Wednesday, July 30, 2008
New Brunswick and Zambia - not so different after all
After having been home for almost 1 month now, I've had the chance to talk with a lot of people about their perceptions of New Brunswick, where we are, what we need to become self-sufficient, and the challenges our province faces. It appears at first glance that NB is similar to Zambia in a few ways. First, we are both fairly dependent on raw products as a source of provincial income. This means that we don't add a lot of value to our resources. We sell them at a lower cost to others who make more profit by turning them into something more valuable. Secondly, there is a great reliance on an outside source to sustain our economy. In NB's case, it's Ottawa. In Zambia, it's donors like the World Bank, USAID, EU who contribute money toward the country's development. If Ottawa and the international donors pulled their funding from NB and Zambia, respectively, their economies would go into shock. How do economies dependent on raw materials and outside funding sources ever achieve self-sufficiency? How do they maneouver themselves so that they have a voice that is listened to?
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Jenn, I think about those same quesitons a lot. I wonder if self-sufficiency of a place occurs when individuals of that place become self-sufficient. I mean in NB most financial success comes from large businesses, that as you say sell raw materials for cheap. But if many NBers were able to obtain and add value those materials, and had the skills, captial and confidence to do so, then there would be more people with meaningful, successful, happy work. This money would be spread around, and not kept in the hans of few, or leave the province all together. Maybe the more people who relied on NBs natural resources, the better they would also be managed.
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