Southern poverty crunch and its foreign policy implications

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has currently degenerated into a fresh round of fierce blood-letting marks a dramatic setback for peace-making in the Middle East. However, while solicitous voices, quite rightly, are being raised once again globally over the rising human and other costs of this decades-long military quagmire, it is gratifying to note that thought-provoking pronouncements are now and then being made in relation to Israel in no less a country than Sri Lanka.

The fact that Sri Lanka has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause over the years, enhances the importance of these statements for the Middle East watcher. There are serious implications for local foreign policy formulation in these pronouncements that should not go unnoticed.

For instance, it is believed in some government circles in Sri Lanka that the latter too could enter into the dynamic growth path initiated by countries, such as Singapore and Israel, if the Colombo Port City project is implemented. At least one government MP made a statement along these lines in parliament a couple of days back and the pronouncement warrants serious consideration by Sri Lankan policy circles in view of its off-the-beaten- track character in particular.

Sri Lanka has been conducting low key relations with Israel over the past decade or so and this policy has served Sri Lanka well, but it will be in its national interest for Sri Lanka to follow a policy path with regard to Israel which is free of ambiguities and ambivalences. In these times of economic pragmatism it stands to reason that the Sri Lankan state must be more open and direct with its public in respect of its policy on Israel.

Sri Lanka’s support for the Palestinian cause should not be allowed to suffer in the process but it is best that current global economic realities are clearly recognized by countries such as Sri Lanka. It is relatively recently that Sri Lanka began to relate to Israel in fields that are of immense relevance to the former’s economic development but as way back as the early nineties India recognized the advisability of normalizing diplomatic ties with Israel. The reasons are plain to see: Israel is a number one economic and military power in the Middle East, it has soared ahead in the areas of agricultural development, health and human resources development, to mention just few areas of relevance. Today, it has registered a ‘first’ by vaccinating all its people against the dreaded Covid-19. Need one say more on the advisability of doing away with stereotypes in relating to Israel?

The advisability of the global South in particular giving their external ties a practical and pragmatic bent is focused on through this example of current developments in Israel-Sri Lanka relations. While essential political principles cannot be allowed to be compromised, Southern countries should recognize the need to balance their principles with pressing economic compulsions that call for quick responses.

There will be a growing need to do this as they go ahead and one stark reality that awaits the majority of Southern countries that will compel them to practise balanced external ties is a growing poverty crunch in their hemisphere. Needless to say, the present global pandemic has brought the majority of countries to their knees, so to speak.

International organizations, such as UNICEF, have sounded dire warnings about the emerging destabilizing economic consequences of the exploding world wide health crisis. Countries in our part of the world, including Sri Lanka, are expected to suffer gravely. For example, there is a rising need for anti-Covid vaccinations and countries such as Sri Lanka are bound to find it difficult to fend for themselves, going ahead, given their economic weaknesses. The G7, for instance, is being called upon by UNICEF to go to the rescue of the Southern poor. But this would not prove easy in view of growing health needs among the G7 countries which call for the exclusive and urgent attention of the states concerned towards their publics.

The countries to watch most with regard to these concerns, apparently, are the Emerging Market and Developing Economies (EMDEs). An essential feature of these Southern-wide countries’ economies is a disproportionately large informal sector. A recent World Bank study titled ‘The Long Shadow of Informality: Challenges and Policies’ reveals that the informal sector in these countries accounts for more than 70 per cent of their employment and nearly one-third of their GDP. While the dominance of some of these economies by the informal sector is quite well known, what has not be disclosed thus far in its entirety, but which the WB underscores emphatically, is the operation of the bulk of these informal sectors well outside the supervision and regulation of their governments.

To the extent to which this is so, to the same degree are the sectors concerned and their employees rendered highly vulnerable and sensitive to external economic shocks and some of these shocks are very much in the making in the wake of the runaway pandemic. For example, the informal sector is particularly dominant in Sri Lanka’s economy and is, consequently, a high employment generator, but these factors render Sri Lanka particularly vulnerable in the current global economic situation, where disruptions in the international supply chain, for example, are having a debilitating impact on local economic fortunes. Scores of employees, for example, will be left jobless.

Accordingly, the South will find, as it goes into the future, that it cannot afford the luxury of engaging in external relations on the basis of traditional parameters and policy prescriptions. Pragmatic and practical considerations will likely compel them to dispose of hackneyed and tired slogans in foreign policy making and make it incumbent on them to opt for effectively workable new policies that will serve their national interests best.

However, the South lacks a visionary leadership at present, which could guide it as a collectivity towards more constructive and fruitful engagements in foreign relations. This was not the case in former decades when the NAM, for example, was a relatively forceful and resourceful leader in the affairs of the South. If the South is to forge ahead towards an equitable, shared future these needs would need to be addressed by the more forward thinking sections of the South.