The Approaches for Guinea’s Sustainable Economic Growth: The Ideal Development Strategies for the Nation

Abstract

There must be formation and application of some appropriate approaches for the sustainable economic growth of Guinea in order to ideally develop it. Suggested strategies are discussed in terms of the long term development aims. In other words, the roles of education are addressed along with sustainable economic development, political development, social development, spiritual development, psychological development, cultural development, and environmental development. The scope to examine accountability is highlighted. The concept of full and genuine implementation of the country’s is motto analysed. Finally, overall conclusions are presented.

1. Introduction

The fundamental objective of a country is to construct a strong sovereign authority based on an equitable economy and justice for the common interest of its citizens, which is done by a part the people for the rest of the people. This fundamental objective is achievable through continuous grows by including necessary changes along the way. Series of positive changes or adjustments bring the development in its diversity for a real advancement. As far as the development is concerned, an equitable wealth creation is essential and it must be sustainable. The sustainability, in this context, is the ability to maintain a nation’s development level and progress over the lifetimes of many generations. The sustainability must remain diverse in terms of general development. For instance, it has to include economic wellbeing, religious practice, justice, security, food security, health, housing, clean drinking running water, education for all, ecology and, the last but not the least, the political stability. The sustainable development depends on rigorous diligence of leaderships and the people to create an environment for teamwork, efficiency, effectiveness, empowerment, equitability and security. The sustainable development has to be supported by a series of strategies.

A strategy in this context refers to an uncertain set of decisions that commit a state to some high level actions that are to be implemented usually over a long period of time in order to achieve the development goals. In other words, a strategy is a broad approach to detailed plans to pragmatically seek successful political ends, where scarce resources are maximised at the best by the leadership, usually, for the future and it is reviewed from time to time. This study is about suggesting sustainable development strategies for the Republic of Guinea, where good policies and pragmatism must be considered.

There is a way out for the Republic of Guinea, which is about getting rid off all impediments it faces by working tirelessly in order to settle its challenges, at least, for the time being and hopefully for once and for all in the future with the right action plans. This is the way forward as Guinea is a country where everything is yet to be done. The Republic of Guinea is a country with about 11.5 million populations located in West Africa, Conakry is the capital city. It borders Senegal in North, Mali in North-east, Côte d’Ivoire in East, Liberia in South, Sierra Leone in South-west, the Atlantic Ocean in West and Guinea-Bissau in North-west. It is a country with an area of 245 857 km², which comprises four natural regions and seven administrative provinces. It has gained its independence on 2^nd October 1958 as a result of referendum, which took place on 28^th September of the same year. It has suffered 57 years of mismanagement albeit it is rich in terms of culture, mineral resources and it is potentially agricultural. It has tremendous rainfalls and abundant water sources, which makes it, nicknamed the water tank of West Africa – as some great West African rivers take their sources there, for example River Niger, River Senegal and River Gambia.

For 57 years it has never known prosperity – at least sustainably, though its motto is “Work, Justice, Solidarity”. However, this motto has been nothing but a slogan. If it had been a real motto, Guinea would be a developed or an emerging nation by now. If the motto had been followed, Guineans would be led by governments who would be using their physical and mental efforts to benefit the country; the governments would be just by making the society equitable and morally fair; Guinea would be united and strong as a nation for common concerns, goals, norms and consideration for one another. In fact, Guinea should have been aspiring an environment of development for both Guineans and their international counterparts, where the end results will create prosperity for all. Guinea should aim to reduce the exodus of Guinean youth and encourage return of Guinean Diaspora back home by creating humanely environment and making the country safe and friendly, which would be persuading for both foreign and national investors to work with national industries to eradicate the youth unemployment. Some of these young people leave Guinea not knowing anybody abroad and where life is not always easy for newcomers unfamiliar with foreign languages and cultures. The loss of one’s roots is felt on several levels by the Guinean youth abroad. It is a cultural and linguistic uprooting and a hurried exodus from the native country which, for most, is not of choice but necessary. Only the Guinean governments can put stop to this in by becoming aware of our problems, some clear strategies for growth, development, justice and wellbeing – working towards a successful nation. An economy transformed in Guinea would be only possible if the people work together as a nation led by patriot leaderships, who would think Guinea first.

