The security challenges of Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development

By Professor Gilles-Emmanuel Jacquet.

The current talks between the representatives of the Taliban and the US Government in Qatar are an important step but peace and stability are still beyond reach. Afghanistan’s reconstruction and durable development requires a satisfactory level of security and tackling issues such as unemployment, corruption, and armed violence.

Since 2001 many reconstruction and assistance efforts have been conducted in Afghanistan but their real impact is limited by the security context and corruption. Foreign material and financial assistance was affected by embezzlement and misappropriation. Many examples can be easily found in Kabul or all over the country. In Kabul’s Parwan-e-seh district, the main road was in a bad shape and looked as if it had been built during the 1970s or the 1980s.

According to some local residents, the road had been built during the 2000s and the main cause of its deplorable condition was corruption : the road was 9 cm-thick, while it was supposed to be 18 cm-thick and its maintenance was almost nonexistent. In many rural areas schools were built with the financial support of foreign countries, NGOs or organizations but an important part of these funds have disappeared. As a result, these schools are often unfinished or badly constructed buildings where the furnitures, windows, heating system, decent toilets or electricity are missing.

Since 2001 ISAF Provincial Reconstruction Teams did a great work but it ended with the withdrawal of ISAF troops. The action of the PRTs also sparked debates and was criticised by some non-governmental organizations as it could create confusion in the minds of local populations about the nature of humanitarian assistance, as well as the role of foreign armed forces and foreign NGOs. Many foreign or local NGOs operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported that after the elimination of Osama bin Laden by a team of US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad in May 2011, they were facing more difficulties in carrying out their operations. It can be explained by the fact that one of the methods used by the CIA to identify Osama bin Laden took the form of a fake vaccination programme conducted in Abbottabad and seriously undermined the trust of local populations towards NGOs, and especially foreign aid workers.

The current security context is critical, the Taliban controls from 44% to 61% of Afghan districts [1] and the Islamic State is conducting terrorist attacks in the country. The current negotiations are an important step but their outcome will not bring a stable and immediate peace. Only a fraction of the Taliban has endorsed this process and agrees to participate to it as the whole Taliban movement remains divided. Some Taliban factions wants a full withdrawal of foreign troops and of all foreign presence, as well as the resignation of the current Afghan government. This precondition can’t be satisfied as it would put the current Afghan government at risk and trigger a new phase of conflict. Such possibility would not create a proper context for reconstruction. Moreover, since the fall of its Syrian and Iraqi Caliphate, the Islamic State has found a new momentum in Afghanistan and some Taliban factions have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while others refuse to do so and are engaged in a fierce competition with ISIS.

In this regard, reconstruction and development will depend on the context created by the peace deal and a satisfactory agreement for all parties, which is far from being easy. All parties have ties to foreign and neighbouring countries. It means that foreign powers and neighbouring countries should reassess their agendas and interests in Afghanistan. They should also find common interests and a joint approach, at least with regard to the reconstruction of the country. It’s the only way to ensure a sound reconstruction process and especially the access to rural areas where most of the work should be conducted.

Security conditions and corruption are also closely tied to the social and economical problems affecting Afghanistan’s rural areas. Agriculture is the largest sector and the basis of Afghanistan’s economy. Agriculture should be strongly supported, especially when it comes to the eradication of opium poppy cultivation. The opiate economy accounts for 20% to 32% of the country’s GDP (US$ 4.1-6.6 billion) [2] and 24 provinces out of 34 grow opium poppy but 69% of cultivation is carried out in Southern Afghanistan. [3] Taliban groups control these areas and earn c. US$ 200 million per year from the opiate economy. Eradication efforts have led to a decline of opium production  from 9000 tons in 2017 to 6400 tons in 2018 and the price of dry opium fell to its lowest level since 2004 (US$ 94 per kg). [4] Foreign support is crucial but the United States of America have decided in February 2019 to end Operation Iron Tempest, an airstrike campaign launched in 2017 against Afghan drug labs.

