wrote a paper

1 files changed, 406 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/UNCTAD_India.tex b/UNCTAD_India.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5023893
--- /dev/null
+++ b/UNCTAD_India.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,406 @@
+\newcount\citecount
+\def\resetcite{\citecount=0}
+\def\cite{\advance\citecount by 1 \number\citecount}
+
+\nopagenumbers
+\font\twelverm=ptmr7t at 12pt
+\twelverm
+\font\twelveit=ptmri7t at 12pt
+\let\it\twelveit
+\baselineskip=24pt
+\vsize=9.5in
+
+{\parindent 0pt
+India \par
+United Nations Conference on Trade and Development \par
+}
+
+\centerline{\it I. Addressing Challenges of Landlocked Developing Countries}
+
+Investing in developing nations is the next step for the global economy:
+these countries, while often lacking in legal and physical
+infrastructure, have large untapped labor and land reserves.
+With national intervention or international investment, countries like
+China, India, and Vietnam have been able to achieve very high growth in
+recent years, putting them on the path to effective international
+economy.
+Trade deals and globalization through foreign investment are the key to
+accelerating the growth of these countries beyond the value within their
+own borders.
+UNCTAD is a necessary facilitator of many of these deals, and India
+would love to see continued development of these mutually beneficial
+international relationships.
+UNCTAD, however, needs to create generic policy solutions that can be
+fitted to members of the international community on a reasonable basis.
+These include regulatory import/export standards, frameworks for trade
+deals that reduce barriers for businesses, and data-based internal
+investment and development strategies.
+Landlocked countries would be particularly benefited by such a programme
+because they face unique roadblocks to development: cooperation with
+specific neighbors is strictly necessary to even bring goods to market.
+India supports solutions that are focused on allowing free enterprise
+and market investment to flourish rather than pouring money into
+hypothetical industries, a strategy that has failed time and time again.
+
+India is deeply invested in the infrastructural development of its
+landlocked neighbors, Afghan\-is\-tan and Nepal.
+Historically, India has been a major supporter of these two nations.
+For example, in the early 2000s, India developed Afghanistan as a trade
+partner to help stabilize the country---by giving the country \$700
+million in aid. [\cite]
+India also constructed a road from Afghanistan to an Indian port to
+reduce trade barriers for the landlocked nation's access to global
+trade.
+India's landlocked neighbors are both developing nations with high rural
+populations, so their internal economic development will be a priority.
+
+Generally, landlocked nations need to be focused on catering to the
+market needs (manufacturing inputs or final products) of their neighbors
+and providing both their own citizens and investors the capacity to
+develop new markets and industries.
+Unfortunately, landlocked developing nations rarely have sufficient tax
+revenues to create large infrastructure projects, so public-private
+partnerships and land-backed infrastructure loans from sovereign
+neighbors will likely pave the way for road, utility, and ICT expansion.
+Some of these effects have already been observed by programs like
+China's Belt and Road Initiative. [\cite]
+Public-private partnerships may form as a transnational corporation
+funding public utilities in exchange for preferential treatment in those
+specific regions (similar to the international patent system).
+The primary challenge for these public-private partnerships is
+Internal economic development would be accelerated by incentivizing
+transnational investors to create infrastructure.
+A major challenge is maintaining the legal/regulatory infrastructure in
+countries where bribery is more effective than legal decrees.
+A sustained presence of corporate lobbies can often bootstrap a
+business-friendly environment (in terms of reductions of regulatory
+barriers and increasing openness), as long as sweet-heart deals are
+rejected by the top levels of government.
+These deals should be as plural as possible, to reduce the probability
+of corruption, and while regional stakeholders should be consulted, this
+is primarily a matter of national policy for landlocked countries.
+
+To transition from highly rural, disconnected economic patterns, like
+observed in Afghanistan, Nepal, and India, to more connected ones,
+infrastructure expansion is critical.
+With regions far from coastal ports, India has developed its
+infrastructure by creating zones where investment and entrepreneurship
+are encouraged.
+Recently, India has created the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor
+Project, a government development initiative that funds connective
+infrastructure in six different Indian states, supporting investment in
+industry along this corridor [\cite].
+It expects to see significant new capital investment and job growth for
+locals because of access to regional and global markets.
+India wants to help landlocked countries implement similar corridors
+internally and externally, to connect to their coastal neighbors'
+existing road and rail infrastructure without funding it through
+damaging tariffs on goods.