In the paper the following points are addressed; the long term development aims in terms of education, economy, socio-politics, spirituality, psychology and culture as well as environment. This paper also highlights the roles of accountability. In other words, the ideal strategies for Guinea should be built around the three little words that are “Work, Justice and Solidarity” in order to make some sensible prioritisation for a sustainable economic development.

2. The Long Term Development Aims

The major objectives of an underdeveloped country should be to transform and develop itself, which should be founded on its own style in order to sustainably advance in all required aspects. Guinea’s current situation is based primarily on political and economic instability, investment unfriendly business policies, lack of infrastructure, a scarce quality workforce and unclear development strategies, which have dragged the nation back. These anti-development and anti-business approaches have resulted in losses for the country in terms of the national investments and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Uncommitted to create a momentum and fail to take advantage of Guinea’s strategic location at the heart of West Africa, and mere slowed growth to about 2.0% in 2013; from 3.9% in 2012 (source: African Development BAnk). Rahman (1993) states that a country has to be a united nation, with a confident society, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, liberal, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient for it to be developed.

The development of Guinea, like any other countries, should not have to be only economical, but it has to be multidimensional. Of course, a country cannot only be developed in the economic sense. Any development built on economic sense alone is indefensible and weak. That is why it is essential to take other development factors. These essential factors are development in education, political stability, social maturity, spiritual advancement, psychological wisdom, and cultural sensibleness.

2.1 Development in Education

Education has never been a real priority in development of Guinea. As back as 1958, the governments’ spending on education as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) hardly reaches 3%, which should be from 5% to 10% of GPD at the country’s level. The different departments in charge of education should be allocated with about 15% of the Government budget every year until the gap is somehow closed or narrowed compare to emerging nations. Such commitment towards education can help the country sustain its education level at the emerging nations’ standard. Education development should continue to feature significantly in all future development plans of Guinea as the governments should believe that human capital development is the foundation for an innovatively productive high income economy. Every measure must be accompanied with right efforts in order to properly enhance student performance and, hence, improve the overall standard of the education system.  That is, schools must have right infrastructures, every school must be monitored for their outcomes, schools’ authorities must be held responsible for poor standards and awarded otherwise, talented pupils/students must be given a special supervisions and supports in order to turn them into the best people who are going to be in charge of the affairs of tomorrow, and the teaching personnel must be given the best available qualifications and trainings as well as the right awards.  The implementation of such measures may enable the country to build an efficient solid education system based on learning. Eventually, a quality education system can help a nation establish a progressive and scientific society, which is forward-looking and innovation oriented in terms of contributions to the science and technology in the modern globalised civilisation.

2.1.1 The Learning in Education Development

An important aspect of success in education appears to be the ability of teaching and administrative staff at all levels to learn and be responsive in their work. A vital task for education managers is to develop their own skills to learn and also the learning ability of their staff through trainings (Sutherland, 2003). The idea of learning to learn is seen as the most significant life skill at the edge of the 21^st century (Geppert, 2000). In addition, four aspects are essential for teaching staff, which are learning at work; organisational learning; developing a learning culture; and creating a learning structure (Örtenblad, 2004). The concept of learning is to enable teachers to give the highest possible standard levels to pupils/students, but this is only possible if they are up to that standard as one cannot deliver/give what they do not possess.

Presently, Guinea has not got the requirements for producing the benchmark in the education sector at the international level, but now is the perfect time to get that benchmark and to get the education sector in shape for the years ahead and for the future generations. This is simply because education is the foundation of foundations, a building without a right foundation, or without a foundation at all, collapses sooner or later, and so is a nation without education. A nation without education is not going forward but backward. Learning in education can have numerous advantages for a nation.

The learning concept in education sector can be used as a competitive advantage by making the difference between those nations who prosper and those who fail can be generally credited more or less to their ability to learn and adapt by applying this learning for gains (Christie and Sandelands, 1998). Christie and Sandelands continue to maintain that the main advantage is that the establishment can handle environmental changes, both home and abroad. It is important to notice that the learning concept is ideal in the competitive global place as, according to (Christie and Sandelands (1998), the competitive environment is one of rapidly globally changing, which is enabled by technology and triggers for change – learning idea can result in making establishments competitive enough and enable them to rejuvenate their staff over time and remain significant through learning, transformation and regeneration.

