Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues,

I am extremely pleased to be here with you today. People are a stubborn species. That may explain why both Hilde Johnson and I are back in charge of Norwegian Development policy making at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It may also help explain the spectacular fact that, although Tromsø is now shrouded in darkness almost around the clock, the ground is frozen and nothing appears to be alive except human beings and some sea birds out there over the fjord, we still get together, here, to talk about Diversity in Development - Universal and Local Discourses. It is really rather amazing. We just won’t cave in. Just as impressive is the fact that the University of Tromsø has such a vibrant development research program. Congratulations!

Let me, nevertheless, start by quoting a rather pessimistic voice when it comes to where we stand as a global community, just as we enter the third millennium. Or, rather, the quote concerns our ability to understand where we stand. Understanding where we stand is in many ways an essential task, both for policy makers such as myself and for development researchers such as you. However, the question is—can we, particularly policymakers, actually still understand the world around us?

I quote, from Alistair Houlbert, an essayist: " .. statesmen only give the appearance that they understand where things are going. And it is not simply due to the limitations of this or that President, or Prime Minister, or—I might add—State Secretary . Amongst them are people who are clever and capable of reflection. Hm.... The misfortune is that even the best minds—and now I guess we are including people like you also— stand helplessly on the bank of the flow of change. They are not in a condition to grasp the fact that already today the situation is very complicated, and that it is becoming still more complicated. Here it comes. The development of civilization has become the development of the human incapacity to find its way in social life. Ancient wise men could orient themselves in the totality of human life better than contemporary scholars."

So, where does this leave us? Where does it leave me as a politician, you as scholars, and this conference with its ambitious theme? In fact, if Mr. Houlbert is right, what better time and place to hold such a conference than Tromsø in November, covered by darkness, only lit up by the occasional dancing, ever-changing, Northern Lights of the Arctic winter sky? (if you allow me a slight exaggeration just in the interest of making a point)

But, I don’t think Mr. Houlbert got it entirely right. True, the world is inherently unpredictable. Society is becoming more complex, both nationally and globally. It seems we are moving towards more unpredictabitly rather than less. The 11. of September shook many of us at our foundations. We thought there were safe havens in this world, that despite of turmoil in many corners of the world there were harbors of relative calm and safety. Harbors, that for all their flaws, somehow guaranteed a certain degree of stability also beyond their boundaries. By coincidence I happened to be in downtown Washington DC on the 11 ^th> of September and I can tell you it did something to my personal sense of tranquility. It also probably has influenced the way I view what’s at stake in the current international campaign against terrorism—but that would be another speech, by a different State Secretary, so I’ll leave it at that.

But, as I said, Mr. Houlbert didn’t get it all right. Men of the seas learned a long time ago to navigate accurately by establishing—with the help of the stars and instruments such as the sextant—positions according to latitudes and longitudes. This made long journeys into uncharted territory possible. These men succeeded despite of storms, fears, superstition, and many failed attempts. In a somewhat similar fashion, it is also possible today to chart a policy course and embark on a policy journey, however trecherous and unpredictable the world might be. The key is to identify good guiding stars and to use those parallels and meridians that are available to establish accurate positions along the way. That’s where you are most needed from a policy maker’s perspective. We like to consider ourselves the masters of selecting the appropriate guiding stars. We need your intellect and knowledge to help us (1) chart out the course that will take us safely to our destination and (2) providing accurate positioning of the vessel during the journey, so that we know where we are and what progress is being made.

My point is, together it is possible to move forwards, to make progress. We have some available means although we are far from having full control of all variables. And although some of our basic assumptions may prove wrong at the end of the day—Columbus thinking he arrived in India comes to mind—others will complement and build on our efforts just as we complement and build on other peoples’ efforts—and somehow human progress is being made. This is my slightly more optimistic starting point than the one Houlbert provides. It is based on a somewhat fragile assumption, which I nevertheless choose to think is correct, that there is a higher number—here and out there—of people of good will than of bad.

The journey, which in fact the international community embarked on several decades ago (although half-heartedly at best), is about reducing and eliminating global poverty. That’s the destination. Next year, in 2002, Norway has been part of this journey for 50 years. The first development cooperation projects were unveiled in India in 1952. This will be a cause of both celebration and contemplation throughout the year. What is abundantly clear is that we need to do a lot better both in Norwegian development cooperation and internationally, if we are to meet the goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015.

The guiding stars, which help us chart the course and stay on it, are—in our opinion—(1) the moral imperative which demands of us that we address the suffering and deprivation of our fellow human beings; and (2) our enlightened self interest in building a stable and peaceful world and a world that does not violate basic ecological laws and systems that sustain us.

