EWI

‘Crisis’ looks like being the most frequently used word in 2009. It was a year in which nothing went right and everything went wrong – and things still don’t seem to be getting any better. ‘Cuts, cuts and more cuts’ are the order of the day. The crisis not only influences the past and the present. It will also influence the future. But does this mean that we also need to make ‘cuts’ in our ambitions?

One of Europe’s ambitions is to become the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge economy in the world by the year 2010. The development of knowledge not only requires a willingness and an enthusiasm to explore new frontiers. It is also to a large extent dependent upon financial input. Every European country needs to make a considerable financial effort to help achieve the Lisbon objectives. The standard against which these efforts are judged is the amount which each country invests in research and development (R&D). In theory, this should amount to a minimum of 3% of GDP: the so-called Barcelona norm. But can we still achieve this in the current economic climate? Do we need to put our ambitious Lisbon objectives and the Barcelona norm on hold?

If you want to make progress, so it is said, you need money. But is money the only criteria? Are we to believe that creativity, innovation and competitiveness can only be stimulated by massive budgets? Perhaps the crisis will lead us to new insights and new opportunities. Sometimes scarcity can encourage creativity and innovation. The positive desire to survive in a rapidly changing environment is perhaps the most forceful of all stimuli for competitiveness. It is not without good reason that Darwin and his evolutionary theory are being commemorated this year. Often, innovative ideas only become sustainably anchored in our society in the fullness of time.

Consider the case of refined sugar. At the end of the 18th century sugar was still very much a luxury product, which could only be afforded by the very rich. The sugar cane from which it was extracted was mainly grown in the overseas colonies of the European nations, largely using slave labour. Gradually its use became more widespread - until Napoleon forced his conquered territories to stop trading with the British Empire. This Continental Blockade paralysed imports to mainland Europe and led to shortages in many products – including sugar. In short, the Emperor needed to find another way to obtain sugar locally.

A chemist in Berlin had discovered as early as 1747 that sugar beet contains the same levels of sugar as sugar cane. However, it took another half century before the first sugar beet extraction plant was built. Napoleon gave orders that sugar beet should be planted and processed in huge quantities (also in Flanders). As a result, the availability of sugar rose and the price fell. However, the young sugar beet industry found it hard going after the fall of the Emperor in 1815. The routes to the colonies were reopened and the cheap, slave-produced cane sugar quickly re-established itself as the market leader. When slavery was finally abolished, the balance began to swing back in favour of beets! By now, however, sugar had become an everyday, household product. It was used as a preservative alongside salt and pickling. Its use in conserves, such as jam, also added a welcome and healthy variation to winter diets. In short, everybody used it, as a result of which there was now a place in the market for both beet and cane.

And what is the moral of this story? Namely, that we should not become too attached to our present way of thinking and our present way of doing things. They might work perfectly well in normal circumstances, but in times of crisis or scarcity – like now – we may need to try something different. Throughout history, this is often how the most ingenious solutions have been found. We need to look at things from another perspective. We need to consider the other person’s point of view. When, as Westerners, we are launching education initiatives in poorer countries, our first inclination is to invest heavily in school infrastructure. From our own experience we know that classrooms are a first and logical step towards setting up a school structure. However, we forget that this kind of ‘formalisation’ of the schooling process often creates a huge threshold for the poor and underprivileged: transport to and from school, books and uniforms to be bought, compulsory attendance, reports, exams, discipline… Learning to look at things another way, learning to see things through the eyes of others can often lead to better results – for everyone.

This lesson was not lost on our compatriot Arnaud Raskin. With his ‘mobile school’ project he succeeded in lowering the threshold to such an extent that he was even able to bring education to many homeless and deprived children. He designed and constructed his own multi-functional, folding blackboard on wheels, which he could use just about anywhere. With this ingenious tool, social workers in many countries now bring much needed ‘condition-free’ education to street children who are exposed to hardships and dangers that most of us can scarcely imagine. Each year the ‘mobile school’ now supports about 30,000 children worldwide in their personal development towards a healthy, positive self-image: which are the necessary basis for an independent existence within our modern society.

Il faut reculer pour mieux sauter. We need to take a step back, before we can leap forward. Or to put it another way: less can sometimes lead to more. More openness, more flexibility, more creativity, more innovation, more possibilities, more… In the Chinese language, the word ‘crisis’ is made up from the symbols for ‘threat’ and ‘opportunity’. Just a coincidence, do you think?