A totally respect should be given to Christie and Sandelands in their analyses of the learning concept. The concept of the learning is nothing but a “revolution” in human capital, especial in education sector. The paper calls it a revolution because the education system of the country needs changes in the ways it has been run, certainly to a different efficient and effective one. An education system is needed where pupils and students will not be able to bribe teachers and lecturers to get top marks and to have degrees without merits; and teachers and lecturers  will not be able to fail pupils and students because they have not been paid forced bribe money. Well-equipped professionally trained and well rewarded academic staff mark pupils and students based on merits and take no gift from them. A very important positive change in the way that people do things is fundamental in education sector. To materialise this change, the Guinean governments should support the different departments in charge of education to increase the quality and quantity of skilled and well trained staff. Some of such measure can be like encouraging partnership between education and training institutions both private and public in order for the sector to meet the international standard; assessing curriculums and teaching methods in accordance with current changes by including strategic thinking and entrepreneurship skills; bringing in continuous learning among teaching staff through life-long learning such as recognition of prior learning as part of pre-entry qualification for enrolling into higher certification; improving national programmes as medium to increase the number of skilled workers; and establishing more enhanced vocational and technical training schools.

2.2 Economic Development

The Guinean constitution should provide a long-term national development imperative for the country through the continuation of State after regime changes to allow every Government pursue policies that would eventually lead to the creation of a just and free society, where every Guinean would have the opportunity to live a long significant fruitful life.

Economic development of a country is a route of policies taken by policymakers of a nation, where improvement is meant to be achieved in terms of wealth creation in industries, money and trades. These go along with enhanced adequate health care, human capital, necessary infrastructure, security and solidarity. These are ultimate goals what Guinea needs to achieve so as to be on the right track for the development, whereby lives of its citizens are to be improved. Right economic development policies can result in economic growths by bringing the balanced and equitable prosperities to all areas of the country, rural and urban. The Classical economists check the states of the economy based on consumption, production, distribution and prices (Ramrattan, 2014). From this statement, it can be obviously analysed that the Guinean economy is far underdeveloped especially in terms of production, which is the main link of economic activities. If you take the agricultural sector, par example, then you come to recognise that Guinea's poorly developed infrastructure continues to present obstacles to the development of this vital sector, where the sector cannot fulfil the country’s food self-sufficiency. Hence, the country has been suffering the opposite of economic development that is economic instability.

Economic instability occurs in a country when there is an excessive fluctuation in macro economy, which is an economy with poorly irregular output growth and high and unstable inflation. This has been the economy of Guinea for more than half a century that is why it can be classified and considered as economically unstable.  Guinea has had recurrent considerable recessions, low GDP growths, high unemployment rates, low FDI inflows, weak exports and financially weak. However, for the country to emerge Guinea must ensure an economically just society wherein there is a complete partnership is economic development; such a system cannot exist as long as there is identification of economic backwardness with the vast majority of the people. It takes courage, determination, hard work and perseverance to establish a prosperous competitive economy, which is diversified, elastic, strong and vibrant – sustainable.

2.2.1 A Sustainable Economic Development

A sustainable economic development aims to create a quality life for a people. If necessary, the Guinean government can subsidise and control prices on staple food products and some very essential articles to maintain affordable price, to empower purchasing power and to control inflation. Items such cassava, rice, wheat flower, sugar, corn, cooking oil and petrol should be control under the market prices in order for the people to live affordably.

The government can create jobs and entrepreneurs through the public sector and the private sector by being business friendly to the latter. The government can have sovereign funds of wealth, which the state can create and run, then invest in companies both nationals and internationals. Even though private enterprises and ownerships should be promoted by the government for the economy to growth, it should also interfere for a balanced equitable growth. The measures to sustain such potential prosperity consolidations must include firm fiscal policies, transparent fiscal operations, development-oriented monetary and exchange rate policies, a strong financial sector and strict adherence to the rule-of-law and respect for the sanctity of contract, as well as commitment to fighting corruption and corrupt practices (Amir and Okezie, 2011). In all of these, Guinea has opportunities to progress to establishing a prosperous society and eradicating poverty by introducing measures that reduce the income inequality. The Government has to succeed in implementing these recommendations in order to have positive results on poverty eradication regardless of ethnicities and religious backgrounds especially in rural areas. The rural areas are the backbones of the Guinean society.

