Sustainability of Sustainable Development in Least Developed Countries

A Requirement for the Course

Social and Economic Development

Submitted to

Professor Andreja Jakli

(Course Coordinator and Instructor)

University of Ljubljana
By

Berhanu Gebremichael (Ph.D. Student)

School of Local Development and Global Dynamics University of Trento gb.challa@email.unitn.it or berhanu24@yahoo.com

November 2009 Trento, Italy

Sustainability of Sustainable Development in Least Developed CountriesBerhanu Gebremichael, UNTN, SLD, 2009

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (SD) has been evolving for more than 37 years. The 1972 United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this evolution by emphasizing that protection of the human environment is a crucial element in the development agenda to explore the connection between quality of life and environmental quality. However, it was not until 1987 that the term sustainable development was defined as development that can meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 1 This definition established the need for integrated decision making that is capable of balancing the economic and social needs of the people with the regenerative capacity of the natural environment. The Brundtland Report also suggests that creating separately existing environmental institutions is not enough because environmental issues are an integral part of all development policies. They are crucial to economic considerations and sector policies and should be integrated as part of energy decisions, social issues, and other aspects of development work (Franks, 1996). The next milestone, the Earth Summit-giving equal importance to the environment and development-endorsed Agenda 21, a program of action governing human activities with an impact on the environment. It also endorsed the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of Forest Principles (UN, 2002). In addition, in the UN Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, article 4 of the UN Climate Change Convention provides that the Parties have the right to, and should, promote development. The Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanism is designed in part to assist participating developing countries in achieving SD. At the 2002 World Summit on SD held in Johannesburg, South Africa, heads of state and world leaders committed to implement Agenda 21 and decided to carry out a plethora of partnerships to promote SD, which has many aspects, including economic and financial, environmental and ecological, as well as social. That is why Roseland (2000) shows that the chief focus of SD is on society, and its aim is to include environmental considerations in the steering of societal change especially through changes to the way in which the economy functions. All the efforts demonstrate that the promotion of SD is about visioning these alternative futures through attitudinal and value changes, policy innovations, political transformations and economic restructuring, embracing a future that is sustainable. Its challenge is to ensure that society moves along a social trajectory that avoids both the pathways that lead to a direct deterioration of the social state and those that lead to a situation from which further progress is impossible; a situation of inequality depression-the dividend world (Meadowcroft 1999). Due to the catastrophes in the least developed countries (LDCs), the task of providing an operational context for the concept of SD and identifying practical policy guidelines for its realization has never been more urgent. In such regions, policies are being pursued that are making excessive demand on limited resources and the carrying capacity of fragile eco-systems. As World Bank (2006) indicates in Rogers et al. (2008), about half the worlds population subsisted on less than $2 a day in 2002. About 44 percent of all households in Africa and 31 percent of people in South Asia lived below the $1-a-day poverty line. Eighty percent of the LDCs soils are fragile, 47 % of the land is too dry to support rain-fed agriculture, and average rainfall varies by 30 to 40 % per annum. In many areas, World Bank (2004) indicates, population pressure is pushing farmers onto marginal lands and causing deforestation, severe soil erosion, and declining productivity. Where environmental abuse leads to loss of arable land, wildlife and water supplies, and even local climate change, the effects are felt in declining incomes and a diminishing quality of life to result in chronic poverty.

World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987.

Sustainability of Sustainable Development in Least Developed CountriesBerhanu Gebremichael, UNTN, SLD, 2009

