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Weekly Reading
›New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century, a report from the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, was unveiled at a packed House Foreign Affairs Committee event this week.
The Economist continues to brush off those who worry that there are too many people consuming too many resources on Earth: “If global growth and development continue, worries about overpopulation may, in hindsight, seem a uniquely 20th century phenomenon.”
“Countries that stagnate are less able and sometimes less willing to help address transnational issues, many of which originate within their borders, including illegal migration; trafficking in narcotics, weapons, and persons; health threats such as HIV/AIDS and avian flu; and environmental concerns such as loss of biodiversity,” says USAID’s economic growth strategy.
“We know that the cruel indignities of life without clean water, adequate sanitation, sustainable livelihood, or democratic governance can deny us our basic freedoms as surely as any despotic regime,” says Condoleezza Rice, quoted in USAID’s report Expanding the Impact of Foreign Assistance Through Public-Private Alliances.
The Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, headed by Wilson Center collaborator K. Y. Amoako, presented its report Securing Our Future to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this week. -
In Egypt, Record Food Prices Lead to Family Planning
›June 12, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoAt Egypt’s National Population Conference on Monday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—whose government has struggled to respond to recent civil unrest over skyrocketing food prices and bread shortages—told attendees that high population growth is a “major challenge and fundamental obstacle” to development. The following day, Egyptian Minister of Health and Population Hatem el-Gabali announced an $80 million national family planning program with the slogan “Two children per family—a chance for a better life.” Egypt’s current fertility rate is 2.7 children per woman.
With a population of 81 million, Egypt is the 16th most populous country in the world, and, according to Philippe Fargues of the American University in Cairo (AUC), excluding the desert, Egypt has the highest population density in the world—twice that of Bangladesh.
Is the government’s plan a productive long-term response to the food crisis? How can it be part of a larger package? Or is population a distraction from the real issue of corruption, as identified by interviewees in the Washington Post article where I first read about the programs.
I posed these questions to a demography and security listserv and got some interesting responses. According to Valerie Hudson of Brigham Young University, a political scientist known best for her book Bare Branches on the security implications of imbalanced male-female population ratios: “Mubarak would do more to achieve his goal of 2.0 children per woman by a focused plan to raise the status of women, for example, by:- Outlawing polygamy, or erecting such high legal barriers to it that it becomes impractical
- Fully implementing CEDAW [the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women]
- Enforcing the ban on FGM [female genital mutilation]; 97% of Egyptian women are circumcised
- Educating women on a parity with men; the median number of years of schooling for men is 6.3; that for women is 4.4
- Raising average age at first marriage for rural women (current average is 19)
- Creating more parity in family law for women in matters such as divorce, inheritance, etc.—all of which can be found in CEDAW.”
“I don’t think population pressure is a distraction from the real issue of corruption; though the government of Egypt is indeed corrupt by developed-world standards (or maybe by any standard). Corruption, which is symptomatic of state weakness, limits the ability of the Egyptian government to address this problem credibly and effectively. But it doesn’t mean they are wrong about the problem.
I was actually struck by the modesty of official ambition to reduce the fertility rate from 2.7 (which is slightly above the world median, apparently) to 2.0 (which I’m guessing is pretty close to the middle). This assumes that, basically, a steady state population of, say, 100M Egyptians would be sustainable indefinitely. I’m not so sure of that. The impact of anticipated climate change on Egypt may prove quite formidable by the end of this century. I’m not sure a leveling off after some additional increase will do the trick….Too pessimistic? I hope so.” -
A Weekly Roundup
›“Climate change is potentially the greatest challenge to global stability and security, and therefore to national security. Tackling its causes, mitigating its risks and preparing for and dealing with its consequences are critical to our future security, as well as protecting global prosperity and avoiding humanitarian disaster,” says the UK’s first National Security Strategy report.
A water-sharing deal will be essential to achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace, reports National Geographic magazine.
In the BBC’s Green Room, Gonzalo Oveido, a senior social policy adviser with IUCN, argues that the global food crisis will only be ameliorated if policymakers put greater emphasis on biodiversity and overall ecosystem health.
USAID has released The United States Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, which outlines the U.S. government’s contribution toward meeting the eight goals by 2015. Fragile states face some of the steepest challenges to achieving the MDGs.
An article in Nature Conservancy magazine asks five conservation experts whether—and if so, how—conservation organizations should contribute to poverty alleviation. -
Weekly Reading
›The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States, the long-awaited report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, was released this week.
The Worldwatch Institute’s Robert Engelman discussed his recent book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.
Saleem Ali urges Pakistan and India to amicably resolve the Sir Creek dispute in an op-ed in Pakistan’s Daily Times.
“Reducing carbon dependency also goes to the heart of our basic security needs for the future,” writes Tony Blair in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
A new guide from the Population Reference Bureau on sexual and reproductive health in the Middle East and North Africa targets journalists. -
Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva’s Resignation
›On May 13, 2008, renowned environmental defender Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, resigned from her post after losing yet another political battle for control of environmental policies within the federal government. The “last straw” was President Luiz Inácio da Silva’s decision to place Minister of Strategic Affairs Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Harvard law professor with limited experience with Amazon affairs, in charge of the highly publicized Sustainable Amazon Plan (PAS), withdrawing it from the auspices of the Ministry of Environment. Silva’s decision has had major negative repercussions and has exposed the shortcomings of Brazil’s Amazon policy.
