| United Nations | E/CN.17/1997/3 |
Economic and Social Council
Distr. GENERAL
20 January 1997
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Fifth session
7-25 April 1997
Global change and sustainable development: critical trends
Report of the Secretary-General
CONTENTS
Paragraphs Page
I. DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT: FROM STOCKHOLM TO RIO .... 1 - 17 2
II. TRENDS IN WORLD POPULATION ............................. 18 - 41 7
III. ENERGY AND MATERIALS CONSUMPTION ....................... 42 - 77 21
IV. AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SUPPLY ............................ 78 - 117 40
V. WATER: A MULTIFUNCTION RESOURCE .......................118 - 154 55
VI. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ......................................155 - 188 71
VII. CONCLUSIONS ............................................189 - 219 86
I. DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT: FROM STOCKHOLM TO RIO
Introduction
1. The past 25 years have witnessed major changes in the way the issues of
economic growth, human development and environmental protection are
approached. Two international conferences serve as landmarks. The United
Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held at Stockholm in 1972, was
the first major discussion of environmental issues at the international level.
The agenda was immense, touching on virtually all aspects of natural resource
use, but the focus (reflecting the concerns of the developed countries which
proposed the Conference) was on the threat to the natural environment posed by
economic growth and industrial pollution. Developing countries, for whom
these problems were still largely irrelevant, argued that poverty posed a
greater threat to both human welfare and the environment, and that economic
growth in their case was not the problem but the solution. Stockholm thus
marked a polarization between the priorities of economic growth and
environmental protection which has dominated the debate between rich and poor
countries, and between interest groups within countries, for many years and is
still not fully resolved.
2. During the 1980s, a new political and developmental paradigm emerged
which appeared to reconcile these conflicting objectives. In 1987, the World
Commission on Environment and Development published its report Our Common
Future, better known as the Brundtland Report. The report set out the concept
of "sustainable development", an integrated approach to policy- and
decision-making in which environmental protection and long-term economic
growth are seen not as incompatible but as complementary, indeed mutually
dependent: solving environmental problems requires resources which only
economic growth can provide, while economic growth will falter if human health
and natural resources are damaged by environmental degradation.
3. Publication of the Brundtland Report set in motion a process which
culminated in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED), held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. A comparison of the action plans
produced by the Stockholm and Rio Conferences illustrates a major shift in our
understanding of, and approach to, the problems of long-term human
development. Where Stockholm adopted an issue-oriented approach to pollution
and non-renewable resource depletion, Rio emphasized integrated strategies to
promote human development through economic growth based on sustainable
management of the natural resource base. The UNCED action plan, Agenda 21,
thus reaffirmed the Brundtland Report's central message: socio-economic
development and environmental protection are intimately linked and effective
policy-making must tackle them together.
4. This complex agenda, and the message of policy integration, have become
widely accepted in the years since Rio, though integration remains a difficult
concept to implement. Policy objectives in key areas can and do conflict and
means of reconciling different interests and achieving acceptable trade-offs
remain underdeveloped. The challenge facing policy makers over the coming
years will be to identify critical issues in domestic and international
development, and to prioritize measures according to the severity of the
problem and the time required for policy to take effect.
Critical trends, past and future ...
5. The present report examines some critical issues of sustainable
development, reviewing developments over the past 25 years and looking into
the future with the help of model-based projections and scenarios (see box 1).
The issues under consideration have been chosen to reflect the widely accepted
"pressure-state-response" framework used in much integrated environmental
analysis. Population growth (chap. II) in recent decades has increased the
overall pressure on the natural resource base. However, greater environmental
pressure appears to be exerted by the level and patterns of production and
consumption of modern industrial economies. Agenda 21 states that energy and
materials use (chap. III) in the developed world is the leading cause of
global environmental degradation. The consequences of recent trends in
population growth and consumption are potentially most serious when they lead
to damage to the natural resources of land (chap. IV) and water (chap. V).
Land supports the livelihood of over half the world's population and provides
most of the global food supply. Fresh water is indispensable to all life
forms and is an essential input to economic activity, especially agriculture.
Society's response to trends in these key issues, and their interactions, may
be measured in terms of human development (chap. VI) - that is, the extent to
which people enjoy adequate income, health, education and other, more
intangible, goods such as freedom of choice and personal dignity.
... and the role of policy
6. The focus throughout the report is on the role of policy. To what
extent have trends in economic growth, consumption patterns and environmental
degradation been influenced by policy intervention? Which policies have
proved beneficial and which detrimental? Given the lessons of the past, and
the likely shape of things to come (based on the best available projections),
what appear to be the most urgent priorities in different regions of the
world, and the most promising policy approaches?
7. Any evaluation of trends and the role of policy must take account of the
constraints under which Governments operate. The world is becoming
increasingly integrated in its commercial and financial activities, while
modern means of travel and communications are breaking down many of the
traditional physical and cultural barriers between States. National
Governments have little control over the forces of globalization and it seems
likely that new international bodies, or institutional reforms, will be
required to deal with emerging global issues in the future. However, many of
the most pressing developmental and environmental problems today are felt at
local or national levels. While international action will often be part of
the long-term solution, there remains great scope for short- and medium-term
policy action at the national level. Accordingly, this report focuses
primarily on the potential for effecting change through domestic policy
measures.
8. An additional, and powerful, constraint on policy intervention to
influence trends is the factor of time: different issues have their natural
"pace of change" which becomes apparent when examined over a time-span of 50
years or more. Population programmes, by definition, take at least one
generation to take effect. Action to combat pollution can sometimes improve
local air or surface-water quality within a few years. Soil degradation and
deforestation may be reversed only after decades of sustained effort, while
contamination of groundwater reserves might never be corrected, necessitating
the use of permanent and costly purification techniques. For these reasons,
most problems of environmental degradation require long-term planning and
consistent policy-making over many years. By contrast, economic and social
problems may sometimes be remedied relatively quickly through targeted policy
measures. Additionally, technologies and social behaviour patterns can change
rapidly and, while these areas are not readily susceptible to government
direction, they represent powerful agents of change and potential cause for
optimism.
Global change and the concept of transitions
9. Economic growth, social development and natural resource use are
interrelated in ways which, though not fixed, display certain patterns. One
way of viewing these linkages over time is through the concept of transitions.
10. A transition may be defined as a gradual, continuous shift in society
from one "mode of operation" to another - for example, from an agricultural to
an industrial economic base. Four important phases in a transition can
usually be described: (i) a pre-development phase of equilibrium and little
change; (ii) a take-off phase, which may be hard to initiate through conscious
policy effort; (iii) an acceleration phase, characterized by instability due
to rapid technological, social and environmental change; societies and
environmental quality are highly vulnerable to damage during this stage; and
(iv) a stabilization phase, in which the pace of change slows and a new form
of equilibrium is reached (the best-known example of this process is the
demographic transition, which is summarized in chap. II).
11. This report describes trends in population growth, socio-economic
development and the environment as a family of transitions. Clearly there are
limitations and shortcomings in this approach but it may represent a promising
and useful way of visualizing global change. It is important to note that
transitions are not a law of nature; they do not determine what must
inevitably happen. Rather, they represent development pathways which have
already been experienced by a number of countries and which provide insight
into a range of likely futures, dependent on economic, social and
environmental circumstances. From the policy maker's point of view, the
importance of transitions is that their magnitude, and rate of change, can be
significantly influenced by policy intervention.
Taking stock, moving forward
12. Looking back over developments of the past 25 years, one clear lesson to
be learned from projections made in the 1970s (most famously, in the 1972
report of the Club of Rome, Limits to Growth) is that dogmatic predictions
regarding the Earth's future are unreliable and can be politically
counter-productive. With hindsight, world developments since then can be
characterized as more complicated, more surprising and, generally, more
positive than anticipated. Many problems identified in earlier "doom
scenarios" persist but they have not overwhelmed the planet. Some threats -
nuclear war, fossil fuel exhaustion - have receded; others - population
pressure, industrial pollution - have shown themselves susceptible to
determined policy intervention. Less happily, new and unexpected threats have
emerged - life-threatening damage to the stratospheric ozone layer, the
resurgence of infectious diseases, the rise of AIDS, anticipated changes in
the global climate. In sum, while millions of people enjoy lives of safety
and comfort unimaginable a few generations ago, hundreds of millions more live
in conditions as bad as any endured in the past.
13. The current outlook is uncertain, but prudent policy-making must involve
some anticipation of events and the future is not entirely a black box. We
have improved our understanding of the interactions between economic, social
and environmental systems and have a greater appreciation of uncertainty and
risk management. Forecasting is therefore a less deterministic science than
25 years ago. Scenarios no longer predict; they paint pictures of possible
futures and explore the different outcomes that might result if basic
assumptions are changed, for example, regarding policy interventions.
14. Currently, some trends appear positive: the growth in world population
is slowing, food production is still rising, the majority of people are living
longer and healthier lives, environmental quality in some regions is
improving. But it is impossible to ignore other trends which have the
potential to undermine these gains or even bring about catastrophic collapse
of local economies. They include the growing scarcity of fresh water, loss of
productive agricultural land and the downward spiral of impoverishment
affecting a significant minority of the world's population. These threats are
real and near-term; they already affect millions of people.
15. The present thus emerges as a time of tension between positive and
negative forces - with the balance liable to tip in different directions in
different regions of the world. Global catastrophe does not appear to be
imminent. But projections cited in this report clearly indicate that pursuit
of business-as-usual development patterns is most unlikely to result in
sustainable development in the near future. That is, on current trends, we
appear unlikely to achieve a desirable balance of economic growth, equitable
human development and healthy, productive ecosystems.
16. Economic growth remains the primary policy objective in most countries,
on the assumption that other desirable objectives - social and environmental
improvement - will follow in its wake. Historically, this has been the case
in the industrialized countries - given sufficient time, and making a major
exception for their irreversible losses of natural habitat and biodiversity.
These historical economic, social and environmental transitions will not be
replayed exactly in developing countries. Today, the pace and scale of change
are greater, geopolitical, macroeconomic, geographical and cultural
circumstances are different. Some developing countries appear to have
weathered a half-century of extraordinarily rapid change and emerged with
strong economies and thriving populations. The environmental cost has often
been high but may be repairable over time. A number of poorer developing
countries have yet to undergo the transformations which are essential to
function in the modern global economy. More critically, some face the
prospect of losing much of their natural capital before alternative sources of
employment and wealth generation are sufficiently developed.
17. The following chapters outline past trends and future prospects in some
of these critical issues and seek to identify some of the key challenges and
options for action which will confront policy makers over the next decade and
more. History shows that many negative trends can be reversed given agreement
on clear objectives.
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Looking ahead: the conventional development scenario
The present report takes as its reference scenario the Conventional
Development Scenario (CDS) developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute.
This Scenario is also used in the recent United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) report, Global Environmental Outlook (GEO I). CDS forms the basis for
a "what if?" model-based analysis and is not meant to represent a desirable or
highly probable future. It assumes a continued evolution of the processes
which have shaped economic, social and environmental developments so far:
economic growth and wealth allocation driven by public and private
investments, free markets and competition; rapid industrialization and
urbanization; material accumulation and individualism as the prime motives of
human behaviour; and the nation State and liberal democracy as the dominant
form of governance in the modern era. These processes are foreseen as
continuing within the larger context of global trends: widening and deepening
of the information revolution; homogenization of culture; some convergence of
developing countries' economies; and increasing economic dominance of
multinational corporations. CDS assumes no major additional policy
interventions and does not build in any major social, technological or natural
disruptions or surprises.
Demographic, economic and energy assumptions are based on the mid-range
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) non-intervention IS92a
scenario. CDS is supplemented with assumptions for water and land use and
food intake, which were not taken into account in the IPCC scenario. CDS does
not take account of major social indicators (culture, institutions, education,
quality of life), which is a serious omission but one that current models are
not yet equipped to address.
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II. TRENDS IN WORLD POPULATION
Introduction
18. The 1972 Stockholm Conference took place at the end of two decades in
which the world's population soared from 2.5 billion to 3.7 billion - the most
rapid growth rate in human numbers ever experienced. Population doubling
times for some developing countries were falling below 20 years and some
scientists and policy makers in developed countries expressed fears that "the
population explosion", if not controlled through vigorous population
programmes, would lead to mass starvation and societal breakdown. This view
was largely rejected by the Governments of developing countries, and the
population issue proved too sensitive even to be included in the Stockholm
agenda.
19. Subsequent international population conferences (Bucharest 1974, Mexico
1984 and Cairo 1994) charted the gradual emergence of a more consensual
approach to the population issue. By the early 1980s, the "North" had largely
accepted the "Southern" argument that population policies should be set more
broadly in the context of socio-economic development. Concerns over possible
environmental limits to population growth (focusing successively on
deforestation, energy, water and climate change) were increasingly debated in
scientific and policy communities. These linkages between population and
environment slowly became more prominent at the international level: Our
Common Future (1987) and Agenda 21 (1992) both explicitly discussed population
issues in relation to sustainable development.
20. In 25 years, the population debate has evolved dramatically from a
narrow focus on population size and growth rates to a more integrated agenda
embracing demographic structures, distribution patterns and urbanization,
levels of exploitation of natural resources, and creation of viable
agricultural and industrial infrastructures. Policy makers increasingly
acknowledge these interlinkages between demographics, environment and economy.
At the same time, there is still heated controversy over whether the world's
population is on an unsustainable trajectory or not; population data invite
conflicting interpretations. The following section explores some key aspects
of the global demographic transition and their implications for future policy
intervention.
The demographic transition
21. The demographic transition is the most widely observed and documented
example of the transition concept. Initially, during the pre-development
phase, birth and death rates are high and in equilibrium with each other,
resulting in slow or no population growth. In the take-off and acceleration
phases, the average death rate falls, primarily due to improved health care,
the average birth rate remains high and the population grows rapidly. In the
stabilization phase, the dominant determinant is a decline in birth rates. In
a complete transition, birth rates fall to match the reduction in death rates
and a new stable, though much higher, population size is achieved. However,
if death rates decrease but birth rates fail to decline to the same extent,
the transition "stalls" and total population size continues to increase.
22. As of 1997, the demographic transition has become a historical fact in
approximately 30 countries of the world, including all the larger
industrialized countries of Europe and Japan. With high life expectancies and
growth rates fluctuating around 0.4 per cent a year, their populations are
effectively stable. A small number of European countries have negative growth
rates and population dynamics in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
have been strongly affected by the political and economic transformations
experienced since the late 1980s. Fertility rates in the region between 1990
and 1995 were 23 per cent lower than in the previous five-year period. At the
same time, mortality rates rose; for example, the average life expectancy of
males in the Russian Federation fell sharply, from 65 in 1987 to 57 in 1994.1/
A more varied picture emerges in other regions of the world where population
levels are generally rising. However, falling fertility rates are already
powerfully evident in Latin America and some parts of Asia. Sub-Saharan
Africa has yet to complete the fertility transition, though fertility rates
appear to have begun to decline in a number of countries, for example,
Madagascar, the United Republic of Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa and
Mauritania. For developing countries as a whole, fertility rates are falling
rapidly (figure II.1).
23. Overall, the annual growth rate in the world's population has declined
from a high of just over 2 per cent in the 1960s to 1.48 per cent in the
decade beginning in 1990. The number of people added to the world's
population each year (the annual increment) has risen steadily from 47 million
in 1950, but is now thought to have peaked at around 81 million in 1995, with
population stabilization (an annual increment of 0) expected in 2050. 2/ The
population growth rate has fallen more swiftly than demographers expected,
because of a faster fertility decline than was previously anticipated. The
most recent (1996) United Nations population projections show a significant
downward revision of both estimated historical population growth and the size
of the world's future population (figure II.2).