+India proposes that such developments are funded by a lending program,
+where necessary, and otherwise supported by trade deal guarantees.
+Nepal could, under such a trade deal, provide production guarantees to
+Indian businesses in exchange for access to trade corridors.
+Such a trade deal could also establish single regulatory standards to
+hasten the transport process for Nepalese businesses to seaports.
+This is of particular interest to India because India and Nepal have
+enjoyed a fruitful trade relationship, but in order to support Nepalese
+development, private Nepali businesses should be able to, by temporary
+visas for drivers or contracts with Indian driving companies, access
+global markets at standard rates, when it shares in the investment costs
+of infrastructure.
+
+This soft infrastructure of trade deals and regulatory partnerships
+should continue to be encouraged by UNCTAD, and generic policy solutions
+generated based on common ideals of free trade and mutual benefit.
+One possible reform would be the elimination of double-registration of
+goods (for import and export in India) automated away by UNCTAD-funded
+software.
+
+Beyond infrastructure, the development of diverse markets is necessary
+for the continued growth of landlocked nations.
+Developing countries tend to focus on primary commodities as their
+economic backbone, which is a useful starting point.
+Many of these primary commodities function as manufacturing inputs for
+Indian or international manufacturing.
+Because of the cheap availability of these resources in developing
+nations, national subsidies on internal use of these materials creates
+the environment necessary for higher-tech manufactured goods which can
+help stabilize developing countries' economies.
+The investment driven by government subsidies, however, can only occur
+if two conditions are met: strong protections of property rights for
+investors, and loosened regulations on investment into capital like
+factories necessary for using these natural resources at a cheaper price
+than international competitors.
+Such economic development has succeeded at developing landlocked nations
+economically, reducing the impact of price shocks, as has been seen in
+Austria's development of a high-tech export-based economy [\cite].
+But prerequisite to that development was the trade organization that is
+the European Union.
+
+India proposes that UNCTAD strictly avoid strategies like NGO-based
+assistance or small lending or investment from internal reserves.
+UNCTAD should instead focus on facilitating trade deals and
+business-friendly economic environments, by creating policy guidelines
+and tools (software or otherwise) to track development progress in these
+countries.
+There are four central tenets that any effective plan should constitute.
+First among these is trade pacts that eliminate trade barriers wherever
+possible.
+Landlocked countries already seek this kind of deal with their
+neighbors, but UNCTAD and orgs like the World Trade Organization can
+design deals that protect the interests of coastal nations while still
+allowing landlocked nations' products transit.
+These frameworks would ultimately hasten negotiations between landlocked
+and coastal nations because they should be designed with data-backed
+policy in mind.
+Second, a plan should create a legal foundation for cross-border
+infrastructure.
+In many ways, this relies on trade pacts from the first layer, but
+landlocked countries and their neighbors need to be able to enter joint
+ventures to create continuous road, rail, and ICT infrastructure.
+Third, the ease of doing business is critical for developing new
+high-tech manufacturing industry.
+Targeted subsidies on primary commodities and reduced regulatory burden
+may, for businesses, facilitate use of the infrastructure built by these
+plans.
+The fourth tenet is unbiased metrics.
+UNCTAD already focuses on this in much of its work [\cite], but
+improvement of these metrics is always possible.
+Continuously available data on corruption, growth, worker conditions,
+and external investment is often hard to examine, especially for
+developing countries with larger informal economies.
+UNCTAD should fund unbiased reporting and software tools to provide this
+data for developing nations.
+
+\iffalse
+Notes
+-----
+- Afghanistan and Nepal are landlocked neighbors
+- Focus
+    - Allowing investors (corporations) to hold stake in these countries
+    - PPP + deregulation
+    - trade corridors
+- Examples
+    - Delhi-Mumbai
+    - Belt and Road
+    - High-tech industry in Austria
+- Plan
+    1. Trade pacts with guarantees
+    2. Developing cross-border infrastructure
+    3. Regulatory standards to simplify doing business
+    4. Funding for software or an unbiased organization to provide clear
+    metrics on corruption, growth, worker conditions, and investment for
+    countries
+\fi
+
+\vfil\eject\resetcite
+\centerline{Works Cited}
+{\raggedright\emergencystretch\hsize
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan\%E2\%80\%93India\_relations\#Since\_2001}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/jul/30/what-china-belt-road-initiative-silk-road-explainer}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://dipp.gov.in/programmes-and-schemes/infrastructure/industrial-corridors}
+
+[\cite] {\tt http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/topics/lldc.html}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://unctad.org/news/few-developing-countries-overperform-frontier-technologies-most-lag-behind}
+
+}
+
+\vfil\eject\resetcite
+\centerline{\it II. Promoting Entrepreneurship for Sustainable and
+Inclusive Development}
+
+% I so want to advocate Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism, but I'm
+% roleplaying as a goddamn neoliberal state.
