Welcome bid to revive interest in Southern development issues

From the global South's viewpoint the time could not be more appropriate to re-explore the possibility of forging ahead with realizing its long neglected collective development aims. It would seem that over the past three decades or more the developing world itself has allowed its outstanding issues to be thrust onto the backburner, so to speak, of the global development agenda.

- BY LYNN OCKERSZ

Maybe the South's fascination with the economic growth models advanced by the West and its apex financial institutions enabled the above situation to come to pass. However, time has also made it clear that the people of the South have gained little or nothing from their rulers' fixation with the 'development' paths mapped out for them by Western financial institutions which came to prioritize 'market-led' growth.

At this juncture it is crucial that the more informed and enlightened sections among Southern publics come together to figure out where their countries should 'go from here' in terms of development, correctly defined. It is gladdening to note that the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo (RCSS) has got down to this task. On November 3rd, the RCSS launched its inaugural 'RCSS Strategic Dialogue' under the guidance of its Executive Director, Ambassador (Retd.) Ravinatha Aryasinha, under the theme, 'Research Priorities for the Global South in Challenging Times', and the forum was led by none other than by Dr. Carlos Maria Correa, the Executive Director of the Geneva-based South Centre, an institution that has played a pivotal role in Southern development and discourse over the decades.

Among the audience were thought leaders, diplomats, senior public servants, development experts and journalists. In what proved to be a lively, wide-ranging discussion issues at the heart of Southern development were analyzed and a general understanding arrived at which ought to stand the South in general and Sri Lanka in particular in good stead, going forward.