24. The combination of declining fertility and accelerating population
growth is, in part, the result of previously accumulated "demographic
potential", that is, high numbers of young people who are now entering
reproductive age. High fertility levels also persist in some parts of the
world. Even if fertility rates everywhere were to fall instantly to
replacement level (2.06 children per woman), the high proportion of young
people "in the pipeline" ensures that world population growth will not be
halted for another two generations. 3/
Figure II.1. Total fertility rates in major world regions, 1950-1995
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
Figure II.2. Population growth in major world regions, 1950-1995 and
World population growth rate, 1950-1995
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
Looking ahead
25. The Conventional Development Scenario (CDS) assumes that developing
countries will complete the demographic transition. CDS uses median range
projections produced by the United Nations and World Bank which depend
primarily on assumed future fertility and mortality rates. By 2050, CDS
projects a world population of 10 billion people, with 95 per cent of growth
occurring in the developing world. 4/ Total fertility rate in developing
countries is expected to reach replacement level in the mid-twenty-first
century. The world population is projected to continue increasing slowly to
about 11 billion. However, even slight variations in fertility rates could
have enormous consequences. The high and low United Nations population
estimates differ by 4 billion people, a huge difference, but one that is
accounted for by a difference in average fertility rates of just one child per
woman (figure II.3).
Figure II.3. High, medium and low projections of
world population, 1950-2050.
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
Urbanization
26. The world has been steadily urbanizing for centuries. Waves of rapid
urbanization have followed periods of economic growth in northern Europe and
subsequently in the United States of America, Japan and industrializing
countries in Asia and Latin America. Almost half the world's population is
now urban and by about 2015 the majority - over 5 billion people - will live
in urban settlements (see figure II.4).
Figure II.4. Population living in urban areas, 1950-2025
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
27. Since 1970, most urban growth has taken place in developing countries,
fuelled by both rural-urban migration and natural population increase. While
developing countries' rates of urban growth are not unprecedented, their
higher population base means that the scale of urbanization in developing
countries today often dwarfs the experience of Europe or North America.
Approximately 55 million people are now added to the urban population of
developing countries every year; since 1970, the number of "million" cities
(those with populations between 1 million and 10 million) in Africa, Asia and
Latin America has more than doubled. 1/ Even relatively slow rates of urban
growth can translate into enormous increases in absolute numbers (see figure
II.5).
Figure II.5. Population living in "million" cities, 1950-2015
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
28. The rural-urban transition in some developing countries has departed
from the path followed by the industrialized countries in another important
respect: urbanization is occurring even in the absence of broad-based
economic growth. The least developed countries are currently experiencing
some of the highest urban growth rates; Africa has the highest urban growth
rate of all world regions, at over 4 per cent per year.
29. Rapid urbanization in the late twentieth century thus appears to be
characteristic both of the acceleration phase of economic transition
(characterized by rising income and employment opportunities) and of failure
to take off, that is, persistent poverty and social hardship in rural areas.
In both cases, urban authorities will face mounting problems in providing
adequate infrastructure, especially for impoverished slums and squatter
settlements - which are now home to an estimated 25-30 per cent of urban
inhabitants in developing countries. 5/
Changing age distribution
30. All current projections agree that an inevitable by-product of the
demographic transition (to low birth rates and long life expectancy) is an
ageing population. The proportion of the elderly (over 65) in developed
countries rose from just nearly 8 per cent in 1950 to over 13 per cent today
and, on current trends, will exceed 17 per cent by 2020. 2/ This proportion
of elderly people will contribute to a greatly increased dependency ratio (the
ratio of the labour force to children and pensioners). As a consequence,
difficult policy reforms are already being implemented in developed countries
to address the shifting financial dependency burden and the need for changes
in infrastructure (for example, more geriatric nursing facilities).
Consumption patterns, employment and even cultural attitudes are also likely
to be affected.
31. This phenomenon will soon affect much of the developing world, where the
number of elderly people is growing twice as fast as the number of people of
all ages. If present trends continue, the number of elderly people in the
world will exceed the number of the young (below age 15) before the end of the
twenty-first century (figure II.6).
32. A comparison of current long-range projections with those undertaken a
decade ago reveals some notable differences. CDS yields higher population
numbers because it assumes a higher life expectancy; also, the population
structure differs because the projected population aged 65 and over is about
25 per cent greater. A critical assumption in generally quoted future
population scenarios is that developing countries will complete their
demographic transitions. A very different picture emerges if, for example,
the transitions in developing countries, especially Africa and South and East
Asia, were to stagnate. Projections then show an ongoing increase in world
population, reaching about 20 billion people in 2100 (see figure II.7).
Figure II.6: Age distribution of world population, 1950-2150
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
Figure II.7. Projected world population under stagnating
demographic transitions, 1990-2150
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
The role of policy
33. The demographic transition in industrialized countries has clearly been
the result not of policy intervention but of development and modernization,
which first brought about falling death rates (through improved education and
health care) and then encouraged a change in public preferences regarding
family size (as urbanization, increasing economic opportunity and security
reduced the need for many children). It has often been pointed out that the
demographic transition in many industrialized countries occurred in the
context of rich resources and opportunities for expansion and colonization,
allowing ample time and space for their populations to stabilize.
34. Given this history, many people in developing countries were at first
hostile to calls for population control. However, a marked shift in attitude
occurred following the 1974 World Population Conference. The number of
developing countries regarding their fertility rates as too high rose from
around 40 per cent to 67 per cent in the early 1990s and there was a
corresponding rise in the number of Governments prepared to intervene to
reduce fertility. By 1993, 53 per cent of developing countries had policies
in place aimed at reducing their population growth rates. 6/ This change was
promoted, in part, by the difficulties of meeting the economic and social
needs of escalating numbers of rural poor and the infrastructural problems
presented by rapid, unplanned urbanization. Equally important, socio-economic
development - rising levels of education, health programmes and community
participation - fostered an environment more favourable to implementation of
population programmes.
Steering the demographic transition
35. The causal mechanisms of demographic transitions are well, though not
completely, understood. There is a general consensus among demographic
experts that they include economic growth and rising per capita incomes,
social "modernization" - a complex of factors including education, health
care, rural-urban shifts, family structures and employment patterns
(especially female labour force participation rates) - and population
programmes focusing on family planning. 7/
36. The most rapid fertility declines have occurred in developing countries
which have achieved major improvements in child survival rates and educational
levels and have implemented family planning programmes. Within groups of
countries at similar levels of development, fertility declines have generally
been greatest in those with strong family planning programmes. In the absence
of such programmes, economic development appears to induce fertility declines
first among the more economically advanced population groups and only later
across all groups. 8/
Demographic transitions and development pathways
37. The rate and manner in which countries pass through the demographic
transition can be strongly influenced by development policies pursued by
Governments. Some scholars have distinguished two main routes of development,
one based on the introduction of advanced technologies and concentration on an
urban, industrialized core, the other based on maximizing productivity of
whatever capital is available, usually beginning with the agriculture sector.
9/ In the former case, modernization influences only a minority of the
population and their falling fertility levels have a limited impact on the
national birth rate. In the second case, broader-based economic development
results in a majority of the population sharing in rising levels of income,
education and health care, and a more rapid decline in total fertility rate.
The speed and character of the demographic transition, in turn, has profound
implications for social and economic development and environmental quality.
Policy lessons and priorities
38. There is increasing evidence that successful policy interventions to
influence long-term demographic trends involve simultaneous action targeting a
range of determinants: income distribution, improvement in the status of
women, basic education, information and communication, primary health care
(including family planning) and employment opportunities. 10/ A recent study
of the links between the educational level of girls and fertility rates in 14
African countries showed that primary education reduced fertility in half the
countries, and that secondary education did so in every case. The greatest
success in reducing fertility was evident in the countries with the highest
levels of female schooling, the lowest child mortality rates and the most
vigorous family planning programmes. 11/
39. In the short term, providing contraceptives to close the "fertility gap"
between the number of children born and the number of children desired remains
a powerful and logical policy priority. The World Fertility Survey indicates
that total fertility rates and contraceptive use are closely correlated; in
many countries with high fertility rates, contraceptive use remains below 20
per cent (see figure II.8).
40. While recent downward trends in population growth and fertility rates
are very encouraging, they will require additional policy efforts if they are
to be sustained. As more women enter their reproductive years (a consequence
of "demographic potential"), the need for family planning services will
increase rapidly. During the 1990s, approximately 100 million more couples
will need family planning services just to maintain current rates of
contraceptive use. In order to realize the declining fertility rates
projected in the United Nations medium population variant, about 75 million
more couples will need access to family planning by the year 2000.
41. Regional differences in fertility rates, and the provision of family
planning, should be a particular cause for concern, given that the highest
population growth rates are, generally, occurring in the poorest and
environmentally most fragile parts of the world.
Figure II.8. Fertility and contraception in 75 countries
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Population Division
Notes and references
1/ World Resources Institute, World Resources Report, 1996-97 (New York
and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996).
2/ World Population Prospects: 1996 Revision (United Nations
publication, forthcoming), annex I, Demographic indicators.
3/ According to the United Nations instant replacement fertility
projection, where the total fertility rate is assumed to stabilize immediately
at replacement level (2.06 children per woman), the world's population would
still increase to 7.1 billion by 2025. See Long-range World Population
Projections: Two Centuries of Population Growth, 1950-2150 (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.92.XIII.3).
4/ The most recent medium projection produced by the United Nations
estimates a lower population of 9.4 billion by 2050. See World Population
Prospects ....
5/ Report of the Secretary-General on the fourth review and appraisal of
the World Population Plan of Action (A/CONF.171/PC/3).
6/ United Nations Population Policy Data Bank, cited in World Resources
Report, 1996-97 ....
7/ According to a World Bank study of 64 countries, when the income of
the poor rises by 1 per cent, general fertility rates drop by 3 per cent.
However, this conclusion should be qualified by recognition of the great
social and cultural heterogeneity among the poor in different parts of the
world, which is highly relevant to the way in which fertility reacts to
improving living conditions.
8/ Fertility Behaviour in the Context of Development: Evidence from the
World Fertility Survey (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.86.XIII.5).
9/ H. Oshima, "Impacts of economic development on labor markets,
education and population in Asia", Ambio 21, 1992.
10/ Review and Appraisal of the World Population Plan of Action: 1984
Report (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.86.XIII.2), chap. I; World
Population Prospects ....
11/ United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1996
(New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996).
III. ENERGY AND MATERIALS CONSUMPTION
Introduction
42. Energy and raw materials are fundamental to economic activity and human
well-being. As the size of the world economy has grown (approximately
fivefold since the Second World War), so resource consumption has accelerated
at a rate unprecedented in human history. During the 1960s, energy and steel
use in the industrialized countries increased at rates that would have doubled
total consumption by 1987 and quadrupled it by 2000. This pace and scale of
growth gave rise to fears that such exploitation rates of non-renewable
resources could not be sustained. During the 1970s, predictions abounded that
the world would shortly "run out" of fossil fuels and other essential raw
materials.
43. Since then, however, rising demand has generally been matched by
discoveries of new reserves and substitution between resources, in response to
the operation of market forces and technological advance. Concerns have
shifted away from resource depletion to a wider and more complicated package
of issues relating to the provision of adequate energy supplies in developing
countries and the environmental and health impacts resulting from conventional
patterns of energy and materials use.
44. The Brundtland Report of 1987 pointed to the tensions between increased
levels of energy and material use required for economic growth in developing
countries and the environmental (and hence financial and social) costs that
could be expected from business-as-usual growth in the developed and
developing world. It called for a major reorientation of policies towards
efficient technologies and conservation efforts but anticipated that even this
solution would not prevent increased levels of global and regional
environmental degradation. The challenge today remains the same: to meet an
enormous projected global demand for resources, especially energy, through the
use of new products, technologies and consumption patterns which will provide
rising standards of living for all while minimizing economic costs and risks
to human health and the environment.
Transitions in resource use
45. Economic growth and social modernization in the industrialized countries
has been characterized by major changes in resource use. Energy and material
consumption rose rapidly during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth
centuries to meet demands from intensified agriculture, construction and
industrialization. This phase was followed by a decrease in the growth rate
of resource use as economies matured and became more efficient. Over the same
period, primary energy sources shifted from traditional renewables (wood,
other biomass) to fossil fuels, with an increasing dependence on electricity
as the end uses of energy diversified. Materials use is still changing, from
an emphasis on heavy, bulk commodities to lighter, higher-value metals and
composites. Some higher-income developing countries are now undergoing
elements of this transition, but significant differences between the
industrialized and developing countries are evident in both levels and
patterns of resource consumption.
Trends in resource consumption ...
46. World commercial energy use accelerated sharply after 1950, growing at
an average annual rate of 5 per cent till 1970, when the growth rate slowed.
By 1993, world energy consumption was almost 50 per cent greater than in 1973.
1/ The industrialized countries still account for over 60 per cent of total
consumption, though their share is declining as the rest of the world
develops. Developing countries experienced exceptionally fast growth rates
during the 1960s and 1970s as a result of economic development and the rapid
replacement of traditional by commercial (fossil) energy sources. However,
this growth took place from a very low consumption base in absolute terms.
This fact, together with high population growth, means that per capita
consumption in developing countries remains very low by the standards of
industrialized countries (see chap. VI, table).
47. World demand for metals and minerals rose by 120 per cent between 1961
and 1990. Growth rates were highest among low- and middle-income countries,
where infrastructure and industries are rapidly being established. Demand in
the mature economies of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) has slowed considerably since the 1970s; global demand
growth rates have slowed from about 6 per cent in the 1960s to under
2 per cent in the 1990s, though this represents a considerable increase in
absolute terms (figure III.2).
48. Despite rising levels of energy and material consumption, there is no
short-term prospect of scarcity. Estimates of world energy reserves have
increased significantly over the past 20 years and energy prices in recent
years have remained low, indicating no perceived or anticipated scarcities in
the near future. Proven reserves of the most important metals and minerals
have also risen since 1970. Consumption as a proportion of reserves has
declined and long-term prices for most raw materials have trended steadily
downward. 2/ Concerns in recent years have turned from exhaustion of
non-renewable resources to the degradation of renewable resources - soil,
water, forests - and risks to human health which follow from current resource
use patterns.
... and their social and environmental impacts
49. Despite the massive investments in energy supply over the past 30 years,
over 2 billion people, mostly in rural areas of developing countries, still
have little access to commercial energy supplies. Poverty, remote location,
or both, leave communities dependent on animal or human energy for labour and
fuelwood or animal dung for cooking and heating. 3/ Wood still provides up to
50 per cent of national energy needs in a number of Asian and sub-Saharan
countries. 4/
Figure III.1. Primary energy use in major world regions, 1972-1993
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Based on energy statistics and balances data of
International Energy Agency, OECD.
Figure III.2. Consumption of metals and minerals, 1961-1990
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: World Bank
50. Lack of access to commercial energy is a severe constraint on social and
economic development. The lowest-income countries are also those with lowest
per capita energy consumption; social indicators such as literacy rate, infant
mortality, life expectancy and total fertility rate all improve sharply with
increased per capita income and energy consumption. 5/ In addition, the use
of traditional fuels is now understood to be damaging to human health; many
studies document a correlation between indoor air pollution and the incidence
of respiratory ailments and congestive heart failure. 6/
51. Population growth over recent decades has increased the demand for
traditional fuels, especially in poor regions. Historical data on consumption
of fuelwood are scarce but it is estimated that today some 1.8 billion m3,
more than half of the total volume of wood produced, is consumed as fuel. 7/
Fuelwood consumption is leading in some areas to deforestation, soil
impoverishment and further hardship for the poor, who are dependent on the
natural resource base for their day-to-day survival.
