By Kamal Azari
The purpose of this study is to broadly outline development plans that can catapult the arrested Iranian socio-economical GDP to the level of G8 countries in about 15 years. The purpose of this rapid economic expansion is to take advantage of one of Iran’s most valuable untapped resources: its highly educated and capable young people, many of whom are leaving Iran and taking the economic and social benefits of their educations elsewhere. A comprehensive and rapid developmental plan can put this group to work for the benefit of Iran. The challenge is to find a suitable plan to animate their full potential before they age out and become an economic liability for the country.
Background
Iran has one of the best-educated populations in the world. And for the past thirty years, it has had one of the highest levels of brain-drain in the world. (1) The migrated Iranians, in general, rank among the most successful immigrant populations of their host countries, and have shown a robust capability for entrepreneurship and economic success.
Much of this entrepreneurial spirit originates in the culture of Iran. Communities in Iran have a strong tendency to compete socially and economically, to receive more recognition. The competition between Lar and Evaz, for example, have helped these two cities in Fars to develop their communities much more rapidly. This kind of competition, which can be seen among many Iranian communities, creates enormous potential for healthy socio-economic development, if only it can be effectively directed. When this happens, communities can use their unique resources and the creativity of their residents to help their communities thrive and grow in a healthy way. The growth of local entrepreneurship is the key to the rapid economic development of any society. The challenge, in Iran as elsewhere, is to figure out how to empower communities to employ their resources in an organized, strategic fashion. The Moonshot Project provides an outline for accomplishing this.
Moonshot Project
The Moonshot Project is a fifteen-year socioeconomic development project with the goal of total transformation of Iran both economically and socially. Its goal is Iran full integration into the global market economy, with the purchasing power of the Iranian ranking among the eight largest developed economies of the world. With this integration and purchasing power, an Iranian worker could afford to take two weeks vacation in Europe or anywhere in the world. They could send their children to the school of their choice. They could enjoy a comfortable middle-class living.
To achieve these goals requires a comprehensive plan, a population willing to endure some pain and hard work, and a strong social commitment. We envision a development period divided into three-five years phases, as outlined below.
Phase I: Restoration and Stabilization.
The first five years of the Moonshot Project will be devoted to restoring the Iranian economy to a rational and sustainable market-based economic model with an emphasis on transparency and checks and balances.
One aspect of Phase I will be international, as Iran takes steps to reintegrate into the world community. To do this, it must pursue three concrete goals: completing its membership in the WTO, normalize relations and reinstate previous alliances with the USA and other world nations, and recognize the state of Israel. In addition, Iran will immediately end support for all terrorist organizations, and participate in international standards of justice. This will enable Iran to seek immediate need for an infusion of capital by trying to get a loan guarantee for about five hundred billion dollars.
At the same time, Iran will work to get its domestic house in order. At present its highly centralized and politically driven government has drawn a conglomerate web of private interests to influential centers of power, where they have pursued personal goals designed to enrich and empower themselves. As a result, the government is controlled by a small coterie of powerful people who do not have the citizens’ interests at heart. Unbiased oversight of regulatory rules and the economy is currently nonexistent in Iran. Privately owned business and industrial entities survive based not on the strength of their offerings to the marketplace, but to their connections in the centers of power. Consequently, the government has become the employer of last resort and manages a vast interrelated web of both large and small business that are not economically sound.
To counter this, we need to develop a plan of action that will put an end to this corrupt, crony-supported economy. But we must understand that doing so will have a real impact on people. As such, our action plan must have as little impact on the social welfare of the population as possible. I believe, two sets of separate plans of actions are needed to reduce and minimize the social impact on the population and rejuvenate Iran’s economy.
Having analyzed the situation, I believe that any attempt to improve the existing governmental institutions would requires many more resources both in time treasure than starting new institutions that are competent and efficient. The answer, then, is to build new government structures to regulate, enforce, and provide social services and social maintenance. I believe that the best way to do this is to create a bifurcated government. In such a system, the central government would provide regulatory and oversight duties, which social services and social maintenance would be provided by local government structures. Community governments will also have access to capital for the undertaking of local entrepreneurial projects. This will be an enormously important part of the success of the new narratives for social change.
The conceptual development of community-based governments will begin trial operation in at least ten diverse locations. A group of university graduates and students with various majors such as sociologists, cultural anthropologists, economists, journalists, social workers and entrepreneurial businesspeople will be assigned to each community to provide a knowledge base, to accept input from knowledgeable citizens, to direct and document all processes, and to create a new narrative of success. This narrative will provide an emphasis on inclusiveness, collective action and decision making, personal liberty, and entrepreneurship. The experiences of these collectives will add to the knowledge pool, which will be shared with all trial communities.
Once the central and community-based governmental structures are established, the old institutions can be used as a human resource pool, while the new institutions can employ all the good and experienced workers. These new institutions will pay their employees a decent living wage, but will demand high productivity and honestly. They need to provide a high level of unbiased regulation without any corruption, in fact, the slogan should be “no corrupt behavior will be tolerated,” and it must be repeated over and over. In order to secure the nation’s finances from corruption and ensure their effective investment, a National Trust Fund will be established. All long-term asset holdings of government will be transferred there for safe keeping.
The present central government institutions require a different set of solutions. To simply abolish them and send the workers home is not an option that any society can accept. Nonetheless, the central government must go through rapid attrition with dissolution complete within the fivr years of Phase I. However, workers currently employed by the central government may be able to find work in a similar agency in the new central or the community government side. Those who cannot will be supported with, capital for a new ventures, social welfare, retraining, and job search support provided at the community government level. To minimize negative impact on individual citizens, the rate of employee attrition should be about the same as the rate of economic expansion.
The reorganization of the political economy will have a tremendous social impact. Before this can be undertaken, of course, effective public education must be paramount. All citizens must clearly understand and support the objectives of the Moonshot Project, and those who will be transitioned out of government jobs must be aware of the available support system that will transition them into new ones.
At the same time as the dissolution of the central government, its business holdings will be slowly transferred to the Iranian private sector in a very transparent process. All proceeds sales will be assigned to the National Trust for the benefit of the nation. The goal of the process will be to make as many of these entities run as profitable businesses by finding experienced management teams to operate them. All obligations such as unpaid workers’ wages and dues will be converted to a percentage ownership interest, and then these businesses will be offered on significant capital markets of the world. With this approach, the Iranian population will have the first chance to hold these companies instead of outright sales to foreign companies.
Iran’s GDP is reported to be $430.7 billion (2017 est.). However, the purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates are the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States is $1.64 trillion (2017 est.). (2) These indicators show that Iranians’ purchasing power is comparatively much lower than Americans’, which is one gauge of the lack of health in Iran’s financial system. I believe, if previously mentioned reforms of economic and financial institutions are done in this five-year plan, The gap between GDP and PPP will diminish very rapidly. This conversion will cause rapid economic growth, but the government needs to be very vigilant to make sure that it will be evenly distributed across the citizenry.
The first five years should end the endemic patterns of social and economic corruption in the country and create strong regulatory agencies. But this cannot be done without the support of an independent, free and capable complement of mainstream and social media outlets, which can play a role in ensuring transparency and giving voice to all political opinions.
Under the new system, the central government will establish and enforce reasonable regulation. Government social services will be decentralized and competent, inclusive and effective. Achieving these goals requires a very effective campaign of communication to make sure that the population of the country is well informed and they also share these objectives. Once the nation reaches this platform, then the stage is set for a very rapid socio-economic development. But without capable government and social institutions that are trusted by the population, progress is impossible, and we can never achieve our goals.
Phase II: Demographic Juxtapositions
Our approach to economic development is based on developing entrepreneurship across demographics at the community level. To do this, we will need to access relevant knowledge and experience available at the community level, including well-educated young people.
Once the first ten community governments have worked out their bugs in Phase I, we will proceed with the development of community governments nationwide, some 300 in all. They will be rolled out in groups of 100, with each sharing knowledge and supporting development of the other.
In order to develop a strong, community-based economy, we need to have a practical understanding of Iran’s socio-cultural strength and potentials, as well as knowledge of its weaknesses.
Positive Cultural Strengths and Assets
1. Iran possesses a vast pool of well-educated young people who are eager to participate in positive economic development
2. There are between two to three million Iranian in the diaspora, a disproportionate number of them are wealthy and very well educated. A significant number of them very enthusiastic about Iran and identify as patriots. This group can play a key role in transferring knowledge and capital for various development projects.
3. As a natural oil and gas producer, Iran should generate enough wealth for capitalizing all reasonable projects.
4. Availability of decent ports and transportation network facilities throughout the country initially will be adequate, but future improvements must be studied.
5. A culture of rivalry between communities and individuals can be used to accelerate economic growth and entrepreneurship.
6. Over the centuries, Iranian workers have shown to be highly adaptable, with a high level of professionalism and dedication to the work and the quality of craft.
Vulnerabilities and Deficiencies
1. Water shortages are becoming an endemic national problem. The water shortage impact will ever sector of society.
2. There is an absence of a narrative of success in Iranian communities in its place a pompous self-adulation of glorious past has replaced the devotion to search for perfections.
3. Lack of local community capital markets.
4. Perceived social significance based on false class divisions and entitlements.
Overcoming Deficits
The population of Iran is approximately about 85 million. For a population of this size, the water shortage will always have a constant negative impact on any types of development. Development experts have pointed out that current water sources cannot be a reliable source for more than 40 million of those people.
Therefore a new approach must be developed to bring prosperity and meaning to their lives, away from the shanty towns attached to many large cities. Iran has about 1520 miles of coastline in the south, but historically the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the sea of Oman were considered to be very undesirable. The hot and humid climate of summertime was unbearable for the mountain people of Iran. In fact, as punishment, criminals were sentenced to live for some years in this area. Iranians never developed any interest for sea voyages; they were first exposed to European trade vessels in the Seventeenth Century who were congregating at the southern ports for trade, they never demonstrated any interest to learn about navigation or ocean voyages. Iranians somehow looked down on Europeans as non believers and greedy people that would do anything for gold, and did not believe they can learn from them.
This attitude and the harsh climate left this part of the country undeveloped, but today it represents opportunity: it can be used as a frontier for population expansion away from the diminishing aquifer. Picturesque sand beaches,the warm waters of Gulf and a number of significant historical and geological attractions give this area enormous tourist potential, especially for those from the colder northern latitudes.
The warm ocean waters of the Iranian coastline also provide great potential for aquaculture. The Indian Ocean and East African coast are currently among the significant sources of fishery activities of the world, yet natural fisheries are being strained to their limits but nations of the world are learning how to share this natural resources. The development of tourism and aquaculture could also provide impetus for a maritime industry. The manufacture and maintenance of pleasure yachts and small boats could be very lucrative industries for regional entrepreneurs.
These potentials can only be realized with the support of motivated individuals and a gvernment that can provide the basic necessities of living, including first and foremost fresh water. The following are needed to meet a basic standard.
1. Developing many desalination plants and atmospheric water projects for the production of fresh water. Atmospheric plans along the coastlines can be very feasible both for small or large agricultural projects and living communities. The extremely high humidity of the air can be a very reliable low-cost source of fresh water that can be gathered through fog collectors or more advanced technologies.
2. A strong refrigeration industry. To provide cooling for homes and industrial refrigeration for products.
3. Reliable modern airlines. Both tourism and transportation of seafood and other agricultural materials require a fast, inexpensive, and dependable air transportation system. Fortunately, there is an excellent synergy between tourism and perishable food commodities transportation so that ordinary local businesses can have access to world markets would benefit these local ventures. .
4. Many hotels of different classes many reasonable accommodations such as Airbnb
5. Reliable civic infrastructure
Based on my estimation, the successful transformation of the population to the southern coastlines will be based on the construction of about 140 communities along the 1520 miles of coastline. What will cause these communities to thrive will be teaching people a new way of life that they have left behind because of global warming and water shortages. The new lifestyle has to be lucrative economically and socially and culturally satisfactorily. This will represent an enormous socio- economic transformation, but the alternative is living in shanty towns around large metropolitan areas of the country without any positive perspective or a promising future.
No successful development plan can be considered to be successful if a reasonable source of employment and comfortable living cannot be found in the country. But without adequate access to water will be impossible. The transfer of population away from the traditional aquifer is a must for any serious development plan.
Phase III, Subsistence, Sustainability, and Continuous Development
In any nation, socio-economic development is achieved through the efforts and hard work of entrepreneurs’ creativity, personal sacrifice, and endurance. These efforts can only become successful when these visionaries are part of a supportive community. But in order for Iran to benefit from generated wealth, the wealth should be recycled through local capital markets. This creates a cycle in which continuous development is sustainable. The objective of Phase III is to make this process universally and effortless throughout the entire nation.
During Phase 3, all efforts will focus on community-based socio-economic development that creates enduring institutions of governance with built-in checks and balances against corruption and authoritarianism. Community cooperation, fair and equitable distribution of wealth, cultural inclusiveness must all be ensured.
Healthy economic competition will encourage citizens to support their local entrepreneurs by creating better living and educational capabilities of their communities. Collectively these efforts will increase the GDP of the country and create the next generation of entrepreneurs. To build and adjust the functionalities of these self-regulating institutions of power will require many social skills and the dedication and commitment of community organizers and officials. We will know these efforts are successful when we can objectively measure the generation of personal wealth and the increase in happiness for community members.
Creating and training community leadership teams can be very challenging. One possibility is to use graduate students that have the needed enthusiasm and time to be very useful. These teams have to be highly trained in all social sciences, economics, and personal and social psychology. These inclusive communities, which will have access to capital, will value individual freedom, and will support and respect entrepreneurship will be the driving force behind continued, sustainable, and efficient economic development in Iran.
NOTES
1. Mohammad A. Chaichian, (2011) “The new phase of globalization and brain drain: Migration of educated and skilled Iranians to the United States”, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 39 Issue: 1/2, pp.18-38,
2. country comparison to the world: 18 GDP (official exchange rate): This entry gives the gross domestic product (GDP) or value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. A nation’s GDP at official exchange rates (OER) is the home-currency-denominated annual GDP figure divided by the bilateral average US exchange rate with that country in that year. The measure is simple to compute and gives a precise measure of the value of output. Many economists prefer this measure when gauging the economic power an economy maintains vis- . . . more GDP (official exchange rate) field listing
The opinion expressed do not necessarily reflect those of ITC
