Skills train for development in Sri Lanka

by Victor Cherubim

(March 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) When historians go back to describe the events in South Asia of 2009, the big story will be the displacement of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. The lead lines hardly mention the IDP camps but what has been conveniently forgotten is not only the displacement of Tamils but also the many hundreds, in fact, thousands of Sri Lankans, Sinhala and Tamil who have lost their homes, their life and limb during the thirty odd year war.

As the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson succinctly described of another war a century ago:

"Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die
Into the valley of Death.”

It is an established fact that there is a desperate need now for new initiatives to relieve the continuing suffering of ordinary people in Sri Lanka after nearly thirty long years of war. To stabilise their lives, the future of tens of thousands of widows and orphans, disabled, less able, dismembered, unemployed and underemployed youth and veterans, as well as an increasingly large number of displaced families, with a lack of basic settlement infrastructure, is more than a dire need. It has become a necessity.

The mobilisation of resources both government and business, is necessary. Why not use the challenges presented by the present plight of these victims as an opportunity positioning this for success?

The winds of change during the same past thirty years, when imported cheap labour was demanding fairer conditions for working in the West, the Western business world moved to a comfort zone and comfortably adjusted to outsource jobs and services, to developing nations, even to the extent of loss of traditional manufacturing, shipbuilding, assembly, garment trade, call centre liaison and other labour intensive work. The rationale then was why produce anything, which can be produced elsewhere cheaper. Thus the hard manual work was farmed out from western nations to nations with cheap labour, whilst retaining the industries with specialist technical know-how and capital intensive trades for themselves.

The developing nations of the East, including Japan, China, and Korea were considered cheap assembly points for goods, which put less pressure on retail prices in the so called Developed World, making allowance for cost of distant transport. It was argued that Chinese manufacturing was all the more warranted and welcome. We note that manufacturing of the i Phone and i Pad in China cost just 1.3% of its US sale price which was not widely known.

However things change fast and opportunities too abound. With the advance of a new vision in the West and the uncertainty after the credit crunch, a new thinking is in vogue. Many manufacturing household names plus other service industries including Banks, Telephone, even Rail Companies are jumping to outsource not only production but Customer services too, to even cheaper destinations, thereby shifting production and service industries from the Far East to unknown sites with further reduction and cheaper labour costs. There now is a thriving competition among known retail outlets to move sourcing faster than their rivals. The beneficiaries of this new vision are Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh and North Korea. Shifting production and service delivery is the trend. According to informed sources “the comparative monthly wages in Yokohama is $3000, Seoul $1200,Taipei $888,Guangdong $235, in Jakarta, Indonesia it is $148,in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam it is $100 and in Dacca, Bangladesh it is $47.” It is no wonder that altruism alone does not play a significant role in the European Union shifting production to Bangladesh, but good business sense.

With cheap labour and a readily available market in outsourcing, Sri Lanka too can easily join the new nations competing not only as assembly points for manufacturing but particularly for service industries requiring patience and perseverance and care in service delivery. There is no denial that the loss to the garment industry in Sri Lanka by the withdrawal of the GST plus is noticeable, There are “other sources which are outsourced.” Though tourism is a growth industry,keeping options open is the future.

A hard sell of what Sri Lanka can do for service industries can make widows and disabled veterans do much more with their lives to earn a crust and help themselves. This needs more Job Training Centres and Vocational Training to be encouraged and provided in each village, on a massive scale enticing business to invest along with the government in Job Training in a variety of skills and fields that are in demand. Our literacy rate is neither a barrier, nor is our work ethic. Besides, there is a clamour for work, opportunities, including outsourced work, by the masses of unemployed, who want to release themselves from the clutches of the high cost of living and the fact that there are no openings for work abroad.
The “Big Question” in the minds of multinational business has always been economics, while ethical investment is beginning to show its face in the new theory of “The Big Society” particularly after the upheaval in Arab North Africa. It will however, take years to change the existing patterns of world trade. Sri Lanka has this window of opportunity to press hard to utilise cheap labour to source products and services that will benefit the dispossessed population.

Investment in People is the mantra for any government. Free Training like free education will always reap rewards. Setting up more Call Centre work, and other training is needed. Existing rehabilitation programmes of the Government will provide results, but business needs government incentives to establish more Job Training. How long can the export of cheap female labour abroad sustain our fragile economy? How long before we realise that our female displaced civilians and others in similar circumstances, have to bear the stigma attached to their status, which can only be eradicated by challenging the social stonewall.

The diaspora abroad have a role to play in this process. They can assist in mentoring more institutions of Job Training in villages in the North and elsewhere by sharing their talents particularly in fields that they have excelled abroad such as Mobile technology, computer assembly, Information Research and Resource among other fields. There is no doubt given time and a “political reconciliation” this job training will turn Sri Lanka around from being afraid of the “big bad wolf” of war crimes, to invent and innovative and to excel.

For the private sector business or institutions, without Government subsidy to set up Job Training Centres island wide,

is wishful thinking. The Government and the People of Sri Lanka, must feel committed to producing a new class of people out of the dispossessed, who will come to value themselves and their work which they are trained to do, as stepping stones to progress.

The Government by Investing in People, particularly the dispossessed, will set the framework and create the conditions for the first stage of political reconciliation of all people. It is a cost which I believe, the nation can well bear and the diaspora can assist, that will produce and earn Sri Lanka a name and the world’s respect.

To give life to those who don’t have a life or a living is commendable. But to promise a better future to those who have not either had a past or a present is a virtue.

(The writer is a Freelance Journalist. He can be reached at Email: victorcherubim@aol.com )