52. Quite different problems have been created by the intensive use of
fossil fuels in the developed countries. Poor urban air quality and
transboundary air pollution from acidifying compounds ("acid rain") have been
addressed with some success in the past 30 years. But the threat of global
warming, caused by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases, has emerged more
recently and has yet to be tackled effectively. Atmospheric concentrations of
carbon dioxide (CO2), a leading greenhouse gas, have increased steadily since
the industrial age began (figure III.3). Evidence is strong that most of the
increase is attributable to human activity, in particular, to fossil fuel
combustion. 8/ Continuation of these emission trends poses serious, though
uncertain, risks of global and regional climate change, leading to
unpredictable rises in sea level, inundation of low-lying coastal areas,
migration of ecosystems and disruption of agriculture.
53. The industrialized countries today account for about 70 per cent of
carbon dioxide emissions; historically, about 84 per cent of fossil energy
carbon dioxide emitted since 1800, which still remains in the atmosphere, is
the result of past emissions in the industrialized countries. 1/
54. Atmospheric pollution from fossil fuel combustion has also grown rapidly
in developing countries, however. Current per capita primary energy use in
some of the higher-income economies of Asia already exceeds that of some
poorer OECD countries. Industrial and transport-related emissions are
seriously undermining human health in many developing country cities; evidence
is also accumulating that acid precipitation is reducing yields of some
agricultural crops. Transport is now the fastest growing end-use of energy in
developing countries; the sector grew at an average annual rate of nearly 6
per cent between 1970 and 1990, compared with just over 2 per cent in the
developed countries. 1/
Figure III.3. Global energy-related CO2 emissions
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN, DESIPA
The role of technology
55. Technologies enable humans to expand their range of activities and
transform the Earth's resources. Technological advances, in principle, enable
more productive use of resources, thereby delivering equivalent or improved
services while greatly reducing health and environmental burdens. Two
long-term trends offer particular hope for mitigation of these adverse
impacts: improvements in energy and material efficiency and decarbonization
of energy sources.
Energy and materials intensity
56. Resource intensity (the energy and materials required for constant
economic output) is declining in the industrialized countries. Energy
intensity has fallen by about 1 per cent per year since 1800; it declined even
faster during the 1970s and 1980s, at about 2 per cent per year, but has
barely fallen since 1990. 9/ Materials intensity has fallen rapidly, at
nearly 2 per cent per year since 1971. These improvements are due to more
efficient technologies, structural economic changes (for example, shifts from
resource-intensive industries towards light manufacturing and services) and
technical advances which reduce the resource inputs required to manufacture a
given product (energy efficiency and "dematerialization").
57. The phenomenon of partial "delinking", whereby growth in gross domestic
product (GDP) is achieved with slower growth in energy consumption, is most
advanced in the developed countries; resource efficiency improvements are also
evident in the newly industrializing economies. Energy efficiency is now
improving in some low-income countries but their material intensities are
still high, reflecting the ongoing development of economic infrastructure
(figure III.4).
Cleaner energy and materials
58. At the global level, decarbonization (the decreasing ratio of average
carbon emissions per unit of primary energy) has occurred at a slow rate of
about 0.3 per cent per year. The energy mix in industrialized countries has
gradually shifted from high-carbon content fuels like coal to lower-carbon
fuels such as oil and natural gas and carbon-free hydro and nuclear power
(figure III.5). The carbon intensity of the major coal-dependent Asian
economies is currently high - comparable to the industrialized countries in
the nineteenth century - but the evidence so far indicates that once the trend
to decarbonization begins countries advance at roughly comparable rates.
Figure III.4. Primary energy intensities for
selected countries 1850-1990
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Nakicenovic
Figure III.5. Share of different primary energy
sources in global energy supply,
1970-1994
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN DESIPA, Statistical Division
59. Information on material flows is weak for most countries but it appears
that economic development is characterized by a decline in the intensity of
use of heavy commodities - lumber, concrete, lead - and a shift towards "value
added", sophisticated materials such as aluminium, plastics and composites.
The number of materials in circulation has multiplied dramatically with
technological progress and rising consumer demand for new products and
services; for example, an estimated 90,000 chemicals are now in commercial
use. It is the volume and heterogeneity of materials consumed, and the
uncertainty surrounding their potential health and environmental impacts
(rather than rates of use and possible depletion), that have now emerged as
key policy issues.
Looking ahead
60. A principal anxiety of the 1970s, the exhaustion of non-renewable
resources, has receded, if not permanently, then to a more distant future.
The capacity of technology and markets to improve resource efficiency,
substitute energy sources and materials and side-step perceived problems has
been a recurring surprise, and forecasts of future demand and supply now allow
for a wider range of outcomes. This section focuses on energy: the "energy
challenge" over the next half century involves providing a growing world
population with sufficient energy, without further damage to human health or
disruption of critical environmental functions.
61. The Conventional Development Scenario (CDS) assumes that energy demand
and supply will follow historical growth paths, which are mainly driven by
demographic, economic and behavioural (cultural) determinants. The scenario
assumes that (i) consumption continues to rise in the household and
commercial, industry and transportation sectors, with demand rising fastest in
the developing countries; (ii) energy intensities in all world regions
decline, though not sufficiently to offset rising demand; and (iii) the global
energy mix continues to be dominated by fossil fuels.
62. The CDS forecast may be unduly pessimistic. A "Middle Course" scenario
developed by the World Energy Council (WEC) and the International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 10/ assumes modest estimates of economic
growth and technological development and greater improvements in energy
intensity, which lead to lower future energy demand. Fossil fuels still
dominate the primary energy mix but a gradual transition to renewable energy
is seen as feasible after 2020 (figure III.6).
63. The Middle Course scenario could still could be improved upon. The "Low
CO2-Emitting Energy Supply System" (LESS) scenario, developed for the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 11/ assumes significant
improvements in energy efficiency which cause primary energy consumption to
rise much more slowly than GDP. The scenario also posits shifts in the fuel
mix in favour of renewable energy sources, primarily modern biomass.
Figure III.6. Projected energy consumption 1990-2050
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Based on WEC/IIASA 1995 Report: Raskin and Margolis.
Stockholm Environment Institute.
64. The composition of the global energy mix assumed in the CDS, Middle
Course and LESS scenarios are shown in figure III.7, and the levels of CO2
emissions that would result from each of them are shown in figure III.8.
65. More pessimistic scenarios are also possible. Most conventional
projections assume that developing countries will follow an energy development
path similar to that experienced in developed countries. In developing
countries, however, the energy transition from traditional to modern fuels may
slow down or even stagnate if coal reserves continue to prove more
economically attractive (in industrializing regions) or socio-economic
development is insufficient to generate the income necessary to buy commercial
fuel supplies.
66. Such a situation (a stagnating energy transition and continued poverty)
would imply that traditional biomass fuels continue to play an important role
in many developing regions, in particular in rural and low-income urban areas.
Due to increasing population, over-exploitation of scarce traditional fuels,
especially fuelwood and dung, would increase local and regional environmental
stress and adversely affect food production (chap. IV). Health problems from
indoor combustion of such fuels would continue.
67. Energy and materials are essential to development and all scenarios
agree that consumption will increase substantially to meet projected demand,
especially in developing countries where per capita consumption is currently
too low to support even basic living standards. The scenarios suggest that
meeting future demand could be achieved with greatly reduced social and
environmental harm if the historical transitions from traditional to
commercial fuels, towards improved efficiency (declining intensity of use) and
towards safer sources (low-carbon energy and non-hazardous materials) could be
greatly accelerated.
Figure III.7. Projected global primary energy mix, 1990-2050
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Based on WEC/IIASA 1995 Report: Raskin and Margolis.
Stockholm Environment Institute.
Figure III.8. Projected levels of emissions, 1990-2050
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Raskin and Margolis, SEI; WEC/IIASA,
Report 1996; Climate Change 1995.
The role of policy
68. Major efforts have been made to improve access to commercial energy.
Public expenditures on power sector infrastructure in developing countries
rose from about 0.6 per cent of GDP in the 1960s to over 1.7 per cent in the
1980s. However, a key constraint to future energy development in developing
countries is lack of capital. The World Energy Council has estimated that
energy investment requirements in developing countries between 1990 and 2020
will be US$ 3 to US$ 7 trillion (in 1990 dollars) if the conventional energy
transition is pursued. 12/ The costs of extending electricity grids to meet
the needs of the rural poor in developing countries are beyond all foreseeable
domestic budgets and development aid.
69. In order to improve competitiveness and reduce dependence on energy
imports, many industrialized countries have deregulated domestic energy
markets and introduced incentives for energy saving. Since the late 1980s,
fossil fuel prices in OECD countries - except the United States - have been
higher than market clearing levels. Efficiency standards established for
cars, buildings and a range of consumer appliances in developed and developing
countries have also produced measurable energy savings. By contrast, social
and political considerations have led to energy being heavily subsidized in
developing countries and, until the 1990s, in the countries of Eastern Europe
and the former Soviet Union. In 1992, government subsidies worldwide for
conventional energy amounted to over US$ 200 billion, more than official
development assistance from all sources (taking debt repayment into account).
3/ Artificially low energy prices and restrictions on market-based
competition in energy markets have encouraged inefficiency and wasteful use
patterns and have discouraged energy conservation measures.
70. Policy measures aimed at encouraging materials efficiency have been
stimulated in developed countries by the sheer volume of materials used and
the economic, environmental and political problems associated with disposal.
A new agenda of "eco-efficiency" is developing, focused on delivering
equivalent or higher standards of goods and services with greatly reduced
material throughput. Measures include material and product taxes, recycling
targets, mandatory producer take-back requirements and consumer information
schemes. However, it remains too early for significant changes to be observed
at the national level.
71. The trend towards lower-carbon fuels has, on balance, been favoured by
market forces, though the rapid penetration of the energy market by
(carbon-free) nuclear power has been due almost entirely to government
support. The transition is less clear in some developing countries where, for
example, rapidly rising demand for electricity and transportation has
encouraged high consumption of oil alongside continued use of traditional
renewables. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power and
hydrogen fuel cells, remain under-exploited in both developed and developing
countries. Uncompetitive costs, relative inefficiency and the problem of
variable supply remain barriers to their more widespread use. This, in part,
reflects prevailing R&D spending priorities. The developed countries
currently spend over 50 per cent of their annual US$ 8 billion energy research
budgets on (civil and military) nuclear programmes; less than 10 per cent is
spent on renewables. 13/
Policy lessons and priorities
72. Market liberalization and privatization in the energy sectors of
developing countries may be enough to meet the needs of enterprises but they
have done little to improve energy services in poor rural areas. The most
urgent situations are in low-income developing countries which are dependent
on imports for their commercial energy supplies and where shortages of
fuelwood are becoming acute. Ensuring adequate, affordable and secure energy
supplies which sustain development in the short term will require accelerated
development of indigenous energy resources, for example through tree planting.
In the longer term, increased capacity for producing commercial primary energy
- both fossil and renewable - is essential.
73. Energy efficiency will be encouraged, over the long term, in signatory
countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which
requires reductions in national emissions of carbon dioxide. However,
energy-related CO2 emissions in OECD countries rose by about 4 per cent
between 1990 and 1995, and very few countries are currently on target to meet
their reduction goals. 14/ The most potent policy instrument -
"environmental" energy taxes - remains politically difficult to implement.
However, some developed countries are exploring the idea of "ecological tax
reform" in which increased taxation on fossil fuels (or pollution) is offset
by reduced taxes on, for example, labour. This approach is reportedly meeting
with a more favourable reception from energy users.
74. In developing countries, it is clear that, whatever the promise of
energy-efficient technologies and advanced materials science, significant
increases in commercial energy consumption will be essential for real economic
growth and social development. Nevertheless, improved efficiency is receiving
increased attention from many policy makers and energy providers under
pressure from budgetary constraints. The marginal costs of meeting at least
some of the existing and projected demand through efficiency savings and
demand management approaches are estimated to be far lower than providing
additional capacity by extending electricity grids. However, this approach is
likely to make little headway as long as artificial incentives for energy use
persist.
75. The switch to cleaner fuels in the industrialized countries has been
encouraged by international agreements on air quality such as the Vienna
Treaty protocols setting reduction targets for SOx and NOx. There is a clear
need for similar regional agreements between industrializing countries, which
are now beginning to suffer the full effects of transboundary pollution.
76. Policy measures targeting specific hazardous emissions or substances
have proved highly effective, where evidence of damage to human health or the
environment is strong and substitutes exist. For example, reductions in lead
emissions in North America were due almost entirely to the legislated
phase-out of leaded gasoline (figure III.9).
Figure III.9. Gasoline consumption in major world regions and
Emissions of air-borne lead from gasoline in
major world regions
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Based on Socolow et al (Eds) "Industrial Ecology and Global Change".
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
77. In conclusion, structural changes in the global energy system are
relatively slow, reflecting the long lifetime of facilities and
infrastructure. On average, major transitions (for example, the replacement
of coal by crude oil) take about 50 years. The total capital stock of the
energy sector can be expected to be replaced at least twice by the end of the
next century, offering numerous opportunities for efficiency improvements and
shifts away from carbon-intensive fuels. Changes in materials use may be much
faster, offering even greater opportunities for policy intervention. Major
historical transitions in resource use to date have been largely the result
not of policy intervention but of technological advance responding to market
forces. Judging by recent experience, price rises are not likely to occur
soon enough, or with the necessary consistency, to deliver a smooth
transition. This underlines the fact that policies affecting the evolution of
energy supply and demand will be of crucial importance.
Notes and references
1/ Nebojþa Nakiþenoviþ and Arnulf Gru"bler, "Energy and the protection
of the atmosphere", paper prepared for the Department for Policy Coordination
and Sustainable Development of the United Nations Secretariat, February 1996.
2/ World Bank, World Development Report 1992: Development and the
Environment (Washington, D.C., 1992).
3/ United Nations Development Programme, "UNDP initiative for
sustainable energy", June 1996.
4/ Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development of the
United Nations Secretariat, based on 1992 Energy Balances and Electricity
Profiles (United Nations publication, Sales No. E/F.94.XVII.14).
5/ See, for example, Fundacio'n Bariloche, Catastrophe or New Society:
A Latin American World Model, IDRC-064e (Ottawa, International Development
Research Centre, 1976). Cited in "UNDP initiative for sustainable energy",
June 1996.
6/ See, for example, B. H. Chen and others, "Indoor air pollution in
developing countries", World Health Statistics Quarterly, 1990, vol. 43,
No. 3.
7/ European Forest Institute and Norwegian Forest Research Institute,
"Long-term trends and prospects in world supply and demand for wood and
implications for sustainable forest management", report prepared for the Ad
Hoc Intergovernmental Panel on Forests of the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development, July 1996.
8/ The body of statistical evidence now points towards a discernible
human influence on global climate. (See Second Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Climate change 1995: the
science of climate change", 1996.
9/ Andrew Glyn, "Northern growth and environmental constraints", in
V. Bhaskar and Andrew Glyn, eds., The North the South: Ecological Constraints
and the Global Economy (London, Earthscan Publications Ltd., 1995).
