Challenges of Sustainable Development

|PAD 816 Development Management |
|Challenges of Sustainable Development |
|Individual Assignment |

|NW Cakata |
|Student Number : 201004519 |
|Master of Public Administration 1 |
|University of Fort Hare |
|October 2010 |

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………… 3 2. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………. 3 3. Challenges of Sustainable Development …………………………………. 6 1. Global Population …………………………………………………………………… 6 2. Global Warming and Climate Change ……………………………………. 9 3. Poverty and Health …………………………………………………………………. 11 4. Natural Resources …………………………………………………………………… 13 5. Increase in Energy Consumption ……………………………………………. 15 6. Financial and Economic Crimes ……………………………………………… 16 4. Possible Opportunities/ Solutions …………………………………………… 18 5. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………. 19 6. Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………. 20
1. ABSTRACT
The desire to meet the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs has been on the agenda of developing nations in the world since the groundbreaking 1992 Rio Earth Summit. However, recent events like the Haiti earthquake, the “acid rain” in Mthatha a few weeks ago and the Global Economic meltdown; together with the fact that 1.3 billion are without access to clean water, about half of humanity lacking access to adequate sanitation and living on less than 2 US dollars a day and the fact that approximately 2 billion are still without access to electricity, have added impetus to growing fears of threats to sustainable development. Sustainable Development goes to the heart of tackling a number of inter-related global issues such as poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental degradation; and this paper seeks to explore the numerous threats to sustainable development and how these could possibly be resolved in order to ensure a “Triple Bottom Line” where the Social, Economic and Environmental systems interact on an equal basis.
2. INTRODUCTION
In 1983 the Brundtland Commission, formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development, coined a generally accepted definition of sustainable development as being development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. As such, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), sustainable development requires the promotion of values that encourage consumption standards within bounds of the ecologically possible to which all can aspire and also entails the concept of Needs, particularly of the poor, as a priority. Also, the idea of Limitations caused by the state of technology and social organization on environment’s ability to meet present and future needs. This means that for development to be sustainable careful consideration should be made to ensure that the fruits of such development will not only benefit the people in the short term and leave future generations in a desperate situation for survival, but will ensure that they also continue to benefit.
Sustainable development integrates economic growth, social development and environmental protection. In this way, according to the IISD the world should be seen as a system that connects space and time and is composed of the Economic system, the Social system and the Biophysical system; systems basic to sustainable development and which are interdependent. The Interdependence Model clearly illustrates this interdependence as follows:-
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Figure 1: The Interdependence Model
This Model shows that the economy exists entirely within society since it requires interaction among people. Society exists within the biophysical system, simply put; human beings live in the environment and depend on it for sustenance. Although human activity re-shapes the environment at an ever increasing rate, society and its economic systems cannot exist independent of the biophysical environment.
Sustainable development further emphasizes the importance of the interaction among the three systems. True sustainable development is, thus, development that meets the “Triple Bottom Line” where all three systems interact on an equal basis and can be illustrated as follows:-
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Triple Bottom Line

Figure 2: The Triple Bottom Line of Sustainable Development
“Making development sustainable means moving beyond a narrow, albeit important, concern with economic growth per se to considerations relating to the quality of that growth. That is, ensuring that peoples’ basic needs are being met, that the resource base is conserved, that there is a sustainable population level, that environmental and cross-sectoral concerns are integrated into decision-making processes, and that communities are empowered” (Munslow, Fitzgerald, and McLennan, 1997:3-4 in Hamza & Bardill 2009: 2).

3. CHALLENGES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Shah (undated) writes that Sustainable Development goes to the heart of tackling a number of inter-related global issues such as poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental degradation. As such the key challenges that confront sustainable development include global population; climate change; poverty & health; food shortage; energy and natural resources, and financial and economic crimes. 1. Global Population
Increased population, especially in developing countries, poses huge strains to the world. In fact according to one-simple-idea.com, world population is currently growing at an amazing 211,000 people per day (as of year 2006; that 's 77 million per year; or about 1 billion per 13 years; that 's all births less deaths per day)! As such, figures released by World Bank (2010) reveal that world population has increased tremendously from 2.5 billion in 1950, 4.4 billion in 1980, 6 billion in 2000 and currently stands at a staggering 6,78 billion (2010). Furthermore, UN projects a further increase in global population to about 8 billion in 2025 & 9.3 billion in 2050. The following diagram by the UN, shows this increase in world population:-
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Figure 3: Map to show increase and projected increase in World population
This is only a conservative figure as other institutions like the World Population Awareness estimate that the world population will have passed 10,5 billion by 2050.
