#9
International Herald Tribune
January 22, 2002
Help Central Asians to Mesh and Break Out From
Isolation
By David Jay Green
The writer is a senior economist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila. He
contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
MANILA The international community is learning an important fact about Central Asia: It is hard to get to and travel within the region. And Central Asians generally have little personal contact with market economies.
If Afghanistan has shown that conflict, poverty and despair can provide a breeding ground for religious and political extremism, one should not ignore the other parts of Central Asia. Its location frustrates economic development, particularly in the former Soviet lands to the north of Afghanistan - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Being far from the marketplaces of the industrialized world has stalled these countries' chance to reduce appalling poverty. If they were located in Eastern Europe, they would have far different prospects. Central Asia is landlocked and connected to East Asia or Europe by long and poorly maintained roads and railroads. Uzbekistan is double-landlocked, in the sense that its goods have to travel through at least two countries to reach the sea.
Travelers, especially traders, are often victims of underpaid and poorly supervised police or customs officials. The region lacks the easy access to Western Europe that has helped the people of Eastern Europe to adopt market-based economies and move toward eventual integration in the European Union. This has discouraged investment in Central Asia. The markets of East Asia, Europe and North America are well linked, mainly by sea and air. Central Asia lies apart and plays no role in global trade.
Remoteness exacerbates more basic development problems. The former Soviet countries inherited a subsidized living standard that cannot be supported by unproductive factories and mines. For example, Kazakhstan's industrial towns were integrated into the Soviet military-industrial complex. With few exceptions, solutions have not been found to make such assets profitable. The international community has tackled some of the problems in the former Soviet Central Asia. Even before the anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan, Central Asia received considerable aid. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank all work there. Aid comes also from the separate assistance programs of European countries, Japan and the United States.
With few exceptions, however, the assistance does not recognize the region's central problem of being located far from industrialized markets. Aid is generally project-based - a school rebuilding here, a road repair project there. But the roads within each of the countries lead to borders that are often closed and inhospitable to trade and transport. Assistance that is not designed with a regional perspective will produce little. Even in education, national programs must deal with the differing language needs of ethnic groups spread across borders. Uzbekistan struggles to produce textbooks in seven languages. Officials there say they would be glad to trade with their neighbors for some of these. Making textbooks more uniformly available in local languages could help reduce ethnic tension. Some programs do recognize the need to think regionally about development and assistance. The Asian Development Bank is supporting a regional transport program, especially by improving connections to road and rail routes to East Asia. The European Union has supported transport route improvements from Central Asia to Europe.
The World Bank has worked on the difficult issues surrounding the drying up of the Aral Sea by seeking the cooperation of the mountain states Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and lower-lying Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Even regionally focused programs face serious challenges. International aid will be effective only if there is a coordinated effort, within a regional setting. Some collaborative efforts are visible. The EU funds reconstruction of border posts in support of an Asian Development Bank cross-border road project. But a lot more international cooperation is required if there is to be real impact on the lives of the people. One suggestion is for the various aid agencies to undertake joint programming missions, to plan together on how to meet regional needs. This is difficult, but the current situation in Central Asia underscores the importance of trying.
More concerted efforts are needed to link Central Asia to the global economy and restore development potential.
Back to the Top
Next Article
January 22, 2002:
#6034
- Back to the Top -