Often we worry about polarization between the left and right. Other times we express concern over the urban-rural divide or the growing inequality between the richest Americans and the rest of the country. At my internship at the Latin America Working Group, I’ve learned about another hard-to-bridge gap: that between economists and activists on how to best approach infrastructure development.
I saw the divide firsthand while researching the Hidroituango Dam, which is currently being built along the Cauca River in northwest Colombia. When completed, the generator is projected to provide 17% of Colombia’s electricity demand. However, Hidroituango has also come under fire for its environmental and social consequences. Since the Latin America Working Group works primarily with NGOs and human rights activists, my initial introduction to Hidroituango was from its victims. I read news reports about how the rising levels of the Cauca River had displaced tens of thousands from port communities. I watched videos of a flash flood that destroyed two bridges, two schools, and a rural health center. Most disturbingly, I heard from Isabel Zuleta, a Colombian activist from the Movimiento Ríos Vivos de Antioquia (MRVA). At an event hosted by the Washington Office on Latin America, Zuleta recounted how two colleagues from the MRVA were killed for their activism against the dam project. Their assassinations remain unsolved, an all-too-common occurrence in a country where a civic leader is killed every four days on average. When I attended an event on Chinese investment in Latin America, I heard a very different perspective. The speakers included three academics who specialized in economics or political economy, with a businessman added to round out the panel. Each of the speakers expressed optimism about the role that China could play in financing Latin American infrastructure projects. Chilean economist and diplomat Jorge Heine noted that in 2017 and in previous years, Latin America spent the smallest percentage of GDP on infrastructure for any developing region other than Sub-Saharan Africa. This infrastructure gap, according to Ambassador Heine, was a major reason for the region’s lackluster growth and the persistence of poverty. Heine attributed the deficit to an unhealthy level of hesitation among bureaucrats and businessmen when considering a new project, arguing that the region could learn a great deal from the Chinese model of fast-paced development. Dr. Stephen Kaplan of George Washington University noted during Q&A that there are trade-offs between economic growth and environmental, labor, and governance concerns. However, this was barely a footnote to the broader discussion in favor of more infrastructure spending. Neither of these perspectives gave a complete view of the debate over infrastructure investment. The activists are right to call attention to the social harms of the dam project, and their concerns are especially salient after the Cauca River flooded in May 2018. However, civil society organizations have opposed Hidroituango since at least 2010, long before the most harmful consequences of the dam were realized. When activists prematurely argue against infrastructure projects and don’t acknowledge the benefits that they could provide to the economy, they undermine their leverage when their commentary is needed the most. The economists are similarly mistaken. By assigning blame to businesses and governments for being too hesitant about infrastructure, Ambassador Heine risks conflating the right kind of bureaucratic obstacles—environmental impact surveys, engineering assessments, community consultations—with the bad. Economists should respect the input of activists, just as activists should respect the contributions of economists. Both the activists and the economists add value to our conversation about development, but we can’t have one group without the other. If activists always had their way, construction would be stalled and the economy would remain stagnant. If economists always had theirs, then the communities most directly affected by infrastructure projects would be left behind. A process where both parties recognize the value of each others’ contributions is the only way to promote development while respecting the rights of the community.
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