Population densities have been noted to be the highest in Asia and are ever continuing to increase at an alarming rate. Also, in Africa there is a rapid increase in population. The following map (supplied by Global Culture) shows the global population and clearly highlights the regions of highest population densities.
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Figure 4: Map to show global population densities
What should be noted is the fact that despite such rapid increases in population, the growth rate is declining as there is currently about one-sixth of a hectare of arable land per capita in East and South Asia (People’s Daily Online). The Global Education Project states that in 1960, when the world population numbered only 3 billion, approximately 0.5 hectare of cropland per capita was available, the minimum area considered essential for the production of a diverse, healthy, nutritious diet of plant and animal products like that enjoyed widely in the United States and Europe.
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Figure 5: Map to show arable land and decline in world arable land
This map clearly shows that because of the increase in population, the very soil which is necessary to produce food will keep decreasing and will not be able to cope with nourishing the global population. Increased population simply means that there is a growing need to feed and support more people and the situation is extremely desperate in Asia.
Increased population puts pressure on land, water, energy and other natural resources and has serious negative implications on sustainable development. As a result, a number of strategies have been adopted by several countries ranging from seriously unpopular coercive population control measures in China, where women in urban areas are forced to have only one child and those in rural are allowed a maximum of two children; to the adoption of policies that promote chastity until marriage in Uganda where such policies are used to help to quell the threat of HIV/AIDS as well. Generally it has been noted that the developed countries do not have a serious problem of population explosion, but this affects mainly the undeveloped and the developing countries. 2. Global Warming and climate change
Shah (undated) writes that the global climate is changing, the earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. The People’s Daily Online reports that emissions of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, continued to rise in the 1990s, despite the calls in 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol for the stabilization and reduction of greenhouse gas emission. Growth has been particularly high in Asia, due to its large population and rapid economic decline and restructuring, while emissions have been stable in Europe and Japan.
Fossil fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emission, on a per capita basis, are ten times higher in North America than in the developing regions. Per capita carbon dioxide emissions in Europe are about half the levels in North America, due to different patterns of transport, housing, production and consumption (People’s Daily Online). On the whole, this shows that humans, particularly those of developed nations, are the sole culprits in polluting the earth’s atmosphere. For example, the 2005 World Bank survey shows that shows that low income countries contribute 3% of the worlds CO2 emissions while middle and high income countries contribute more than 70% of the world CO2 emissions.
This has led to a general global warming as revealed by the G8 Labour and Employment Minister’s Conference held in Japan in 2008. This conference reported that global temperatures have risen by 0,74o over the last century and could rise by 3o over pre-industrial levels by the end of the century affecting all continents and oceans. The World Bank (2010) reports that the impacts of a changing climate are already being felt, with more variability of weather, more droughts, more floods, more strong storms, and more heat waves—taxing individuals, firms, and governments, drawing resources away from development. Second, continuing climate change, at current rates, will pose increasingly severe challenges to development.
The sad part is that according to the World Bank Development Report (2010) although the developing countries have historically contributed the least to emissions that cause climate change, they find themselves suffering the most because many of them are vulnerable and least able to adapt to extreme environmental events which are normally brought about by climate change. The heavily populated areas like the mega deltas of developing countries and small island states are particularly at risk. An example here is that of the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 which devastated developing countries like Indonesia, Thailand and others in the Middle East. Generally, developing countries are more exposed and less resilient to climate hazards.
“High-income countries can and must reduce their carbon footprints. They cannot continue to fill up an unfair and unsustainable share of the atmospheric commons” World Bank 2010). This calls for even tougher regulations on the developed countries to reduce their emissions and coerce them to double their effort in reducing atmospheric degradation.
