Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank

>Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank
>
>By Jim Lobe
>
>WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (IPS) - World Bank President James Wolfensohn Monday
>extolled the Communist government of President Fidel Castro for doing ''a
>great job'' in providing for the social welfare of the Cuban people.
>
>His remarks followed Sunday's publication of the Bank's 2001 edition of
>'World Development Indicators' (WDI), which showed Cuba as topping
>virtually all other poor countries in health and education statistics.
>
>It also showed that Havana has actually improved its performance in both
>areas despite the continuation of the US trade embargo against it and the
>end of Soviet aid and subsidies for the Caribbean island more than ten
>years ago.
>
>''Cuba has done a great job on education and health,'' Wolfensohn told
>reporters at the conclusion of the annual spring meetings of the Bank and
>the International Monetary Fund (IMF). ''They have done a good job, and it
>does not embarrass me to admit it.''
>
>His remarks reflect a growing appreciation in the Bank for Cuba's social
>record, despite recognition that Havana's economic policies are virtually
>the antithesis of the ''Washington Consensus'', the neo-liberal orthodoxy
>that has dominated the Bank's policy advice and its controversial
>structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) for most of the last 20 years.
>
>Some senior Bank officers, however, go so far as to suggest that other
>developing countries should take a very close look at Cuba's performance.
>
>''It is in some sense almost an anti-model,'' according to Eric Swanson,
>the programme manager for the Bank's Development Data Group, which compiled
>the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social,
>and environmental indicators.
>
>Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank's dictum that
>economic growth is a precondition for improving the lives of the poor is
>over-stated, if not downright wrong. The Bank has insisted for the past
>decade that improving the lives of the poor was its core mission.
>
>Besides North Korea, Cuba is the one developing country which, since 1960,
>has never received the slightest assistance, either in advice or in aid,
>from the Bank. It is not even a member, which means that Bank officers
>cannot travel to the island on official business.
>
>The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after
>the Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade
>ago, has yet to fully recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a
>growing tourism industry and limited foreign investment, has been halting
>and, for the most part, anaemic.
>
>Moreover, its economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The
>government controls virtually the entire economy, permitting private
>entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces. It heavily subsidises virtually all
>staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible to anything. It
>retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the
>rules abruptly and for political reasons.
>
>At the same time, however, its record of social achievement has not only
>been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI.
>
>It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990
>to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western
>industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the
>Bank's Vice President for Development Policy who visited Cuba privately
>several months ago to see for himself.
>
>By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;
>Chile's was down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American
>and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.
>
>Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen
>from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent
>lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's
>achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.
>
>''Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is
>just unbelievable,'' according to Ritzen, a former education minister in
>the Netherlands. ''You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done
>exceedingly well in the human development area.''
>
>Indeed, in Ritzen's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net
>primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up
>from 92 percent in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations, higher
>even than the US rate and well above 80-90 percent rates achieved by the
>most advanced Latin American countries.
>
>''Even in education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the
>developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil,
>or Chile.''
>
>It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts
>to about 6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in
>other Latin America and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.
>
>There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that
>ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin
>American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.
>
>The average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the
>Caribbean stands at seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin
>America, where the average is seven percent, only Uruguay approaches that
>achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.
>
>''Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40 percent to zero within ten
>years,'' said Ritzen. ''If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the
>burden of proof to those who say it's not possible.''
>
>Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP)
>during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate. Its
>ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.
>
>The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban
>experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.
>
>''What does it is the incredible dedication,'' according to Wayne Smith,
>who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and
>early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since. ''Doctors in
>Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't.
>They're just very dedicated,'' he said.
>
>Ritzen agreed that the Cuban experience probably cannot be applied
>wholesale to another poor country, but insisted that developing countries
>can learn a great deal by going to the island.
>
>''Is the experience of Cuba useful in other countries? The answer is
>clearly yes, and one is hopeful that political barriers would not prevent
>the use of the Cuban experience in other countries. ''Here, I am pretty
>hopeful, in that I see many developing countries taking the Cuban
>experience well into account.''
>
>But the Cuban experience may not be replicable, he went on, because its
>ability to provide so much social support ''may not be easy to sustain in
>the long run''.
>
>''It's not so much that the economy may collapse and be unable to support
>such a system, as it is that any transition after Castro passes from the
>scene would permit more freedom for people to pursue their desires for a
>higher standard of living.'' The trade-off, according to Ritzen, may work
>against the welfare system which exists now.
>
>''It is a system which on the one hand is extremely productive in social
>areas and which, on the other, does not give people opportunities for more
>prosperity.''(END/IPS/DV/IF/jl/da/01)
>
>
>
>
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