Coll 54/2 'Middle East (Official) Committee: Working Party' [‎81r] (161/642)

Cyrenaica. Tripolitanla. Eritrea. Somalia
Bconomic and Social Develc>T)ment.
I. INTRODUCTION
m information available regarding these
Territories, certain common features emerge* The Territories
are all x^oor in natural resources and this, combined with the
events of history, have held the indigenous population to a
largely subsistence economy, only marginal production finding
its way into the market. The means, therefore, to self-help
in social improvement have been lacking, v/hile the inclination,
if it ever existed, seems to have been submerged. The result
is that the resurgent political and social awareness which has
affected these Territories, in common with all other backward
territories, since the war, leads to an undue reliance upon
the government for any improvement, and there is little sign
of any realisation that social improvements can, in the long run
with, a nation as with an individual, only be sustained if enough
is earned to pay for them.
2. V/hile economic development, therefore, is in no sense
an end in itself, it must at least be made to keep pace with
social development. The poverty of these countries is such that
there is no prospect of capital investment to the extent
necessary to found national economies sufficient to support a
reasonable social structure being available from internal
savings. Each of these countries, therefore, will need a
substantial measure of investment of foreign capital which
can only be made either by private adventurers or through
the governments of the countries. The economic x>ossibilities,
so far as they are known at present, are, however, not of a
kind which are calculated to attract the investment of private
capital on any substantial scale*. Moreover, a considerable
part of the capital investment needed would be for only
indirectly remunerative projects, e.g. irrigation and soil
conservation.
3* For the foreseeable future the mainstay of all four
Territories must be an agrarian economy. If it is to survive
beyond a mere subsistence level, it must be conditioned by
greater productivity. For this purpose, and^part from major
capital works, adequate loan and credit mechanism is required
in all four Territories, which would necessarily be associated
with the dissemination by the Agricultural Departments of more
modern methods and practices..
It is, at the some time, necessary to stimulate to the
maximum extent practicable a lino of secondary industry in
each Territory, processing local primary products in order
to render their economies,, as producers, of a limited range
of primary products, less vulnerable* For these purposes also
capital facilities would be necessary.