But let me now turn to the means we have beyond those shining stars. And I am not going to talk about the whole sway of means. I will try to stick to development policy-making in a perspective inspired in part by the notion of human rights , and stay mainly within a specific segment of a universal discourse or line of thought on development, one that emphasizes "development as freedom"—to borrow a now well-known phrase from Amartya Sen.

What is poverty?

We have all come to see development as essentially the process of reducing and eradicating poverty. Whether we hear the World Bank, the UN, NORAD or almost any other development actor talking about development, the discourse today centers on the challenge of reducing and eliminating poverty. This is good. This is the way it should be. But we still need to ask ourselves an essential question: What is poverty? What, exactly, is this thing we want to eradicate?

The common perception of poverty is relatively shallow. If you utter the concept of "poverty" in anybody’s face, chances are he or she will see images of suffering and despair: the apathetic stare of a child weakened by disease and malnutrition, a dirty river where people bathe and wash clothes, urban slums, a small plot of land where women work with handheld, primitive tools, etc. Some people are inclined to take a more quantitative or statistical approach: they think of low GNP per capita, high mortality rates, high fertility rates, high illiteracy, little industrial output, etc. All of these images and perceptions convey pieces of the truth in terms of what poverty is. The problem with them is that they don’t help much in terms of conveying an understanding of the essence of poverty and the dynamics that create and perpetuate poverty as a phenomenon.

Even in international development circles the argument could be made that poverty has been approached in a way that has been somewhat reductionist. This may sound like a strange claim considering the near all-encompassing coverage of the development discourse these days: from ecological sustainability to concern for culture and religion. However, irrespective of all this a claim can be made that the predominant conception of development has been economic and material in orientation. Whether the catch phrase has been "growth", or "basic needs", or "environmental sustainability", "gender", or "structural adjustment"—the predominant actors have fundamentally addressed the material dimension of development. In fact, many have refused to see any other dimensions.

And by the way, not one negative work about focusing on the material dimension of development. It is and must be a central part of what development is all about.

BUT: It is a matter of great significance whether our point of departure and ultimate objective is "man", or the human being, or whether one sees man as a means. Some times I have had the feeling that the human being has had interest mainly as producer and consumer, while production and growth have become the overriding objectives. In this perspective, talk of "the East Asian Miracle" certainly made a lot of sense, but perhaps such characterizations have something to do with one’s fundamental perspective on development.

Development as Expansion of Freedoms

Amartya Sen puts it this way: Development must be about expanding peoples’ freedoms. The freedom to live a life that each and every one of us has reason to value. Then the question becomes: What kinds of policies and interventions can contribute in this regard? Certainly, sensible economic policy and physical investments will still have their central place. The same is definitely true for investment in education and health. (perhaps even more so than in the past, since knowledge and health are fundamental components of freedom) But, what about political voice, participation in decisionmaking, opportunities for engaging in open, public debate, protection and equality under the law, the opportunity to take economic initiatives as individuals and collective entities, etc.?

Central in Sen’s line of thought is the idea that freedom has both intrinsic and instrumental values or functions. The idea that freedom has intrinsic values is closely related philosophically with the idea of universal human rights. As human beings we have certain inalienable rights, simply stemming from the fact that we are human. Whether derived from religion or philosophy, the community of nations has basically endorsed this principle. Consequently, all states have accepted the responsibility it is to grant every human being the chance and opportunity to experience and pursue his or her rights or freedoms. This is truly significant and must have a direct bearing on how we think about development.

But I find Sen’s arguments about the instrumental functions of human freedoms almost more engaging, or refreshing. "Development as Freedom"—Amartya Sen’s book—documents in a fascinating way the many criss-crossing "synergies" between the different dimensions of freedom. For example, Sen argues that expanding the space for public debate has a clear instrumental value and function in relation to social development. Similarly, democratic participation and public debate has historically been a bulwark against social catastrophes such as famine. In fact, one of the most striking arguments in Development as Freedom concerns famine and its causes. Sen demonstrates that famines are caused primarily by policy failure. Nature plays a minor part.

To continue, investment in primary education—especially for girls—contributes effectively to lowering birth rates, better family economy, and more broadbased female participation in society at large. On the other hand, coercion in family planning is not only a major problem from a human rights and freedom perspective. It has proven a less effective instrument in bringing down birth rates than providing health and education services. It is certainly a less sustainable instrument. Comparisons between India and China are quite revealing.

If poverty means little or limited freedom, in terms of living out one’s potential, development must be about expanding these freedoms. For Amartya Sen critical areas of public policy appear to become, in this light, the following (I’ll give you three bullet points):

Create access to basic education and health services for all, including girls and women;

Ensure the right of democratic participation for all citizens, and the right to engage in open, public debate without fear of any kind of retribution;

Ensure the right of all citizens to act as free economic actors: to own, buy and sell assets.