10/ World Energy Council and International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis, Global Energy Perspectives to 2050 and Beyond (1995).
11/ R. H. Williams, "Variants of a Low CO2-Emitting Energy Supply System
(LESS) for the world", report prepared for the IPCC Second Assessment Report,
Working Group IIa, Energy Supply Mitigation Options, 1995.
12/ A more recent (1995) study by the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis and the World Energy Council revises these requirements
upwards to between US$ 6 and US$ 9 trillion by 2020 and between US$ 11 and
US$ 18 trillion by 2050.
13/ International Energy Agency, Annual Report, 1995.
14/ World Energy Council, Climate Change Negotiations: COP-2 and Beyond,
Report No. 6, September 1996.
IV. AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SUPPLY
Introduction
78. The Malthusian spectre of mass starvation was revived in the late 1960s
and early 1970s when rapid population growth was seen by many
environmentalists as a primary cause of the mass famines experienced in Asia
and Africa. The 1974 World Food Conference was held at the height of a
perceived world food crisis, the result of poor harvests in the world's major
food producing regions and soaring food commodity prices, aggravated by the
1973 oil shock. The Conference established the goal that hunger, food
insecurity and malnutrition should be eradicated within a decade. Raising
food production became an international policy priority for the remainder of
the decade and investment in agricultural research and development increased
significantly.
79. Over the next decade, world food production grew rapidly and a decline
in the incidence of mass famines generated optimism over the ability of
farmers to feed ever-growing numbers of people. Rising global harvests, food
surpluses in industrialized countries and steadily falling prices for most
food commodities encouraged a perception among many donor Governments that
food supplies were secure for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that
many millions of people continued to go hungry. During the 1980s, the
intensity of efforts to boost production declined and concerns shifted to the
environmental and social consequences of intensified farming methods,
especially land degradation, water pollution, rural unemployment and health
impacts associated with pesticide use.
80. More recently, a number of factors have combined to revive doubts about
food security in the longer term. The growth rate in world harvests has
slowed markedly, many marine fish stocks have become depleted, population
growth continues to be most rapid in those areas which are already food
insecure - and land degradation is now measurably undermining the agricultural
resource base. In late 1996, the World Food Summit was convened to examine
these developments and called for a halving of the numbers of hungry people by
2015. Policy approaches recommended at the Summit demonstrate a new
understanding that food security must be addressed within the wider context of
poverty eradication, economic development and environmental sustainability, as
well as improved agricultural technology. 1/
The agricultural transition
81. The past two centuries have witnessed a worldwide, but still incomplete,
shift from low-input, low-output agriculture to more intensive farming
systems. In extensive agricultural systems, production tends to be raised by
cultivating additional land as necessary. The "take off" phase leads to
raised productivity (yields per hectare), achieved through the use of new crop
varieties, improved cultivation techniques and increased inputs of
agrochemicals and fossil fuel energy. The mature phase of the transition is
characterized by slower yield growth rates; productivity may even decline
locally, if the adoption of more intensive techniques has resulted in damage
to soil and water resources.
Food supply
82. World agricultural production has risen impressively over the past 40
years (figure IV.1). Since 1961, the industrialized countries have raised
cereal production by an average of 1.7 per cent each year. The annual rate of
increase in developing countries averaged 3 per cent and they now account for
well over half the world cereal harvest. 2/
83. The Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s enabled some developing
countries, notably India and China, to increase their food production
dramatically through the use of irrigation, fertilizer and scientifically bred
new strains of rice and wheat. Other developing regions, including North
Africa, much of South America and South Asia, achieved major though less
spectacular increases. Sub-Saharan Africa so far has continued to raise food
production more through the cultivation of new land than through intensified
production. Fertilizer application rates and average yields in much of the
region remain well below levels elsewhere.
Figure IV.1. Agricultural production in major world regions, 1961-1996
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: FAO, FAOSTAT
84. Marine and inland fisheries are also a vital part of the world's food
supply. Approximately 950 million people, mostly in developing countries,
rely on fish for their primary source of protein. The marine catch
(representing about 78 per cent of the total) rose nearly fivefold between
1950 and 1989; it has dropped slightly since then but the total catch has
continued to rise thanks to expanded aquaculture production. This steady
increase masks a more complicated picture in which new species of fish, and
new fishing grounds, have been successively exploited and depleted. A recent
study indicates that an increasing proportion of the world's major ocean
fisheries are now at, or nearing, the point of over-exploitation (figure
IV.2). 3/ The greatest potential for raising future fish harvests appears to
lie in conservation of depleted stocks, improved management of rich fishing
grounds such as the Indian Ocean, and in continued expansion of aquaculture
which already contributes nearly one quarter of the total fish supply in Asia.
4/
85. The overall growth in world food supply conceals a number of trends
which, if not corrected, will have disturbing implications for future food
security.
86. Agricultural intensification in recent decades has taken a heavy toll on
the environment. Poor cultivation and irrigation techniques and excessive use
of pesticides and herbicides have led to widespread soil degradation and water
contamination. Approximately 300 million hectares worldwide are now severely
degraded and local farming systems abandoned; a further 1.2 billion hectares -
10 per cent of the earth's vegetated surface - are at least moderately
degraded. 5/
87. Competition for land is increasing. Development and population growth
claim land for housing, industry and infrastructure. Worldwide data are not
available, but economic growth in Asia is estimated to have reduced cropland
area in some countries by 1 per cent per year; 6/ slower rates of land loss
are still under way in the industrialized countries.
88. Dietary preferences are changing with increasing wealth in favour of
meat and dairy products. Direct consumption of grain by humans is the most
efficient use of available food supplies but more land in developing countries
is now used for growing grain feed, fodder and forage for livestock in order
to supply export feed to industrialized countries and to meet an increasing
demand for meat and dairy products in developing countries.
89. Agriculture in parts of North America and Europe has reached a stage
where public interest in "healthy food", recreational use of the countryside
(made possible by mass ownership of private vehicles) and protection of
wildlife and habitats are encouraging less intensive techniques. Policy
incentives are being implemented to remove some cropland from production
altogether.
90. The net effect of these trends (a static or declining productive land
base and less efficient use of cereals) has been offset for many years by
increasing yields. However, while yields and total world food production are
still rising in absolute terms, the rates of growth have been declining since
the early 1980s. 7/ This situation, combined with rising population, means
that per capita food production has grown relatively slowly (figure IV.3).
Since 1984, the per capita grain harvest has actually declined by an average
of more than 1 per cent per year (figure IV.3).
Figure IV.2. Major marine fisheries in various phases of fishery development
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: FAO, Fisheries Department
Figure IV.3. World food production and per capita food production, 1961-1996
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: FAO, FAOSTAT
Hunger amidst plenty
91. Globally, there is still abundant food. Between 1961 and 1994, per
capita food supply in developing countries increased by 32 per cent and mass
famines on the scale seen in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth century have not
recurred. The proportion of the world's population who are hungry or
chronically undernourished has fallen from 35 to 21 per cent. Rising food
production has not delivered universal food security, however. Nearly 840
million people remain hungry worldwide and the number of chronically
undernourished in sub-Saharan Africa has more than doubled since 1969 (figure
IV.5). 8/
92. During the 1970s, food availability increased significantly in many
countries in East and West Asia, Latin America and North Africa, despite
rapidly growing populations. These gains were due not only to improved
agricultural productivity but also to economic development (or in some cases
borrowing), which enabled rapid growth in food imports. Net imports of
cereals in developing countries more than tripled between 1969/71 and 1979/81.
9/ But in South Asia, per capita food supplies stagnated and they declined in
sub-Saharan Africa, where domestic production and imports could not match
population growth.
93. The 1995 aggregate food security index, compiled by the Committee on
Food Security of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), indicates that a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia and a limited number in Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced
serious declines in per capita food availability since the mid-1980s. 10/
These countries, with "low" or "critical" food security, have made little
progress in raising per capita food production, or have proved unable to
maintain earlier gains because of economic or political instability. It is
generally agreed that food insecurity at present is largely a distributional
problem; people have inadequate physical and/or economic access to food as a
result of poverty, political instability, economic inefficiency and social
inequity.
Food for the future
94. The challenge in providing adequate nutrition to a population of
9.4 billion in 2050 is threefold: (i) food production must be doubled; given
current regional population growth trends, a nearly threefold increase in
supply will be required to feed the developing world and a fivefold increase
for Africa and the Middle East; (ii) regional self-sufficiency will not be
possible everywhere and food imports must increase; since food supply
traditionally responds to demand (which is a function of income) and not to
human need, the focus must be on ensuring that people have income to purchase
the food they need; (iii) increased production must be achieved without
further damage to the productive base (soils and water) or to human health.
95. Projections of future global food production and food security depend on
underlying assumptions regarding population growth, available cropland, yield
gains and diet (lifestyles). Recent long-term forecasts involve a wide range
of outcomes because even small changes in underlying assumptions can lead to
huge differences in future agricultural supply and demand (figure IV.4).
Figure IV.4. World cereal production, 1989-2050 CDS and
World cereal production, 1990-2020 IFPRI
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Leach, Stockholm Environment Institute and IFPRI, 20/20 Vision
96. The Conventional Development Scenario assumes a global growth in food
production of about 1.5 per cent per year, falling to around 1 per cent,
resulting in doubled production by 2050. The potential for cropland expansion
appears greatest in Africa and Latin America, but limited in developing Asia;
cropland areas could decrease in industrialized regions. Irrigated areas are
likely to increase only modestly. The greatest productivity gains are likely
to come in Africa, where yields are currently well below average; yield gains
could also be strong in China and Latin America. In industrialized countries,
yield increases are expected to continue, though at a lower rate.
97. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has developed a
number of scenarios of future food production, including two variants based on
differing assumptions regarding investment in agricultural research. 11/
Further cutbacks in public investment are expected to reduce production by
about 10 per cent in developing countries (relative to a baseline scenario).
Higher investment, by contrast, is projected to raise production and to create
additional benefits in non-agricultural income growth, to increase public
expenditures on social services and to improve access to water, sanitation
services and education.
98. FAO has produced a forecast for 2010 which also assumes rapid
technological improvement and projects a growth rate of 1.8 per cent per year.
12/
Food production and the natural resource base
99. Limiting factors in expanding cultivated land area include the scarcity
of high quality agricultural land, the risk of environmental degradation of
marginal cultivated lands and competition from alternative land uses,
particularly urban growth and development in developing countries and
"counter-urbanization" (urban-rural migration), tourism and leisure uses in
developed countries. Competition for land between agriculture and forest
cover will sharpen; recent estimates suggest that nearly two thirds of
tropical deforestation - some 12 million hectares per year - is due to farmers
clearing land for agriculture. 13/ Scenarios developed by the Finnish Forest
Research Institute suggest that tropical forest cover could decline from 1,757
million hectares (1990) to between 1,164 million hectares and 1,360 million
hectares in 2025. 14/
100. While significant areas of Africa and Latin America remain to be opened
up for agriculture, the costs to indigenous forest dwellers, forest and
savannah vegetation and biological diversity are likely to be high.
Additionally, the degradation and deforestation of watershed forests have an
important impact on water quality, quantity and periodicity of flow (see chap.
V, section on water and ecosystem functions). These facts suggest the need
for a twin focus on increasing food production in more fertile areas
(intensification) thereby reducing the need for further expansion into
marginal and easily degraded non-agricultural lands, and developing
technologies appropriate to less fertile areas which can improve farmers'
opportunities to increase food production while minimizing the risk of
environmental damage.
101. Water is likely to prove the most important constraint on raising food
production (chap. V). Irrigated cropland area grew by 2-4 per cent annually
during the 1960s and 1970s but expansion has since slowed to less than 1 per
cent per year. 15/ This trend is not expected to be reversed in the short
term, given low projected world food prices and the increasing economic costs
and environmental and social impacts associated with major new irrigation
schemes. Yields from existing irrigated land, especially in parts of China,
India, Pakistan and the United States, are also expected to decline where
aquifers become exhausted and/or urban populations and industry claim a
growing share of limited water resources. Nevertheless, more than half of
additional crop production by 2010 is expected to come from irrigated land,
according to FAO projections. This implies the need for vigorous, renewed
investment in small-scale irrigation schemes which can raise yields while
minimizing economic costs and environmental damage. 16/
Agricultural productivity and food security
102. The CDS, IFPRI and FAO forecasts all suggest that future production
gains will be sufficient to cope with increased population and rising demand
at the global level. At the regional level, however, they all indicate
worsening food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and only marginal improvement
in South Asia, even under a variety of assumptions about future growth,
investment and trade liberalization. It seems unavoidable that food security
in some developing countries will (as now) depend on imports from food surplus
to food deficit countries. On the basis of current policies, nearly 700
million people are expected to go hungry in 2010 (figure IV.5).
103. In theory, there is scope for further immense yield gains and raised
production in the future. Wide disparities still exist between the yields
achieved in agricultural research stations and by farmers. Typically, dryland
farmers in Asia, Latin America and Africa obtain between one tenth and
two thirds of research station yields; most farmers achieve less than half.
In addition to yield gaps in improved crops, many plant and animal breeds have
not yet been subject to much scientific improvement. However, a major
challenge will be to ensure that future improvements do not exclude tropical
farmers - where potential production gains are high and food insecurity is
often greatest.
104. The CDS and IFPRI scenarios represent a "mid-way" point between
technologically based projections which recognize few limits to food
production and more pessimistic forecasts founded on the belief that world
food production is already on a declining trajectory. If historical
improvements in agricultural productivity can be maintained, there will be
enough food to meet expanding demand. Future improvements will depend
critically on continuing investment in improved crop varieties, greater
efficiency in water use, improved soil management and socio-economic
development which enables farmers to take advantage of new techniques.
Figure IV.5. Estimated number of chronically undernourished people
in developing countries, 1969-2010
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: FAO, World Food Summit, 1996
The role of policy
105. Agriculture is a heavily regulated economic sector. National
Governments in both developed and developing countries intervene to influence
what is grown and sold, where and how. Trade policies determine market access
and can be used to protect the interests of domestic producers. The potential
for government action to improve, or worsen, food security at every level is
therefore enormous.
Positive impacts ...
106. Countries which have followed broad-based economic development
strategies including high levels of investment in agriculture have often
experienced a number of positive benefits: increased employment and income
through agriculturally led economic growth, decreased incidence of rural
poverty and greatly improved food security. The World Bank has noted the
clear relationship between rising gross national product (GNP) and declining
prevalence of underweight children between the 1970s and 1980s; the
relationship is especially strong in countries that have done well in
agriculture, such as Indonesia and Thailand. 17/
107. More specifically, the extraordinary yield increases of the Green
Revolution were made possible by a technological package (comprising
genetically improved plant varieties, irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide
application and management skills) developed by scientists working in State
and donor-sponsored research institutes and field stations.
108. Public demand for nature conservation, together with budgetary
constraints, have encouraged "environment friendly" policy measures to reduce
agricultural surpluses and improve environmental protection in some developed
countries. Strict regulation and pricing incentives have been introduced in
parts of Scandinavia and Northern Europe, for example, which limit the use of
agrochemicals and encourage preservation of habitat "enclaves" in farmland.