Providing jobs and decent revenues to rural populations play a role in decreasing the activities of insurgent groups in rural areas. This key issue was well understood by the French troops in charge of civil-military operations in the province of Kapisa and the district of Surobi. French scholar Bernard Dupaigne explained that during the First Indochina War (1946-1954) « the map of quiet areas coincided exactly with the map of regions where hydraulic works improving agricultural yields had been carried out by French engineers. The areas controlled by the insurgency corresponded to poor regions from an agricultural point of view ». [5] The French troops conducting civil-military operations in Kapisa and Surobi wished to play a role in the long-term development of these areas but their mission was ended in 2012.

Eradicating the cultivation of opium poppy and supporting farmers in their transition towards the cultivation of legal crops is expensive. Many efforts have been done and opium production has decreased but the results are limited by corruption, widespread poverty, the threats made by criminal gangs, corrupt officials or Taliban commanders against farmers. Taking into account such difficulties, some experts argue that opium poppy cultivation and opium production should be allowed and that farmers could legally sell their production to the pharmaceutical industry. Such alternative could provide stable revenues to a part of Afghan rural populations. [6]

Education plays an important role in the development of Afghanistan, especially vocational education and professional training. As one of the most infuential thinkers and leading practitioners in the field, Dr. Djawed Sangdel have repeatedly stressed: « Afghanistan may need businessmen and managers but it needs even more technicians, agronomists and engineers. »

The reconstruction and development of Afghanistan will also benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s new Silk Road, but it requires as well serious security improvements and a coherent regional approach from foreign and international powers. The new Great Game in Central Asia opposing the USA to Russia and China could, in this perspective, could prevent Afghanistan from reaping the benefits of trade with China and hinder its development. Competition between international or regional powers can take a violent form, especially when it will come to the control and the exploitation of strategical mineral resources and rare-earth elements whose value could reach $3 trillion. Mineral resources are an important asset for the country and its development but the local mining industry is opaque and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum is affected by corruption. [7] Moreover, illegal mining benefits to various criminal gangs and the Taliban.

State control upon this sector should be increased, sound legal standards should be enforced, corruption should be punished and transparence should be supported. Moreover, there should be a comprehensive and coherent strategy ensuring that Afghanistan will not just own its resources but it will also use the revenues generated by minerals or oil for its development and reconstruction. The current trends on international markets and the increasing scarcity of some mineral or energy resources have also led to a crucial issue for Afghanistan. Competition among foreign powers over the access to rare and strategic minerals will also have a negative impact upon the country : it could increase corruption, weak governance, and aggravate the « resource curse ».

There should be a multidimensional strategy taking into account these issues and supported by the United Nations, foreign powers involved in Afghanistan and regional powers or neighbours. In order to succeed there should be a common and radically new approach whereby foreign powers and regional powers should find a common ground and common goals or at least, interests.

Afghanistan is affected by the geopolitical competition opposing the USA to Russia and China but also by the US-Iranian crisis, as well as the Indo-Pakistani rivalry. Iran and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) should be included in this joint approach. Saudi Arabia and Qatar should not be left aside but the effects of their past influence and their future role should be questioned. This approach is obviously too optimistic but the long-term development and stability of Afghanistan can be only ensured by a genuine commitment of all parties.

About the author:

Gilles-Emmanuel Jacquet. Assistant Professor of the World History at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations. He is also senior anlaysit at the Geneva International Peace Research Institute (GIPRI)

[1] Bill Roggio and Alexandra Gutowski, « Mapping Taliban controlled and contested districts in Afghanistan: LWJ vs US military assessments », Threat Matrix / The Long War Journal, 08/09/2018 : https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/09/mapping-taliban-controlled-and-contested-districts-in-afghanistan-lwj-vs-us-military-assessments.php

[2] « Afghanistan Opium Survey 2017, Challenges to sustainable development, peace and security », United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Narcotics Survey Directorate of the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, May 2018, p.5

[3] « Afghanistan Opium Survey 2018, Cultivation and Production », United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Crime and Narcotics Survey Directorate of the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, November 2018, p.14

