By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Jun 4 2003 (IPS)

Ask farmer Saranaris from Sri Lanka’s north-west whether the future lies in economic growth and private sector-led development and he says, ”I want to continue growing rice, but the big people (donors) tell me to grow something else.”

At Illukulam village in the same region, returnees displaced by the country’s 20-year-old conflict are offered support by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) to grow crops other than their traditional paddy. They have no place to store the paddy, but a spanking new pre-school lies closed and unused.

Residents in the north and east, the regions most affected by the conflict between minority Tamils and majority Sinhalese, worry that little attention is being paid to agriculture and fishing, which account for 80 percent of the local economy.

But these issues are unlikely to be on the discussion table when foreign donors and institutions meet in Tokyo on Jun. 9-10. That, activists say, is because Sri Lanka’s future has virtually been signed, sealed and delivered by these donors.

It does not help that the meeting is being boycotted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas, who say they are frustrated by the slow pace of development and rehabilitation in the north-east. The rebels, who have been fighting a bloody rebellion until a ceasefire came into place more than a year ago, suspended participation in peace talks with Colombo in April.

Some say that the effort to ‘regain Sri Lanka’ – as the development plan to be given to the donors is called – lacks the needs of the people for whom it is supposed to make a difference

Instead of stressing agriculture and fisheries – the main livelihood of people in the north-east – the document follows the formula of putting a heavy focus on physical infrastructure and big-ticket projects, critics say.

Jayanandan Joseph, a 58-year old peace coordinator in Jaffna in the north-east, stresses that while the donor summit is important, the people must remain the ultimate beneficiaries. ”Often the poor are at the wrong end of the stick and don’t get the benefits of development,” he said by telephone.

Efforts to revive the local economy can be said to have succeeded if concrete changes, going far beyond growth figures or percentages, take place – when schools are rebuilt, children are able to learn, unemployment is reduced and women are given their due place, he says.

”Whether it is big business or small business or industries, people should get the benefits and be able to live in dignity,” he added.

The ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’ document, which the World Bank helped prepare and will be presented to close to 100 countries, lending agencies and international organisations, deals extensively with employment and labour, education, finance and investment, infrastructure development, and improving productivity. But there is no section on agriculture.

It says rapid economic growth is possible only ”we aggressively seek investment and market possibilities for our goods and services around the world”. It puts a major share of responsibility on the private sector for providing the resources that ”will be needed for the reconstruction requirements that peace brings”.

"This cannot be avoided. It is the private sector that makes the decisions that determine productivity and it is on this basis that future growth will depend," the policy document says.

But social scientist Sunil Bastian says the government must be careful of banking too much on good figures. ”The proposals for growth are preoccupied with macro issues, with little or no relation to rural needs. It doesn’t even take into account the debates across the country on water rights and land market issues,” he explained.

This stems from what he and other critics call the main weakness of the ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’ document, which is its preoccupation with having the country achieve 10 percent economic growth to reflect reconstruction efforts.

Bastian says that he favours economic growth, but growth alone is not enough. ”Even if we concentrate on the economic aspects of our lives, there is enough evidence around the world to show that the focus on economic growth alone will not alleviate poverty,” he said. In Tokyo, the Sri Lankan government hopes to raise 3.3 billion U.S. dollars over a three-year period in a programme that focuses on accelerated growth and reducing poverty through private-sector led development.

The World Bank, however, appears to be pleased with the ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’ document. ”It is a clear departure from the previous unsustainable policies of redistribution and transfers to alleviate poverty,” the bank said in a recent document.

Ironically, some officials of multilateral agencies said at a recent gathering of economists here that some programmes have indeed failed because of donors’ policies – and because governments of developing countries allowed donors to dictate the terms of development.

”Don’t allow donors to own projects. Be careful of bad advice,” said Peter Harrold, country director of the World Bank. ”Often it has been proven that home-spun projects succeed more than donor-driven ones.”

When recipient governments lack skills in preparing projects, Harrold said, they tend to rely on donors, which then dictate terms.

In fact, one could argue that there are too many projects in Sri Lanka, Harrold added. For instance, he says that a visit to the mainly Sinhalese southern part of the country shows ”so many” offices of government projects – but people still do not have services like water, power or basic infrastructure.

”A vast amount of the funds to the south hasn’t been utilised for the people’s benefits. The money is spent on bureaucracy and project offices,” he added.

Activists say it is time for donors to heed some of their own advice – and to reorient their plans for Sri Lanka’s reconstruction along lines closer to the needs of people in war-ravaged areas.

”There is a heavy concentration on infrastructure and focus on big investment aimed at generating jobs and alleviating poverty, but where is the attention to traditional livelihoods?” asked Nimalka Fernando, chairwoman of the Tokyo-based International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), which has been lobbying for greater participation by civil society at next week’s meeting of donors.

”In such a case, what are we regaining in Sri Lanka if the livelihoods of the people are being taken away?” she said.

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