not taken • Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveller, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the differenceRobert Frost, 1920

14. Mitchell to Piebalgs…