[4] « Sharp drops in opium poppy cultivation, price of dry opium in Afghanistan, latest UNODC survey reveals »,  United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 19/11/2018 : https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2018/November/sharp-drops-in-opium-poppy-cultivation–price-of-dry-opium-in-afghanistan–latest-unodc-survey-reveals.html?ref=fs1

[5] Bernard Dupaigne, Désastres afghans, Carnets de route, 1963-2014, Gallimard, 2015, pp.222-223

[6] Olivier Maguet, « La production de drogue : un enjeu qui dépasse largement les frontières », pp.83-100, in Pierre Micheletti, Afghanistan, Gagner les cœurs et les esprits, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble / RFI, 2011

[7] Zabihullah Jahanmal, « Report: Corruption Increases In Mines Ministry Contracts », Tolo News, 12/03/2017: https://www.tolonews.com/business/report-corruption-increases-mines-ministry-contracts ; « Afghanistan’s new mining law risks falling short in the fight against corruption », Global Witness, 05/09/2018 : https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/afghanistans-new-mining-law-risks-falling-short-fight-against-corruption/ and Zaghona Salehi, MEC report lists reasons behind corruption in MoMP, Pajhwok Afghan News, 10/12/2018 : https://www.pajhwok.com/en/2018/12/10/mec-report-lists-reasons-behind-corruption-momp

By Bilal Hussain.

Notwithstanding the economic priorities, the two major nuclear powers in South Asia: India and Pakistan are engaged in an almost war-like situation. The state of affairs has taken a heavy toll on these nation’s financial markets, currencies, soured business sentiments and potentially could hurt foreign investment.

It was Kashmiri youth who in a suicide attack killed at least 40 Indian forces in Kashmir and is considered as the worst attack in 30 years, who is responsible and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war. Following the Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter aircraft crossed the Line of Control on 26^th of February, 2019 and carried out attack on a ‘terrorist camp’. This is the first time since 1971 that the Indian Air Force breached the Line of Control and entered into Pakistani territory.

Diplomacy takes a dig

Justifying the act, the Foreign Secretary of India, taking a first dig to the diplomatic relations between the two nuclear states in a media report says, “this strike absolutely necessary. It was a non-military, pre-emptive strike.” According to the ministry of external affairs (MEA), government of India in a statement by Foreign Secretary mentions, “India struck the biggest training camp of JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammad) in Balakot. In this operation, a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated.”

However, countering the Indian claims, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, busted the claims of having targeted a terrorist camp and resulting in causalities. Ministry of foreign affairs (MoFA) in its statement rebutted, “completely absurd and is based on a false narrative designed to placate domestic audience.” Yet, other independent reports suggest that Indian bombing inside Pakistani territory appears to have struck a mostly uninhabited forest and a farmer’s wheat field.

Reacting to the IAF attack, Pakistan Air Force strikes back and according to the MoFA-Pakistan, “This was not a retaliation to continued Indian belligerence. We have no intention of escalation, but are fully prepared to do so if forced into that paradigm. That is why we undertook the action with clear warning and in broad daylight.” Nonetheless, MEA-India claimed that Pakistan de-marched on the act of aggression against India.

While, the Indian media reported that at least 325 terrorists and 25 to 27 trainers were eliminated at the camp when the IAF strike took place. Twelve Mirage-2000 jets took part in the operation and dropped 1,000-kg laser-guided bombs to destroy at least six-terrorist camps.  Also, India launched a renewed diplomatic aggression by briefing diplomats from foreign missions including China and the UK.

The military action took toll on religion sentiments as well. In a recent move by Pakistani devotees are denied visa. The devotees would miss Ajmer-Urs— an annual religious ceremony at Dargah Ajmer Sharif.

Cost of military action

This military action and the reaction by the two countries has resulted in any gain on either sides. According to a report, 3 Indian aircraft (two MIG 21 planes and a Mi-17-V5 chopper) were brought down, resulting in seven casualties (six airmen, one civilian), as opposed to one Pakistani F-16 down (as claimed by Indian sources). The cost of two MIG-21 is 6.53 billion Indian Rupees. The cost of one Mi-17-V5 helicopter is 1.45 billion Indian Rupees. That is a net hole of 7.98 billion Indian Rupees in the Indian exchequer. Also, one of the India’s pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, was captured.

