Ms. Nishimizu said:"Once in a blue moon, in our development work, there comes a moment when one must put the past behind, look squarely into the future, dream what was thought impossible, and choose 'a road less travailed by'. Time, to suspend disbelief. Time, to change mindset. Time, to act-and act differently."

Certainly her words had important messages for us. If Sri Lankans keep looking behind we will have no future. We must put the past behind and be pragmatic in our approaches. We must think of the economic gains ahead rather than the rights and wrongs of the past. We must balance the costs and the benefits of any course of action and choose the least costly and the most beneficial.

A second lesson she emphasised was the need for leadership. In her words. "To harness this strength, at such a historic moment of great opportunity, people anywhere need a visible leadership of their government-a group of leaders in their government who works as a true 'team'.

They need a leadership team totally aligned to a shared vision; a team that individually and collectively gives inspiration and hope; a team that acts from its shared conviction of common purpose; and a leadership team whose consistency of words and actions, individually and collectively, earns the trust and confidence of the people over time.'

Once again she picked one of the most serious national weaknesses. At the highest levels of the government, as well as all other levels, there is an inability to work as a team. Team- work is the essence of effective and efficient economic management. We must develop this capacity for teamwork to ensure effective and smooth implementation of development projects.

Whether we can generate such a leadership at this critical period remains to be seen. Past experience does not suggest that we could generate such a committed and collective team in a short period.

We must attempt to change our political culture and individual attitudes to become team members rather than work in different directions of our own. She then gave Sri Lankans the best possible advice. Being fully aware of the weakness of South Asians to talk and talk and discuss issues rather than implement programmes, she said:"If I am to choose one advice out of this Forum, it is this: implementation, as if the life of Nation Sri Lanka depends on it, because it does."

The call for pragmatism, good leadership and teamwork are indeed vital for economic growth. Without these the best conceived plans would not succeed. The economic crisis we face requires us to make a transformation in values, attitudes and approaches if we are to fulfill the promises of peace for the economy.

It is only if these are fulfilled that we can aspire to Ambassador Wills' hope of making Sri Lanka the Singapore of South Asia. Peace alone will not automatically bring about the economic transformation. Singapore's economic miracle was achieved by unparalleled social engineering.

There are many reasons why we cannot achieve what Singapore has attained. Unlike Sri Lanka, Singapore is a small city-state, autocratic rather than democratic and the basic cultural values are very different. In fact it is not the desire of Sri Lankans to become another Singapore.

The expectation that Ambassador Wills articulated was not such a total social transformation, but a generation of an economic efficiency that would enable the country to profit from its location and certain comparative advantages that the country has.

Yet to achieve these we require following the advice of the World Bank VP and in fact much more. We hope that the great expectations would be realised, not by dreaming about them but acting to achieve them.

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