MELES ZENAWI I went to meet Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a man who had led a seventeen -year guerrilla war against the dictator bloody Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Meless forces won in 1991 and then the government began the hard work of rebuilding the Country. A doctor by training, Meles had formally studied economics b/c he knew that to bring his country out of centuries of Poverty would require nothing less than economic transformation, and he demonstrated a knowledge of economics-and indeed creativity -that would have put him at the head of any of my university classes. He showed a deeper understanding of economic principles and certainly a greater knowledge of the circumstances in his country- than many of the international economic bureaucrats that I had to deal with in the succeeding three years. Meles combined these intellectual attributes with personal integrity: No one doubted his honesty and capability His political opponents came mostly from the long-dominant groups around the capital who had lost political power with his accession, and they raised questions about his commitment to democratic principles. However, he was not an old fashioned autocrat. Both he and the government were generally committed to a process of decentralization, bringing government closer to the people and ensuring that the center did not lose touch with the separate regions. When I arrived in 1997, Meles was engaged in a heated dispute with the IMF, and the Fund had suspended its lending program. The IMF and WB putted preconditions. Meles put the matter more forcefully: He: told me that he had not fought so hard for seventeen years to be instructed by some international bureaucrat that he could not build schools and clinics for his people once he had succeeded in convincing donors to pay for them. Meles showed that, with the right policies in place, even a poor African country could experience sustained economic growth. #Pro.Josehp.E.Stiglize
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 06:12:32 +0000
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