By Ananda Ariyarathne
It is education that makes an individual knowledgeable and confidence is dependent solely on one’s knowledge. It is education that makes a population confident and become capable in applying knowledge rationally. It is from the same resource base that all the productive forces evolve, including political leaders, decision making bureaucrats as well as the beneficiary citizens who play a vital role in achieving national goals. It is the system of education that inhibits the capacity of members, making it relevant directly as well in general awareness. The main objective of national education is to create a wealth of human resources where national prosperity begins and ends.
As a balanced system of education creates and nurtures the capacity of human resources to be on par with universally accepted standards, it becomes a natural process to understand the factors involved so that the strategies used and methods deployed will also become realistically productive. Then only can the ‘planners’ will be in a position to choose from the most appropriate solutions.
If the higher education in a country is not geared to create rational scholarly capabilities, those ‘planners’ will never be successful as the planning is not done for specific objectives based on actual facts identified rationally. At the same time, it has to be understood that possible solutions may emerge from within or may come from outside. Solutions emerging from within shall be the best as whatever that may come from outside may not be found ideally suitable as such may have features that may not blend well. However, that does not mean that such ideas are useless as they can always be modified to suit local conditions.
Rationality and Understanding
If understanding is the ‘acceptance of reality,’ how can there be any kind of acceptance without any justifications? Rationality is the ultimate result of the reasoning that leads to understanding. Rational understanding is deep and strong and should not be misinterpreted as understanding because it has no depth. It is not a case of establishing an opinion based on evidence for the simple reason that evidence can be created. Such impressions shall always be misleading.
Development potential is a ‘condition’ that emerges out of a particular environment and planning development has to be strictly in line with what the environment offers. The resources of a locality shall remain unutilized until such time all relevant aspects are realistically understood. Is not this the ‘missing factor’ in most cases? If the potential of the resources available at a certain location can be made use of than ‘exploited,’ the real and the most meaningful benefits can be generated.
It always has to happen in a more relative manner as any other form of utilization shall end up as a failure. If we do a very serious analysis on this, we shall see that the failures can be attributed to the ‘disregard’ shown towards the need to ‘understand rationally.’ When strategies are chosen and plans are made for the achievement of only political gains, it is quite natural and therefore unavoidable.
Another major feature that can be identified as highly relevant is the ‘geography’ of a location as it determines the limitations. As there cannot be the same kind of resources in all the locations, it is only the ‘rational understanding’ that can guide development activities. The other aspect that governs the situation is its relevance towards the economy of the society. As an example, we can see the presence of ‘untapped petroleum reserves’ in a particular region where the potential revenue generating capacity can be enormous compared to the agricultural activities that can be present in the same region which would require a higher volume of ‘manpower.’
The fertile soil and friendly climatic conditions may encourage agriculture that can produce a major portion of food needs of the nation. While agriculture would produce food, petroleum produced shall contribute towards the strength of the economy of the nation. On the contrary, the presence of a very large concentration of population in a region without having resources to sustain it would be different.
Potential of Local Resources
As the utilization of natural resources of a locality is a strength generating aspect, the ultimate result which is reflected as ‘prosperity,’ the role played by human resources becomes inseparable. The geographical localities that contribute towards the overall prosperity of a nation, is actually the consolidated reflection of the mosaic of economic regions consisting of the smaller localities which can also be identified as Micro-Economic Centres which would finally rest on individual citizens through the assembly of families.
Taking a nation like the Republic of Maldives, a nation of Seafarers that had been compelled to find sustenance in marine fisheries. In the absence of crucial resources such as ‘petroleum,’ the economy depended mainly on a regional market oriented marine fisheries. The latest are activities linked to tourism which has become the most important foreign exchange earner in their economy.
The sustenance of the population in Maldives now depends on tourism, marine fisheries as well as its global strategic location. This relationship with the ocean has generated a particular type of activities, and those revenue generating have become an economic system that revolves around oceans and their resources as well as their environs. This has caused the development of the latest concept of ‘Blue Economy.’ It is another example for the need that cannot be ignored to have a clear understanding of our own surroundings, the environment.
What is this Blue Economy?
It shall be pertinent to have an idea about this and how it has been cited by the World Bank gives us a fair impression about what it is all about. “World Bank, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2017. The Potential of the Blue Economy: Increasing Long-term Benefits of the Sustainable Use of Marine Resources for Small Island Developing States and Coastal Least Developed Countries. World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/26843 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
A group consisting of experts representing some entities of the United Nations, such as the World Bank and several other Agencies, have contributed to have better understanding of the ‘Blue Economy,’ in highlighting the importance in relation to the relevance to ‘small island States’ and the ‘least developed countries with coastal regions,’ in order to identify the key challenges faced in adopting this newly noticed potential sector, with the intension of determining a disciplined framework to be used in programmes to harness this sector as a possible resource in developing living standards of people in such areas.
The term seems to have been used in many ways, it is not difficult to understand that it is all about ‘economics’ as it envelopes a range of economic sectors. Naturally, there are policies relevant to the use of ‘Oceanic Resources,’ and how sustainable can be the attempts in making the oceanic resources to serve economies of such regions.
The challenge faced by the ‘Blue Economy’ is to determine the best ways to manage the numerous aspects in ‘oceanic sustainability.’ It can vary from the types of fisheries, Eco-system and pollution that directly affect health. The other important aspect is the ‘reality’ that ‘sustainable management of oceanic resources’ needs a firm basis to ensure ‘collaboration and cooperation between ‘nation-States’ and the public and private sector enterprises engaged in the exploitation of the oceanic resources as it has now become an area that cannot be allowed to have different standards.
In their attempts to make the best use of the resources, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDC), as every source of economically productive resources are important to any nation.
As the exploitation of such natural resources are vulnerable to enterprises becoming engaged in this sector can range from being very passive to destructive as the activities are no longer for subsistence but for commercial purposes.
It is a common sight to us anywhere in the world to see trawlers and mother ships engaged in raking in benefits in a very destructively aggressive manner. It has now developed into a level of competition where ‘might has become right.’ Therefore, it is highly essential that some checks and controls are necessary to turn those natural resources to be preserved. It is definitely a positive approach to have checks and controls but depends completely on the effectiveness of the local agencies and authorities responsible.
Courtesy: Ceylon Today