Other environmental phenomena that have been observed due to global warming include the fact that sea levels have been found to be rising by one cm per decade (Peoples’ Daily Online, undated). “Increasing temperatures result in sea level rise by the thermal expansion of water and through the addition of water to the oceans from the melting of mountain glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets. At the end of the 20th century, thermal expansion and melting of land ice contributed roughly equally to sea level rise, while thermal expansion is expected to contribute more than half of the rise in the upcoming century” Wikipedia.org (2010). Also, El Nino events have become more common and more intense. The recent devastation in Haiti is evidence of this. As a result of all these phenomena, People’s Daily Online, undated writes that insurance payments for damage from floods and storms increased from about 2 billion US dollars annually in the 1980’s to about 30 billion US dollars annually in the early 1990’s. However, the damage due to just the Indonesian Tsunami and the Haiti earthquake alone far exceeds any amount that could ever be imagined for recovery from natural disasters in any time in the history of humanity.
Additional to these is the realization that in Asia and Africa droughts have increased in frequency and intensity. Currently in South Africa most provinces like the Eastern Cape are hit by a severe drought which has necessitated restrictive measures on water utilization. The area has in the past two years experienced very little rainfall compared to the normal expectations. 3. Poverty and Health
Globalissues.org (2010) reveal that almost half the world – over 3 billion people – live on less than $2,50 per day! This is illustrated by the graph below:-
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Figure 6: Percentage of people in the world at different levels of poverty, 2005
The graph further indicates that at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. Worldhunger.org reports that there are more than 1 billion hungry people in the world, and the chart below illustrates the that most of these people are in the developing nations in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Figure 7: The number of people suffering from hunger in the world.
Furthermore statistics (People’s Daily Online, undated) indicate that 600 million children live in extreme poverty, 2,5 billion people lack adequate sanitation, 885 million don’t have access to clean water and 4100 die each day from diarrhea due to poor sanitation & hygiene. Hence, it is true that poverty has the tendency to exacerbate hunger, sickness and disease. As a result it has been found out that out of the 11 500 who die daily from HIV, TB, Malaria – two thirds live in sub Saharan Africa where gross poverty abound!
“Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people 's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself” (Worldhunger.org 2010). Extreme poverty remains an alarming problem in the world’s developing regions, despite some progress that reduced "dollar--now $1.25-- a day" poverty from (an estimated) 1900 million people in 1981, a reduction of 29 percent over the period. Progress in poverty reduction has been concentrated in Asia, and especially, East Asia, with the major improvement occurring in China. In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, the number of people in extreme poverty has increased.
Harmful economic systems seem to be the principal cause of poverty and hunger. Hunger Notes (2010) believes that the principal underlying cause of poverty and hunger is the ordinary operation of the economic and political systems in the world. Essentially control over resources and income is based on military, political and economic power that typically ends up in the hands of a minority, who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive, if they do. High economic inequality, especially in Latin America and Africa, is an obstacle to reducing poverty as it reduces the effect of economic growth on poverty reduction.
Development, by nature, is intended to rid the world of poverty, yet poverty remains. It has thus become a challenge to sustainable development despite numerous attempts to eradicate it. 4. Natural Resources
Wikipedia.org writes that some exploitation of natural resources is an essential condition of the human existence. This refers primarily to food production and necessities. However, the exploitation of nature is often done unsustainably and is of increasing concern as the depletion of natural resources from economic growth and population growth ultimately threatens human existence. Reasons cited in wikipedia.org as to why natural resources are under threat are as follows:- • Increase in sophistication of technology enabling natural resources to be extracted quickly and efficiently. For Example: In the past, it could take long hours just to cut down one tree only using saws. Due to increased technology, rates of deforestation have greatly increased • A rapidly increasing population. This leads to greater demand for natural resources. • Cultures of consumerism. Materialistic views lead to gold and diamonds mined and used for jewelry—something unnecessary for human life or advancement. • Excessive demand often leads to conflicts due to intense competition. Organizations, such as Global Witness and the United Nations have documented the connections. • Another reason maybe because of non-equitable distribution of resources.
As such, ILO (2008) has noted that commodity prices have soared over the last few years and nearly doubled for energy and industrial outputs. This is due to the extremely high demand for these goods and because of this the prices are still expected to remain high. As a result for a number of commodities the best quality and lowest cost resources are already near to being fully exploited. An example that can be given is that of world petroleum production which may have already peaked.
