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It's when I see something like this that I realise how little 'bottom-up' or 'people-centred' development mean in the real world. This post seems to involved all sorts of dubious elements: 'training local government officials in market principles' - how patronising and how imperious can you get? Ditto: 'improving channels for local business to influence national level policies related to rural markets' - with all the implied subversion of any truly democratic process that this implies. Finally of course there is the provision of 'credit' - does this simply mean financial companies moving on and creating indebtedness and dependency just like everywhere else in the world. This job may be an 'opportunity' for the no-doubt western-educated economist who will get it, but it is not fot the people of Mongolia. And to have the nerve to call it a 'civil society' program- it is a programme for the economisation and commodification of Mongolian life, and I hope it fails. My hope is that many of the ordinary people of Monglolia simply resist these moves. Just as many tribal groups refused to move to purpose-built towns provided by the former socialist dictatorship (or did move and then returned to their traditional and sustainable ways of life later), I hope that they will resist the new dictatorship of the market, which will draw them into unequal bargains from which they will find it very difficult to get out. I hope instead they listen to the farmers of India and the Phillipines now fighting against economic globalisation and the undemoocratic centralisation of power to corporate-dominated bodies like the WTO, and those people throughout the world who have contributed to the demise of the Multilateral Agreement on Investments, which died yesterday at the OECD in Paris. We're coming to a crossroads - which way are you going? David. >Chief of Party, Rural Civil Society Program >The Asia Foundation/Mongolia > >The Asia Foundation is seeking candidates for the Chief of Party for the Rural >Civil Society Program (RCSP) in Mongolia. RCSP is a five-year project >intended >to stimulate private sector-led economic growth in rural areas and smaller >cities of Mongolia. > >PROJECT BACKGROUND >Mongolia's dual transition from centralized political control and a socialist >command economy to democracy and a market-oriented economy has resulted in >rapid >development and increased prosperity in and around the national capital of >Ulaanbaatar. However, provincial cities and rural towns are facing great >difficulties in making the transition. RCSP is therefore designed to help >remove constraints to rural development by focusing on several key problem >areas: a) provision of information including basic business training and >advice >for new and existing SMEs, and provision of technical assistance in selected >areas of manufacturing, trade, and services; b) development of business >associations; c) development of credit facilities in rural areas; d) training >local government officials in market principles; and e) improving channels for >local business to influence national level policies related to rural markets. >Activities will be concentrated in the two most promising regions for economic >development in Mongolia outside the capital. The RCSP will be funded >primarily >under a USAID cooperative agreement, and will be implemented by The Asia >Foundation in partnership with Winrock International and Development >Alternatives, Inc. (DAI). > "When the storm subsides, when the rain and fire leave the earth in peace again, the world will no longer be the world but something better." Subcommandante Marcos, Lacandon Jungle, August 1992. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%