... and negative impacts
109. It has been argued that market failures in the agriculture sector and
government interventions which distort product and input prices (and tend to
reinforce market failure) have a greater effect on soil, water, human health
and ecosystems than equivalent failures in any other sector. 18/ Examples
abound in both developed and developing countries of tax incentives which have
encouraged inappropriate changes in land use. Subsidies in many developing
countries for pesticides and herbicides, combined with inadequate education
and product labelling, have encouraged excessive use, leading to soil and
water contamination and thousands of pesticide-related deaths per year. The
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union at one time involved a
system of guaranteed prices for unlimited production. These guarantees
improved regional self-sufficiency and turned Europe from a net importer to a
net exporter of cereals. At the same time, they encouraged intensive farming
methods which have led to soil and water pollution, landscape degradation and
loss of biodiversity.
110. At the global level, agricultural production and trade patterns have
been seriously distorted by national and international policy responses to the
macroeconomic events of the 1970s and 1980s: the oil shocks, the boom and
bust cycle in food commodity prices, developing country indebtedness and world
recession. One notable impact was that agricultural policies adopted by OECD
countries during the "boom" years of the 1970s protected their farmers from
fluctuations in world markets. When commodity prices plunged in the 1980s,
domestic price supports, particularly in the United States and Europe, were
generally maintained, leading to massive over-production and export subsidy
programmes. This further depressed both world prices and the incentives for
developing countries to produce for either domestic consumption or export. 19/
Policy lessons and priorities
111. The fundamental challenge for sustainable agriculture and future food
security is to make better use of available physical and human resources.
Dramatic gains in agricultural productivity have proven possible to achieve
but some regions remain at least partially "locked" in the low-input,
low-output phase of the agricultural transition, unable to capitalize fully on
available, superior crop varieties and management techniques. Sub-Saharan
Africa especially has not benefited as expected, or has not sustained early
gains. The experience of the Green Revolution has shown a number of elements
to be critical to more widespread success.
112. Maintaining, or improving on, current trends in yield gains will depend
on continued investment in agricultural research, preservation of biological
diversity, both in situ and in gene banks, and substantial increases in
fertilizer use in many developing countries. Donor funding remains critical
for the foreseeable future: the IFPRI scenarios estimate that if
international donors were to eliminate all funding of national and
international agricultural research, food grain production would drop by 10
per cent and the number of malnourished children in developing countries would
increase by 32 per cent. Conversely, if donor funding were to increase by 50
per cent, food grain production would increase by 40 per cent and the number
of malnourished children would drop by 30 per cent. 11/
113. Technological improvements will not be sufficient, however. The
continuing gap between yields achieved by many farmers and at experimental
stations suggests that more emphasis must be put on creating thriving rural
economies which provide enabling environments for small farmers. Success
factors include improved land tenure, remunerative prices, access to credit
and markets that, together, encourage farmers to adopt new agricultural crops
and techniques. 20/
114. While market reforms are important, the experience of structural
adjustment programmes undertaken by many developing countries as a condition
of internationally funded assistance has served to demonstrate that the
pursuit of more market-oriented policies does not automatically cause
agricultural production to rise in the short term, or the numbers of hungry to
fall. More attention is now being paid to the need for complementary policy
measures such as the provision of agricultural extension services and
facilitating greater participation by programme beneficiaries, especially
women.
115. Degradation of the agricultural resource base through soil erosion, loss
of cropland to development and contamination of soil and water by
agrochemicals must be slowed and, where feasible, reversed. Food supplies in
the future will come largely from higher yields on existing agricultural land,
and losses of productive land must be compensated by even greater increases in
yields. The more land lost, the greater the technological and economic
challenge will be. Better management of irrigated land is a particular
priority in this regard (chap. V). Policy-making in all countries has too
often paid insufficient attention to the protection of agricultural land as a
natural resource, suggesting the need for re-evaluation of the economic costs
of soil degradation due to poor agricultural practices or land loss from
unplanned development.
116. Agricultural productivity gains in many poor and food insecure countries
have often been undermined by high losses caused by pest damage in the field
and post-harvest losses from inadequate transport and packaging systems.
This, in turn, has led to heavy reliance on pesticides, which have compromised
human health and ecosystems in many regions. The most feasible alternative
remains intensified development and use of integrated pest management (IPM)
systems, including both biological and chemical controls. Cooperation between
public authorities and the private sector, especially newly emergent
biotechnology companies, will be required.
117. The prospect of future regional imbalances between food supply and
demand suggests that the developed countries will increase production again in
order to meet global needs, but this will occur only in response to rising
prices on international markets. If food subsidies to urban consumers in
developing countries were reduced, and food prices allowed to rise, the
necessary economic incentives might be supplied.
Notes and references
1/ Rome Declaration on World Food Security and World Food Summit Plan of
Action (WFS 96/3), adopted at the World Food Summit, Rome, 13-
17 November 1996.
2/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of
Food and Agriculture, 1995 (Rome, 1995).
3/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Grainger and
Garcia, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 259 (in press).
4/ World Resources Institute, World Resources Report, 1996-97 (New York
and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996).
5/ L. R. Oldeman, Global Extent of Soil Degradation (Glasod Survey),
International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC), 1992.
6/ Lester R. Brown and Hal Kane, Full House: Reassessing the Earth's
Population Carrying Capacity (London, Earthscan Publications Ltd., 1995).
7/ The situation has been worsened by plunging agricultural productivity
in the former Soviet Union since 1989, though this trend may be expected to
reverse with time.
8/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "The World
Food Summit technical background documents" (WFS 1996/Tech/0), Rome, 1996.
9/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "Food,
agriculture and food security: developments since the World Food Conference
and prospects", technical background document of the World Food Summit
(WFS/96/Tech/1), Rome, 1996.
10/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "Assessment
of the current world food security situation and medium-term review", item II
of the provisional agenda of the twentieth session of the Committee on World
Food Security, Rome, 25-28 April 1995.
11/ M. Rosegrant, M. C. Agcaoili and N. Perez, Global Food Projection to
2020: Implications for Investment, Food, Agriculture and the Environment,
Discussion Paper 5 (Washington, D.C., International Food Policy Research
Institute, 1995)
12/ Nikos Alexandratos, ed., World Agriculture: Towards 2010, An FAO
Study (Chichester, United Kingdom, John Wiley and Sons, and Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 1995).
13/ R. Rowe, N. P. Shama and J. Browder, "Deforestation: problems,
causes and concerns", in Shama, ed., Managing the World's Forests: Looking
for Balance Between Conservation and Development (Dubuque, Iowa, 1992). Cited
in State of the World's Forests (Rome, Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations, 1995).
14/ Finnish Forest Research Institute, personal communication,
8 November 1996.
15/ Sandra Postel, "Water and agriculture", in Peter H. Gleick, ed.,
Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources (New York and
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993).
16/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "Food
production: the critical role of water", technical background document of the
World Food Summit (WFS/96/Tech/2), Rome, 1996.
17/ P. Binswanger and P. Landell-Mills, The World Bank's Strategy for
Reducing Poverty and Hunger: A Report to the Development Community,
Environmentally Sustainable Development Studies and Monographs Series No. 4
(Washington, D.C., 1995).
18/ See, for example, C. Ford Runge, "The environmental effects of trade
in the agriculture sector", in The Environmental Effects of Trade (Paris,
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1994).
19/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
"Socio-political and economic environment for food security", technical
background document of the World Food Summit (WFS/96/Tech/5), Rome, 1996.
20/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "Lessons
from the Green Revolution: towards a new Green Revolution", technical
background document of the World Food Summit (WFS/96/Tech/6), Rome, 1996.
V. WATER: A MULTIFUNCTION RESOURCE
Introduction
118. The United Nations Water Conference of 1977 covered a wide range of
water management issues but is now chiefly remembered for its call to provide
safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for all. The Mar del Plata Action
Plan, which stemmed from the Conference, and the subsequent International
Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990), set out to implement
this goal. The provision of services increased substantially over the decade
but progress was slowed by the macroeconomic difficulties experienced by many
developing countries in the 1980s and by population growth which offset many
of the gains.
119. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, concerns over water quality came to be
matched, and in some countries dominated, by the issue of water supply; in
particular, the increasing incidence of regional and local scarcity and
conflicts over access to limited water resources. Faced with steadily rising
consumption, many Governments struggled to meet the demand by raising supplies
to match - whatever the cost. An era of gigantic water engineering projects
was initiated in the 1950s but peaked by the late 1980s, when protests over
their environmental and social impacts, and soaring economic costs, slowed the
rate of construction.
120. The International Conference on Water and the Environment, held in
Dublin in 1992, and Agenda 21 demonstrate international acceptance of a
broader and more complicated water agenda. Water is increasingly recognized
as a finite and vulnerable resource and one which is likely to be the
principal constraint on development in some countries. Long-term solutions
will need to focus more on managing water as an economic good, with an
emphasis on increased efficiency of use and more rational allocation among
users.
121. Equally, water quality issues have taken on renewed urgency. To
humanitarian concern over the suffering caused by inadequate water supply and
sanitation services, has been added the realization that pollution of water
resources is reducing usable supplies and aggravating the scarcity problem.
Thus quality and quantity issues have merged in a way that reinforces the need
for a more integrated approach to water policy.
The water transition
122. Socio-economic development is characterized by more active exploitation
of water resources. Water is a critical input to both industry and
agriculture and economic growth usually requires transfers of water from moist
to dry areas and construction of dams and reservoirs for hydropower,
irrigation, flood control and seasonal storage. Water pollution from
industrialization and urbanization also tends to increase in the early stages
of development. Historically, as countries industrialize, the share of water
used for agriculture declines and an increasing proportion is taken by the
industrial, commercial and household sectors - domestic consumption, in
particular, increases greatly with more affluent lifestyles (figure V.1).
Worldwide, agriculture still consumes about 70 per cent of available water
supplies, with a range from under 5 per cent in some northern European
countries to over 90 per cent in parts of Africa, South America and central
Asia.
Figure V.1. Water consumption by sector, 1990
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Based on Raskin, Hansen and Margolis, Stockholm Environment Institute
123. There is, however, no clear relationship between per capita water use
and national wealth. Higher per capita household and industrial use in rich
countries tends to be offset by lower use rates in agriculture. The exception
is found in the very poorest countries, which also have the lowest per capita
use rates. One encouraging development is that newly industrializing
countries appear to be moving towards relatively more efficient patterns of
water use more quickly than did the old industrial economies. As with energy
use (chap. III), rising per capita income in some higher-income developing
countries is characterized by lower per capita water consumption in the
industrial and household sectors than was the case in the past. 1/
Water: the question of supply and demand
124. Fresh water supplies are renewable (through precipitation, river inflow
and groundwater recharge) but finite; the world's water is a fixed stock. The
total human demand for fresh water has risen steadily with increasing
population and economic activity. Since 1940, global water withdrawals have
risen by an average of 2.5 per cent annually - faster than the rate of
population growth (figure V.2). Humanity now uses, directly or indirectly,
more than half of the world's water supply that is accessible and per capita
availability of fresh water worldwide fell from 17,000 m3 in 1950 to 7,300 m3
in 1995. 2/
125. Globally, fresh water is abundant but it is very unevenly distributed
among and within countries. Chronic water shortages already exist in many
areas where precipitation is low or unreliable and/or where withdrawals have
been significantly increased to meet additional demand from expanding
irrigation, industry or urban populations. In addition to pressure on water
resources from economic development and changes in social consumption
patterns, water supply is increasingly constrained by land use changes (for
example forest clearance, which tends to increase run-off and reduce water
availability) and contamination from human settlements, industry and
agriculture.
126. In most recent analyses, countries are considered likely to experience
chronic scarcity problems when water availability falls below a "benchmark" of
approximately 1,000 m3 per person per year. However, a recent major
assessment of the world's water resources (the Global Water Assessment) 2/ has
refined this measure and defined water stress as the ratio of water withdrawal
to water availability on an annual basis. A ratio of less than 10 per cent
indicates few water resource management problems; a range of 10 to 20 per cent
indicates that water availability is becoming a limiting factor and
significant investments will be needed in the future; water withdrawals
exceeding about 20 per cent of available water indicate that management of
both supply and demand will be needed and that resolution of competing uses
will be necessary to assure sustainability.
127. Viewed in this way, issues of water demand, and actual or potential
water scarcity, are intimately connected not only to population growth but
also to the structure of an economy. Decision-making that favours or inhibits
alternative uses of water critically affects whether or not a country will be
water-scarce at any given level of water availability. Countries where
current water use patterns are creating stress or scarcity in at least some
part of their territory are identified in figure V.3.
Figure V.2. Water withdrawals by region, 1940-1995
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: I.A. Shiklomanov
Figure V.3. Water withdrawal as a percentage of water availability, 1995
[ Figure not shown ]
128. Many water-stressed countries have been forced to turn to their
groundwater reserves, which are frequently pumped faster than they can be
recharged. Such water "overdrafting" is widespread in parts of India, China,
Mexico, the United States and the former Soviet Union. Parts of Northern
Africa and the Middle East are dependent on withdrawals from "fossil aquifers"
which are not recharged at all. Given the rising costs and declining
availability of new sources of water supply, some regions may need, over time,
to reorient their economies towards less water-intensive end uses.
Competition and conflict
129. A notable trend in the past decade has been sharpening competition
between rural and urban water users, over both surface and groundwater
resources. When shortages become acute, it is usually (though not always)
farmers who lose, since their economic and political lobbying power tends to
be less than that of urban and industrial constituents. A number of developed
countries are attempting to manage an orderly shift from rural to urban use
through reallocation of water use rights, water trading and even schemes to
buy out farmers and redistribute their water rights. 3/ However, there could
be serious implications for food production if such solutions are adopted more
widely (chap. IV).
130. At the international level, conflicts are focused at the river basin
level. They have arisen with increasing frequency over projects to dam or
divert water by countries in a powerful position upstream of their neighbours.
Current flash points include cross-border river basins in South America, North
Africa and the Middle East, though an encouraging 30-year cooperation
agreement has recently been signed in South Asia. Future conflicts are a
potent risk where countries sharing river basins combine circumstances of low
water availability, rapidly growing populations, urbanization and
industrialization and continued absence of regulation.
Water and human health
131. In developed countries, drinking water and sanitation services were
extended to most major urban centres by the early twentieth century, bringing
immediate and dramatic improvements in life expectancy. The importance of
high quality water to human health and the healthy functioning of society is
evident in current environmental spending: water treatment represents the
largest item in pollution abatement and control expenditures in the OECD
countries. 4/ Infectious diseases have steadily declined in most cities in
the developed world. However, despite near universal access to sewerage
systems, sewage is not necessarily treated before discharge; an estimated 30
per cent of wastewater in developed countries is still dumped raw into local
rivers, lakes or marine waters, posing increasing health risks. 5/
132. There is evidence that developing Asian countries are successfully
providing adequate sanitation services at lower per capita income levels than
was the case in the developed countries. 6/ However, in many other developing
countries, worsening water quality represents one of the most serious health
hazards and constraints on socio-economic development. The International
Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (the "Water Decade" 1981-1990) was
a coordinated international effort to "speed up" the water quality transition
and accelerate the introduction of water services in poor regions. Nearly
US$ 100 billion was invested but the results were mixed. Impressive gains in
the numbers of people served were offset by population growth, especially in
urban areas. In 1994, approximately 1.2 billion people in developing
countries lacked safe water supplies and nearly 3 billion lacked access to
sanitation services, representing a decline in the percentage of the
population served (figure V.4). 2/
133. The difficulties in providing people with adequate drinking water and
sanitation services are being compounded by the pollution which now extends
for miles around cities in many developing countries: rising volumes of
industrial and household effluent contaminate surface and groundwater supplies
and often overwhelm municipal treatment capacity. In this context, the
importance of protecting groundwater as a resource is only now coming to be
fully appreciated. In the Asian and Pacific region, more than 1 billion
people depend on groundwater for their drinking water; in many areas, reserves
are increasingly threatened by contamination, especially from intensive
agriculture. 7/ New irrigation schemes, which create large bodies of standing
water favourable to parasites, are responsible for significant increases in
water-related diseases. For example, schistosomiasis has spread quickly
through river regions following construction of major dams in North and West
Africa, reaching infection rates of 90 to 100 per cent, compared with 5 to
10 per cent before construction. 8/
134. The World Health Organization estimates that almost half the world's
population is suffering from debilitating water-borne or water-related
diseases which account for an estimated 5 million deaths each year. Good
progress has been made in reducing the incidence of guinea-worm disease, which
may be eradicated in the near future, but epidemics of other infectious
diseases, notably diarrhoeal diseases, cholera and schistosomiasis, remain
frequent.
