Guest blog by Marcus B. Zarway, LEG’23
Through the course, I learned many things; especially things related to my past and present work, as well as totally new ideas. I have developed and implemented catalytic private sector (entrepreneurship) and other development projects successful, and now supporting government agencies in reforms for economic development, unknowingly applying some of the ideas I learned from this course but in unstructured ways. Through this course, I have been able to learn many things I did not know before and had to struggle to search for workable ideas. Among many things I learned from this course, the following are among my key takeaways:
- Economic growth problems identification, construction, deconstruction, sequencing, iteration, and learning using the PDIA was an eye opener for me. Understanding the nature of growth problem either as a complex or complicated ones, helped me to understand that many times, we fail not because we are unable to solve problems but our inability to effectively understand the problems; their roots causes, and being able the derive solutions from the analysis.
- The idea of driving growth initiative through local expert like in the cases of Albania, Sri Lanka, etc. taught me a lot, and validated my persistent argument about not depending largely on external consultants to solve a country’s problem, instead, leveraging local experts will promote learning and ensure sustainability. The Atlas of Economic Complexity also exposed me to many resources available to assess economic complexity of my country and many others, understand their competitive advantages, as well as their limitations which create import needs for some countries, export opportunities for other countries.
- Understanding the role of knowledge in economic growth. I learned that many developing countries including my country have tacit knowledge but lack the ‘knowhow,’ and the temptation is that many countries conflict or mistake tacit knowledge for knowhow. Though there are a few knowhows in other places, they are limited, underutilize or excluded from the process of policy decision which negatively impacts economic growth. In Liberia, we have, and continue to assume knowledge about things we do not know, but do so to satisfy political appropriateness. This and many factors have led to poor growth diagnostics and strategics, as a result of huge capability (specialized knowledge) gaps that continue to impede the growth and development of the country.
- Economic growth starts with the people and ends with the people. According to Matt Andrews, “Development is about change, change is about people, and people need to be led”. Therefore, I also learned that leadership matters if effective and sustainable growth must take place, especially leadership like that of Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and others who took from their countries from third world to firs through multi-agent leadership approach that leveraged diversities, teamwork, cooperations and collaborations.
Throughout this course, I was assessing low investment in private sector (entrepreneurship) development and its implication on youth unemployment. From the assessment, I realized that the problems are complex and involve multiple stakeholders, therefore need holistic, systematic and strategic approaches to solve them. I also noted that there were lock of knowledge (knowhow) about the sector by policymakers, therefore, their growth strategies were based on either guess work, or replication of ideas from different countries without consideration of the country context. There were also little or no regards for the existing systems, instead, push borrowed systems that are continuously resisted by the beneficiaries of the policies or reforms. These and among others point to the reasons why policymakers profess private sector development and jobs creation in Liberia, establishing institutions without programs, and all of the reforms attempts have failed, except for those supported by donors, but over time they collapsed due to poor sustainability by the state. Therefore, low private sector growth and youth unemployment continue to persist.
While the course was ongoing, I was engaging with Government ministries and agencies, universities and research institutions on development management and policy reform for food security in my area of work. Though our activities did not follow exactly the processes we went through during the course, but I was able to apply some of the principles, and projected my ideas which considers as some of the best approaches to consider. My plan is to embed most of the principles, approaches and strategies into my supports to our partners, selling the ideas and making sure that they are accepted, applied, and adopted by local partners. Personally, I plan to go over the entire course materials using twice the time to help me clearly understand the course, how it is applicable to my context, select appropriate tools and apply them throughout my career.
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Leading Economic Growth Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 72 Participants successfully completed this 10-week online course in May 2023. These are their learning journey stories.