Development is about much more than providing infrastructure and making sure the macro economic framework is sound. It as also about a lot more than fighting corruption or combatting HIV/AIDS—although all this is also very important. We have to go further and focus our attention more sharply on those phenomena and constraints that stand in the way of the execution of freedoms. I think we are making some real progress when it comes to the first bullet point, but we have a long way to go when it comes to the two other ones.

I will now dwell a few minutes on the third point.

In my view there is an interesting corollary from this perspective of the Indian economist Amartya Sen to the works of his Peruvian colleague Hernando de Soto. de Soto asks: Why is there an increasing divide between Centre and Periphery globally as well as between Centre and Periphery in the North and in the South? Why does capitalism triumph in the West and fail everywhere else?

De Soto, in his recent book "The Mystery of Capital", argues that the major stumbling block that keeps the developing world from benefiting from capitalism lies in its relative inability to produce capital. This may seem a preposterously sweeping statement, and it certainly is controversial. But, pause for a moment to listen.

The problem is not that the poor do not possess the assets they need. According to de Soto, they do. He provides empirical illustrations from as diverse countries as Egypt, Haiti and the Philippines indicating that the poor in these countries have accumulated assets worth around fifty times the sum of direct foreign investment ever recorded in these countries, and several hundred times whatever development assistance they receive.

The problem is that the assets of the poor are held in defective forms. Houses, land, unincorporated businesses in their possession are not adequately documented. Therefore, these assets cannot readily be turned into capital. In short, poor people have great difficulty accessing credit.

De Soto takes the argument further and documents that to formalise ownership, to turn these dead assets into capital, hundreds, if not thousands of bureaucratic steps have to be completed - taking years, sometimes as much as 15-20 years, to complete. Most poor people do not even try – the time is prohibitive and so are the bribes to be paid to corrupt officials to navigate through the administrative maze. De Soto also carries a critique of mainstream development assistance. It has largely failed to address these fundamental constraints that regular people in poor countries face. Instead it has focused on aspects such as macroeconomic frameworks and infrastructure which—while important—do little to breathe life into the assets that people already possess.

As I said, de Soto picks up on the third of the three bullet points I presented in summing up Amartya Sen: the importance of granting regular people the right to act as economic agents, as economic persons so to speak. This is, I think, a very important point, too often overlooked, and not least in the Norwegian community of development actors. However, it is not a straightforward task to chart the course that will produce the required changes in this regard. Furthermore, it can be complicated and sensitive from a political point of view, especially when it comes to development assistance. In other words, more work needs to be done—by us and by you. I also want to underline that I don’t view a final silverbullet solution in de Soto’s work. But it should not and must not be ignored.

Good governance

If we let ourselves be positioned by Anatza Sen and H. de Soto, the issue of governance becomes important.

The challenge is in part to change governance structures locally, nationally, regionally and globally. Good governance is an issue at all of these levels. The question is how to make the positive effects of economic globalisation available to more people in poor developing countries. The answer is good governance.

However, good governance is one of those concepts which, like development, is in danger of loosing its analytical power because it means different things to different people. It is also easy to get lost in a near perfect tautology: If the end result of development is good governance, how can good governance be the solution for poor countries? The best we can do is probably to return to the definition used by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in the OECD in its ‘Orientations on Participatory Development and Good Governance’ from 1995.

The DAC guidelines define governance as "the use of political authority and exercise of control in society in relation to the management of its resources for social and economic development". This broad definition is used to analyse the rule of law, public sector management, controlling corruption and reducing excessive military expenditures as important dimensions of governance.

The guidelines make two other point of crucial importance. First, four concepts are defined; participatory development, democratisation, good governance, and human rights. The relationships between these concepts, approaches and processes are defined without making the mistake of trying to establish a hierarchy among them.

Secondly, the issue of policy coherence is emphasised, both in terms of the need for improved coherence and effectiveness within aid programmes, and in terms of policy coherence between development co-operation policies and other government policies affecting our relations with developing countries.

Human Rights

The previous Bondevik government issued White Paper No. 21 (1999-2000), Focus on Dignity – Norwegian Plan of Action for Human Rights. The plan reflected a more proactive government policy on human rights, both in international fora and in direct co-operation with states on a bilateral basis.

As I’m sure you have gleaned from what I have said thus far, we are as convinced as ever that there is a strong link between promoting human rights and poverty reduction. Poverty reduction and sustainable economic development is essentially the same as realizing fundamental social and economic human rights. The promotion and realisation of civil and political rights is of crucial importance for "development as freedom", including its economic and social components.

The promotion of human rights implies both rights awareness and rights empowerment. People must be made aware of their basic rights and they should be able to comprehend how the development process affects these rights. Rights empowerment implies that people have the capacity and resources to claim their rights effectively.

The focus on rights awareness and empowerment in human rights policies provides us with a framework for development co-operation to assist in supporting good governance and democratic practices in public institutions, promoting an independent judiciary and supporting a vibrant civil society conducive to human rights norms and standards. This must include the opportunity to engage in open, public debate.

Norwegian development co-operation policy will continue to be based on an analysis of the human rights situation in the partner country concerned and a will to help to improve the situation. We will provide assistance to strengthen the recipient’s capacity to observe its human rights obligations. We will explore a more proactive use of human rights instruments in our development co-operation. I hope you can help us in this regard. In fact, the program of this conference suggests that many are already working on this.

NORAD has produced a "Handbook in Human Rights Assessment" which is a very good document, except that the title is a little misleading. The handbook is not a manual for detailed human rights assessments for each Norwegian development co-operation project and program. Rather, it concludes with a checklist for a rapid HRA – Human Rights Assessment – on the basis of a very interesting discussion of concepts and approaches to human rights in development policy.

The HRA is an aid to examine the possible consequences of development programs on the human rights situation in a given country.

The NORAD Handbook is an important contribution to the debate on a human rights-based approach to development. But more needs to be done, analytically and in terms of operational policy, in this area.

We need more analysis and suggestions for action on the realisation of the individual economic, social and cultural rights. I already gave you some hints when it comes to economic rights when I referred to de Soto.

We need to advance our understanding of how realization of political and civil rights and liberties may benefit also the process of economic development. Amartya Sen has done some groundbreaking work in this regard. We should try to both critically examine this research and build on it.

We need better indicators to measure the human rights impact of development polices.

We need a systematic discussion on the relationship between social analysis and human rights policies, and between social impact assessments and human rights impact assessments.

These questions and challenges can not – and should not – be answered by governments alone. We need an active dialogue with you, the Norwegian development researchers, and with civil society, both at home and internationally. Human rights organisations and international networks are strong in the area of civil and political rights and should therefore be part of the dialogue.

Development Research: Your Contribution

In 1999, we issued a strategy to strengthen research and higher education in our relations with developing countries. The basic message is that we need to improve the ability of developing countries to carry out research on the basis of their own needs, and to make use of existing research results.

This strategy recognises that institutions of research and higher education can play a significant role in the long-term economic, social and cultural development of developing countries. We need a coherent approach based on the individual country’s needs. I am happy to see the strategy under implementation. The NFU program has made good progress. The same is true for the development research programs under the Research Council.

Support for research in developing countries should be viewed in the context of support for the whole educational system, from primary schools to higher education. South-South and North-South collaboration are essential elements of our strategy for strengthening research and higher education in developing countries.

The Norwegian Research Council is our main partner when it comes to funding development research in Norway. In co-operation with the Research Council we are supporting a number of thematic research programmes that are directly relevant to the formulation and implementation of Norway’s development co-operation policies.

This is the way it should be. As users of scientific knowledge on development issues, we must define what kind of information we need. This can only be done through a close dialogue with the research community. As development researchers, you should make your research results widely accessible.

Quality is the alpha and omega of all research, also for development research and studies of international relations. We have the right to demand high quality, not only of the research process, but also for the dissemination of the research results. Your reports and publications should not only be understandable to other researchers, but also to us, the policy-makers and those involved in development co-operation at the operational level.

We need applied and applicable research. Use your expertise to address the problems, challenges and crises confronting us as decision-makers. Do not hesitate to provide us with inputs in the form of work-in-progress or invitations to seminar discussions. You are much more likely to have an impact on development policy that way - than waiting for a dissertation of several hundred pages to be completed.

To turn back to the navigation metaphor. Positioning is an almost continous task during the journey. Knowing the precise course by the end of the journey is not the principal purpose of positioning. It’s finding your way during the journey.

I leave you with this as a contribution to the discussions you will have over the coming two days. I have tried to outline some issues and ideas that are on our minds as we consider the means at our disposal in the fight against poverty. No more, no less. A lot more could have been said and I could certainly have chosen a "safer" route talking more about policies that are already in place, and with which you are quite familiar.

Maybe I have, in your eyes, become yet another illustration of the point made by Alistair Houlbert, whom I quoted earlier, that policy makers really do not have their act together. The world has evolved beyond our capacity of comprehension.. We may in fact be staring into a mysterous, dark landscape shrouded in mist.

Still, I prefer to believe that every once in a while, the fog lifts over parts of the landscape. Sometimes here, sometimes there. And if we all stare long enough and hard enough, we can slowly put together a relatively accurate picture of the world. Or more precisely, of how—in this world—we may effectively be able to reduce and eradicate poverty, even as we face rising complexity and unpredictability

Thank you for being part of that effort.