Demand for food has grown significantly, not least through the change of consumption patterns towards more protein-rich diets as incomes rise in fast growing and large developing countries such as China and India. With hikes in food (83% rise in food prices from 2005) and energy prices in 2008 having led to a severe food crisis food security is a major international concern and some countries have taken measures to try to prevent shortages (ILO, 2008). 5. Increase in Energy Consumption
Global production and consumption of all types of energy increased significantly in the 1990s. The U.S. Department of Energy, for example, claims that the average American uses daily about as much energy as is stored in seven gallons of gasoline and divides energy users into four groups called the sectors of the economy as follows:- residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. The breakdown of energy consumption in the US is best illustrated by the following graph:-
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Figure 8: Energy Consumption in the United States
The Peoples’ Daily Online (2002), records that most increases in consumption worldwide have been recorded in fossil fuels even though a faster relative growth has also been observed in nuclear energy and renewable energy. This is just an illustration of how much consumption of all types of energy has increased, not only in the developed but also in the developing and undeveloped nations.
However, the increased use of traditional biomass in developing countries – can have undesirable effects e.g. producing air pollutants and carbon monoxide. This is mainly due to the fact that in rural Africa and Asia most people do not have access to, or cannot afford fossil fuel & other modern energy supplies, hence approx. 2.5 billion depend on fuelwood , crop residues & animal dung for their energy needs. Traditional cookstoves used in poorly ventilated spaces use biomass inefficiently and produce smoke, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and other pollutants that damage even the health of those that tend the stoves.
Hydropower is the largest renewable energy source but when produced in very large scale it can have adverse environmental and social impacts. 6. Bad governance resulting in Economic and Financial Crimes
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (2005), Economic and financial crime can be described as any non-violent crime that results in a financial loss. These crimes include many illegal activities like fraud, corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, etc. In many countries worldwide, ‘bad governance’ has emerged as a major concern and also a major threat to sustainable development. Kanyane (2010: 82) writes that the effect of fraud and corruption is to eat away at the tax collected from the public, in the process eating away at the moral fabric of society. In turn, corrupt practices result in non-delivery of essential public services, thus denying communities their right to a better life. All these greatly inhibit the growth and development of the country.
Forje (2007: 72) cites the following major factors that threaten effective governance and sustainable development in Africa:- • Abuse of executive power: • Poor economic growth: • Political instability or fragility of the political institutions, structures and judicial system: • Serious security problems, food security, functional welfare, life, property • Non-accountability of the bureaucracy and political party interferences: • Non-separation of powers between Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary • Foreign support to the state of bad governance. • Absence of ethics and moral virtues in the system: • Exclusion of key stakeholder in the development process
Commenting on the threat to sustainable development in Cameroon, Forje (2007: 76) has this to say, “Corruption is widespread, even institutionalised and legalized crime has increased. Insecurity to both life and property remain the order of the day. Drastic measures must be put in place to curb these acts. The banking sector and other financial institutions remain fragile and very often fail to respect ethical and professional norms”. It can thus be deduced that these crimes undercut legitimate economic activities and discourage investment into the country. Hence, Cameroon has been rated, and still continues to be rated amongst the countries in the world where the government is totally ineffective in the fight against corruption, as evaluated by Transparency International.
Financial and economic crimes have been seen to pose a severe long-term threat to peaceful and democratic socio-economic development. Financial Markets cannot flourish where such illegal activities are socially acceptable as they depend on high professional, legal and ethical standards.
Okumu (2002), cited in Sindane (2009: 12), asserts that it has of late been universally acknowledged that bad leadership has a direct correlation to the development of a nation, probably in all spheres be it political, economic or human development. Public suspicion undermines government legitimacy and causes economic damage and therefore to effectively counter these financial and economic crimes is crucial to sustainable development and institution building (UNODC, 2005).
Developing countries are particularly prone to bad governance practices and unless they make a concerted effort to improve, sustainable development will always be threatened.
4. Possible Opportunities/ Solutions
Dealing with Global Population: Several varying measures have been tried in different countries to control and curb population explosion with varying success rates. As previously mentioned some of these are rather drastic and tend to be inhumane. In my opinion the best possible attempt at reducing population explosion would be intensive education of the people. Conscientising the people of their predicament and the likelihood of threatening future generations is of importance.
Protection from Natural Disasters: Even though it is not possible to completely protect citizens from climate change which is a direct result of climate change, countries like Japan and the US have made strides to build “Resilient Cities” which offer people and their assets protection in times of disasters. However, these are not found in developing nations because of the costs involved which these nations cannot afford. Hence, development institutions like the World Bank and DBSA in South Africa should be ready to offer aid in the case of need and should have sustainable development as a priority in their functioning.
