STRONG GROWTH IS WEAK DEVELOPMENT
The 2021 Annual Update of the World Bank indicates that the economy of Liberia experienced strong growth in 2021 at 5.0 per cent and this should be good news for Liberia, especially when the growth rate for 2020 was a declining 3.0 per cent. But the World Bank’s good news is actually bad news for Liberia because the living conditions of the people of Liberia are worsening. It is not good news for any person who can not talk but whose finger nails are growing long. The World Bank is not telling the Truth. The World Bank Update is bad news for Liberia because the Human Development Index for Liberia is 0.32 per cent, with only four countries higher than Liberia among 174 countries in the world in 2021.
By Togba-Nah Tipoteh
The Truth that economic growth does not necessarily bring economic development is nothing new. This Truth has been widely known since the 1950s, when the economy of Liberia exhibited the second highest growth rate per capita in the world while the economy of Liberia showed that less than one per cent of the people of Liberia accounted for more than sixty per cent of the income and wealth of Liberia. This phenomena has come to be known as economic growth without economic development or growth without development for short (Robert Clower, et. al., Northwestern University, 1966). Since the 1950s, the economy of Liberia has experienced high. middle, low and negative growth rates, while the economy of Liberia experienced no development, meaning worsening living conditions for the vast majority of the people of Libera.
The problem with the World Bank’s good news is that it gives the government of Liberia the reason to continue saying that things are getting better for Liberia in the midst of systemic poverty that has now become the pretext for violence, including coup d’etat and civil war. Ironically, it is the World Bank, with the United States of America (USA) as the godfather, that promotes poverty generation in Liberia through the colonial production system that does not prioritize Value Addition for Liberia. Witness the support of the prevailing poverty generation system in Liberia, as seen in the grants, loans and budgetary support.
How can the Truth be told with all of the big power of the World Bank? The Truth is being told as seen in the raising of awareness that is motivating the people of Liberia to take non-violent actions through the Rule of Law to transform Liberia from a state of injustice to a state of Justice, where Justice, the only ingredient for Peace and Progress in any country, will prevail Let us remember that Truth crushed by the most powerful forces will rise!!!
