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Ethical Record Vol K. The ISSN 0014-1690 Ethical Record Vol. 91 No. 4 APRIL 1986 EDITORIAL methods of working and time to study and think about various Come on in to aspects of running the meetings, Help SEES! halls, publications and membership. NEXT MONTH members of the Just as members may often feel Society have the opportunity to critical of what is done (or left un- hear from its elected General Com- done), new committee members mittee and officers (paid and volun- often fail to take into account what tary) about their activity in the last has gone before. (So perhaps we year—at the Annual General Meet- should have a few "training" ing on Sunday, May 18; in the sessions before the real thing! ). afternoon. New members to replace Of course, it also happens that those retiring (five this year) are to the more long-standing members of be elected and suggestions for the committees often don't take into f utu re made. account the lack of knowledge of The General Committee will then what's gone before of the new appoint new officers at its first participants. (For example, we meeting in June. By that time those adopt "standing orders" at the be- who have served for the past year ginning of the first new meeting of will have spent many hundreds of the new General Committee, often hours between them in maintain- before the new members are aware ing the activity of the Society. of what these are). While their sort of dedication is There are certainly ways in available and providing the Society which we can improve our com- has a viable function, useful results mittee work, but it is to be hoped can be forthcoming. However, it is that those anxious to assist will not essential for additional members to be deterred (as has happened in the participate in its organisation and paSt). this cannot be done without com- If you cannot join (or come for- mitment and time—commitment to understanding the problems and Continued on page 2 CONTENTS Page Coming to Conway Hall: J. Berry, Fenner Brockway, Michael Foot, George Hay, J. McDonnell, Jasper Ridley, Shanks 2 Development As If People Mattered: Alan Berresford 3 lbsen's 'Rosmersholm': Private Life and Public—Part 1: T. F. Evans . 5 from Lourdes to the Iron Curtain: Frank Ridley (summary by Ellis Hillman) . 8 Viewpoints: B. 0. Warwick, George Swade, David Murray George Walford, David McDonagh . 11 The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily• those of the Society. PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON WC1R 4RL SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Appointed Lecturers: H. J. Blackham, Lord Brockway. Richard Clements, OBE. T. F. Evans. Peter Heales. Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter Hall Manager: Geoffrey Austin (tel. 01-242 8032) Secretary: Jean Bayliss (Wed-Fri, tel. 01-242 8033) Honorary Representative: Sam Beer Chairman General Committee: Barbara Smoker Deputy Chairman: Honorary Registrar: David Wright Honorary Treasurer: Victor Rose Temporary Honorary Librarian: Edwina Palmer - Editor, The Ethical Record: Peter Hunot COMING TO CONWAY HALL Sunday Morning LECTURES at 11.00 am in the Library April 6. JASPER RIDLEY, The Levellers. April 13. J. BERRY. The Role of the Morning Star. April 20. STEPHEN HOUSEMAN. How Not to Interpret Darwin. April 27. GEORGE Hay. What H. G. Wells Wanted. May 4. NO MEETING. May 11. J. MCDONNELL.After the Greater London Council—What? Sunday FORUMS at 3.00 pm in the Library April 13. K. SHANKS. Work and Welfare—Helping Disadvantaged Youth. April 27. PHILIP RASMUSSEN. Greenpeace. Sunday Social at 3.00 pm in the Library April 20. DON LIVERSIDGE, Can Man be Peaceable. REMEMBER THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING—Sunday May 18 at 2.30 pm (see back inside page for details). CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE—FENNER BROCKWAY and MICHAEL Foor—in the Large Hall on May 21, 1986 (see page 7). SPES Sunday Chamber Music Concerts—at 6.30 pm in the Main Hall Tickets £1.30 April 6. London Festival Players. HANDEL,J. C. BACH, BACH. April 13. Bochmann String Quartet, Yolande Wrigley. HAYDN, BRAHMS, ELGAR. April 20. Thea King, Charles Tunnel!, Susan Tunnell. BEETHOVEN, ARNOLD COOKE, BRAHMS. April 27. Chilingirian String Quartet. SHOSTAKOVICH, DOHNANYI, BRAHMS. Continued from page one perience to indexing and sorting books; from discussing financial ward for possible election) the new implications of proposals or how to General Committee, you can assist obtain first class lecturers and on one or more of the many sub- spread the cause of a rational, committees, where everything from humane way of living is needed. expert building maintenance ex- Will you help now? Copy date for the JUNE issue, Ethical Record—May 1st 2 Ethical Record, April 1986 Development As If