Socially Sustainable Development - Beyond

Economic Growth

by Leisa Perch Coordinator – Rural and Sustainable Development

IPC-IG

AMUN, Model UN, UnB

Brasilia,July 28th, 2011

Email: leisa.perch@ipc-undp.org

Introduction to IPC-IG

• IPC-IG is a partnership of the Government of Brazil and UNDP based in Brasilia, Brazil.

• Focus of our research is international; specifically focused on the South and on South-South Cooperation and Learning.

• Themes for IPC’s applied policy research: Macro-Economic Policy, Rural and Sustainable Development, Social Protection, Development Innovations.

• In Rural and Sustainable Development, the focus in on 3 key areas:• Climate Change• Food Security• International Environmental Governance

*See more on our webpage: www.ipc-undp.org

Focus of Presentation

Our work on Sustainable Development focuses on environmental risk including climate change as an added distortion to and opportunity for reconciling environment, social and economic imperatives in policy and in the context of inclusive growth. Our theme is : “For Growth to be Inclusive it must be sustained and sustainable. And to be Sustainable it must be equitable”.

This presentation will focus on:– The Global Development Agenda: Key Issues (MDGs, South-South

Cooperation), – Sustainable Development and Green Economy: Evolution of the Concepts,– Sustainable Development: Linkages with Inclusion – Rio+20 and the international negotiations on sustainable development:

Where are we going? What do we want to achieve?

Inclusive Growth - process and outcome

Inclusive growth is both an outcome and a process. On the one hand, it ensures that everyone can participate in the

growth process, both in terms of decision-making for organising the growth progression as well as in participating in

the growth itself. On the other hand, it makes sure that everyone shares equitably the benefits of growth. Inclusive

growth implies participation and benefit-sharing. Participation without benefit sharing will make growth unjust

and sharing benefits without participation will make it a welfare outcome (IPC-IG).

Situating Inclusion in the Development Discourse

.......Not just about morality. About development effectiveness, rights

and justice.

“Development cannot be achieved if half of the world’s population is left out” – Helen Clark

“Gender equality is an issue of developmental effectiveness, not just a matter of political correctness or kindness to women”

(WB, 2002:1).

“Inequality hinders progress in development” (UNECLAC, 2010)

Inclusion guaranteed through Rights

UDHR, Article 25 (1) - everybody has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being………. And the right to security in the event of

unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his/her control.

(United Nations, Declaration of Human Rights Article 25 (1)

Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (Article 5): “respect to the rights held by indigenous peoples over genetic resources” and for “mutually agreed terms” in Paragraph 2 of the article. It goes further to recognize benefits in both “monetary and non-monetary terms” in Para 4 of the same Article of the Protocol.

the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states in Part III, Article 11, Paragraph 2 that: The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger ……….shall take actions relating to the supply and production of food.

Inclusion as a policy instrument

Inclusion as a critical input for achieving global public goods

-Equality and Equity-Security-A safe and regenerating planet-Security key fundamental rights-Essential freedoms (want, hunger, violence)

Relies on Sound Policy (underpinned by concepts) and effective institutional frameworks)

Uneven Development + enhanced risk

• Where growth, gender, poverty and environment meet:

• The poor own a small share of global wealth and their progress in increasing their share of income is slow.

• Food production is threatened by many factors and maintaining adequate levels of food is important for household security, and for health and education.

• Continued food production depends significantly on adequate and consistent access to water.

• Women still make up a large % of agricultural labour including unpaid.

• 10 countries accounted for over 60% of Gross World Output in 2010 (CIA, 2011)

• Though the US still sits largely at near the top of the GDP per capita pyramid, inequality is a concern.

