African problem, where about 30% of the population live in
landlocked, resource-scarce countries; The trap of bad governance in a small country: Bad
governance and policies can destroy an economy with alarming
speed, and ruin the most promising prospects. Yet, qualifiers
are necessary: in the short term, if the external shocks such as
export prices are sufficiently favourable, a society can get away
with them; and because governance and policies are
multidimensional, not all dimensions matter in all circumstances
(e.g., corruption may not matter if the development strategy
adopted in the country can succeed with a “minimal state”
model). Thus, governance and policies matter, conditional upon
opportunities.As the bottom billion diverges from an increasingly sophisticated
world economy, integration will become harder.
The significance of nature for moving out of poverty and
vulnerability
Nature matters enormously for the poorest countries. Unlike the
richer societies, their natural assets, such as minerals, fish and
timber, are more valuable than their invested assets. But too often,
these assets are being plundered. Plunder takes two forms: the few
expropriate assets that should belong to the many, and the present
generation burns up assets that should belong equally to the future.
The issue is how to prevent such plunder.
Nature misunderstood
Nature has been moralized before it has been analyzed. It has
aroused strong passions, indeed the environment is virtually our
new religion. But like all religious belief, in the absence of
understanding it can be dangerous. To date, the high moral ground
has been occupied by romantic environmentalists whose priority is
to preserve nature. I have no truck with the ostriches who carelessly
ignore our destructive practices, but often in poor societies
preservation is not the ethical imperative. Natural assets are
valuable, and the best strategy will often be to harness them for
development, converting them into other assets such as schools,
factories and ports, that are more productive. Properly used, they