In the LDCs, the issue of deforestation further illustrates some of the complex linkages between soil and water in the matter of resource depletion. Degradation or destruction of forests causes soils to be rapidly diminished in their productive capacity because time does not permit their restoration and technical remedies are out of the reach. In these countries, the amplitude of fooddrought cycles increases, affecting flood-prone and irrigation-dependent croplands. This is exacerbated by sedimentation and siltation of irrigation channels, reservoirs, natural lakes, and offshore waters. What is more, other unwanted consequences arise through, for example, the use of fertilizer and a substitute fuel, robbing soil of fertility to the extent of an estimated minimum of 20 million tons per annum. Thus, the use, or misuse and overuse, of the total forest resource negatively affects other natural resources, including soils, water, hydro-power potential, species, and gene reserves. Shortcomings in the forestry sector will spill over into agriculture, energy, public health, communications, and fisheries, among other development sectors. Present use degrades the natural resource base to the detriment of the current generation in subsequent years and of generations into the indefinite future, questioning SD. As argued by Boyce (2003), social and economic inequalities can influence the distribution of the costs and benefits from environmental degradation and the extent of environmental protection. When those benefit from environmentally degrading economic activities are powerful relative to those who bear the costs, environmental protection is weaker than when the reverse is true. The analysis suggests that socio-economic inequality leads to environmental inequality, which may consequently affect the extent of environmental quality. This objective has been met through Target 9 of the UN Millennium Development Goals 2 , which was launched in 2000 and demands that environmental conservation should be an integral part of any economic and development policy, but unsuccessful in effect. In this regard, the LDCs are the focus of attention as they are thought hey will be unable to meet the targets set until 2015. They are still in poorer conditions in all aspects. That is why Melnick et al. (2005) highlight the critical importance of achieving environmental sustainability to meet the MDGs with respect to poverty, illiteracy, hunger, gender inequality, unsafe drinking water and environmental degradation. They argue that achieving environmental sustainability requires carefully balancing human development activities while maintaining a stable environment that predictably and regularly provides resources and protects people from natural calamities. According to Rogers et al. (2008), to achieve SD, causes of poverty like resource depletion and degradation in perpetuity should be tackled. Furthermore, factors of development that leads to resource depletion, degradation, and climate changes needs to be broken if development is to be sustainable. UNEP (1995) stresses that poverty must be reduced by meeting basic needs: health, education, shelter, productive employment, control over common property, and population management. Similarly, to minimize the environmental and social consequences of development, a strategic assessment of policies and plans must be under taken. Projects must be assessed for their impact upon the environment and society as the data on some cross-country indicators of poverty and environmental change indicate that poor countries are much more dependent on natural resources as assets than rich countries and the ratio of people to forested land is more than three times higher in LDCs than in high income countries. The core challenge to the development agents, consequently, is to provide productive work and a good quality of life for the existing 2.8 billion people now living on under $2 per day while absorbing the two to three billion people who will be added to the worlds population in the next 30-50 years. Thus, substantial growth is needed in output and productivity in LDCs, and improvement in the ecosystems and the sociofabric on which development depends (Leach, and Mearns, 1991). Data from the same source
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the losses of environmental resources - Target 9 of the UNs MDGs.
2

Sustainability of Sustainable Development in Least Developed CountriesBerhanu Gebremichael, UNTN, SLD, 2009

indicate that the ratio of the 20 richest countries to the 20 poorest has doubled in the last 30 years, and it has doubled not so much because the rich countries got richer, but because the LDCs have not experienced any growth. Indeed, the growth rate in these poorest countries has been minus 1%. There has been low growth, high conflict, and inequality, which taken together have undermined development gains. The number of poor people remains unacceptably high. Even if income is discounted as an accurate indicator of well-being, other measurements, such as malnutrition, or children under the age of five that are underweight, confirm the number of the poorabout 900 million people, close to the 1.2 billion that now earn $1 a day. What is even more alarming is that, of the 33 LDCs, 17 have been engaged either in civil, ethnic, or border wars since 1990. Such military conflicts bring down development benefits and corrode social structure. Thus, there is a group of countries that are under stress, are falling behind socially and economically, and yet have not been at the center of global public attention. To mention some more examples in LDCs, the adverse impact of environmental change will be most striking in LDCs because of their high dependence on natural resources. Low-income families and regions are more vulnerable not only to human-induced environmental hazards but also to natural disasters and environmental risks. Water scarcity is already a major problem for the worlds poor, and changes in rainfall and temperature associated with climate change will likely make this scarcity worse. Crop yields are expected to decline in most tropical and subtropical regions as rainfall and temperature patterns change with a changing climate (IPCC 2001b: 84). The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that land suitable for rain-fed agriculture may shrink by 11 percent in developing countries by 2080 due to climate change (FAO, 2005: 2). There is also some evidence that disease vectors such as malaria-bearing mosquitoes will spread more widely (IPCC 2001: 455). Global warming may bring an increase in severe weather events like cyclones and torrential rains. The inadequate construction and exposed locations of poor peoples dwellings often make poor people the most likely victims of such disasters. The countries in these regions do not have the capacity to mitigate the problems by their own. Due to higher surface temperatures on land and increasing water stress, by 2025, as much as two-thirds of the world population, much of it in the developing world, may be subjected to moderate to high water stress. Estimates of the effects of climate change on crop yields are predominantly negative for the poor countries in tropics, even when adaptation and direct effects of CO2 on plant processes are taken into consideration. From another angle, another great challenge associated with the global task of SD is without doubt the strong and regionally very uneven growth of the worlds population. It seems that this threat comes more from the developing countries. Some 97% of the population growth will occur in LDCs (DGVN, 1992). The extent of population growth and the unequal spatial distribution of the human race will trigger off or reinforce global change and may cause strong emigrational pressures. This has an important impact on food production and food security in LDCs where food production barely keeps up with population growth. As Gupta and Asher (1998) indicate, the key factors governing SD are poverty, population, pollution, participation, policy and market failures, and prevention and management of disasters. According to estimates made by the UNDP, the wealthiest 20% of the global population earns 82.7% of the total global income. This bracket also accounts for 81.2% of world trade, 94.6% of commercial lending, 80.6% of domestic savings, and 80.5% of domestic investment. By contrast, the share of total global income of the poorest 20% is a mere 1.4%. Their contribution to world trade (1.0%) and commercial lending (0.2%) is statistically negligible. Rogers et al. (2008) also state that most of the poor live in South Asia (550 million), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa and then the Middle East and North Africa. A recent study (Cavanagh and Anderson, 2004) indicates that there are now 497 billionaires in the world, whose collective wealth is greater than the combined wealth of the poorest half of humanity of over three billion people. According to UN

