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In search of 'tigers' and other beasts.There is no question that the most successful developing countries in the last 50 years are to be found in the Far East e.g. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore. And arguably the most successful of these 'tigers' has been Singapore. After gaining independence in 1963, under prime minister Lee Kwan Yew, Singapore set about laying the foundations for success through creating a business friendly environment in order to encourage local business and foreign companies to invest in order to create jobs. His government also ensured that a pool of young educated talent would always be available through a huge investment in education. And in order to ensure foreign investors that all contracts would be honoured Lee promised that the rule of law would not be compromised. In order to deal with the thorny problem of corruption Lee ensured that all government ministers, judges and civil servants were paid a salary commensurate with the private sector and that anyone caught stealing would instantly be dismissed. The rest, as they say, is history as Singapore today is a modern dynamic economy having moved from third world to first in 40 years and is presently placed in 28th position in the 2008 UNDP Human Development Index. An outstanding achievement. Interestingly, though, based on our own sub-Saharan African league table on effective governance, (see RECOMMENDATIONS) Singapore would only register a score of 27.6 points, a similar total to the second placed Cape Verde Islands but behind Mauritius with 29.9. Yet Singapore is a much more developed country than either of these. Our league table is based on 4 independent international surveys available on the internet on - 1) political rights/civil liberties, 2) economic freedom, 3) corruption perceptions and 4) media freedom. In two of these disciplines Singapore scores outstandingly high - economic freedom and corruption perceptions - but, in the other two, its scores are very average. This, then, begs the question as to the relative importance of each of our four indicators for laying the foundations in any country for improving the living standards of the people year on year. If all four criteria do not have the same value in forging better living conditions then perhaps they should be differently calibrated so that the more important indicators carry most weight. So, using Singapore's outstanding success as a yardstick, just1world has created a 'tiger table', an offshoot of our own league table on effective governance (see RECOMMENDATIONS), to show how the countries of East and South Asia, Latin America and Africa compare in their efforts to emulate the fast sustainable development recorded by Singapore and others. As this is a 'tiger table' not surprisingly we give economic freedom the highest weight and multiply each country's score in that discipline by 4; next control of corruption is fundamental for fast-track development and so we have multiplied the score for corruption perceptions by 3; political rights/civil liberties are still important and we times this score by 2 and media freedom we leave x 1. In order to make it easy to read we have placed the countries in separate divisions based on merit.
'TIGER TABLE'
If sustainable economic growth is the catalyst for tackling and reducing chronic poverty then this 'tiger' table shows better than any other measure just which governments are serious about trying to achieve success and which cannot or will not. Here there is no hiding place. The advanced economies of Japan and Chile are at the top followed by three Asian countries, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, that have all roared to success in the last 50 years. Surprisingly, though, two unexpected entries here are in the shape of Mauritius and Uruguay. However, regrettably only seven out of the 92 countries measured, reach the 1st division. The 2nd division comprises just five nations, two from Central America and three from Africa. Two African nations are included in a group of ten countries in the 3rd division. That then means that only 22 governments (25%) gain a pass mark for laying foundations for strong economic growth. Perhaps a hopeful sign is that there are another 22 countries placed in the 4th division with a score ranging from 40 -49.9. Perhaps, next year, some of those will scramble over to a higher plain. In the bottom three divisions, out of a total of 33 countries, 27 are from Africa, many of them vampire states, living off the misery of their people. |
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just1world@just1world.org |
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