The daughter of poor rubber tappers who became a successful politician and a champion of the Amazon, Silva was one of the most recognized and admired members of President Lula’s government. While a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the 1980s, she led the Association of Rubber Tree Tappers with Chico Mendes, a pioneer of the Brazilian environmental movement who was murdered in 1988. That same year, Silva was elected to the state legislature of Acre. In 1994, she was elected to the Senate on the Worker’s Party (PT) platform, and was re-elected in 2002. During her eight years in Congress (1995-2002), Silva became a well-respected expert on sustainable development and national environmental protection issues.
Yet during her tenure as Minister of Environment, Silva lost many important battles and was rapidly becoming a merely symbolic figure. Particularly contentious was the alleged obstructionism of Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Resources (IBAMA) technicians, who refused to issue environmental permits for large development projects—especially hydro-electric projects—in the Amazon region. In response, President Lula reduced Silva’s power by splitting IBAMA into two agencies and separating environmental protection from the issuance of environmental licenses. IBAMA personnel reacted with a strike.
Silva’s resignation has already had significant domestic and international ramifications. All second- and third-echelon employees in the Ministry of Environment and IBAMA resigned in solidarity with her. Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva, vice president of Conservation International-South America, called Silva’s departure a “disaster”; Anthony Hall, a development and environment specialist at the London School of Economics, noted that “her resignation will be interpreted as a weakening in the government’s concern with the environment and forest conservation.”
The day after Silva’s resignation, President Lula confirmed that she would be replaced by Carlos Minc, a well-known environmental activist and university professor who was one of the founders of Brazil’s Green Party. Minc previously served as Rio de Janeiro’s state secretary for the environment. His appointment has apparently been well-received: Agência Brasil reports that Silva is “satisfied” with her replacement.
It remains to be seen how Minc will use his new position. His love of the limelight—he follows his own dress code, which does not include a necktie, and has described himself as a “performer”—has cost him politically in his first days on his new job, as President Lula rejected public demands he made to strengthen the Ministry of Environment’s authority. Minc’s first actions as Minister of Environment suggest that he will be a vocal figure. He warned “polluters” that they should fear his ministry’s oversight. He also instigated a public fight with the governor of the state of Mato Grosso, Blairo Maggi, an influential soybean farmer, declaring—a bit sarcastically—that most of the recent increase deforestation in the Amazon has taken place in Mato Grosso. On the issue at hand, however—the issuance of environmental licenses for major development projects in the Amazon—the new minister promised to move faster and more efficiently than his predecessor.
Despite Minc’s aggressive rhetoric, questions about his effectiveness remain. They will be answered by the substance, rather than the style, of his tenure as minister. Back in the Senate, serving the remainder of her term as a representative for Acre until the end of 2010, Silva will continue to be an important voice in the ongoing debate in Brazil over how to reconcile the country’s dual objectives of promoting economic development and protecting the Amazon.
Paulo Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Brazil Institute Program Assistant Alan Wright contributed to this posting. -
Weekly Reading
›Natural Security: Protected areas and hazard mitigation, a new report from WWF and Equilibrium, explores how protected areas might have prevented some of the worst impacts of recent floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis.
The Economist reviews Matthew Connelly’s new book, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population, which Connelly discussed recently at the Wilson Center, and weighs in on Malthus, calling him a “false prophet.”
The Council on Foreign Relations has a new Daily Analysis that takes Malthusian worries of food and energy shortages more seriously.
In an article featuring recent ECSP speaker Brian O’Neill, Nature explores whether a smaller global population would help solve the challenge of climate change. -
PODCAST – Water Stories with Circle of Blue’s Carl Ganter
›May 21, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoCarl Ganter is a journalist with a mission. We tend to think journalists are supposed to be impartial observers, but much good reporting is done by journalists who are passionate about their subjects. And Carl is that—passionate about water, in its many forms, locations, and roles. Water and human health. Water and politics. Water and conflict. Water and food. Water and girls’ education. Water and ecosystems. Water and…
I could keep going because water is so central to so many natural and social systems. So central, in fact, that we often miss its critical importance, even when it is right in front of us.
Carl, his wife and fellow journalist Eileen, and an all-star team of journalists have come together under the banner of Circle of Blue to try to reveal the many faces of water: faces of joy when girls are freed from spending hours each day walking to collect water for their families, and faces of grief, as 2-4 million people every year—most of them children—die from complications associated with diarrhea.
We at the Woodrow Wilson Center have been lucky to have Carl as a working group member in our Navigating Peace Water Initiative.
I interviewed Carl about his work with Circle of Blue and their Water News website when he was last in Washington. -
New Exhibit Reveals How Inequality, Insecurity Shape Global Health
›May 21, 2008 // By Liat RacinThe National Library of Medicine’s newest exhibit, “Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health,” examines the “revolution in global health” that has transformed communities over the past several decades. In addition to acknowledging the vast achievements in health and science, the exhibit also aims to raise public awareness of the various factors that cause illness, from economic and social inequality to conflict.
The exhibit is divided into six sections: Community Health, Food for Life, Action on AIDS, The Legacy of War, Preventing Disease, and Global Collaboration. Each section reveals how doctors and nurses, advocates, and communities have joined forces to overcome public health challenges. For instance, “The Legacy of War” highlights the Nobel Peace Prize-winning work of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which worked to inform policymakers and citizens of the consequences of nuclear war, and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which advocated successfully for the passage of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The exhibit’s website features compelling photographs, guest columns by leading public health experts, and a range of interactive features.