Figure V.4. Access to safe water and sanitation services
in developing countries
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Based on report of the Secretary-General (A/50/213).
Water and ecosystem functions
135. Worldwide efforts to increase available water supplies have involved
major trade-offs: natural capital has been lost, in return for gains in
energy generation, food production and socio-economic development. The past
half century has witnessed an unprecedented period of construction of dams,
canals, reservoirs and pipelines. The number of major dams (over 15 metres in
height) in the world rose from just over 5,000 in 1950 to nearly 38,000 today,
with over 60 per cent in Asia. 9/ This "plumbing" of the world's river
systems, though essential in some cases, has led to multiple environmental and
social impacts, some of which are now recognized as serious obstacles to
future development.
136. In many of the world's great rivers, the volume and timing of water flow
is almost entirely controlled, with virtually no water reaching the sea. This
has resulted in major disruptions to aquatic habitats, declining fish stocks
and significant losses in biodiversity. Another important objective of water
engineering is flood control. Ironically, there is evidence that flooding is
worsening in some regions due to excessive canalization of rivers and loss of
wetlands which act as natural sponges. Successful flood prevention, on the
other hand, is preventing replenishment of deltas and fertilization of flood
plains worldwide because silt tends to be trapped behind dams in reservoirs.
Global loss of reservoir capacity due to sedimentation is estimated at
10 per cent per decade. 2/ Loss of productive land as deltas retreat is a
problem which could be compounded by climate change and rising sea levels.
For example, it has been estimated that Egypt could lose up to 19 per cent of
its habitable land, displacing some 16 per cent of the population, over the
next 60 years. 10/
137. Major concerns arise over waterlogging and salination of soils caused by
poor irrigation techniques. Irrigation has accounted for more than half of
the increase in global food production since the mid-1960s and is expected to
contribute strongly to meeting future additional demand (chap. IV). However,
about 20 per cent (50 million hectares) of the world's irrigated land is
affected, to some degree, by soil degradation caused by faulty irrigation
practices. 2/ In many areas, salination has reached the point where food
production is significantly reduced; studies have found that yields of major
crops in North Africa and parts of Asia are being cut by 30 per cent. 10/
138. The trend to ever bigger water engineering projects has slowed in the
1990s due to low food prices (which discourage the expansion of irrigation),
rising real costs of construction and growing recognition of the environmental
and social consequences. Much of the damage due to misuse of water resources
could be reversed, given time, political will and finance. The more
fundamental problem is that, despite all the effort put into storing and
transporting fresh water, supply side solutions have not kept pace with rising
demand in many water stressed countries. This suggests the need for
alternative approaches if future demands are to be met.
Looking ahead
139. Water management over the next decades will be a development issue
(ensuring water supplies are sufficient for economic activity without
undermining the natural resource base of soil and water), a political issue
(avoiding domestic and international conflicts over a scarce resource) and a
welfare issue (providing people with the water services necessary for good
health and quality of life). Projections regarding future water demand and
availability are highly uncertain, being dependent on assumptions about
population and economic growth, investment in additional water supply,
relative demand from different consuming sectors, the development and adoption
of new technologies and the extent to which existing supplies become
contaminated.
140. Projections made in the recent Comprehensive Freshwater Assessment (see
note 2 below) are based on the United Nations medium population growth
forecast and assume no major changes in policy or technology; they represent a
business-as-usual continuation of present trends. Estimated withdrawals reach
a global total of over 5,000 km3 per year by 2025 (figure V.5).
141. The Conventional Development Scenario projects a much lower rate of
increase, based on greater shifts worldwide towards less water-intensive
economic activities and higher levels of water efficiency. Its estimate of
total withdrawals of 4,300 km3 by 2050 is considered very conservative by most
experts. At the opposite extreme, another estimate has been produced as a
"backcasting" exercise, based on FAO projections of future food demand; it
represents the amount of water that would be required to produce sufficient
food for the world's population in 2025. Depending on water efficiency in
agriculture, and other factors, estimates of this variant range from a 50 to
100 per cent increase in water demand over the next 30 years.
142. Future water supplies in many developing countries could be critically
determined by contamination of rivers, lakes and groundwater reserves by
industrial emissions and agricultural and urban run-off. Agricultural use of
fertilizers and pesticides is expected to increase rapidly in developing
countries in order to meet rising food demand and, if inadequately managed,
industrial growth and urbanization will produce dramatic increases in
pollution. The extent to which societies will choose to limit water
withdrawals for economic purposes in order to protect terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystem functions is a further uncertainty, especially in industrializing
countries where standards of living and interest in environmental quality are
rising rapidly.
143. Despite their wide range, most forecasts of water use suggest that
demand from all economic sectors will continue to grow. On current trends,
almost two thirds of the world population in 2025 will be subject to moderate
to high water management difficulties, and almost half the world will have
difficulties in coping due to inadequate financial resources. Figure V.6
illustrates the projected water stress index for countries in 2025; it is a
conservative estimate, which assumes that per capita water withdrawals remain
at 1995 levels.
Figure V.5. Water withdrawals by sector, 1990-2025
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: I.A. Shiklomanov.
Figure V.6. Water withdrawal as a percentage of water availability, 2025
[ Figure not shown ]
144. It appears most likely that water will become a critical issue in
development. Worldwide, water use cannot rise to match projected demand
without a substantial increase in available supply, much greater use of the
existing supply and major efforts to prevent pollution. Where increasing
available supply to match demand is economically and/or environmentally
infeasible, the emphasis must be on water conservation and pollution
prevention. Conservation - especially water reuse in industry and greater
efficiency in household and agricultural use - represents the greatest
"resource" still to be exploited.
The role of policy
145. Water has traditionally been a State responsibility in most countries.
Viewed as a strategic resource but also a public good, water resources have
tended to be centrally planned and protected from market forces. Politically,
major projects to increase water supply have often proved more attractive than
measures aimed at water conservation and efficiency.
146. Political and social considerations have encouraged Governments
worldwide to provide large subsidies to insulate water users from the true
costs of provision. The World Bank estimates that, on average, municipal
water users in developing countries pay about 35 per cent of the average cost
of water supply. Developed country Governments also subsidize municipal users
though generally at a lower rate than agricultural users. In both developed
and developing countries, most urban water utilities further distort prices by
charging flat or declining rates per unit of water use, rather than rates that
rise to reflect increasing marginal costs of supply.
147. Worldwide, water subsidies benefit farmers above all other users;
farmers typically pay between 10 and 20 per cent of the construction and
operating costs of irrigation projects. 11/ Artificially low water prices
largely underwrote the worldwide boom in irrigation and thereby enabled
essential increases in agricultural production. However, they also encouraged
the development of wasteful and inefficient practices; on average, 55 per cent
of irrigation water never reaches the crop. 12/ Generous allocation of
subsidized water to agriculture - while helpful for food security, rural
poverty alleviation and increased agricultural exports - may not be the most
economically beneficial option overall. Planners in China calculate that a
given amount of water used in industry generates more than 60 times the value
of the same amount used in agriculture. 10/
148. Water management at the national level is characterized by fragmentation
of responsibility, for example, among ministries of agriculture, energy,
health, transport, environment, economic affairs and local authorities.
Despite some evidence of a move towards integration - linking water
legislation to economic and social issues - weak and divided administrative
structures persist in many countries. Isolated decision-making in one sector
can create problems - or foreclose future options - in another. This has
especially been the case in decisions relating to major irrigation schemes:
the over-ambitious attempt to irrigate much of the Aral Sea Basin has led to
economic, environmental and human health damage totalling an estimated
37 billion roubles; wide areas have been economically ruined. 13/
Policy lessons and priorities
149. There is a growing consensus that increasing water supplies to match
demand will, in many areas, be economically prohibitive. Costs of tapping new
water supplies are projected to rise to between two and three times the cost
of current investments. 6/ A prime lesson of recent years, therefore, is
recognition that improved management and greater efficiency are the keys to
stretching water resources. Two broad policy approaches hold particular
promise: (i) institutional change to encourage more integrated and effective
water management and (ii) technical innovation and pricing reform to improve
efficiency of use and manage demand.
150. Some countries are beginning to decentralize their water supply services
and give a greater role to the private sector. Municipal authorities in most
regions of the world are experimenting with some transfer of water management
to private companies, autonomous utilities or water user associations in the
hope of improving cost and water efficiencies and standards of service. 14/
Top priority needs to be given to providing safe drinking water and sanitation
in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific region. However, a prime
lesson of the Water Decade has been the inappropriateness of transferring
developed country standards wholesale to developing countries. Western
infrastructures have developed over more than a century, in step with economic
and population growth. The size of population and budgetary constraints in
many developing countries mean that providing all residents with, for example,
piped water and flush toilets in their houses is not a realistic option in the
near term. Low-cost solutions, tailored to local conditions and needs, are
proving themselves effective but are commonly resisted on the grounds that
they represent a low-technology, second-rate development route.
151. In rural areas, watershed management is being promoted as a means to
more integrated management of water, forest and agricultural land resources.
A number of Governments and international aid agencies are supporting
innovative attempts to promote joint management of watersheds by local
residents and government agencies. In northern Thailand, for example, an
approach has been developed involving community mapping of watersheds, a
physical model of the watershed area that serves as a basis for a joint zoning
exercise and the development of a network of participating communities within
the watershed to deal with transboundary issues. 15/
152. The growing number of cross-border conflicts over water supplies clearly
requires shared water resources to be developed on a more cooperative basis in
the future. International agreements regulating water use in shared river
basins are common in developed countries and they are slowly being replicated
in developing countries. 16/ Despite the complexity and political sensitivity
of such agreements, the international community has recently made some
progress in assisting countries to develop integrated action plans for the
management of shared water resources. The importance attached to this issue
at the international level, however, does not match its strategic
significance.
153. Water-efficient technologies hold enormous potential for relatively low-
cost expansion of available supplies. This is particularly true in the
agriculture sector; it has been estimated that saving and transferring just
5 per cent of agricultural water to municipal uses in the western United
States would meet the needs of urban users for the next 25 years. 17/
However, this option is still grossly under-exploited. While the use of
water-efficient drip irrigation has grown 28-fold since the mid-1970s, it is
still employed in less than 1 per cent of the world's irrigated area. 10/
154. In the industry and household sectors, efficient appliances, demand
management and conservation measures can be effectively encouraged with
economic incentives. The introduction of effluent charges in a growing number
of countries has stimulated industries to recycle and treat their water
intake, causing their overall use rates to decline, sometimes dramatically.
Numerous studies demonstrate the link between rising prices and declining
demand and consumption rates. However, increasing water prices to cover the
full costs of provision is a politically daunting step even in the wealthiest
countries and currently infeasible in most of the developing world. In
Europe, for example, Governments have sought to raise water tariffs (sometimes
in the context of privatization) in order to meet the costs of investments in
new infrastructure required under European Union law. Public reaction has
often been hostile and water use has not declined where new rates have not
been linked to consumption. In developing countries, full cost pricing is a
realistic goal only in the long term. Price rises are likely to be effective
only in the context of institutional reforms that encourage efficient
allocation and services and broader socio-economic development which fosters
both responsible use and the ability to pay. The transition will require time
and careful management.
Notes and references
1/ Malin Falkenmark and Gunnar Lindh, "Water and economic development",
in Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources,
Peter H. Gleick, ed. (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993).
2/ Report of the Secretary-General on a comprehensive freshwater
assessment (E/CN.17/1997/9).
3/ See Sandra Postel, "Water and agriculture" in Water in Crisis ...,
for trading schemes in the United States. See also John Langford, "An
Australian approach to the sustainable use of water", paper prepared for an
international workshop on policy measures for changing consumption patterns,
Seoul, 30 August-1 September 1995.
4/ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Environmental
Performance in OECD Countries: Progress in the 1990s (Paris, 1996). Data
from member countries are incomplete; cited figures are based on information
from 10 countries, representing over 70 per cent of total GDP in OECD.
5/ World Resources Institute, World Resources Report, 1996-97 (Oxford
and New York, Oxford University Press, 1996).
6/ World Bank, World Development Report, 1992: Development and the
Environment (Washington, D.C., 1992).
7/ British Geological Survey, United Kingdom Overseas Development
Administration, United Nations Environment Programme and World Health
Organization, Characterization and Assessment of Groundwater Quality Concerns
in the Asia-Pacific Region (UNEP, 1996).
8/ Linda Nash, "Water quality and health", in Water in Crisis ....
9/ Mostafa K. Tolba and others, eds., The World Environment 1972-1992
(London, Chapman and Hall, 1992).
10/ Sandra Postel, "Water and agriculture", in Water in Crisis ....
11/ Robert Repetto, Skimming the Water: Rent Seeking and the Performance
of Public Irrigation Systems (Washington, D.C., World Resources Institute,
1986).
12/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Water for
Life (Rome, 1994).
13/ Nikita F. Glazovsky, "The Aral Sea Basin", in Regions at Risk:
Comparisons of Threatened Environments, Jeanne X. Kasperson,
Roger E. Kasperson and B. L. Turner, eds., United Nations University Press,
Tokyo, 1995.
14/ Various new initiatives on water pricing are reviewed in World
Economic and Social Survey, 1996 (United Nations publication, Sales
No. E.96.II.C.1).
15/ Uraivan Tan-kim-yong, Participatory Land Use Planning for Natural
Resource Management in Northern Thailand, Overseas Development Institute
(ODI), Rural Forest Development Network, Paper No. 14b (Winter, 1992).
16/ Robin Clarke, Water: The International Crisis (London, Earthscan
Publications, 1991).
17/ Leslie Spencer, "Water: the West's most misallocated resource", in
Forbes, 27 April 1992. Cited in The True State of the Planet, Ronald Bailey,
ed. (New York, The Free Press, 1995).
VI. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
155. Core elements of a human development "package" were set out for the
first time in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration
recognized specific social and economic rights such as access to education,
health, political participation and a decent standard of living, as well as
more intangible rights, including freedom, personal security and dignity.
These rights, and principles for their implementation, have since been
elaborated in international meetings and conventions, culminating in the
recent series of global conferences organized by the United Nations on such
developmental issues as population, the environment, poverty and the status of
women. 1/
156. For many years, economic growth has been seen as the key to achieving
most human development goals. Rapid economic growth over much of the past
half century has enabled many countries to make great progress in providing
their citizens with reasonable living standards. However, population growth,
macroeconomic difficulties and inadequate political and social infrastructures
have impeded progress in many lower-income countries, leading to a sense of
"running to stand still". At the same time, serious concerns have arisen over
the long-term viability of some current growth patterns. One set of concerns
focuses on the environmental, economic and social consequences of the
resource-intensive consumption patterns of the developed world - and,
increasingly, the rapidly industrializing countries - another on the multiple
problems bound up with economic stagnation, poverty and environmental
degradation in some developing countries.