The Sensex, India’s stock market index, lost as much as 600 points as Indo-Pak tensions escalated. And the Indian rupee also fell by ₹0.41 against the dollar. While, the Karachi Stock Exchange, fell by 4%.

While, on Pakistan’s side their climate change minister, Malik Amin Aslam in a news report has said that Indian MIG-21 has bombed their forest reserves and the government of Pakistan is undertaking an environmental impact assessment, and contemplating to file a complaint at the United Nations and other forums against India on ‘eco-terrorism’.

War of word

The war was going on the media channels as they turned the studios into battle grounds. A war of word, conflicting media narratives not only confused the international community, however, those on the ground too had no idea of what is going on. While a report in Foreign Policy mention how India’s media is war-crazy and journalism has taken a back seat to jingoism.

Besides, the International media be it Al Jazeera English, Washington Post, New York Times, The Guardian, Gulf News, Daily Telegraph, or Jane’s Information Group, each one of these publications have questioned the Indian claims of ‘killing 300 militants inside Pakistan’.

Concerned over the credibility of media, former Vice President of India, Hamid Ansari, says that “for the media to play its designated role, it must be impartial and unprejudiced in coverage of news and views connected with all segments of society.”

Kashmir, a nuclear flash point

The Kashmir is the nuclear flash point that can explode anytime and is the real theatre of unspeakable violence and moral corrosion that can spin us into violence and nuclear war at any moment. The author, The God of Small Things, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy, in a write-up wrote that to prevent that from happening, the conflict in Kashmir has to be addressed and resolved.

Besides, one of the founding member of the Defense Planning Staff, India, Gen Ashok K. Mehta mentions in an article, “Pakistan’s reaction was swift, signaling: ‘you can do it, we can hit you back’. The big strategic take-away is that while India may have breached a 50-year old red line, it cannot claim air raids as the new normal or a game-changer. So another mass-casualty terrorist attack in India/J&K will present a decision-making dilemma for the government.”

Moreover, former India’s high commissioner to Pakistan, Sharat Sabharwal, in one of his write-ups says, “Pakistan fishes in the troubled waters of our own making in Kashmir. Force alone cannot build durable peace there.”

Peace prevailed

The prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, stood up and announced the release and return of India’s captured pilot. Khan also offered peace talk to India. However, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi refused to accept peace talks. Refusing to give peace a chance, in a media report Modi said, “Just now one pilot project has been completed. Now we have to make it real, earlier it was just practice.”

Also, there is a visible de-escalation move from Pakistani foreign ministry’s director general South Asia and SAARC, Dr. Mohammed Faisal in his tweet mentions that their high commissioner would be returning to Delhi.

Besides, India’s foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale is on US visit where he is expected to meet senior officials of the US administration and exchange views on major foreign policy and security-related developments, officials said. The visit to the US comes in the backdrop of growing tension between India and Pakistan.

Final word

The irony is that still 30% of Pakistanis and about a sixth of India’s 1.3 billion live under poverty, as per the World Bank, which defines poor as those living on less than $1.9 per day. For the greater good of both the countries, they should focus on their economic wellbeing and provide a good governance to their population. While, reviving all the diplomatic channels between the two nations, it is high time to address the core issue of Kashmir which could prove a nuclear flash point anytime.

About the author: Bilal Hussain is a freelancer and writer. He was previously the sub-editor of the business section for Greater Kashmir and Kashmir Times. His principal interests are: conflict economy, capital markets, the developmental sector, and ecological economics.

By Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarević.

Does our history only appear overheated, but is essentially calmly predetermined? Is it directional or conceivable, dialectic and eclectic or cyclical, and therefore cynical? Surely, our history warns. Does it also provide for a hope? Hence, what is in front of us: destiny or future?