Sustainability of Sustainable Development in Least Developed CountriesBerhanu Gebremichael, UNTN, SLD, 2009

documents, the number of millionaires in the world has soared to 7.7 million, and the number of poor people earning less than a dollar per day increased from 1.1 billion (in 1992) to 1.3 billion in 2004. A more recent (2007) UN report says, the number of millionaires in the world now stands at 9.5 million. The global income distribution and disparities drawn up by UNDP in 1992 and 1999 Human Development Report (HDR) suggests that global income inequality has worsened since then. Rogers et al. (2008) mentions that the share of world resources devoted to helping the poor has declined for decades and is a tiny fraction of what the US has repeatedly promised, and failed to give. Except for a few developed countries of the world, most industrialized countries have failed to fulfill their global commitment of 0.7% of their GDP for international assistance to reduce poverty. Current resource allocation for addressing the plight of the poor by the US is only 0.15% of its GDP. According to Sachs, the current generation can choose to end poverty provided that we are able to mobilize resources from the developed world, in accordance with commitments made at the Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro and reiterated by the World Summit on SD held in 2002 in Johannesburg. However, there are pessimist views that surround action failures and genuine responses for achievement. So, where is the sustainability after three decades of SD conventions and ten years of the MDGs? What should be emphasized taking into account these concerns? To conclude, this brief paper has tried to touch upon the core concerns in SD in LDCs. The discussion highlights that the most serious indicator of losing the way on the path to a sustainable future would be an increase in absolute levels of poverty in the world, increasing gaps between the rich countries and the poor countries. Increased polarization between the rich and the poor is leading to increased terrorist violence, failed states, further deterioration of the environment, and mass migrations for economic survival and environmental reasons. What is more, population growth and urbanization, deforestation, food and water shortages and global warming are likely to call the sustainability of the planet into question. Hence, it is believed that the most serious missions for both civil society and nation states is to establish the best institutional, policy and governance frameworks that will enable societies to move forward on the contentious issues of global resource sharing. These are absolute prerequisites for moving the planet to a sustainable state by the end of the next century. The need to make micro-macro policy links between local level rural livelihoods and national level poverty reduction efforts represented by Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) is also very crucial in the LDCs. Theses plans and realities call for more actions and genuine collaborations from all the international governing bodies to save the world from the catastrophes that the world may face if the problems persist for the coming 30 to 40 years, leave SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

REFERENCES Boyce, J. (2003). "Aid, Conditionality, and War Economies," Working Papers wp70, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Cavanagh, J. and Anderson, S. (2004) Economic Development Futures Web Journal (June 2004); and Merrill Lynch and Capgemini (2007): Eleventh Annual World Wealth Report DGVN Deutsche Gesellschaft fr die Vereinten Nationen (1992): Weltbevlkerungsbericht 1992. Die Welt im Gleichgewicht. Bonn: DGVN.

Sustainability of Sustainable Development in Least Developed CountriesBerhanu Gebremichael, UNTN, SLD, 2009

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). (2005) Fertilizer Yearbook. FAO Statistics Series. Rome. Franks, T., (1996) Managing sustainable development: definitions, paradigms and dimensions, Sustainable Development, Vol 4, No 2. Gupta, Avijit.; Asher, Mukul G. (1998) Environment and the Developing World : Principles, Policies, and Management. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. (UK) Human Development Report (1992) UNDP. Global Dimensions of Human Development. Available at: http:// hdr.undp.org/repor ts/global/1992/en/ Human Development Report (1999) UNDP. Globalization with a Human Face. Available at: http://hdr.undp. org/repor ts/global/1999/en/ Human Development Report (2005) UNDP. Economic http://hdr.undp.org/ statistics/data/indic/indic_137_1_1.html Performance. Available at:

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