157. The concept of "sustainable development" has contributed two fundamental
ideas to this debate. Firstly, if human development is to be sustained in the
long term, societies cannot afford to pursue economic growth in a manner which
destroys the natural resource base on which present and future economic
activity depends. Secondly, the benefits of economic growth must be
distributed more equitably. Poverty undermines progress in virtually every
aspect of human development and threatens security at the local, national and
international levels. The 1990s have been characterized by a growing
consensus that eradication of poverty represents a global priority, and one
that is inseparable from socio-economic development and environmental
protection.
The social transition
158. The social transition may be seen as the outcome of progress through the
major transitions described so far: indicators of human development (see
table) tend to rise with increasingly stable and healthy populations, rising
per capita income, access to commercial energy and material goods, adequate
nutrition and safe water and sanitation services. 2/ At a global level, most
indicators are improving significantly. The world picture, however, conceals
major differences between regions and within countries. The least developed
countries (LDCs) are struggling to achieve - and sustain - universal access to
the basic social services; they face a serious risk of "entrapment" in which
increasing populations and stagnant economic growth undermine the "take-off"
in human welfare. At the other end of the scale, many industrialized
countries have established comprehensive social welfare systems, but must now
contend with escalating costs as ageing populations, high and chronic levels
of unemployment and social marginalization of the insufficiently skilled raise
the demand for health care and payment of benefits.
Trends in human development indicators
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indicator Least All Developing Industrialised
Developed Countries Countries
countries
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life Expectancy
1960 39 46 69
1993 51 62 74
Infant Mortality Rate
(deaths per thousand live
births)
1960 173 150 ..
1993 110 70 13
Underweight Children
Under Age Five (%)
1975 51 40 ..
1985-95 45 30 4
Commercial Energy Use Per
Capita (kg oil
equivalent)
1971 42 255 4 211
1993 50 536 4 589
Daily Calorie Supply Per
Capita
1970 2 060 2 140 3 190
1992 2 040 2 520 3 350
Adult Literacy Rate (%)
1970 28 43 ..
1993 47 71 98
Enrolment Ratio, all
levels
(% age 6-23)
1980 31 46 ..
1993 35 55 82
Real GDP per capita
(PPP$)
1960 561 915 ..
1993 894 2 709 15 211
GNP per capita annual
growth rate (%)
1965-1980 0.4 2.9 3.1
1980-1993 0.5 3.9 1.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Based on Human Development Report, 1996 (various
tables). Calorie supply data from World Food Summit, 1996.
Economic growth and poverty
159. The world economy has grown with unprecedented speed since the Second
World War, and growth has been further fuelled in recent years by trade
liberalization and greater mobility of private investment capital. Exports of
goods and services grew from 17 per cent of the GDP of market economies in
1970 to 24 per cent in 1990. The phenomenon of "globalization" is creating a
world economy increasingly interlinked by international and regional trade
agreements and the operations of transnational companies, financial
institutions, mass media and electronic communications. Global economic
growth has led to a real rise in the standard of living for a majority of the
world's population though its benefits have not been universal. While some
developing regions owe their rapid growth to international trade, others,
especially those dependent on exports of primary commodities, appear to be at
risk of marginalization. More than 1.5 billion people experienced declining
incomes in the 1990s. 3/ (figure VI.1).
Figure VI.1. Per capita income in major world regions, 1970-1991
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UN, DESIPA, Statistical Division.
160. Poverty is related to a wide range of factors, including income, health,
education and access to goods and services, and such socio-cultural factors as
gender and ethnicity. If income is used as a proxy measure, it is clear that
much progress in reducing poverty has been made in recent decades. Average
per capita incomes in developing countries have doubled in the past 25 years
(a feat which took nearly 40 years in the United States). Social indicators
such as education and health have also improved (see below). The percentage
of the world's population living in absolute poverty (defined by the World
Bank as living on less than a dollar a day 4/) has fallen since the mid-1980s.
However, this decline was concentrated in Asia; other regions have not reduced
the incidence of poverty to the same degree and the total number of people
living in poverty has risen, to just over 1.3 billion in 1993 (figure VI.2).5/
Efforts to reduce poverty have generally met with greatest success in the
developing countries which are more advanced in their economic and demographic
transitions. Widespread poverty appears most persistent in countries
experiencing continued, rapid population growth and economic stagnation.
Figure VI.2. People living in absolute poverty, 1987-1993
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: World Bank.
Education
161. Education is fundamental to reducing both individual and national
poverty. School enrolment, especially primary schooling for literacy, is a
means to achieving the interlinked development goals of health, higher labour
productivity, more rapid economic growth and the broader objective of social
integration, for example, through participation in political and cultural
affairs. Literacy rates have risen strongly in developing countries, boosted
also by adult literacy programmes, but the absolute numbers of illiterate
adults has increased from about 760 million in 1970 to about 900 million
today. 6/ The proportion of children enrolled in school has also risen,
though more slowly. The numbers of children not attending school have fallen
in most of Asia and Latin America but have risen in Africa and the least
developed countries.
Figure VI.3. Primary school enrolment, 1980-1993
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UNESCO.
162. The level of education among women is increasingly recognized as a major
factor in speeding the social transition; higher enrolment rates for girls
demonstrably lead to decreased fertility rates, improved child health and
increased earnings potential. Female adult literacy and school enrolment at
primary and secondary levels increased by almost two thirds in the developing
countries between 1970 and 1992, with the fastest progress being made in the
Arab States, followed by south-east Asia and Latin America. 7/ Progress has
also been made in higher education. Overall, educational attainment among
women has progressed faster than among men and the "educational gender gap",
though still significant, has narrowed at virtually all levels of education
and in all regions. Exceptions are adult literacy and higher education rates
in sub-Saharan Africa, where the gaps between men and women have widened.
Figure VI.4. School enrolment by gender, 1980-1993
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UNESCO.
Human health
163. Socio-economic development is characterized by a health transition
during which infectious diseases, which thrive when people live in unsanitary
or overcrowded conditions, give way to degenerative diseases associated with
longer life expectancy (for example, cancer) or more affluent lifestyles.
Infectious diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide (about one
third of all annual deaths) but dramatic improvements have been made in recent
decades. Thanks to targeted political and scientific efforts, killer diseases
including poliomyelitis, leprosy, guinea-worm disease and neonatal tetanus are
likely to be eradicated in the near future. 8/ Globally, average life
expectancy at birth has risen to 65 years and the life expectancy gap between
the industrialized and developing countries has approximately halved over the
past 40 years. Infant and child mortality rates have fallen in all regions.
Figure VI.5. Child mortality rate under 5 years, 1960-1995
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: UNICEF.
164. Despite progress, the World Health Organization points to disturbing
trends which indicate that infectious diseases are far from under control.
During the past 20 years, at least 30 new diseases - for many of which there
is currently no treatment or vaccine - have emerged to pose a threat to the
health of hundreds of millions of people. Examples include AIDS, which was
unknown 20 years ago and has now infected an estimated 24 million adults
worldwide, and new varieties of haemorrhagic fevers, of which Ebola is the
best known. 8/ Antibiotic resistance in hospitals worldwide is renewing the
threat from diseases considered to be subdued. And, in the industrialized
countries, "old" diseases such as tuberculosis have re-emerged in many poorer
urban areas. Developing countries, meanwhile, are experiencing rapid growth
in some degenerative diseases once largely confined to the developed world.
Cancers and coronary heart disease are on the increase, especially in middle-
income countries, and many more deaths may be expected from smoking-related
diseases. While per capita consumption of tobacco is slowly falling in
industrialized countries, it is rising in developing countries. 8/
Figure VI.6. Estimated deaths caused by smoking
in developed countries, 1955--1995
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: WHO.
Equity
165. Full equality of economic opportunity, access to goods and services and
participation in the political and cultural life of society are not essential
requirements of economic growth. However, it is increasingly accepted that
gross inequities between people are not only unjust but represent a
squandering of human resources and a potential brake on socio-economic
development. A notable trend of the past 30 years, however, has been the
widening gap between rich and poor, both between and within countries. The
difference between average per capita incomes in the industrialized and
developing countries tripled between 1960 and 1993, while the share of global
income taken by countries with the richest 20 per cent of the world's
population rose from 70 to 85 per cent. 3/ Disparities in income within
countries have also increased, with the richest 20 per cent of the population
earning up to 30 times more than the poorest 20 per cent in some countries.
Past trends in national income gaps are mixed, with moves both towards, and
away from, greater income equality in the developed and newly industrializing
countries. In Latin America and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
income gaps have generally widened.
166. Developing countries have made good progress in some other indicators of
human development. The gaps with the industrialized countries have narrowed
significantly for life expectancy, adult literacy and daily calorie supply
over the past 30 years (see table). A relatively new and disturbing trend,
however, is a widening gap between the least developed countries (LDCs) and
other developing countries. For example, LDCs have experienced the smallest
gains since the 1970s in critical indicators relating to child health and
school enrolment. 8/
167. Debate over inequalities between men and women - their earning power,
levels of education, personal security, political rights and access to social
services - has surged in recent years. Historical data are weak, but it
appears that, while a higher proportion of women in most regions of the world
are now entering all levels of education, their participation in paid economic
activity has risen very little in developing countries and has declined in
LDCs. 7/ Representation of women in politics and administration remains low
in almost all countries.
Looking ahead: the policy challenges
168. Quantitative, integrated forecasts regarding the effects of economic
growth on human development remain beyond the capacity of current models. The
quality of growth is as important as quantity; government intervention, the
uses of technology and cultural factors play a major role in determining the
extent to which growth will generate employment, encourage participation in
society and improve the quality of life for the many or the few. While the
interaction of such complex factors cannot be precisely modelled, much
experience has been gained over recent decades regarding policy approaches
favourable to economic growth and human development.
Eradicating poverty
169. No country has achieved permanent reductions in poverty without
sustained economic growth, which stimulates demand, generates employment and
provides the financial resources essential for government investment in basic
social and other services.
170. Quantitative projections of global and regional growth tend to be short
term and limited in their assessment of alternative patterns of government
spending or private investment decisions. The Conventional Development
Scenario projects economic growth rates for the period 1990-2050 of about 2
per cent for the OECD economies, and about 3 per cent for the developing
countries. Developing countries are expected, over time, to evolve economic
structures broadly similar to those of the industrialized world, shifting from
agriculture towards industry and services.
171. By 2025, per capita income (in 1990 dollars) in the developed countries
would double to $40,000, while in the developing countries average per capita
income would treble to around $5,000. Such a development path would cause the
income gap between the developed and developing world to narrow only slightly
in relative terms, and to increase in absolute terms.
Figure VI.7. Projected per capita income (US$ 1990), 1990-2050
[ Figure not shown ]
Source: Stockholm Environment Institute
172. Faster rates of growth in the least developed countries are an urgent
development priority. The factors contributing to sustained, broad-based
growth are complex but include appropriate macroeconomic and sectoral
policies, adequate investment in infrastructure and in essential sectors such
as agriculture, health and education, as well as well-functioning institutions
and good governance. The worldwide trend towards freer markets, private
enterprise and trade offers new opportunities for reform and growth. The
spread of democratic institutions and affordable communication technology will
reinforce these developments.
Reducing inequity
173. While the majority of the world's population grows richer, the poorest
20 per cent - over 1 billion people - are so poor that they are effectively
excluded from almost every benefit of modern society. This situation is not
only unjust. It increasingly threatens, through waste of human resources,
population movements and, in some regions, escalating crime rates, to
undermine social stability and future economic growth. Economic and cultural
globalization is encouraging the spillover of such poverty-related impacts
from developing to developed countries. Nor is inequity confined to the
developing world. Some richer countries now face the financial and social
difficulties of coping with a growing "underclass" of disaffected citizens too
poorly educated and too poor to participate in society.
174. Many countries have achieved high rates of economic growth alongside
growing income disparities, and conventional wisdom has held that rapid growth
and greater income equality are incompatible policy goals, at least in the
early stages of industrialization. However, recent experience appears to
indicate that more even distribution of private and public assets is no
impediment to growth and may encourage faster, and more sustained, rises in
prosperity. For example, the East Asian economies (excluding China)
experienced annual per capita growth of 7.6 per cent between 1960 and 1993,
with relatively low inequality. 3/ Countries that have combined rapid
economic growth with declining inequality have achieved dramatic reductions in
poverty. 9/
175. Reducing the worst inequities will depend on (i) international and
national action to reverse the stagnant or negative economic growth patterns
currently experienced in the lowest income countries; and (ii) domestic
policies (in all countries) which enable all sectors of society to benefit
from growth.
176. Net flows of official development assistance (ODA) from the
industrialized countries, on which the least developed countries in particular
depend, have declined in real terms since 1994. Net capital flows of private
direct investment, portfolio investment and commercial bank lending, however,
have increased since 1992, though they have been concentrated in a small
number of countries. While developed countries should honour their
commitments to allocate 0.7 per cent of GNP to ODA, especially in the case of
the least developed countries, the greatest long-term flow of resources
appears likely to come from the private sector. Many developing countries
will benefit from macroeconomic reforms favourable to inward investment and
social policies which ensure that the benefits of new growth provide increased
opportunities at all levels of society.
177. The burden of private and public debt accumulated by many developing
countries in the 1970s has limited their economic growth and human development
significantly. On the positive side, the debt-to-export ratio (the main
indicator of an economy's ability to repay its debt) of most middle-income
developing countries has substantially improved since 1992. Debt problems
have been alleviated by a combination of sound economic policies, rescheduling
of external debt and the introduction of new instruments such as debt
conversion programmes. However, the level of indebtedness of some of the
least developed countries remains so high as to constitute an almost
insurmountable obstacle to development. Accelerated measures to reduce their
debt burdens would seem an urgent priority to reignite growth in these
countries.
Investing in human resources
178. Recent studies by the World Bank 10/ conclude that human resources (raw
labour, the returns on education and social organization) are overwhelmingly
the dominant factor in the wealth of most countries, constituting some 76
per cent of wealth in North America, about 75 to 78 per cent in Latin America,
about 78 per cent in East Asia, 65 per cent in South Asia and from 69 to 71
per cent in Africa. By contrast, produced assets (physical infrastructure,
manufacturing plant) account for less than 15 per cent of wealth in many
developing regions, only 20 per cent in North America and 28 per cent in
Western Europe.
179. While the new global economy allows national Governments less autonomy
in macroeconomic decision-making than in the past, their scope for influencing
human development through public investment and institutional reform remains
considerable. Investment in human resources, in the form of public and
private expenditures on education, health and other services, appears to bring
the greatest returns on capital, thus promoting more rapid growth in GDP while
also alleviating poverty.
180. The percentage of public expenditure devoted to social sectors, however,
varies greatly across countries, even those at similar income levels. Many
developing countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, have
invested heavily in education in recent years. However, for developing
countries as a whole, public expenditure on education as a percentage of GNP
barely changed between 1980 and 1992, rising from 3.8 to 3.9 per cent. 11/
This compares with a figure of 5.4 per cent in industrialized countries.
Nearly two thirds of the world's illiterate adults are still women, most of
them living in the developing regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America; given
their central role in development, improvement of women's educational status
should remain a clear priority.