One of the biggest (nearly schizophrenic) dilemmas of liberalism, ever since David Hume and Adam Smith, was an insight into reality; whether the world is essentially Hobbesian or Kantian. As postulated, the main task of any liberal state is to enable and maintain wealth of its nation, which of course rests upon wealthy individuals inhabiting the particular state.

That imperative brought about another dilemma: if wealthy individual, the state will rob you, but in absence of it, the pauperized masses will mob you. The invisible hand of Smith’s followers have found the satisfactory answer – sovereign debt. That ‘invention’ meant: relatively strong central government of the state. Instead of popular control through the democratic checks-&-balances mechanism, such a state should be rather heavily indebted. Debt – firstly to local merchants, than to foreigners – is a far more powerful deterrent, as it resides outside the popular check domain. With such a mixed blessing, no empire can easily demonetize its legitimacy, and abandon its hierarchical but invisible and unconstitutional controls. This is how a debtor empire was born. A blessing or totalitarian curse? Let us briefly examine it.

The Soviet Union – much as (the pre-Deng’s) China itself – was far more of a classic continental military empire (overtly brutal; rigid, authoritative, anti-individual, apparent, secretive), while the US was more a financial-trading empire (covertly coercive; hierarchical, yet asocial, exploitive, pervasive, polarizing). On opposite sides of the globe and cognition, to each other they remained enigmatic, mysterious and incalculable: Bear of permafrost vs. Fish of the warm seas. Sparta vs. Athens. Rome vs. Phoenicia… However, common for the both was a super-appetite for omnipresence. Along with the price to pay for it.

Consequently, the Soviets went bankrupt by mid 1980s – they cracked under its own weight, imperially overstretched. So did the Americans – the ‘white man burden’ fractured them already by the Vietnam war, with the Nixon shock only officializing it. However, the US imperium managed to survive and to outlive the Soviets. How? The United States, with its financial capital (or an outfoxing illusion of it), evolved into a debtor empire through the Wall Street guaranties. Titanium-made Sputnik vs. gold mine of printed-paper… Nothing epitomizes this better than the words of the longest serving US Federal Reserve’s boss, Alan Greenspan, who famously said to then French President Jacques Chirac: “True, the dollar is our currency, but your problem”. Hegemony vs. hegemoney.

House of Cards

Conventional economic theory teaches us that money is a universal equivalent to all goods. Historically, currencies were a space and time-related, to say locality-dependent. However, like no currency ever before, the US dollar became – past the WWII – the universal equivalent to all other moneys of the world. According to history of currencies, the core component of the non-precious metals money is a so-called promissory note – intangible belief that, by any given point of future, a particular shiny paper (self-styled as money) will be smoothly exchanged for real goods.

Thus, roughly speaking, money is nothing else but a civilizational construct about imagined/projected tomorrow – that the next day (which nobody has ever seen in the history of humankind, but everybody operates with) definitelly comes (i), and that this tomorrow will certainly be a better day then our yesterday or even our today (ii).

This and similar types of social contracts (horizontal and vertical) over the collective constructs hold society together as much as its economy keeps it alive and evolving. Hence, it is money that powers economy, but our blind faith in (constructed) tomorrows and its alleged certainty is what empowers money.

Clearly, the universal equivalent of all equivalents – the US dollar – follows the same pattern: Strong and widely accepted promise. What does the US dollar promise when there is no gold cover attached to it ever since the time of Nixon shock of 1971?

Pentagon promises that the oceanic sea lines will remain opened (read: controlled by the US Navy), pathways unhindered, and that the most traded world’s commodity – oil, will be delivered. So, it is not a crude or its delivery what is a cover to the US dollar – it is a promise that oil of tomorrow will be deliverable. That is a real might of the US dollar, which in return finances Pentagon’s massive expenditures and shoulders its supremacy.

Admired and feared, Pentagon further fans our planetary belief in tomorrow’s deliverability – if we only keep our faith in dollar (and hydrocarbons’ energized economy), and so on and on in perpetuated circle of mutual reinforcements.

