Wed, 02 Nov 2011 07:00:00 GMT
By Helen Clark
Administrator,
United Nations Development Programme, UNDP
In June 2012 world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro to seek a new consensus on global actions to safeguard the future of the planet and the right of future generations everywhere to live healthy and fulfilling lives. This is the great development challenge of the 21st century.
The 2011 Human Development Report offers important new contributions to the global dialogue on this challenge, showing how sustainability is inextricably linked to basic questions of equity—that is, of fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life. Sustainability is not exclusively or even primarily an environmental issue, as this Report so persuasively argues. It is fundamentally about how we choose to live our lives, with an awareness that everything we do has consequences for the 7 billion of us here today, as well as for the billions more who will follow, for centuries to come.
Understanding the links between environmental sustainability and equity is critical if we are to expand human freedoms for current and future generations. The remarkable progress in human development over recent decades, which the global Human Development Reports have documented, cannot continue without bold global steps to reduce both environmental risks and inequality. This Report identifies pathways for people, local communities, countries and the international community to promote environmental sustainability and equity in mutually reinforcing ways.
In the 176 countries and territories where the United Nations Development Programme is working every day, many disadvantaged people carry a double burden of deprivation. They are more vulnerable to the wider effects of environmental degradation, because of more severe stresses and fewer coping tools. They must also deal with threats to their immediate environment from indoor air pollution, dirty water and unimproved sanitation. Forecasts suggest that continuing failure to reduce the grave environmental risks and deepening social inequalities threatens to slow decades of sustained progress by the world’s poor majority— and even to reverse the global convergence in human development.
Major disparities in power shape these patterns. New analysis shows how power imbalances and gender inequalities at the national level are linked to reduced access to clean water and improved sanitation, land degradation and deaths due to indoor and outdoor air pollution, amplifying the effects associated with income disparities. Gender inequalities also interact with environmental outcomes and make them worse. At the global level governance arrangements often weaken the voices of developing countries and exclude marginalized groups.
Yet there are alternatives to inequality and unsustainability. Growth driven by fossil fuel consumption is not a prerequisite for a better life in broader human development terms. Investments that improve equity—in access, for example, to renewable energy, water and sanitation, and reproductive healthcare—could advance both sustainability and human development. Stronger accountability and democratic processes, in part through support for an active civil society and media, can also improve outcomes. Successful approaches rely on community management, inclusive institutions that pay particular attention to disadvantaged groups, and cross-cutting approaches that coordinate budgets and mechanisms across government agencies and development partners.
Beyond the Millennium Development Goals, the world needs a post-2015 development framework that reflects equity and sustainability; Rio+20 stands out as a key opportunity to reach a shared understanding of how to move forward. This Report shows that approaches that integrate equity into policies and programmes and that empower people to bring about change in the legal and political arenas hold enormous promise. Growing country experiences around the world have demonstrated the potential of these approaches to generate and capture positive synergies.
The financing needed for development—including for environmental and social protection—will have to be many times greater than current official development assistance. Today’s spending on low-carbon energy sources, for example, is only 1.6 percent of even the lowest estimate of need, while spending on climate change adaptation and mitigation is around 11 percent of estimated need. Hope rests on new climate finance. While market mechanisms and private funding will be vital, they must be supported and leveraged by proactive public investment. Closing the financing gap requires innovative thinking, which this Report provides.
Beyond raising new sources of funds to address pressing environmental threats equitably, the Report advocates reforms that promote equity and voice. Financing flows need to be channelled towards the critical challenges of unsustainability and inequity—and not exacerbate existing disparities.
Providing opportunities and choices for all is the central goal of human development. We have a collective responsibility towards the least privileged among us today and in the future around the world—and a moral imperative to ensure that the present is not the enemy of the future. This Report can help us see the way forward.
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Francisco Barreto, wrote: "A estas alturas de la historia y con los datos que con horror vemos cada día, yo no entiendo, como es que todavia entidades como el sistema de Naciones Unidas, no ilustran con màs fuerza, sobre la necesidad de un cambio de modelo de desarrollo en el mundo. Yo pregunto, ustedes estan para preservar al capitalismo o para preservar la especie humana. Por favor, con los datos que ustedes tienen del todo el mundo, a mí me parece muy grave que no se haga lo necesario para crear conciencia de la creación de un modelo de desarrollo diferente al actual. Todos somos culpables, pero ustedes que tienen todos losmedios son más responsables que otros estamentos. Un abrazo y mil disculpas. Por lo sincero." |
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Ruben T. Parra Natteros, Alianza Estrategica ODM Cambio Climatico Lucha Contra La Pobreza Macro Region Sur Del Peru wrote: "Frente a los graves efectos del Cambio Climático no es posible continuar con la pasividad y no apostar por la búsqueda de alternativas de solución, a corto, mediano y largo plazo, mediante la urgente adopción de medidas de protección ambiental, el replanteamiento e innovación del sistema productivo, desarrollo social sostenible y un manejo ambiental, a fin de enfrentar los graves efectos del Cambio Climático y la Lucha Contra la Pobreza, es un imperativo ético que debemos asumir el Sector Publico, las Empresas Privadas y fundamentalmente la Sociedad Civil organizada.. Acordes las recomendaciones del Señor Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas el Dr. Ban Ki-moon que insta a todos los países producir alimentos y biocombustibles y, las recomendaciones del Dr. Felipe Calderón, Presidente de México en la Clausura del COP 16, que dijo: “Es tiempo de tomar acciones Hoy, mañana será muy tarde”." |
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Luis, wrote: "If you actually took the time to read any of the reports you would know that the tendency of the HDI worldwide is moving up, i.e. getting closer to 1. Of course, that requires reading the report. Can things be improved? Sure, things are generally improving. Is it possible to improve the current pace? Sure. However, the countries with the higher HDI tend to be capitalist countries with social programs for certain sectors, this is specially obvious with the IHDI." |
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Galicia Glez, Deslinde wrote: "Creo que seguimos en la misma postura tanto ciudadanos como instituciones esperando a "que lo haga alguien mas", deslindandonos de responsabilidades que a final de cuentas son, en primera, para un beneficio general y en consecuencia para uno particular, pongamos manos a la obra que la iniciativa y el servir son la clave para llegar a lo que pacificamente y confortablemente creemos inalcanzable." |
