Showing posts from category development.
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Halfway Gone: Tracking Progress on the MDGs
›May 15, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesRemember the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? We are approaching the halfway point marking the 15-year effort toward eradicating poverty, and improving livelihoods and sustainability. Taking stock of progress in reaching these targets could not come at a better time.
The Global Monitoring Report 2007 annually reviews progress on the MDG targets and highlights emerging priorities on achieving them. This year’s report focuses on gender equity and fragile states. According to the report, progress is evident, but it is clear there is much more work to be done, specifically in harmonizing aid and “translating good intent into viable outcomes on the ground.” It also says that promoting gender equity and empowerment of women can be a conduit to achieve targets for universal primary education, improved child mortality rates and maternal health, and reduced HIV/AIDS transmission—each an MDG in its own right. Similar themes are voiced—albeit with an emphasis on health disparities—in Save the Children’s latest report State of the World’s Mothers: Saving the Lives of Children Under 5.
One of the most interesting resources in tracking progress is The World Bank Group’s Online Atlas of the Millennium Development Goals, which maps each of the eight MDGs by country. The atlas is an easily digestible interface with visually stimulating functions that complement narrative progress reports.
Together, these reports provide a sobering snapshot of what still needs to be done. Indeed, others sources point to the lack of quality data for indicators within the MDGs, which makes tracking progress and assessing success extremely difficult. The Global Monitoring Report doesn’t mince words when it says that “[s]even years after the Millennium Summit at which the MDGs were adopted, there is yet to be a single country case where aid is being scaled up to support achieving the MDG agenda.” Continuing with the MDG development framework is important, but failing to scale up support and harmonize donor effort could further stall progress and “jeopardize the credibility of the program itself.” -
The French Connection: Population, Environment, and Development
›April 1, 2007 // By Gib ClarkeFor the past three years, the Parisian NGO Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography (CICRED) has funded programs around the world on the connections among population, environment, and development. Last week, representatives from these research programs—the overwhelming majority of whom are natives of the countries where the work was done—presented the findings of their studies at an international colloquium at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris.
Twenty studies, representing countries throughout sub-Saharan African and Asia, were presented. Although each study produced unique findings, common themes emerged: inter- and intra-national immigration and rapid urbanization are cause for concern. In many of the studies, the rates of urbanization were such that urban planning could not keep up, leading to shortages of basic services like water and sanitation.
While immigration is often looked at in terms of the impact on the country of destination, presenters emphasized the negative impacts in the country of origin. Emigration often creates imbalances in gender and age cohorts (i.e., differing proportions of males and females, and a partially “missing” generations of younger people). The loss of social bonds and relationships—a phenomenon that Harvard’s Allan Hill calls a breakdown in the “moral economy,” as well as the loss of available labor, leads to less labor-intensive agricultural practices which sacrifice the environment and favor short-term gain for long-term need. Finally, although climate change was not the focus of any of these studies, its potential impact on the environment and livelihoods was an ever-present theme.
Background documents, PowerPoint presentations, data sets, and other valuable tools will be available soon from CICRED. -
A Diversified Agenda for the New Africa Command
›March 5, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoBuilding things rather than blowing them up is how New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof describes a primary approach of one U.S. military base in the Horn of Africa. In his March 3 column, Kristof, who regularly writes on humanitarian, poverty, health, and development issues in the region, writes approvingly of the recognition within the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) that force and fear alone are not going to win the war on terror. As evidence Kristof cites the actions and words of the U.S. military.“The U.S. started to realize that there’s more to counterterrorism than capture-kill kinetics,” said Capt. Patrick Myers of the Navy, director of plans and policy here. “Our mission is 95 percent at least civil affairs. … It’s trying to get at the root causes of why people want to take on the U.S.”
Kristof describes the possibility of the traditional warfighting mission coexisting alongside increased humanitarian roles.The 1,800 troops here do serve a traditional military purpose, for the base was used to support operations against terrorists in Somalia recently and is available to reach Sudan, Yemen or other hot spots. But the forces here spend much of their time drilling wells or building hospitals; they rushed to respond when a building collapsed in Kenya and when a passenger ferry capsized in Djibouti.
Kristof suggests this muscular humanitarian mission should be central to the new Africa Command the U.S. military recently announced. Standing up this regional command will mean breaking most of sub-Saharan Africa out of European Command where most of it save the Horn and North Africa has historically been situated. While some may question whether outside military interventions aren’t more the problem than the solution, the emphasis on a military humanitarian role recognizes security and stability as a necessary precondition for lasting development.
Rear Adm. James Hart, commander of the task force at Camp Lemonier, suggested that if people in nearby countries feel they have opportunities to improve their lives, then “the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes.”