These two pillars of the US might from the East coast (the US Treasury/Wall Street and Pentagon) together with the two pillars of the West coast – both financed by the US dollar and spread through the open sea-lanes (Silicone Valley and Hollywood), are an essence of the US posture.

This very nature of power explains why the Americans have missed to take our mankind into completely other direction; towards the non-confrontational, decarbonized, de-monetized/de-financialized and de-psychologized, the self-realizing and green humankind. In short, to turn history into a moral success story. They had such a chance when, past the Gorbachev’s unconditional surrender of the Soviet bloc, and the Deng’s Copernicus-shift of China, the US – unconstrained as a lonely superpower – solely dictated terms of reference; our common destiny and direction/s to our future/s.

Winner is rarely a game-changer

Sadly enough, that was not the first missed opportunity for the US to soften and delay its forthcoming, imminent multidimensional imperial retreat. The very epilogue of the WWII meant a full security guaranty for the US: Geo-economically – 54% of anything manufactured in the world was carrying the Made in USA label, and geostrategically – the US had uninterruptedly enjoyed nearly a decade of the ‘nuclear monopoly’. Up to this very day, the US scores the biggest number of N-tests conducted, the largest stockpile of nuclear weaponry, and it represents the only power ever deploying this ‘ultimate weapon’ on other nation. To complete the irony, Americans enjoy geographic advantage like no other empire before. Save the US, as Ikenberry notes: “…every major power in the world lives in a crowded geopolitical neighborhood where shifts in power routinely provoke counterbalancing”. Look the map, at Russia or China and their packed surroundings. The US is blessed with neighboring oceans – all that should harbor tranquility, peace and prosperity, foresightedness.  

Why the lonely might, an empire by invitation did not evolve into empire of relaxation, a generator of harmony? Why does it hold (extra-judicially) captive more political prisoners on Cuban soil than the badmouthed Cuban regime has ever had? Why does it remain obsessed with armament for at home and abroad? What are we talking about here – the inadequate intensity of our confrontational push or about the false course of our civilizational direction? 

Indeed, no successful and enduring empire does merely rely on coercion, be it abroad or at home. However, unable to escape its inner logics and deeply-rooted appeal of confrontational nostalgia, the prevailing archrival is only a winner, rarely a game-changer.

To sum up; After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans accelerated expansion while waiting for (real or imagined) adversaries to further decline, ‘liberalize’ and bandwagon behind the US. Expansion is the path to security dictatum only exacerbated the problems afflicting the Pax Americana. That is how the capability of the US to maintain its order started to erode faster than the capacity of its opponents to challenge it. A classical imperial self-entrapment!! And the repeated failure to notice and recalibrate its imperial retreat brought the painful hangovers to Washington by the last presidential elections. Inability to manage the rising costs of sustaining the imperial order only increased the domestic popular revolt and political pressure to abandon its ‘mission’ altogether. Perfectly hitting the target to miss everything else …

*                *                      *                      *                     

When the Soviets lost their own indigenous ideological matrix and maverick confrontational stance, and when the US dominated West missed to triumph although winning the Cold War, how to expect from the imitator to score the lasting moral or even a momentary economic victory?

Neither more confrontation and more carbons nor more weaponized trade and traded weapons will save our day. It failed in past, it will fail again any given day.

Interestingly, China opposed the I World, left the II in rift, and ever since Bandung of 1955 it neither won over nor joined the III Way. Today, many see it as a main contestant. But, where is a lasting success?

Greening international relations along with greening of economy (geopolitical and environmental understanding, de-acidification and relaxation) is the only way out. Historically, no global leader has ever emerged from a shaky and distrustful neighborhood, or by offering little bit more of the same in lieu of an innovative technological advancement. Ergo, it all starts from within, from at home. Without support from a home base, there is no game changer. China’s home is Asia.

Hence, it is not only a new, non-imitative, turn of technology what is needed. Without truly and sincerely embracing mechanisms such as the NaM, ASEAN and SAARC (eventually even the OSCE) and the main champions of multilateralism in Asia, those being India Indonesia and Japan, first of all, China has no future of what is planetarily awaited – the third force, a game-changer, lasting and trusted global leader.