+% Also Luke Smith has a thing on GDP that sort of rebukes this whole
+% essay.
+
+Entrepreneurship is critical to the creation of new markets for rural
+and urban populations.
+Pro-entrepreneurial culture, access to finance, and the regulatory
+environment are the most important barriers for developing nations to
+create a flourishing business environment.
+Historically, before the invention and pervasion of information and
+communication technologies, countries have industrialized through
+urbanization policies, but rural entrepreneurship has become a growing
+and much more necessary force in developing nations like India [\cite].
+However, with significant tribal and village living, ICT penetration is
+not needed for most initial entrepreurialism in agricultural, light
+manufacturing, or mineral and forest products.
+Inside of this rural/urban split is another divide: group
+entrepreneurship and individual entrepreneurship.
+Small groups and individuals tend to function better as entrepreneurial
+units for social development, as observed in industrialized nations.
+Therefore, empowering individuals and creating a culture of empowerment
+is central to such development practices.
+
+However, modern developing nations have an extra tool in their belt than
+early industrial countries: global financial markets, angel investors,
+and existing businesses that can bootstrap developing nations.
+In addition to internal reforms, creating valuable investment
+opportunities for local companies is necessary for capital to flow
+towards entrepreneurs who can utilize opportunities opened up by
+development plans.
+For investment to be viable for creating prosperity, property rights,
+intellectual and material, need to be strictly enforced, and bankruptcy
+destigmatized and legally bolstered, to allow entrepreneurs to take
+risks for their communities.
+Lending and investing mean little, especially in high-tech industries
+(one of the best sectors for new entrepreneurship), if intellectual
+property rights are poorly enforced, the effects of which we've seen on
+China with the sinking global opinion of Chinese copycat goods.
+The creation of such investment opportunities may include R\&D spending,
+infrastructure spending, and the development of new asset classes from
+existing government holdings, all of which India is attempting to do to
+achieve growth and development, [\cite] [\cite] [\cite] and it's
+working.
+PM Modi, with these policies, has been able to attract major investment
+in the country and notably improved the economic state of the nation, by
+allowing businesses to do business instead of the government trying to
+play that role.
+
+These pro-business divestment and protection policies are necessary
+components for creating urban and semi-urban development, but further
+investment is strictly necessary to reach rural and disenfranchised
+groups.
+By using compulsory education policy, India has been able to achieve a
+95\% attendance rate for primary schools, which means cultural change is
+able to be meaningfully achieved by simply modifying existing teaching
+patterns [\cite].
+Many other developing nations have comparable policy levers, so with
+policies designed for the 10 competencies UNCTAD outlines in EMPRETEC
+briefings, [\cite] India recommends creating primary school standards
+that teach entrepreneurial values, which can be allocated special
+instructional days by school boards.
+Ideally, entrepreneurs from local communities should be brought into
+schools to speak, which should not be a difficult feat because
+entrepreneurs tend to be community leaders.
+India also hopes to provide additional resources for youth to get
+involved with their communities through schools, temples, or local
+businesses.
+Programs that help connect young people to the economy can be
+kickstarted by non-governmental organizations that help local areas
+create and implement no- or low-cost plans for experiential learning or
+networking, two critical entrepreneurial skills.
+
+Gender inequality in entrepreneurship is, for India, a product of
+traditional rural society, and in the long term, education will be
+sufficient to create cultural change, but in the short term, India and
+many other developing nations need to provide resources directly to
+women entrepreneurs to counterbalance the cultural bias.
+Entrepreneurs are go-getters and believe in mastering their own fate, so
+conferences designed for female community leaders and offering free
+consulting on regulatory issues can
+
+Pro-entepreneurial messaging in schools can make massive impacts on the
+lives of pupils and on equitability for women and ethnic minorities.
+And while urbanization has historically been necessary for major social
+developments, rural entrepreneurialism is a primary concern for India
+given the large rural populations in most developing nations.
+Finance for rural entrepreneurs often requires alternative mechanisms to
+achieve results because angel investors rarely have the scope for small
+agricultural, services, or natural resource-dependent industries.
+Some of these enterprises require little capital, so much of their
+funding can be handled by the ``Friends, Family, Fools'' mechanism, but
+this entirely precludes small and medium sized businesses that require
+startup capital in the ``missing middle'' between USD\$50,000 and
+USD\$1M.
+Many villages where these rural developments occur don't have the
+capital backing to create a new small or medium business, as classified
+by [1], so India recommends developing nations create legal frameworks
+that legitimize inter-village crowdfunding/share-based investment so
+rural entrepreneurs have a legal foundation beyond the social
+foundations that entrepreneurs build with their own skills.
+UNCTAD would be helpful in writing policy suggestions and communicating
+with rural entrepreneurs to understand what they need.
+This may include greater access to supply chains by deregulating
+transport for material inputs, or rural entrepreneurship could be best
+developed by loosening labor laws for ventures that are often maintained
+by the general community.
+
+In order to achieve growth and connectivity in developing nations,
+UNCTAD needs to prioritize rural entrepreneurship and cultural change
+for those regions.
+There are three key actions that developing countries can take to
+facilitate investments in their economy and build up entrepreneurs as
+community leaders.
+The first is to create investment opportunities by developing new
+infrastructure in existing supply chains and to incentivize expanding
+into other markets by providing tax advantages to companies.
+This can attract foreign investment and allows new homegrown
+entrepreneurs to take advantage of the downstream push for businesses.
+The second is to bring entrepreneur education into schools, especially
+rural ones, for girls and boys, using experiential learning and projects
+centered around building up the 10 Personal Competencies during the
+school day.
+The third is to legally legitimate social finance mechanisms: several
+villages can band together and form a community bank that goes into a
+new venture which isn't large enough for angel investment.
+This would close the missing middle for rural environments, allowing
+farms, services, and miners to produce more with machinery.
+But even beyond funding, formalizing enterprises is crucial for the
+Indian economy to function on the global scene.
+That is why India recommends offering free consulting and workshops for
+business registration and handling the regulations.
+This policy pays dividends in equitability and in business creation
+because it connects people knowledgeable about the system to people
+knowledgeable about the business.
+This often works better than simply decreasing the size of regulations
+but still requiring entrepreneurs to go through the process entirely
+independently.
+This gets wrapped into conferences for women and marginalized groups
+because such agencies would be flexible and desirable for entrepreneur
+conferences.
+Such a program would help informal entrepreneurs incorporate and
+legitimize their businesses, and reduce gender or opportunity gaps
+greatly.
+UNCTAD, national governments, and local communities should work together
+to create these programmes and provide developing economies with access
+to the wonderful tool that is global markets.
+
+\iffalse
+Notes
+-----
+- Modi's policy
+    - R\&D from gov't (privatize the gains)
+    - Create new assets from gov't stores
+    - Protect "intellectual property"
+- Make bankruptcy easy and destigmatized (is that a Modi thing? Haven't
+  looked)
+    - Serial entrepreneurs lol
+- Hyperindividualist rhetoric where possible
+    - Will be worse for rural areas where crowd-funding or mutual
+      finance may be needed
+    - Entrepreneurs = "the wheat over the chaff"
+- Treat conservative social views as products exclusively of school
+  socialization
+    - World Bank 95\% attendance rates
+    - Indoctrinate them kids early
+- Gender inequity
+- Rural entrepreneurship
+    - Missing middle
+    - Crowdfunding legal frameworks
+\fi
+
+\vfil\eject\resetcite
+\centerline{Works Cited}
+
+{\raggedright\emergencystretch\hsize
+[\cite] {\tt
+https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304112617\_Rural\_Development\_in\_India\_\discretionary{}{}{}through\_Entrepreneurship\_An\_Overview\_of\_the\_Problems\_and\_Challenges}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://unctad.org/news/few-developing-countries-overperform-frontier-technologies-most-lag-behind}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://yourstory.com/2021/02/privatisation-unleash-exciting-opportunities-boost-investment-india-inc}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://www.telegraphindia.com/business/modi-seeks-investments-worth-1-5-trillion-offers-lower-tax-rates/cid/1796707}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2011/09/20/education-in-india}
+
+[\cite] {\tt https://empretec.unctad.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/EG\_eng.compressed.pdf}
+}
+
+\bye