Source: Ortiz and Cummins, 2010 adapted from Sutcliffee (2005) and others

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA: MDGS, INEQUALITY and

ESCALATING RISK

Key Milestones in Global Development Agenda

• 1972 – Stockholm• 1984 – Our Common Future• 1990 – First Human Development Report • 1992 – UNCED and Agenda 21• 1995 – Beijing Platform of Action• 1999 – SIDS Plan of Action, • 2000 – MDGs• 2000 - Financing for Development

Conference• 2005 – WSSD• 2006 • 2010 – MDGs +10• 2012 – Rio +20• 2015 – MDGs +15

Human Development Concept – Beyond GDP

• Ul Haq and Sen (1990) broadened the focus to include inequalities such as gender and conceptual shift wherein growth becomes the means for development rather than an end in itself.

• Opportunities and capabilities as essential freedoms which enable human development

• Literacy, labour-force participation and access to resources by women positively impact on pro-poor growth and the rate of growth (Klasen (2006)

• “inequality is not just bad for social justice, it is also bad for economic efficiency” Oxfam (2000)

The Difference the MDG Approach can make

Taken from the Report of Third Working Group on Primary Education and General Equality of the Millennium Project, 2005

Interactions Food, Energy and Water

• Food security depends on water and energy;

• Water supply and distribution depend on energy and labour; and

• Energy can be supplied by water

• Famine in Somalia• Displacement of 40

MN in 2010

• Water for energy has a higher market value than food for nutrition

• Deforestation caused by land clearing has the lowest value of the three major causes (Vatenfall, 2007)

Food, Water, Energy Nexus

System Diagram for Risk Associated with the water-food-energy nexus. Source: World Economic Forum http://riskreport.weforum.org/global-risks-2011.pdf

Food Security

According to FAO’s hunger

measure based on undernourishment, South Africa has less than 5% population undernourishment (2005-2007), Brazil (6%) and India (21%).

Brazil’s “Zero Hunger Program” covering food access, agriculture and income generation, and South Africa’s “National Integrated Food Security Strategy” focusing on household food production, income opportunities; nutrition, and food emergencies reflect an integrated and formalised government strategy, while India’s 20 or so food schemes are related to different government sectors and is not integrated.

Social Risk and Global Inequality

• Poverty and inequality are a significant burden for youth• 82 % of disabled people live below the poverty line in

developing countries (UN) • Indigenous groups are amongst the poorest of the poor

globally• NGOs have increased in importance for and to service

delivery but remain relatively underfunded• Every year, 2 million people – mostly women and children

– die as a result of indoor air pollution (UNDP)• PLHIV/PLWHA still face significant discrimination in the

work place• Racial inequality, income inequality and limited access to

services are still linked in many countries – North and South

Global Inequality and Consumption

• The richest fifth:• Consume 45% of all meat and fish,

the poorest fifth 5%• Consume 58% of total energy, the

poorest fifth less than 4%• Have 74% of all telephone lines,

the poorest fifth 1.5%• Consume 84% of all paper, the

poorest fifth 1.1%• Own 87% of the world’s vehicle

fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%

(UNDP, 1998 HDR) Sourced from http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism

Structural Issues in Food Production/ Security

• Purchasing power is determined by more than just prices – income matters significantly and the capacity of income to keep pace with prices and other sources of inflation

• Food consumes approximately 40-50% of the income of the poor

• Productive capacity: • Arable land per head of agricultural

population (hectare per capita) in 2007 was 0.4 as compared to 1.5 in LAC.

• Irrigated land as a % of arable land was 2.2 for Africa as compared to 21.6 in the Middle East and North Africa and 35.7 in Asia and the Pacific.

• Land mines restrict access to land and productivity in post-conflict states – Africa and Asia

• Scale of investment in agriculture particularly from ODA has been consistently declined in the last 30 years

• Land purchases in Africa by foreign countries?

• 300 million Africans (more than 35 percent of the population) have no access to safe drinking water, and 313 million lack basic sanitation (Osman-Elasha,2009),

• Malnutrition in Africa is estimated at 32% the highest in the world

• Malaria costs Africa approximately USD 12 billion annually (World Bank, 2011)

• 75 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s total population (and an estimated 90 per cent in rural areas) lacks access to electricity (UNDP, 2010: 42).

• 25% of SSA population lives in countries where natural resources account for more than 80% of exports

• Some estimates suggest that conflict in Africa has cost the region 300 billion between 1990 and 2005, equal to the ODA received during the period

• Labour: – Refugees and displaced persons number

over 13 million in SSA out of a regional population of 900 million

– Rural-urban migration still high mostly in West Africa

Climate Risk and Growth

• CC presents a fundamental challenge to inclusive growth processes within states and between states – limiting opportunities for productive inclusion), – potentially de-stabilizing growth (recent HR Rapporteur on CC and

displacement in Maldives)– changing the nature of growth and economies and – destroying the scarce and fragile assets available to the poor.

• Getting the mix right between CC and Inclusive Growth requires policy efforts at a number of levels:

– Reducing the burden on the poor from macro level risks in growth;– Allowing the poor and vulnerable to be heard and to define and contribute to defining

new forms and growth and participating in the transformation;– Helping the poor build and sustain assets which help them to weather shocks, whether

one time intense events or as part of long-term change where shocks will be more frequent;

– Ensuring that women, youth, farmers, the urban poor, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups have access to opportunities in order to productively contribute to growth.

– Address the interconnectivity between food, energy and water

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT and the

GREEN ECONOMY: SECURING DEVELOPMEN

PROGRESS?

Global Ecological Footprint

In 2008, global environmental damage estimated at USD 6.6 trillion (11% of GDP (UNEP, 2010)

Under BAU could reach USD 28 Trillion (by 2050)

2010 noted as a record for CO2 emissions (IEA, 2011)

Gross World Output in 2011 was over USD 63 trillion

Challenge: Decoupling growth from environmental degradation

Region Average Ecological Footprint

for consumption per capita/per

resident

Sub-Saharan Africa 1.4 gha

Latin America and the

Caribbean

2.6 gha

Europe 4.7 gha

North America 7.9 gha

Global 2.7 gha per person

Source: Ecological Footprint Atlas (2010)

A Narrow View of Development has:

tended to be:•socially sub-optimal or unconcerned with inequality or inequity (Sen, 1993). •A manifestation of Inefficient equilibrium Zaman (2008:7) . Zaman also suggests that in some cases what one observes as club privileges where a small coalition dictates the terms and limits the capacities of outsiders to enter or influence the game. •Smith and Vivekananda (2009:9) suggest that treating with the complexity of climate change, conflict and fragility requires not just “adaptation” but specifically “social adaptation to social consequences”, suggesting that more than technological, instrumental and hardware solutions are warranted.•Environment as potentially being substituted by other dimensions of the development triad (Costanza, 1997)

Theory and Reality

Diagram 4 Interlocking Circles showing the necessary movement to attain sustainability

Source: IUCN, 2006: 2.

Interlocking Circles showing the necessary movement to attain sustainability

Sustainable Development and Green Economy

Sustainable Development: economic, social and environment in tandem and in balance. Our common Future (added temporal context) – present and future generations.

Green Economy– no consensus as yet:•A Green Economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental and ecological scarcities." (UNEP, 2011) •Growth in income and employment is driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.•enhancing economic growth, social progress and environmental stewardship can be complementary strategic objectives and that the need for possible trade-offs among them en route to their realization can be overcome (WESS, 2011).•to ensure that those limits of the Earth’s capacity as a source and sink are not crossed (Ibid)

Similarities and differences

Similarities Differences

• SD based largely on environment as driver, GE on economy as engine to deliver environmental and social public goods

• Greater clarity in SD on participation and benefit-sharing

• GE driven by LCD, SD more holistically

• SD tackles issues of power and governance more directly in theory

• Based on three pillar approach and multiple outcomes across dimensions

• See active role for government and private sector

• Both weak on strategies for engaging households as active participants and sources of innovation

• Both assume virtuous links to some extent

Dangers of virtuous cycles/ linkages

• Simplistic and miss out on significant factors• Evade, ignore of avoid structural factors• Make faulty assumptions• Based on leapfrogging and virtuous leaps• Tend to ignore realities of social behaviour, power

struggles and politics• Ignore how a good one hand could produce a bad on the

other – ways in which poverty and inequality can be produced through development interventions

• Underplays or struggles with dichotomies - correlations between rising consumerism and rising poverty; rising growth and rising inequality

• Ignores or underplays knock-on effects and mutlipliers – increasing waste tied to decreasing sink capacity

Growth and Environment: Costa Rica

• Global reputation on sustainability particularly ecotourism and organic production

• The pineapple industry, the second largest agricultural exporter, has been accused of contributing to eco-degradation including water contamination (freshfruitportal.com, 2011).

• According to the WRI, Costa Rica uses the most pesticides per hectare globally, more than double that of Colombia (No.2 ) and Netherlands (3).

Source: www.learn.uvm.edu from FreshfruitPortal.com/ElPais.CR

Glaring Gender Gaps in Development

• Leaving 50% of the population out of development weakens the sustainability of growth and development

• Targeting women can be strategic and be a multiplier for development: “impacts more on household investment in nutrition, health, and education of children than extra income going to fathers” (World Bank 1995:28).

• When women are empowered, growth and the rate of growth improves (Klasen, 2006)

• Increased output of goods and services, increased leisure, increased conservation of the environment, increased capacities to enjoy good health, to exercise skills, and to

• participate in decision making (Barriteau, 2005)

YET......................

• approximately 30% of those who live on less than a dollar each day are men.

• Women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours yet receive only 10% of the world’s income.

• Men own 99% of the world’s property.• Women members of parliament globally

average only 17% of all seats.• 92% of all of the world’s cabinet ministers are

men.• Seventy-five percent of the world’s 876 million

illiterate adults are women.• In some parts of the world, the wage gap

between women and men is close to 40%.• Of the 550 million low-paid workers in the

world, 40% are men.• In a sample of 141 countries over the period

1981–2002, it was found that natural disasters (and their subsequent impact) on average kill more women than men or kill women at an earlier age than men. Cyclone Sidr, Bangladesh.

Sources: Social Watch, 2007 and 2008; Oxfam, 2007; Neumayer and Plümper, 2007; and ILO, 2008.

LINKING INCLUSION AND SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT

Inclusion is not just about who; it is it is also about why

• It is also important to recall that poverty and gender inequality are not absolutes but are relative concepts, since they refer to the status of one group relative to another in a specific context.

• Not all rural people are poor, not all women are disempowered in the same ways, and not all environmental benefits are sustainable.

• Those who have access to resources, education and opportunities are certainly vulnerable to climate change, but in a different way; they are much less vulnerable than the poor because of their capacity to cope, and to identify or create other opportunities for themselves.

It is also about how and what

The linking of sustainable livelihoods approach, the social responsibility risk reduction model/ social risk management mechanisms, writ large, can potentially close the gap by facilitating the recognition of the links, the necessary mediation between short and long-term and direct (micro) and in-direct benefits (macro) and by ensuring that benefit-sharing is complemented by risk-sharing. 

Figure 2. Proposed conceptual framework for linking adaptation, mitigation and climate-compatible development

Source: Perch, 2011

…allows you to consider time, structures and people

Co-linked urban and rural planning:– Anticipatory policies which support rural-

urban migration, access to housing and expanded sanitation can reduce the risks of expanded and persistent flooding as well as health outbreaks.

– Expanding rural income opportunities and access to energy not only helps rural development it also helps urban development by proxy. It can significantly reduce the scope and scale of pressures on the urban environment itself, the urban economy and the demand for urban services while expanding those resources in the rural sector.

– Renewable energy: Can the need for land for energy production e.g. wind be a source for rural economic regeneration i.e. Non-far income source as well as helping to reduce emissions in agriculture?

A resident of Lusaka's Misisi township wades through waterlogged streets on February 1, 2008. REUTERS/Mackson Wasamunu. Accessed from AlertNet- http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/changing-rains-poor-urban-planning-expose-zambian-capital-to-repeat-of-2010-floods/

Social Innovation: Linking Social Risk Mitigation and Productive Inclusion

Source: Perch (2010).

Programme summary Growth co-benefits

Gender co-benefits

Poverty co-benefits

Environmental co-benefits

Unique structural elements

1. Brazil’s PNPB adopts an explicit policy to incorporate family farmers into the biodiesel value chain. Incentives by GOB included distribution of seeds, technical assistance, credit and formal contracts for small-scale family farmers. Special economic incentive instruments target the less developed Northeast region (Zapata, et al., 2010).

Structures the supply chain of biodiesel in Brazil and expands the sources for the production. Linked to a regulation that demands biodiesel/diesel blending into gasoline (of at least 5 per cent) (Zapata et al., 2010).

Gender is not an issue that has been identified in the policy design of the PNPB. However, several women are small-scale farmers and take part in the programme.

Directly integrates small farmers in new markets and provides a guaranteed additional source of income for them and their families.

Expands low-carbon path of development.

The Selo Social (Social Label) certification for purchases, gives tax exemptions to the refineries purchasing a minimum required amount from smallholder farmers, and full tax exemption to those purchasing from farmers in the Northeast region. (Zapata et al., 2010).

2. Ethiopia’s PSNP provides cash and food in exchange for work during the food insecurity and hunger period, (Davies et al., 2008).

Maximises benefits across sectors; reduces need for emergency welfare mechanisms in times of drought.

Includes focus on women and gender dimensions of poverty.

Cash transfers alleviate stress and insecurity; build assets and gather funds for mitigating climate-related risks.

Prevent the use of environmentally-damaging coping strategies particularly in times of drought.

Safety net programme – linking social protection and climate change.

VALUESO’Brien and Wolf (2010: 233) note that :

“a values-based approach to vulnerability and adaptation recognises that economic assessments of

impacts and responses, as exemplified in the Stern Review, cannot capture the full

significance of climate change. The experiential and cultural dimensions of climate change,

largely ignored in assessments by the IPCC, examine the meaning and relevance of climate change for individuals

and groups. Vulnerability is not simply about the negative

material outcomes associated to climate change … Consequently, what is considered legitimate and successful adaptation depends on what people

perceive to be worth preserving and achieving, including their culture

and identity”.

Solidarity as a Value: Brazil

The Solidarity Economy embraces the concept of a “social economy’’ or growth driven by social accountability and responsibility combined with a focus on environmental sustainability. In Brazil, the "Solidarity Economy" started in the 1980s with the organization of rural workers, expanding in the 90s and early 2000s into a social movement.  

Paul Singer, professor and Secretary of the Solidarity Economy National Secretariat argues in his book Introduction to Solidarity Economy (Introdução à Economia Solidária) that Solidarity Economy is a alternative proposal between capitalism and classic socialism and updates ideas of John Stuart Mill.

In 2005 it involved over a million persons and 41% of municipalities in Brazil. While linked to the concept of productive inclusion, it goes further. In November 2010, President Lula signed a decree making Brazil the first Equitable and Solidarity trade system in the world that is recognized and supported by the state[1].

Solidarity Economy is a vision in which a series of parameters  are to be followed during the execution of public policies aimed at creating employment and revenues through actions of promotion of the solidarity economy and of fair trade. Its objectives include conscious consumerism, social responsibility, a national identity of equitable and solidarity trade; and equitable pricing for those who produce, commercialize and consume.

SE linked into the national policy framework through a National Secretariat and a council and more recently a policy signed by Lula integrating the solidarity economy into Brazil’s growth strategy. 

Green as a Value

• UNDP’s Green Commodities Facility and Public-Private Platforms for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth” :

• Builds on experiences of the Green Commodities Facility (GCF) as well as broader work of UNDP in the area of inclusive markets and value chain development.

• Partnership of the Environment and Energy Group, BDP together with the Private Sector Division.

• UNDP’s Green Commodities Facility and an emerging national platform initiative bring together public and private actors with the aim to integrate inclusive growth with environmentally sustainable and “green growth”.

• Country example: the National Platform for Responsible Production and Trade of Pineapple in Costa Rica. The platform is an initiative of UNDP and the Costa Rican Government with the objective of developing an environmentally and socially responsible model for pineapple production in the country through a dialogue among producers, exporters, authorities and civil society.

• South-South Cooperation and Learning can share good practices

RIO+20: INCLUSION AS A DEVELOPMENT

VALUE

Criticisms of SD in practice

Sustainable development has become, in many ways, a “catch-all phrase”, largely framed within “limits to growth” and defined by the management and conservation of environmental resources.

Cascio (2009) considers resilience linked to but not synonymous with sustainability; noting specifically that “resilience, conversely [as opposed to sustainability] accepts that change is inevitable and in many cases out of our hands, focusing instead on the need to be able to withstand the unexpected”.

Initially, it was often assumed that by successfully reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, biodiversity and other ecosystem services would benefit automatically. However, the more the scope of the mechanism was widened, the more it became obvious that REDD+ would not necessarily generate additional benefits” (Pistorius et al, 2010: ii).

Poverty and Environment are not natural bedfellows (Gilbert, 2010)

Getting the Policy Right ………

• Triple challenge : (i) anticipate and mitigate the worst; (ii) safeguard progress; and (iii) ensure the compatibility of development actions at various levels.

• Prioritizing the need for dual attention to participation and benefit-sharing

• Recognizing the key role of the state and effective partnership with the private sector and civil society.

• Focus on process and outcomes

Process Flows - IGES model

Source: Akenji, 2010

Getting the Politics Right………

• Understanding the challenges in a post-conflict economy

• Understanding that the virtuous cycle of development does not always play out. In mineral driven development economies – the story is as riddled with conflict as it is with success

• Understanding the difference between agency and empowerment

• Understanding gender-based violence and the pervasiveness of sexually based violence throughout the world

• The complementary roles of government, private sector and households – government as steerer and editor in chief

Broadening the analytical framework

• This framework focuses on optimizing co-benefits in a multidimensional context (growth, gender, poverty and environment, or GGPE) and stresses harmonized and convergent policies to achieve multiple outcomes and can be applied for linking adaptation and mitigation.

Figure 3:Adjusted Co-Benefits Framework Based on GGPE Considerations

Source: (Perch, 2010).

Delivering Sustained Progress and Sustainability• Poverty reduction gains are sustained : Trajectory

for poverty reduction is from indigence (extreme poverty) to poverty to being non-poor to being in the middle class.

–How the poor and households will become active participants and not just beneficiaries

–Moving from ideals to practical solutions–Matching problems to solutions – at the heart of many global dilemmas including food security are issues of governance not economics.

–Accounting for the short and long-term impact of repeated natural shocks.

Delivering Quality of Growth outcomes

• Defining Qualitative measures of growth and development

• Investments vs financing• Giving value to multiple positive externalities such as security, sustainability, resilience-building

• Accounting for the environmental quality of growth (going Green and Green GDP)

•Quality of Partnerships and Governance - Mutualism

Thank You!!!!!

Contact information:

Leisa Perch, IPC-IGEmail: leisa.perch@ipc-undp.orgor leisa.perch@undp.org

Obrigada!

Gracias!

Merci!