People Mattered ALAN BERRESFORD Summary of his lecture to SPES, Sunday February 2, 1986 THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT, and many per- spectives on what should be done. I want to present to you one such perspec- tive based on my own experience and that of the Institute of Cultural 44llairs*, a non-governmental organisation with which I work. We live in the world, one global village, but it is a divided world, a world of imbalance. It is a world where 450 million people are starving or mal- nourished, where an area the size of England and Scotland becomes barren land every year, where two-thirds of the world's housing is inadequate..Our planet is desperately in need of healing and reconciliation. The majority of the world's poor is caught in the poverty trap. Some people try to blame the famines we are seeing on nature. Rather, natural disasters are the events that tip the scale for those already living on the edge of subsistence. There are four main factors which cause the poverty trap. L Food This is basic: people need enough food to eat. Paradoxically, globally we produce enough food for the world's population. But it isn't just a matter of redistribution. Food aid given from countries producing a surplus to those in need often damages the local agricultural economy. In some places, the encouragement of cash crops has displaced local food production. In others, over-production has caused desertification. Finally, agricultural assistance is usually given to men although often the women spend most of their time on the land. More emphasis has to be given to local food production to enable self-sustenance. 2. Aid None of the western donor countries has consistently achieved the UN target of allocating 0.7% of their GNP to aid. Britain's record is poor: aid has dropped from 0.52% in 1979 to 0.33% of GNP in 1984. But it's not just quantity that counts, it is also the quality. Studies have shown that aid is not reaching the poorest people, but rather is being spent on large projects or is tied to trade. I Trade The economies of the majority of the world's poor countries are dependent on a few primary products. The world recession has led to a fall in the real prices of these products, about 10% during 1985 alone. In addition, protec- tionism is still practised by some western countries. Thus it becomes harder and harder for developing countries to earn the necessary foreign exchange to import needed goods and services and to pay interest on debt. 4: Debt The debt crisis began when there was a need to use the petro-dollars generated by the rise in oil prices in the seventies. Many developing countries took large loans. But with the world recession causing prices to fall and the rise in interest rates, debts have become harder to pay. IMF austerity measures have sometimes helped economies get back on track, but usually at greatest cost to the poor. There have been a number of efforts in the last few decades to assist development. There have been strategies of transfer of capital and resources, Ethical Record, April 1986 3 transfer of technology of various kinds, building of infrastructure, bilateral and multilateral aid programmes, and of course numerous disaster relief operations. However, the majority of these approaches to development have not led to significant self-sustaining development. There are several reasons. Most of them relied on the "trickle-down" approach: that if one injects resources at the top, the benefits will eventually trickle-down to the majority of the population. Studies and experience have shown that this simply does not happen. Some of the efforts actually create a new dependence on outside resources and do not give the local population any degree of self-reliance. The approaches are almost always economic: they use the economic indicators of success and tend to ignore the local cultural values. Finally, they usually employ the approach of "doing development to" a population, pbople sometimes get in the way of successful projects. The result is a lot of money and effort has gone into development, but the poor are getting poorer and there are more of them. The Institute of Cultural Affairs International has been involved for the last four years in a programme called the International Exposition of Rural Development. This was based on the theme "Sharing Approaches That Work", and involved project personnel exchanging experience of undertaking local development. Some 50 countries participated, and through a series of symposia and project description laboratories selected a number of projects to attend a ten-day event in New Delhi in 1984. Since then there have been follow-up events in many countries to disseminate what was learned and to continue the process of sharing.
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