About the author: Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarević, is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria.  He has authored six books (for American and European publishers) and numerous articles on, mainly, geopolitics energy and technology.

Professor Bajrektarević, is editor of the NY-based GHIR (Geopolitics, History and Intl. Relations) journal, and editorial board member of several similar specialized magazines on three continents.

His 7^th book, ‘From WWI to www. – Europe and the World 1918-2018’ has been just realised.

By Dr. Dorine van Norren.

In May this year the Netherlands Central Bureau for Statistics brings out its Monitor Broader Wellbeing for the second time. No longer Gross National Product (GNP) is the sole leader of the wellbeing discussions.  It is the outcome of the advice of the Parliamentary Commission on Broader Wellbeing. This Commission got its inspiration from  the report commissioned by French President Sarkozy (Stiglitz et al. 2009), but above all from a small country in the Global South: Bhutan. This is where the Green Left Party got its idea for a call for Gross National Happiness as a measurement of the functioning of society (2010).

The word Happiness leads to a lot of confusion (van Norren 2017). How do you measure happiness? Moreover, isn’t Bhutan ranked very low in the World Happiness Report? (Number 97 of 156 in 2018). A Japanese researcher told me that the way happiness (subjective wellbeing) is measured in international rankings is misleading. A Buddhist is more likely to fill in a score of 5 as ideal (median between 0 and 10), a Westener judges this score to be insufficient.

In Buddhism happiness has a different connotation that in the West. It is about balance and harmony. In the first place, inner harmony, then a harmonious society and finally harmony with nature. The term Gross National Harmony would be a better translation of the policies of the Bhutanese government, which are based on four pillars: culture as the basis of your identity, social and economic progress, good governance and harmony with nature. Bhutan uses an index that is composed of nine domains with unusual indicators such as: the balance between work and sleep; community vitality (for example the time and money people donate); psychological wellbeing (such as positive and negative emotions); and culture (such as the degree of cultural participation).

Not only Bhutan (and other countries in Asia such as Thailand) is active on different concepts of wellbeing. In Latin America countries like Ecuador and Bolivia are clamoring for harmony with nature and respect of Mother Earth. These countries decided to include Buen Vivir (Good Living) in their constitutions. This is based on indigenous wisdom and a bio-centric worldview. Human beings are not above creation, but all living beings are equal. The regenerative principles of Mother Earth would have to be leading for the conception of the law and the economy. This lead to inclusion of the rights of nature in their constitutions. In the Dutch Monitor Broader Wellbeing a dashboard is included not only on ‘here and now’, but also on ‘overthere’, meaning our use of resources in other parts of the world.

In Africa wellbeing is mainly defined as good human relations (rather than the measurement of income). Humanity is defined differently than in Europe. People speak of Ubuntu (I am because we are). As an individual I exist because of the community. This community automatically includes the ancestors and the future generations. Ancestors are considered  ‘living dead’ as long as they are remembered and they are connected to the earth. For the ‘yet to be born’ natural resources are equally essential. In the South African constitution they are therefore explicitly mentioned. The Dutch Monitor Broader Wellbeing also includes a ‘Later’ dashboard on future resources for the coming generations.

How ‘development’ is defined is therefore different in every culture. GNP was easy to measure. Broader wellbeing opens a different debate. Traditions in the Global South prioritize culture, inner wellbeing, human relations and nature. How you view wellbeing depends on what you measure. And not all cultures share the Dutch proverb: knowing is measuring.

About the author:

Dr. Dorine van Norren, is an independent researcher at Tilburg University, this article is written on a personal title and does not reflect the opinion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, where the author is working.

Literature

Norren, D.E. van (2017). Development as service: A Happiness, Ubuntu and Buen Vivir interdisciplinary view of the sustainable development goals. Proefschrift, Tilburg University.

Stiglitz, J., A. Sen, en J. Fitoussi (2009). Report by the Commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress.