Energy and Human Resource Development in Developing Countries

There are many types of energy available. In today’s information-intensive world, the political tilt has largely been to renewable energy. Nonetheless, the world is still majority driven by the ‘carbon chain’ of fossil fuels which also underpins all economic growth of many countries, not only developing ones. HRD needs to be utilized in this development paradigm. Despite the accolades and well-wishing, renewables still place a very distant second in the necessary baseload capacity of power generation due to reliability and cost issues. Hydro projects require government policy guarantees to develop, and not all countries have the geographic terrain to create them. Nuclear power is the way of the future for a reliable power generation baseload, but is a dangerous power source if neglected, and a total safety mindset must be inculcated by any HRD initiative for success. With recent declining oil and commodity prices, the cost of renewable energy grows higher and less attractive in the near term. Fossil fuels are still the main drivers of economic growth in the world and will remain so for the near future.

Energy underpins most of the world’s financial and economic transactions. Countries with ample energy reserves of natural resources, such as in the Middle East and in Asia, have grown rich with them, though not all the wealth has been shared proportionally. Countries bereft of natural resources such as Korea, Japan, and Singapore, have been forced to develop better downstream value-added activity and technology, via either refining, production or financial services. So much money, mostly via the US petrodollar, underpins energy transactions that many financial mechanisms have been created by various entities, including government, to distribute and serve it, from sovereign wealth funds to derivatives to crack spreads in refining. Commodity prices, mostly of crude oil, then become the world’s most tangible and mobile asset. In all the above scenarios, energy then becomes a world currency medium.

The year 2015 was the hottest in recorded human history with 2016 set to surpass that. Record use of fossil fuels by all countries in aggregate for their economic activity has predicated a rise in earth’s CO₂ emissions. The science is there, though a political fringe of climate change deniers refuses to see the flawed model of over-reliance on fossil fuels. The only way to effectively deal with climate change is in having engaged and knowledgeable citizens take part in stewardship of these non-renewable forms of energy under their feet. HRD can do this, and create better industry that will make fossil fuels more efficient and less wasteful. Without a change in the use and understanding of fossil fuels, the small planet we all have to share will risk a future of an altered environment that will ultimately be destructive to all humans and their lifestyles.

Human resource development or HRD is a system that can train and educate people toward any specific reference-based criterion, such as energy or its infrastructure. The field has many noted experts and follows a path of either instructional system design for short-term learning fixes or a competency-development based path to prepare people for a total job competency with all attendant skills. Thus, the mechanisms clearly do exist to fully engage citizens in the resources that lay in their countries. Anyone with a baseline educational ability or so-called basic workplace skills can be trained to engage in their nation’s strategic industry. If the technical development can then be easily administered to a motivated population, the real issue with learning engagement, and why it's not happening, becomes a political one.

Many developing countries loudly proclaim that their citizens ‘own’ the resources under them, but the reality is a very different story. Vast amounts of oil and commodity resources spirited out of the country via elite enablers into developed countries’ shopfloors and financial systems show that a ‘neo-colonial’ mindset still exists under the veneer. Perhaps a better way to address this construct in the Information Age is in changing the denominator of the nation-state from the past 350 years and reconsidering it's relevancy today. The Westphalian nation-state in 1648, precluded by the Magna Carta in 1215, was about protecting elite interests within tightly defined physical borders. It never portended to represent the common man’s or public interests. In today’s globalized world, decisions made in one country can immediately impinge and spillover into a neighboring country or an entire region. Many people, not just elites, are effected with threats to their living standards, physical security, air they breathe, and water they use. The Information Age disseminates knowledge quickly, and a new policy structure is needed to channel many voices on these issues. People begin to expect their ownership rights in their natural resources will be honored, either tangibly via fuel subsidies or intangibly via better health care, education, and institutions (i.e. HRD).

China is an authoritarian country with the world’s second largest economy and hungry for new energy sources to complement its growing voracious demand. China, however, is not transparent and it is not democratic, and it makes no excuses for this. Under the guise of state capitalism, energy and resources are not exploited for economic gain, but rather for long-term social stability. This is a very different economic model than that of an exploitative liberal capitalist system. China is now investing for resources in emerging economies such as Congo, Sudan, Iran, and Myanmar, that Western profit driven countries and other risk-averse actors usually cannot or will not invest in. Whether or not China will become a responsible partner or an abusive one in these developing countries still remains to be seen. Chinese investment is generally not beholden to international standards and norms regarding human rights, labor rights, economic development, and poverty alleviation. Nonetheless, it is a cashed-up economy that can help any impoverished nation with large budgetary deficits get out of their economic malaise. Countries should take note of, and proceed with caution on, any Chinese investment largess that does not consider localization with HRD drivers or risk being worse for wear.

Any discussion of energy and natural resources must include a section on corruption. Centralized pools of money for investment attract many players, not all with good intent. HRD is used as a conduit for corruption as it can be ethereal and unaudited with a true valuation unknown. Corruption is as old as humanity and will never be completely eradicated. However, it can be contained via transparency, education, and empowerment mandates. Overtime, these forces can minimize corruption and corrupt practices, such as the ‘client driven’ model of doing business, while promoting fairness and a more level playing field . Once corruption is minimized, institutional capacity can become more robust and social capital creation more sustainable. Without mitigating corruption, developing societies will continue to pay a very high cost for it by miring many poor millions in poverty cycles.

Energy must now be repositioned in developing economies as a way forward in the Information Age, and to move endowed countries beyond the well advertised resource curse. Neo-colonial practices are at their core problematic and tend to marginalize, as opposed to empower local people. The Information Age has radically deconstructed old ways of doing business. Yet, systems do not and cannot change on their own. Change must be introduced from the outside. There are tangible facts such as climate change, IT, and state capitalism, and intangible issues such as carbon reliance, investing trends, social media, and that will impose this change on old ways of doing business. Globalization, amplified by the Information Age, is radically changing mindsets and old paradigms. Through it all, only one constant can affect change for the better: relevant educational initiatives. However, in order for this to happen, education must now sit as an equal at the table with both investment and energy policy initiatives. Only when HRD is institutionalized, can change for the better ensue and embrace the Information Age.