For the historically inclined, it is worth remembering that General Anthony Zinni, the Marine four star who headed CENTCOM just before the war in Iraq, had internalized these lessons and practiced humanitarian and development engagement to support his stability missions. Unfortunately it was thinking like his that was jettisoned when the Iraq war started. -
March Conference on Population, Development, and the Environment
›February 28, 2007 // By Gib ClarkeCICRED is organizing an international conference on population, development, and environment in the South, March 21-23, 2007 in collaboration with UNESCO, as part of the Programme for International Research on the Interactions between Population, Development, and Environment (PRIPODE).
The conference will last two and a half days. Beyond the dissemination of the PRIPODE findings, this conference will also create an arena for dialogue between scholars, actors, and decision-makers from the South and the North, and it will aim to strengthen the links between research and action in the field of sustainable development.
For further information, please visit the Conference website. -
U.S. Forgives Liberian Debt; Now Only a Few Billion More to Go
›February 14, 2007 // By Alison WilliamsPresident of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—the first elected female head of state in Africa—spoke in Washington on Monday about the progress and challenges to development in her country. Efforts to expand development beyond the capital city of Monrovia (electricity and running water only recently returned after a 15-year hiatus) have been hampered by time spent pleading with international lenders to forgive the odious debt incurred during Charles Taylor’s regime.
Debt forgiveness seems like a no-brainer for a country that has shown remarkable progress in development and democracy, despite being written off not long ago as a decidedly failed state. So I was pleased to see Condoleeza Rice’s statement today, announcing that the United States will cancel $391 million of Liberia’s debt.
This is only a start though. Liberia’s total external debt is 3,000 times greater than the revenue of its exports. Without further forgiveness, the country will not be able to implement many (or any) of the plans Johnson Sirleaf spoke so passionately about during her U.S. visit: secondary road construction to revive trade in natural resources and agriculture, health care and education, and increased stability and security.
Surprisingly, Johnson Sirleaf focused very little on the role environmental resources played in Liberia’s decline. Charles Taylor partly financed his dictatorship and the war with Sierra Leone with revenues from timber, and the lifting of timber sanctions by the UN Security Council is arguably one of Johnson Sirleaf’s greatest accomplishments. Yet reference to timber was oblique; committing to better overall resource management, she said: “We are trying to build a country where our natural resources are used for the benefit of all.”
Similarly, diamonds—for which sanctions have yet to be lifted—were only briefly discussed. Johnson Sirleaf acknowledged the country is still struggling to comply with the Kimberly Process. And finally on the resource angle, Mittal Steel’s new contract for iron ore was a big focus point. It is an interesting new development if only because the company is one of the country’s few private investors—and at $1 billion, the contract is by far the largest. -
Reforestation in Niger: Is It a Model for Success?
›February 13, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesYears of drought, irregular rainfall, and environmental degradation ravaged Africa’s Sahel region in the 1970s and ‘80s, exacerbating economic, social, and environmental conditions in one of the world’s poorest regions. Coupled with an exploding population, these events provoked a collective re-think on development and conservation policy—shifting toward regional schemes to boost local capacities, establish effective land use policies, and improve community resilience to unpredictable climate conditions. Farmers in southern Niger provide a success story, reports The New York Times:“Better conservation and improved rainfall have led to at least 7.4 million newly tree-covered acres in Niger, researchers have found, achieved largely without relying on the large-scale planting of trees or other expensive methods often advocated by African politicians and aid groups for halting desertification, the process by which soil loses its fertility.”
Nevertheless, drought is only one of many forces dictating life in the Sahel. Add to the mix unknown impacts of climate change on the region’s drought cycles, shifting political and military power as well as variable financial flows from volatile markets like oil and it remains to be seen if this model can be replicated and sustained throughout the region.
For additional resources on the Sahel, see University of Nigeria Professor Anthony Nyong‘s presentation at the Wilson Center. -
European Conference: Integrating Environment, Development, and Conflict Prevention
›January 29, 2007 // By Alison WilliamsThe German EU Council Presidency will host a conference on European and national approaches and challenges to integrating environment, development, and conflict prevention in Berlin from March 29-30, 2007. Representatives from EU member states and the European Commission, civil society, the private sector, and the scientific community will identify and discuss key issues, and recommend ways to address the interdependency of environment, development, and conflict prevention policies and programs. Adelphi Research is a collaborating organizer of this conference.
Registration deadline is March 1. -
Poor Aid, Trade Policies Can Undermine Security, Say Authors of New Volume
›January 22, 2007 // By Wilson Center StaffTrade, Aid and Security: An Agenda for Peace and Development, a new edited volume arriving in bookstores next week, looks at the ways in which conflict and state failure can arise from inappropriate or misused aid and trade policies, particularly when natural resources are at stake. Richard Auty and Philippe Le Billon contribute a chapter on managing revenues from natural resources, and Ian Smillie discusses the relationship between aid and conflict.
Forward and introduction available from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