The agricultural policies in the rural areas should address food security in availability, accessibility, sustainability, affordability and competitiveness in order to increase the wellbeing of the rural population and the income levels of farmers, where farmers are trained and equipped professionally. Efficient agricultural policies can increase the contribution of the agriculture industry and commodity to the country’s economy by modernising and transforming the industry towards a real competitive level, which can promote Guinea as a granary in West Africa.

The country needs adequate electricity to make its development dreams come true. Electricity supply in Guinea is still at a very uncomfortable level where there is too much embarrassing shortage of energy supply.

2.3 Political Development

In Guinea, the people have never enjoyed political development, which is obtaining a strong real wellbeing and welfare oriented of all Guineans. Political development is backbone of all development. Political arena of a country consists of its rulers and intellectuals. If rulers and intellectuals of a nation are righteous, honest, patriot, visionary, ambitious and disciplined, then that nation can develop. It is a not magic to develop but results of right hard work, and it needs patience and perseverance – the time. The time that real durable development needs in this context is the medium and the long term, but it does not happen overnight – the short term. The bad luck of Guinea is that its citizens are too much in hurry and it has not has not enjoyed right leaderships, if any, to do the jobs. In fact, political development is only achieved when you have got the right people for the right jobs. The curse of Guinea is that it has not been lucky enough yet to get many right rulers and intellectuals, if any.

Political development occurs when a nation has got right people who can influence the way Guinea is governed in a positive manner, and they must have ability to sustain a healthy situation in terms of laws, orders and justice over a very long time, where the situation and the process advance and become even more peaceful, stable and prosperous over time. Such political development has to be done by governments after governments continuing in the same direction for the benefit of the country so as to achieve the political stability.

“At first glance it seems like a straightforward proposition. The African states that have been able to achieve high growth rates are stable; stability means a predictable political environment, which in turn attracts investment, both internally and from outside. The resulting virtuous circle of poverty reduction, job creation, increased state revenues and investment in welfare and education bring benefits to all in society such that a return to violence or chaos is in no-one’s interests.”

(Shepherd, 2004, pp. 8)

A developed political system is not a perfect one but the one that is fostering a mature, democratic society based on a form of consensual, community-oriented Guinean democracy, which can be a reference for other underdeveloped nations.

2.4 Social Development

Social development is the process in which people living together in a structured system advance in a particular geographical area usually under a single authority. Guinea is one great society, wherein people of different communities live collectively, they share the norms and values, they have the same concerns and they should be cared as well as protected as one society.

According UNRISD (2014) social development is concerned with processes of change that lead to improvements in human well-being, social relations and social institutions, and that are equitable, sustainable, and compatible with principles of democratic governance and social justice. For Guinea to develop the social development must be a fundamental core goal to be achieved in order to further harmonise social relations deteriorated by bad governance of decades and community oriented politics by politicians. Appropriate efforts in terms of institutional arrangements could help the country to get target development results. Such results must include tangible accomplishments, for instant adequate health care facilities for all, education for all, decent housing for all, a clean environment, affordable basic goods and services; and security for all. These, in turn, will nurture mutual respect for all, tolerance, cultural and identity recognition, human rights, the sense of belonging, an equitable distribution of wealth and meritocracy based appointments in the public services as well as in the private sector. As a result, Guineans will come to identify themselves as Guineans but not members of particular communities, which is justice for all and lasting peace. Developing competencies in social development domain enhance a person’s ability to succeed in education as well as positively influence mental health, success in work, and the ability to be a citizen in a fair democracy (Huitt nad Dawson, 2011). All governments’ social development strategies and projects should be undertaken with a consideration of aims at improving the conceptual foundations of cross ethnic social policies, social development and, hence, a strategy for social policy based around eradicating social exclusion, if it exists.

It takes times, justice, patriotism, respect and tolerance to build a mature and liberal developed society like the one needed by Guinea to progress, wherein all different Guinean communities are equal treated, can exercise their cultures, customs, and religions whereby every citizen sense a significance of belonging to the Guinean Society. A developed society is that nurtures an absolute caring social cultural system, wherein the country comes first before individualism and community orientation, wherein the wellbeing of the Guineans are turned round as a solid family system.

