Track 1 AND Track 2!

5 February 2007

Let's call Track 1, the government sponsored. It's the one that grabs all the attention, gets newspaper front page coverage and everyone talks about it. Massive amounts of money--almost a billion dollars this time--thousands of workers (called Public Servants) and tons on plans are focused on making Track 1 work.

This week, in fact, Track 1 remains high on the nation's agenda. Parliament currently sits to debate the 2007 Budget. Literally millions of dollars are at stake. Ministries of Education, Health and the other 18 ministries will get Parliament's official OK to spend millions and millions of dollars to accomplish their work of educating our kids, keeping our smallest, oldest and ordinary citizens well and healthy and keep the rest of the nation ticking over by working the justice system, etc. etc.

But Track 1 tells only 1/2 our national story. As important to the well being of country, there is a Track 2 at work taking on more and more national life and is coming on strong. Track 2 work is about what happens outside of government, outsides of political life and mostly outside the flow of government finance. Some call Track 2 the private sector!

Often Track 2 takes place in broad daylight, gets on with its dreams and makes big differences to peoples lives but quietly with little fanfare and fuss. Take the example of the Boy Scouts who recently rented AMY's fast food outlet located near Westpac Bank. The place is alive with customers from before 8:00 in the morning to well after 7:00 in the evening. At least 30 young people, boy and girl youths, wearing bright yellow T-shirts, smiling all the time, serve you your favorite fast food.

Here's a Track 2 enterprise getting on with it, making a difference in the city's life with hardly an adult in sight. But this is but one example which is beginning to root all over the place. Sophia Chottu, over the past two years, has organized more than 50 workers to take up fruit picking jobs in New Zealand. She's back at it again this year with more than a 100 Solomon Islanders making serious plans to show how villagers can take on the world and make good money doing it overseas.

Track 2 people are found all over the place. They see an opening and before anyone realizes it they have plans to make a profitable go at a new work. No waiting around for a government grant or political directives but simply these entrepreneurs put on their thinking caps and get on with making money for themselves and for others. For instance, some Solomon Islanders are supplying leading fast food places with tasty and nutrious backed goods, cakes and pastries. Others make the sale of flowers, floral arrangements and garden shrubs their favorite income generating method.

The bulk of our people, obviously, are not sitting down bemoaning their fate. Women, especially our garden wealth makers, bring the Honiara Market alive six days a week. First time visitors to these isles are introduced to the Honiara Market and come away from a brief visit with true appreciation of how much and the variety of food Solomons women produce. Just the daily selection of banana types, cabbage varieties and fruits--pineapple, mango, pawpaw, lemons, etc.--on a constant and continuous basis is an indication of women's wealth production techniques. All of these wealth producers are Track 2 people getting on with life drawing from their own substance with hardly a nod from the Track 1 people.

Of course both Track 1 and Track 2 are bound up with each other. Both are needed by the other to make the Solomons hum as before. Track 1 is about foundations. Getting and keeping peace is foundational. Without a solid justice system--policing, courts and prisons--all other levels go up in smoke. But quality education, well stocked health sites, reliable transport and improved communication links are the serious business of Track 1's work. No one else--business houses, churches, non state actors--rarely want to take on Track 1's work.

Yet without this sort of foundation work rooting and growing, Track 2 work just wont make it. I haven't mentioned bigger enterprises--John Volrath's biodiesel out at Ranadi, Colin Dyer's Virgin Oil production in 18 village groups, etc.--which are also in Track 2. With these and Solomon Islanders entrepreneurs working together, then Track 1 has a solid future as well.

J. Roughan
5 February 2007
Honiara