Fix a country!

[David Floyd]

This sounds like you guys want to do the whole nation-building story forum thing...

[Ramo]

What's that?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Azazel
We're doing it ok. It's not a waste of time. Avocadoes in the desert, baby! They sell very well in europe.

I agree with you on the fishing. there are problems, though. Those same countries that send their fishing fleets (EU, Japan) are probably the largest customers for our iron ore.

Israel is a small, hi-tech country with a comparitively high population density. Mauritania is a vast, undeveloped country with a tiny population. The climate is probably different as well.

Trying to force through desert irrigation is reminiscent of bad old socialism. Daft, unrealistic schemes which do nothing to benefit the ordinary people, and frequently turn into environmental disasters.

Desert irrigation would cost an incredible amount to run and maintain, and you'd have to import most of the talent to build and operate the scheme. The produce would be totally unaffordable for ordinary Mauritanians, and would probably be difficult to export, due to the poor infrastucture. It could also squander any aquifers the Mauritanians are using. Finally, it would probably force nomads off the land they use, filling the cities with more miserable, unemployed people.

A more realistic project would be the construction of a good road from Nouakchott to Nouadhibou. It might be worth setting up a modest state-owned telecoms provider; most African countries have to rely on European telecoms, with messages from Nigeria to Togo being routed through Belgium or France.

Schools and hospitals as well, of course. And don't even think about unrealistic privatisations or austerity measures.

[Sandman]

a large pool of unskilled workers screams 'textile industry'. and sadly, we're going to need foreign investors for that. we'll demand higher wages, so our economy will get more out of it. but it will be offset by the proximity to european and NA markets. Btw, We need more port facilities! How can we afford them?

A large pool of unskilled workers? The country has a miniscule population, which could never achieve the sort of economies of scale and specialisation that India or China manage. There isn't even any native cotton production. And the tarriffs, of course.

A small population combined with a large country with a presumably nice coastline just screams 'tourism' to me, but the strong influence of Islam, the lack of infrastructure, and the fact that Morocco probably has that particular market sewn up leads me to dismiss tourism as source of revenue.

There's already one deep-water port. I don't think another one is needed, certainly not before building a road between the two principal cities.

[Inverse Icarus]

don't abolish slavery, that's not going to help.

we need MORE slaves. i say we find a neighbor we don't like, find some charistic most of them have, and declare it inferior and detrimental to our prospering. then we can enslave and work them to death, as well as take their land.

if we conscript our availible army, we have nearly a million men, which is smaller than all of our neighbors, so we can't directly fight them.

I say we begin a campaign to spread HIV amoungst one of our neighboring countries say, morocco, and spread it quickly and in large doses. once half of them die of AIDS, we can walk in with our entire population (almost 3 million) with pitchforks to kill the resisters, and enslave the rest.

[Starchild]

Gods you people are so manufacturing oriented. Yeah, that's fine, that's great in time when the country can find itself a niche but, in reality, no one can compete with the Chinese. You're going to make our three million farmers are production force that can take one 1.3 billion Chinese working for as much or less than labour costs in our country? Ha.

We've got over half the population dependent on agriculture and it's not industrial agriculture. Most likely, levels of pesticide use is going to be very low. We've got the huge European market nearby which craves organic food. Set up a system of micro-credit loans to help those farms get certified! Use oil revenues when they start flowing to extend the credit scheme to the cities. Why have big old-school socialist projects like desert irrigation when you can have much more effective community level projects?

[VetLegion]

Azazel, good idea for a thread

@ Uberkrux

Starchild organic food has a market. But US and EU farms and their subsidies, this will be a tough battle, probably through WTO.

I'd say:

1) Education

2) Sharia law. Does the population really want it? Leave it if they do, but if they don't down with it.

3) What Saras said about rule of the law. It is really stunning how much good law enforcement and low corruption can do to attract investors.

4) Kick out the bastards stealing the fish. There are mechanisms in international law to do this. It is called "Economic belt" or some such. Span and or France have it on their Atlantic coast, and quite some other countries too, so they can't complain.

5) If the population growth is too large, try to lower it, but only through voluntary methods.

6) Send Pekka to train their army. This will come in handy I am sure.

I may think of something else too. Good idea, this.

[Theben]

Forget Mauritania, we need to fix Lauretania! It's completely broke!

[Ben Kenobi]

5) If the population growth is too large, try to lower it, but only through voluntary methods.

Euhm, with a sparse population I would think we would have the opposite problem.

Even under Sharia, one ought to be able to establish a stable community increasing the attractiveness for business.

What about phosphates? Any off the coast?

[Q Classic]

i say we fix antarctica. over a sixty years of human inhabitation, and they're still nothing but a state that gets its welfare from tourism and scraps from richer governments.

damn leeches.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Ship a whole buncha people to the US

That's what I said. If I ruled China, the first things I'd do is ship off all the Chinese.

[Jon Miller]

what all countries need are more women

Jon /Miller

[Q Classic]

actually, i think if everybody in the world had sex more, we'd have a lot less conflict.

guys will be going from a loaded to an unloaded state, and there have been reports that the absorption of some seminal fluid can mitigate the effects of depression in women.

so all we have to do to fix a country is make it so they don't have babies by do have lots and lots of sex.

[Kropotkin]

The CIA world factbook mentiones diamonds as well as gold as natural resources. Wonder how much bucks they can make from that. Probably that would have to be controlled by foreign companies that has the capital and know-how to make it profitable. Anyhow, if it's done in a civlized matter, the state revenues for that could be used for education and infrastructure. The same goes for oil.

The trick is how to use these revenues to create a working economy, instead of making the country dependent of exports of its natural resources.

[Sandman]

We've got over half the population dependent on agriculture and it's not industrial agriculture. Most likely, levels of pesticide use is going to be very low. We've got the huge European market nearby which craves organic food. Set up a system of micro-credit loans to help those farms get certified! Use oil revenues when they start flowing to extend the credit scheme to the cities. Why have big old-school socialist projects like desert irrigation when you can have much more effective community level projects?

Most of the population is dependant on fishing, not agriculture. And I doubt that European consumers are going to be interested in organic millet and camel meat.