Energy efficiency: This will require employment of new and better technology. Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature. Reducing energy use reduces energy costs and may result in a financial cost saving to consumers if the energy savings offset any additional costs of implementing an energy efficient technology (Wikipedia.org, 2010).
Renewable energy: Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished). More efforts should be made to employ this kind of energy in many of the uses of energy in our everyday lives. This helps to reduce environmental degradation to a large extent.
Recycling and the circular economy: Recycling helps to reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling) by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse gas emissions as compared to virgin production.
Sustainable management of renewable natural resources: Renewed attention should be paid to agriculture and rural development. This is particularly relevant in developing countries as it would help fight hunger as well.
5. CONCLUSION
The numerous challenges facing sustainable development need the concerted effort of everyone to show commitment to making sure that future generations also enjoy the benefits from our environment. It has been shown that the equal interaction of the three systems (economic, social and environmental) will result in growth which will be sustainable. From reducing gas emissions, to reducing forest degradation, to controlling birth rates and numbers, man needs to play a part to make sure that those man-made threats are to the best of his ability, reduced and brought under control.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Kanyane, M.H., (2010), Public Service Delivery Issues In Question, in Kondlo,K and Maserumule, M.H. (Eds), The Zuma Administration: Critical Challenges, HSRC Press 2. http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/food-and-soil.php (10/10/2010) 3. http://www.globalissues.org/ 4. World Bank – World Development Report. 2010. Changing the Climate of Development http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2010/Resources/5287678-1226014527953/Overview.pdf (10/10/2010) 5. Hunger Notes. World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics. 2010. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm (10/10/2010) 6. International Labour Organization (ILO). 2008. Global Challenges for Sustainable Development: Strategies for Green Jobs, G8 Labour and Employment Ministers’ Conference, Niigata, Japan, 11 – 13 May 2008 http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/dgo/speeches/somavia/2008/g8paper.pdf 7. Shah, A. (undated) Sustainable Development – Global Issues 8. People’s Daily Online. 2002. Backgrounder: Some Global Challenges on Sustainable Development. Undated. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200208/26_102087.shtml (2010/09/13) 9. http://www.sustainablesettlement.co.za/issues/susdev.html (2010/09/13) 10. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/financial-crisis/challenges.shtml (2010/09/13) 11. Wikipedia.org. 2010. Exploitation of Natural Resources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_natural_resources (10/10/2010) 12. Forje, J.W.. 2007. Enhancing Sustainable Governance And Development In Africa – A Reassessment Of Current Challenges And Future Prospects, in African Journal of Public Administration, Vol XVIII, No. 1 13. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2005. Economic and Financial Crimes: Challenges to Sustainable Development. www.unodc.org (13/09/2010) 14. Sindane, A.M. (2009), Re-thinking the role of leadership in governance for sustainable development: The African perspective, paper delivered at IASIA Annual Conference in Brazil 15. http://www.iisd.org/sd/ (06/10/2010) 16. http://www.sustainablesettlement.co.za/issues/susdev.html (13/09/2010) 17. http://one-simple-idea.com/Environment1.htm (10/10/2010) 18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise (10/10/2010) 19. http://fathersforlife.org/health/population_control.htm (10/10/2010)

Bibliography: 3. Poverty and Health Globalissues.org (2010) reveal that almost half the world – over 3 billion people – live on less than $2,50 per day! This is illustrated by the graph below:- [pic] Figure 6: Percentage of people in the world at different levels of poverty, 2005 6. Bad governance resulting in Economic and Financial Crimes According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (2005), Economic and financial crime can be described as any non-violent crime that results in a financial loss Forje (2007: 72) cites the following major factors that threaten effective governance and sustainable development in Africa:- • Abuse of executive power: 2. http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/food-and-soil.php (10/10/2010) 3 4. World Bank – World Development Report. 2010. Changing the Climate of Development http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2010/Resources/5287678-1226014527953/Overview.pdf (10/10/2010) 5 8. People’s Daily Online. 2002. Backgrounder: Some Global Challenges on Sustainable Development. Undated. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200208/26_102087.shtml (2010/09/13)