2.5 Spiritual Development

Spiritual development is about advancement of the people to create a loving, forgiving and tolerant multi-faith society, where the followers of every belief worship freely with mutual respect – without provoking and nor being provoked but having intellectual civilised discussions and debates about each other’s religions. The right understanding of spirituality can prevent anti-social behaviours and violent clashes taking place in some parts of Guinea. Such unfortunate day-to-day incidents of nuisance and disorder affect lives, businesses and give the country a bad reputation. As all faiths preach people to be good, kind, helpful, generous, forgiving, loving, united, truthful and trustworthy, so spiritual development can positively change people in terms of thinking, feeling or behaving, hence, a sense of loyalty to each other and the nation. A nation without a religion is like a man without breath (Goebbels. 1926). A religion is the way to spiritual development, which is the development of the human being.

As far as the view of this paper is concerned, a religion makes a human being obedient, submissive and surrendering to one true God, wherein they disassociate themselves from inhumane behaviours and embrace peace which is defended and improved by the direction of law and order. “Surely, my prayer and my devotion, my life, and my death are all for God, the Lord of the worlds (Al An’aam – 6:162-163)”. This is surely the way to succeed in terms of lasting development, happiness and peace. This is because the connection of the human beings to the Divine is thus regarded as important spiritual values, which direct to do virtues and keep away from evil harmful acts and behaviours as much as possible. Besides, your connection to people in general is regarded as factor of relationship with God. Caring for others, loving them, giving total positive consideration to people, and unselfish deeds and achievements are some instances of spiritual advantages that show a person’s profound and genuine connection to God. A spiritually developed society creates a completely ethical and moral nation that the people have considerable values of their religions in terms of practice and applied to daily dealings amongst the citizens. Such spirituality level can help Guineans to fill themselves with the greatest standards of ethics.

2.6 Psychological Development

Psychological development is concerning mind-set maturity or advancement, positive behaviours and feelings of individuals or groups towards one another and towards the nation; this can include oneself and their interactions with other individuals for the benefit of the wider society. This is to say that Guinean education systems, government policies and family structures must by be strong, effective and efficient enough to develop the sense of being a Guinean(s) and the sense of unity into children from birth to maturity and such initiatives must be encourage and promoted by both the state and community leaders as well as religious leaders. The ultimate purpose of psychological development is to show mutual love, patriotism, unity and work to children before their adulthood (Fleming, 2004). Loving one another as citizens of a particular nation makes the people united and pull together for the country for common causes and benefits. Real durable development and work are parallel to the national unity – the lasting unconditional love of citizens for each other in a fair and just society.

A psychologically developed society that Guinea needs is the one that is relatively modern, confident, secure, competitive, excellent, respecting, respected by the international community, and aware of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats so that it can work on improving itself sustainably.

2.7 Cultural Development

Cultural development of Guinean is about strengthening the usual shared way of life of Guineans as a nation in all its angles, such as arts, beliefs, customs, ideas, knowledge, thoughts, values, institutions and lawful traditions – modern and ancient. This is about reviving the Guinean civilisation by educating the society so as to develop its culture and to make it comfortable for the people and attractive to outsiders. The cultural development must be a national pride and confidence as it is the unification and integration as well as valuing all subcultures into one.

Active culture policies are useful for a country with its fresh principles, brings many new elements to the country’s cultural structure, where cultural institutions connected at various levels across different sectors in the country in turn results in a more stable level of sustainable development (Doyle and Mickov, 2013). The cultural policies can provide guidelines that would advise on the importance of the development of this aspect of cultural development, where communication plays some very important roles.

Effective communication is the key to succeeding in any collective work. Communication must be enhanced in the government sector, which must involve transformation from a traditional approach towards a modern concept with all efficiency, where information and communication technologies are given important considerations. The dissemination of information concerning the performances and disappointments regularly fails to tackle the need for a support network required for the development of competent workers, and the need for line managers to take on new roles as assessors and facilitators is not stressed for the development of new skills in the entire workforce (Ablett and Reynolds, 1998).

2.8 Environmental Development

Guinea should take its environment into consideration in the course of implementing its development policies, which is meeting the present environmental, economic and social needs of the people with no making compromises to the ability of coming generations to meet their needs. Sustainable environment development shows a desire to pass on to generations a Guinea – a country  – that is as excellent as, if not better than, the one we inherited from our fathers and forefathers.

There should be measures and activities in terms of good policies to control loggings and ban unlawful loggings and criminalise it by fines and prison sentences. The environment protection policies should also include encouragement of reforestation in urban and rural areas and it should be an obligation on all mineral extraction companies, which should go with the protection of water sources – water falls, oasis, lakes, streams and rivers – especially from pollutions. Besides, environmental actions and policies should also include improving the quality of air in terms controlling pollutions from industries, economic and social activities. Moreover, the environment protection should also enforce the prevention, control and decontamination of lands/soils in terms waste collection, disposal, control, designation of landfills and recycling, especially relating chemical/hazardous wastes/substances. Besides, there should be also laws enforcement in terms of nuisances, litters, parking, imports of used products (second hands) and the measure to deal with them in order to keep neighbourhoods and public places clear of nuisances, litters and pollution. Imposing fines and duties can make such policies workable. Thus, the environmental laws should be enforced in such a way that the country/economy can be green and tranquil as much as possible, where the well-being of Guineans in terms of social justice and equity are fulfilled while risks of environmental degradations and ecological damages are reduced as much as possible.

“’There is now overwhelming scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change          poses   very significant threats to humankind's future life on earth (Pittock, 2009).         Estimates vary as to    the global average temperature rise that can be endured and            the maximal concentration of             greenhouse gases in the atmosphere consistent with that

rise (Rockström et al., 2009).’”

(Cohen, T., 2012, p. 18)

It is surely certain that Guinea has got similar approaches to environmental development, however the above arguments could be enforced and made them the humble share of Guinea in combating the climate change.

3. Accountability

One of the major gateways to development or to an emerging economy is the accountability, which is to make every Guinean bear the share of their responsibly according to their roles.  That is, accountability should not only involve punishment but motivation and rewards from extraordinary result for performances in the public sector; the private sector; and individual achievements in communities.

The accountability must make people completely responsible for outcomes of their achievements and they must be able justify their success or failure, otherwise, to their immediate hierarchy. Besides, much more cautions must be given to revenues, financings and spending to combat embezzlements, briberies and other forms of corruption. Besides, much more attentions must be given to elected politicians in running public affairs at all levels in order to make them ethically accountable to their electorates – the people. The accountability makes all sorts of governance – national, regional, prefectural or local – answerable, blameworthy, careful, expected, liable and praiseworthy in their duties and tasks.  In fact, the lack of accountability has been the primary cause of all problems related to bad governance in running public affairs in Guinea. That is, at the moment people are unanswerable to results of their actions, decisions, policies and outcomes in terms of management, governance and implementation. Accountability must be applied with full transparency, where X is answerable to Y; when X is liable to update Y and their executions of both currents and futures, so as to rationalise their actions, and bear the results in the case of subsequent wrongdoings. As mentioned earlier, accountability only exists with appropriate transparency practices in place; with developed mind-sets; patriotism; and honesty.

Accountability is necessary for Guinea if it wishes to achieve sustainability. Accountability must be a nationwide thing for foreign and national businesses, institutions and Guineans in all walks of life need to know that their acts and behaviours can have impacts on national sustainability in one way or another.

There must be continuous awareness campaigns to promote accountability in terms of trainings, zero tolerance discipline and enforcement. The government must be committed to leading by example and must be open to working with anyone willing to work on the issue. Reports on outcomes of the public affairs must be made available. A crucial role for implementing the accountability measure can also be played by the private sector by creating, monitoring and reporting on their accountability targets and ideas. Every Guinean and foreign national must be held accountable for one another for making the nation emerging and helping to provide future generations with economic, environmental and social resources that may meet their demands.

4. The Genuine Implementation of the Country’s Motto: Work, Justice and Solidarity

A motto must be a reasonable set of words that can help a country to be a strong state in terms satisfying its people on average; but not a slogan. A motto becomes a slogan when it is “un-implementable”. A motto becomes un-implementable when there is a clear unwillingness by different governments of a country to adhere to it. In fact, the motto of Guinea is Work, Justice, Solidarity. If genuinely followed and implemented, these three little words are enough to take Guinea forward. If patriotism and meritocracy exist at governance, the three little words can help provide the Government with measures to ensure a balanced development for the citizens, where both rural and urban residents enjoy the decent facilities as in some emerging economies. The Government has to realise a comprehensive and integrated development of urban and rural areas, which is essential so as to build a parallel development between urban and rural and urban areas in terms of facilities and economic opportunities. Various policies have to be carried out, per se, to properly implement the country’s motto in order to eradicate extreme poverty and provide basic needs. In other words, to have an end that can justify the means satisfactorily. The failure to achieve the aims and objectives of the motto, it can be allegedly claimed that the real motto of Guinea is: failure but not work; injustice but not justice; discord but not solidarity. These three antonyms of the motto are the challenges facing the nation, which need to be overcome for the country to advance. Thus, problems and obstacles of Guinea are in Guinea – neither the North nor the South – and the solutions must be found in Guinea by Guineans.

