[Vnbiz] Rural Development Strategy
Tran Dinh Hoanh
tdhoanh at gmail.com
Tue Jul 22 14:33:20 PDT 2008
Dear chi Nga & CACC,
Thank you for the kich ban posting, chi Nga. Very informative and helpful.
Let me just doing my thinking out loud here, to move the process forward and
also to share with our brothers/sisters my thinking process in this huge
issue of rural development (keeping in mind the kich ban that chi Nga has
just posted).
First, we need to look at the dynamics of the country's economy and the
rural areas. The dynamics will show us the general natural direction that
the the rural economy is going. (This is the direction that the economy is
going and will continue to go, even if we do nothing).
Second, we need to form a vision of the rural future that fits in the
general natural direction.
Third, we need a strategy to make the vision a reality. The strategy has to
have one (or maximum three) focuses (or locomotives) as the main thrust.
Every thing else in the strategy is to support, or to gain benefits, from
this main thrust.
1. Dynamics:
* The world may be facing increasing food demand and higher food prices in
the next several decades, due to (1) increase world population, (2) increase
in food quality demand (ie. more consumption of meet as an economhy
develops) and (3) the use of food for non-food purposes (such
as using corn to produce biofuel). That means, if we don't have another
Green Revolution, we will see more pressure to get more land for
agriculture.
* The global integration will bring people together. The gap between
people will not be in spatial distance but in knowledge. To close the gap
(i.e., to be less poorer than the other guys) we need to close the knowledge
gap.
* Many young people are leaving and will continue leave the
countryside oin search of a better life in the cities. Many major cities
will become megacities.
* Tremendous urbanization pressures will be placed on cities to provide
infrastructure, housing, schools, jobs and security (i.e. crime fighting and
prevention). Many people in the city have no family or community
support; social service organizations will have to provide support
services.
* Many farmers will sell their land because (1) they don't have children
to work the land--most children will leave for the city, and (2) the
land can't provide enough income to live on.
* Economy of scale will demand that individual farming lots increase in
size and mechanized. So, whoever has enough money will try to by farming
land from his neighbors to create larger lots. The land merging trend may
continue as long as 50 years. If there is stimulus to push up this process,
it will take at least 25 years.
* Many farmers will have to do works other than merely working their land.
* As life pressure in cities become too much and too expensive, and
telecommunications (phone, Internet...) simplifies global communications,
there will be a reversal trend, to go out into the countryside to build
offices, factories, residential communities, recreational facilities, etc.
It means, there will be demand for small towns to pop up all over the
countryside.
* Vietnam population, both in the cities and in the countryside, is very
young and very active. This is a great resource for national development.
2. Vision:
As we can see the dynamics of the future and the general natural direction
the future is going, we simply go along with that direction and make the
best picture for ourselves in that direction. So, we want the countryside
dotted with many small town centers--clusters of government and private
offices, schools, churches, temples, restaurants, shops, movie theatres,
libraries, hitech centers. Outside the town centers, there will be
farms--rice fields, vegetable fields, chicken farms, pig farms, agriculture
related factories (for dry foods and canned foods, etc). Occasionally,
there will be recreational facilities for city dwellers, or hitech centers
for huge companies.
Basically, this is a very simple and realistic vision: The countryside is
actually a series of small towns with a nucleus in the middle and fields
around it. These small towns will have almost everything a major city has,
but with much less intensity, much more gentleness and much more quietness.
There will still be some differences in the countryside towns and major
cities--but the differences are more in degree than in substance: Small
towns have everything the major cities have, including knowledge and
opportunities, but with less intensity.
3. Strategy: In forming the strategy, I ask: "What is the most
important thing we must have to make everything happen?" Of course, we are
talking about many things at the same time--infrastructures, money and
investment, people, agriculture extension services, law and order,
governance, etc. But, assuming realistically that we don't have a beautiful
beach or a gold mine, what do we consider as the most important thing--if we
have it we may have everything else, if we don't have it we may not have
anything else--that we may rely on as the main thrust of our strategy? My
answer is "Young and smart workers." If we have young and smart workers in
an area (and other things are so-so), we can attract outside business to
come in and stimulate inside business to be born, to act as the core of the
local economy.
Of course, a minimum level of infrastructure is essential. But no one will
invest money for infrastructure in an area that they can't find workers for
their business. However, if there are good workers, business will be
attracted and business will be willing to spend money to build
infrastructure. In practice, some minimum level of infrastructure has to be
in place for everything else to happen. Yes, we know that. But for
strategic thinking purposes, i.e., what is the most important element of the
strategy, I would say "building young and smart workers."
"Building smart young workers" is the thrust of our rural
development strategy.
How do we build young and smart workers?
We build schools for them, right where their homes are. One of the major
problems in the countryside is the lack of high schools and two-year
colleges. (a) Only a few families can afford to send their children to city
for colleges, which costs 3 or 4 times the local college cost, which is a
big waste for the national economy. (b) The majority of families cannot
send children to cities for colleges and these kids will simply drop stop
schooling; the brainpower lost, which is the efficiency cost for the
national economy, is tremendous. (c) The kids who have to stop schooling
will move to the city to find jobs. Without enough knowledge for
high-skilled jobs and a social support system around them, these kids can
get lost easily in the city and many will become a part of the city social
issues, including city crimes. This is another major cost to the national
efficiency. To avoid these (a) (b) (c) costs, and to build smart young
workers for the rural area, we must invest in a series of high schools and
colleges throughout the countryside.
The schools are a good reason for the government to build supporting
infrastructure around them--roads, electricity, water, Internet. The
colleges will act as the *"knowledge centers"* for the countryside--Students
are the best people to spread knowledge back to their parents; the schools
can also house offices of government agriculture extension services; the
schools are the place for NGOs to meet; the schools are the research center,
which businesses can rely on, for information about the area, its people and
its economy; the schools can have their own Internet servers that may
provide some Internet services for local governments and businesses.
These local colleges should rely intensely on *local people* and *local
knowledge* to build their strength. All the local people with any capacity
to contribute to the schools should be encouraged to help--monetary
contribution, teaching, researching. Government officials and NGO workers
in the area may be recruited into the teaching staff, if not full time then
as adjunct professors. Local researchers should be hired to research and
teach on local issues--researchers should be hired to write an intensive
research on the local history, its people, its culture, its foods, its
interesting stories and rumors, etc. This local knowledge should be a
subject in the school's curriculum. The result of these researches can be
published in books and used in structuring cultural tours (i.e. turning the
local area into a cultural tourist attraction.
Internet should be relied on intensively to build the local schools--for
teaching professionals in the cities to do long-distance teaching, for
students to do research without the need for expensive libraries, for the
community to rely on as the major hub on the Web.
In the next message I will talk how we may start building schools in the
countryside?
Have a great day!
Hoanh
____________
On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 6:29 AM, Nguyen Thi Phuong Nga <ntpnga2001 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear CACC,
>
> This is the most recent exercise done by a group of local experts and
> consultants and international ones assisted by WB in support to the MARD
> formulation of the rural development strategy: Scenarios for Rural
> Development in Vietnam up to 2020 - a very first draft one.
>
> Your comments are highly appreciated.
>
>
>
> Nguyen Thi Phuong Nga
> Manager
>
> International Support Group - ISG Secretariat
> Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)
> 10 - 12 Nguyen Cong Hoan , Hanoi
>
> E-mail: ntpnga2001 at yahoo.com
> Website: www.isgmard.org.vn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC
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