The World has come to understand it is difficult
to manage Deflation than inflation. We love to have inflation. Deflation seems
to be deadly and the whole world is not happy about oil at 40USD or Copper
coming down by 30% in a year or Gold hitting the bottom. The pain of deleverage
has hit everybody. Understandably, Country like India, which stands to benefit
the most out of falling commodities, remains to be Promising but lacks the
performance in terms of growth.
Looking beyond macro economics, lack of education
and unemployment are two great factors which are pulling the global economic
growth. Irrespective of the size of the economy, the unemployment levels are alarming
and most of the economies are understating their numbers. Lack of education and
higher levels of poverty in many African and Asian countries add to the problem.
We need to declare Education and Employment as a
Global Responsibility. Every living global citizen should have Education and
Employment as birth right. People who are below the poverty line who cannot
afford to have basic education and thus are not employable should be treated as
global citizen and a Global Prosperity Fund has to be created to achieve basic education,
skill development and employment for such deprived people.
While it is understandable that every country is
working hard towards eradicating poverty and achieving education to all and
full employment, still lot of internal pulls and pressures and economic conditions
lead to failure on such initiatives.
Global Prosperity Fund will have its corpus built
on contribution from every member country depending upon the size of their economy,
need for education and employment for its people etc.,
GPF prime responsibility will be to absorb, people
BPL (Below the Poverty Line) and those who are economically deprived of education
and employment, across all countries and provide them with basic education and
specific skills and make them a productive asset for the world. GPF will have
to build its infrastructure needed for providing education and skill
development and should become a source of supply of productive labor force across
the world based on demand – supply conditions.
The objective of GPF should be Basic Education,
Skill Development and Full Employment. One of the major problems which the
world is facing at any point of time is Terrorism and trillions of money is
being spent to combat terrorism. World wide it has been accepted that the major
cause for terrorism has been lack of employment.
Once the burden of education and employment
becomes a global responsibility, the respective economies can become productive
in terms of focusing on development and growth. Every country will be
benefitted if GPF can focus and achieve these two critical issues. Then the
world will be better off in terms of
·
Inclusive Growth
·
Higher Productivity
·
Reducing Inequality
·
Innovation
·
People Empowerment
·
Higher Per capita income
·
Savings on Social Security
·
Eliminate Demography risk
·
Eliminate Terrorism
While we need to appreciate the roles of IMF, WB
and UN on their initiative to combat Poverty and bringing about education awareness,
it is not enough and it has been slow in progress. World Bank in its recent
report has said it will take up to 2030 to make the world free of extreme
poverty. This can delay inclusive growth by another generation.
By making GPF, functionally responsible for bringing
full education and employment, we can actually fast track the process and make
it achievable before a decade. We can use IOT and digital space to make
education reach those who cannot afford and make them be part of the inclusive
growth.
Cost of labor has been a major factor which is
bothering the economic growth across the world. If we can achieve giving basic
education and skill development to deprived people across the world, that will
lead to more supply of productive labor thereby reducing the cost of
labor. Also Demographic mismatch can be
handled better by bringing equilibrium on people resource across the world.
Enabling every nation to achieve full employment
and effective use of human resources can transform the global growth model
completely. We can neutralize the effects of Inflation and Deflation with lower
cost of labor and higher productivity.
On the one side we will be seeing new
technologies, IOT and Automation replacing people on many mundane jobs,
education will help individuals at the bottom of the pyramid to look for newer opportunities
elsewhere.
GPF should run independently by eminent personalities
having impeccable record on Integrity, Ethics and Governance and there should
not be any interference from any nation except for the fact that they have the
right, as a contributing country, to measure the performance of their
employment and education numbers.
It’s a global shame to have poverty persisting in
the world, which is dominated by modern technological advancements. Recent
global turmoil has made the globalization a failed concept and that was because
of the skewed capitalist policies. Neither is it fact that, socialism can bring
equilibrium.
We strongly believe making, Education, Skill Development
and Employment, mandatory for all living citizens can only bring inclusive
growth.
It is possible, if it is made a global responsibility, and we wish it is not a wishful thinking.
T Margabandhu
M/s Marggo India