To overcome those challenge, the country need to establish itself as a nation united; developing a psychologically liberated, secure, and emerging Guinean society; creating a mature democratic society; founding a high morale community with ethics as well as religious strength; and forming economically equitable considerate society.

4.1 Work or Failure?

Work is the key means to development if it is structured and organised. It refers to labouring, producing, building, servicing, constructing, maintaining, supervising, disciplining, achieving, benefiting and satisfying the people. These actions yield positive results. As far as this paper is concerned, there is no work if satisfaction is not achieved to some extent. Unfortunately, Guinea as a nation has been working for the last sixty years without satisfying the people even partly. Work that results in lack of satisfaction is dissatisfaction. In this regard, the first part of the Guinean motto has not been fulfilled. In reality, it is not “work”, as claimed, but “dissatisfaction/ failure”. Work is said to be work if efforts are fruitful, performing and successful.

4.2 Justice or Injustice?

Justice is the second part of Guinean motto, which means fairness by treating all Guineans equally. Justice can be achieved if work, discipline and patriotism are applied objectively. It starts at the summit/ the very top of the executive power, the judiciary and law makers (the parliament), then followed by government officials (the intellectuals/technocrats). In short, the justice has to be implemented by two groups, which are rulers and intellectuals. These two groups do not have to be perfect but they have to be honest enough to achieve their mission somehow. Believe it or not, the country can emerge and develop if these two groups are honest enough. As of today, there is no a clear willingness from the ruling party and from the opposition to make Guinea a just society. A just society is peaceful, stable and caring, where impartiality of authorities, laws and obedience of the people prevail. As far as Guinean situations are concerned for the last six decades, it can be claimed that there is no justice in the country based on facts and above analyses.

4.3 Solidarity or Discord?

The third and the last part of the motto of Guinea is solidarity, which simply means oneness and togetherness. For the country to emerge itself, it must be fully developed in terms of national unity and social cohesion. The government, opposition and the mass (the people) must think Guinea first; selfishness and community/ ethnic oriented practices as well as regionalism must be abandoned for the sake of national unity, harmony, commonality and shared aims – the wellbeing. However, the country has been mostly is discord since coming into being.

7. Conclusions

Guinea’s sustainable economic growth is achievable if right strategies are developed and properly implemented. Rational development approaches can be ideal for helping the country to emerge durably provided that people are accountable for their works, in justice and in solidarity.

By looking at the nature and the scale of problems – in terms of corruption, ethnic politics, bad governance, public disorder and under development, can Guinea be an emerging country? The answer is yes, it can – if the motto is followed. The three little powerful words of the motto can help Guinea overcome its challenges that need to be successfully implemented in order to achieve the development goals in diverse prospects. There can be no fully emerged/ developed Guinea until there have been overcoming of challenges discussed in this paper, which have been confronting the nation from the moment of its birth as an independent country.

The key objectives of the country coming into being is to develop based on its own model and to develop culturally, economically, politically, psychologically, socially and spiritually. Besides, improving nutrition, greater access to safe drinking water and food quality control can contribute to improving living conditions. Overcoming these challenges can help the country eradicate extreme poverty, promote good governance, achieve universal primary education, improve health care, ensure environmental sustainability,  human rights, democracy and durable peace as well as developing a global partnership for developing the country in terms of foreign direct investment flows. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is international capital created by a foreign company to expand a subsidiary in another country, which involves not only a transfer of resource but also the acquisition of control, along with its several advantages brought in. The most important benefit for a country from foreign direct investment is creating more employment especially for an under developed country (Lin et al, 2009). Lin et al (2009) argue that technology transfer is another benefit for a host country. In the long run, the host country has opportunities to produce products as investing countries do. In addition, national inadequacy for investments is filled by foreign direct investment. FDI create more jobs and generate technology transfers.

Amara Nabé, Mr

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