181. Spending on health remains low, at 2 per cent of GDP in developing
countries and only 1.8 per cent in the least developed countries, compared
with over 6 per cent in industrialized countries. 12/ Finance for health and
education in most industrialized countries is also significantly augmented by
private investment. According the World Health Organization, the most urgent
health priority today is to complete the final stages of eradicating those
infectious diseases which are now in decline but could revive sharply if
efforts slacken. In the longer term, broader socio-economic development
remains the key to providing adequate health services and enabling the poor to
protect themselves from health hazards.
182. A key factor in the quality of, and access to, social services is thus
the distributional impact of government spending. Many studies now document
the economic and wider social benefits of investment in basic education and
primary health care. Subsidies for education, health, water and energy
supplies in many countries, however, can be highly regressive, benefiting
relatively wealthy users at the expense of the poor. For example, the urban
poor in developing countries tend to live in slum areas where they must rely
on private water vendors, paying an average of 12 times the amount paid by
wealthier householders for subsidized municipal water. 13/ Higher education
institutions and large modern hospitals, used by the relatively prosperous
few, often claim a disproportionate share of limited education and health
budgets.
183. The World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995) and follow-up
processes have recognized the priority of improving access and quality of
basic social services in eradicating poverty. The "20/20 initiative" seeks to
increase funds for social investment through reciprocal agreements in which
developed and developing country partners allocate 20 per cent of ODA and
20 per cent of national budgets respectively to basic social services by the
year 2000. 14/ Implementation of this commitment would represent a
significant step forward. Developed countries will also need to commit
greater resources, both public and private, to education, if their populations
are to develop the skills necessary to function well in more complex,
technical and competitive societies.
Managing the natural resource base
184. While natural capital may not equal the importance of human resources
and produced assets in development (see above), it remains a critical
component of national wealth. Natural resources such as soil and water are
part of the earth's life support system and, if destroyed, cannot be replaced
(with rare exceptions, and at high cost). In addition, natural capital
assumes far greater importance in the wealth of lower-income countries,
representing up to 20 per cent of national wealth in low-income economies with
a heavy reliance on natural resource exports. 15/ Agricultural land is the
dominant form of natural capital in these countries; damage to productive soil
and water therefore threatens both the immediate livelihood of rural
populations and erodes the factors of production which should underpin the
transition from an agricultural/rural to an industrial economy.
185. Many studies now document the association between environmental
degradation and poverty, though other factors are also involved. 16/ In many
parts of Latin America, Asia and Africa, poor farmers are often forced on to
marginal lands by unequal land distribution, lack of secure land tenure,
marginalization of small-scale agriculture by cash-crop operations, conversion
of land to other uses and population growth. National circumstances vary too
widely for any single approach to rural development to prove effective, but
critical policy reforms appear to include measures to improve land tenure,
expand access to credit and technology and reduce tax burdens on rural
producers that limit investment in smallholder agriculture and rural
enterprises. Recent comprehensive studies of the economic effects of
agricultural policies in developed and developing countries conclude that the
net tax (export taxes over input subsidies) on agriculture in low and lower-
middle income countries in 1990 may have exceeded $130 billion - nearly equal
but opposite to the producer subsidy in OECD countries. 17/
186. An equally critical issue for human development in developing countries
concerns the investment of revenues from exploitation of natural resources
such as timber and minerals. Natural resource endowments can be transformed
into other productive assets that boost incomes and growth. Or they can be
dissipated, the revenues used for consumer goods or debt repayment. In the
latter case, resource exploitation becomes unsustainable, since there is an
ongoing net loss of national wealth.
187. The concept of "genuine savings" is being increasingly promoted as a
means of defining the true rate of saving (or economic sustainability) in a
country - a measure based on standard national accounting, modified such that
natural resource depletion and pollution damage decrease the rate of saving,
while investments in human capital (primarily educational expenditures)
increase it. Calculation of average genuine saving rates over the past 25
years reveals distinct regional differences. High rates of saving are evident
in the East Asia/Pacific region and the high-income OECD countries. Strongly
negative rates of saving are apparent in two categories of country - those
which became heavily indebted following the oil crises, and the oil-rich
countries which failed to invest their windfall profits adequately for future
growth. 10/
188. Improved rent capture (collection of royalties on resource use) by
Government, and reinvestment of those rents, are thus crucial policy
priorities in many low- and middle-income countries. Without sufficient rent
capture, there is a strong incentive for producers to over-exploit and degrade
natural resources. Without investment, wealth is dissipated and opportunities
for development squandered. And the highest quality form of public
expenditure is, for many countries, in human resources. If there is a key to
achieving growth, development and sustainability, it may lie in the
transformation of perceptions surrounding spending on social services; such
spending represents, not a cost, but the surest investment for the future.
Notes and references
1/ World Summit for Children (1990), World Conference on Education for
All (1990), United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992),
World Conference on Human Rights (1993), International Conference on
Population and Development (1994), World Summit for Social Development (1995),
Fourth World Conference on Women (1995), United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development, ninth session (1996), United Nations Conference on Human
Settlements (Habitat II) (1996) and World Food Summit (1996).
2/ Indicators of human development are tracked in the annual Human
Development Report produced by the United Nations Development Programme since
1990.
3/ United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1996
(New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996).
4/ Purchasing power parity indices based on consumption are used to
convert the US$ 1 per person per day standard into local currency. The World
Bank's latest poverty estimates are based on data obtained through household
surveys, not modelling estimates.
5/ World Bank, Poverty Reduction and the World Bank: Progress and
Challenges in the 1990s (Washington, D.C., 1996).
6/ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
Statistical Yearbook, 1995 (Paris, 1995).
7/ United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1995
(New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995).
8/ World Health Organization, The World Health Report, 1996 (Geneva,
1996).
9/ Martin Ravallion, Gaurav Datt and Shaohua Chen, New Estimates of
Aggregate Poverty in the Developing World, 1985-90 (Washington, D.C., World
Bank, 1992); and Martin Ravallion and Monika Huppi, The Sectoral Structure of
Poverty During an Adjustment Period: Evidence for Indonesia in the Mid-1980s
(Washington, D.C., World Bank, 1990), cited in Poverty Reduction ....
10/ World Bank, Monitoring Environmental Progress: Expanding the Measure
of Wealth, advance draft copy, September, 1996; to be issued as a World Bank
publication, February, 1997.
11/ Human Development Report, 1996 ..., Human Development Indicators,
table 14.
12/ Human Development Report, 1996 ..., Human Development Indicators,
tables 14, 17 and 36.
13/ World Bank, Water Resources Management: A World Bank Policy Study
(Washington, D.C., 1993).
14/ See Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen,
6-12 March 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.8).
15/ Monitoring Environmental Progress ..., supplemented with personal
communication, 13 December 1996.
16/ M. Leach and R. Mearns, Poverty and Environment in Developing
Countries: An Overview, ESRC, Global Environmental Change, Final Report to
ESRC, 1993.
17/ Rodney Tyers and Kym Anderson, Disarray in World Food Markets: A
Quantitative Assessment (Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press,
1992); and Maurice Schiff and Alberto Valdes, The Political Economy of
Agricultural Pricing Policy, vol. 4, A Synthesis of Economics in Developing
Countries (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank,
1992).
VII. CONCLUSIONS
Historical trends
189. Any review of global change is subject to the problem of conflicting
interpretations, even when based on identical data sets. Many trends may be
seen as positive or negative according to the perspective of the reviewer and
the indicators selected. For example, energy intensity has fallen but
consumption has risen, the percentage of people living in poverty has fallen
but absolute numbers have grown, per capita emissions of some pollutants have
fallen relative to GDP while their total emissions have risen. "Optimistic"
or "pessimistic" characterizations of the past and projections of the future
are therefore dependent, at least in part, on social and individual
perceptions.
A more qualitative assessment of recent decades reveals some broad, but clear,
trends in the economic, social and environmental spheres of development
190. Socio-economic development in many middle- and higher-income developing
countries appears to be following the same "family of transitions" (see
chap. I) experienced in the developed world, albeit at a faster pace. Where
the industrialized countries have developed stable populations and mature -
though still changing - economies, much of the developing world is in a rapid
growth phase. Per capita incomes are rising with industrialization,
consumption of energy, goods and services is growing, and levels of education
and health are generally improving. Capitalism and consumerism show every
sign of remaining dominant forces in an increasingly homogeneous world
culture.
191. Despite record rates of global economic growth, wealth disparities have
increased between the rich, developed countries and the developing world;
differentiation is also becoming more apparent between more successful
developing countries and those which remain least developed. The phenomenon
of marginalization, whereby the poorest countries fail to achieve economic or
social "take-off" and become progressively less able to participate in the
global economic system, has become sharply apparent since the 1980s. Their
populations continue to grow, as do poverty, environmental degradation and
declining quality of life.
192. Environmental quality with respect to air and fresh water has generally
improved in the developed world but is still worsening in many areas of newly
industrializing regions. A major preoccupation of the 1970s, the threat of
exhaustion of non-renewable resources, now appears less urgent and
environmental concerns have shifted to the degradation of renewable resources,
primarily soil, forests, water and the atmosphere. The extent and/or quality
of these resources, and of other natural habitats and biodiversity, has
declined overall in many regions of the world.
Future prospects
193. Many goals relating to human development and environmental protection
that were established during the 1960s and 1970s have been reaffirmed in the
international conferences of the 1990s - indicating that they have yet to be
achieved. Notable examples include the eradication of poverty, hunger,
illiteracy and discrimination, and the protection of certain threatened
natural resources, habitats and species. The prospects for achieving more
sustainable patterns of development in the coming decades appear mixed.
Trends and projections in a number of key issues are cause for serious concern
194. The persistence of current trends in a number of critical issues,
according to the Conventional Development Scenario and other leading
"business-as-usual" projections, will lead to continuing poverty and declining
quality of life in some developing regions, especially in urban areas,
increasing competition over use rights to natural resources and worsening
environmental degradation.
195. Persistent and growing poverty is undermining socio-economic development
in many regions of the world. In some countries, social disaffection fuelled
by gross inequity is hindering the ability of Governments to govern and the
private sector to conduct business. Social impoverishment is also felt more
widely: the financial and quality of life costs to people who, though not
poor themselves, live in divided societies, are only now beginning to be
measured. Per capita incomes in developing countries are not closing the gap
with developed countries in absolute terms; income disparities within
countries are also growing.
196. Population growth and urbanization are often most rapid in low-income
developing countries which lack the resources to provide infrastructure and
basic social services necessary to promote employment, health and economic
growth. Population growth, in combination with rural poverty and insecure
land tenure systems, is a factor in deforestation and soil degradation. Urban
population growth, from rural-urban migration and natural increase, will place
an unprecedented logistical and financial burden on municipal authorities,
especially in the least developed countries.
197. Fossil fuel consumption in industrialized countries is slowly
stabilizing but many polluting emissions continue to rise, especially carbon
dioxide emissions responsible for global warming. Rapid economic growth in
many developing countries is leading to severe environmental pollution at
local and regional levels and poorly quantified damage to human health.
Energy consumption is projected to approximately double by 2050.
198. Rapid and continuous degradation of the natural resource base, on which
economic activity and life itself depend, may constitute the most serious of
all threats to human well-being in the future. Contamination of fresh water
supplies and destruction of productive soil, fisheries and forests reduce the
wealth base of countries and thus their prospects for future development.
Substitution of lost resources (for example, through food imports or water
purification facilities) imposes additional financial burdens on Governments.
And declining resource availability, especially in combination with rising
population numbers, leads to increased competition, social dislocation and
potential conflict. Resource degradation is of greatest consequence in
lower-income developing countries which may not have the financial,
technological or institutional capacity to reorient their economies to a
"natural resource-poor" structure in the timespan available.
Other trends have the potential to bring about more sustainable patterns of
development
199. Against this picture must be set many positive developments, especially
the socio-economic progress made in many developing countries over the past
30 years. Many developing regions are undergoing the demographic, economic
and social transitions much more rapidly than was the case in the
industrialized countries. It may be expected, therefore, that many of the
technological, social and environmental improvements that are evident in the
mature economies of developed countries will follow, again more rapidly, in
developing countries.
200. Fertility rates are declining more rapidly than anticipated in most
world regions. World population projections have been revised downward
throughout the 1990s and many developing countries can now plan for a
stabilizing population within the next generation or two. High rates of
population increase persist in a number of countries, however, and are cause
for concern where natural resources (agricultural land, forests, fisheries)
are still an important source of national wealth.
201. Education and health have improved significantly in developing
countries, in some cases dramatically. Healthy, educated populations are of
prime importance in economic growth and social development and these
improvements, if continued, will be instrumental in creating demand for, and
contributing to, more sustainable decision-making in all areas of life.
202. In addition, a number of broader global trends are apparent which,
though neutral in themselves, provide a context favourable to the achievement
of sustainable development if Governments, and societies, choose to take
advantage of them.
203. Economic forecasts are positive for most world regions. Many indicators
of human welfare in developing countries may be expected to rise in line with
income growth as they have done historically. Economic growth will also make
available additional resources for environmental clean-up and protection
needed to maintain natural capital at adequate levels. Nevertheless, the pace
and scale of pollution and resource degradation in some developing countries
is such that they are likely to incur very high costs in terms of health care,
environmental remediation and substitution of damaged resources. This implies
the need for increased investment in pollution prevention measures which,
though initially costly, are far cheaper than clean-up.
204. Technological innovation continues to accelerate, often in response to
the implementation of effective policy incentives. Significant improvements
in living standards and the efficiency and safety of economic activity could
be achieved through more effective deployment of existing technologies.
Further decarbonization of the energy supply, increased productivity of
agricultural land, greater efficiency of water and materials use may all be
expected with some confidence. The more these processes are accelerated
through policy incentives, the greater the social and environmental benefits
are likely to be. The potential for more radical economic and social
transformation, through entirely new technologies, is unknowable but cannot be
dismissed for the longer term.
205. The spread of democratic institutions and rising levels of education are
encouraging greater public participation in decision-making. Community groups
and non-governmental organizations in developed and developing countries are
demonstrating their ability to manage local problems of resource scarcity or
develop successful responses to social and environmental challenges. Such
activities augment "social capital" and generate the human ingenuity which,
together with technology, is an essential input to problem-solving. Limited
government resources are reinforcing this trend, as central Governments in
both developed and developing countries experiment with partnership
arrangements and increased devolvement of government responsibilities to
non-governmental actors.
The impact of policy
Policy intervention has had a clear and positive effect on a number of trends
206. The high standards of public health and education in developed countries
can be attributed largely to early State provision of water and sanitation
services, health-care systems and universal schooling. The more recent, rapid
falls in infant, child and maternal mortality rates in most developing
countries and the eradication of a number of killer diseases are the result of
targeted campaigns organized by national Governments and international
agencies. Adult literacy rates in the developing world have also responded to
government investment in education.
207. The slowdown in the rate of the world's population growth has many and
complex causes, but government population programmes, involving education,
child health care and access to family planning services, have demonstrably
contributed to falling fertility rates.
208. The numbers of malnourished people in the world remain high, but would
undoubtedly be far higher had it not been for national and international
policy commitment to develop and introduce more productive crop varieties and
improved agricultural management techniques. The "Green Revolution" of the
1950s and 1960s was the product of intensive, Government-backed research and
development.
209. Industrial pollution of air and water has been dramatically reduced in
many developed countries. While part of the decline is accounted for by
market-driven technological change, the process has been accelerated by
government regulations which have progressively tightened emission standards,
technical specifications and ambient quality targets.
But other trends have resisted policy intervention - or have barely been
tackled
210. Macroeconomic policies to promote growth and development, and targeted
attempts to help the poor, have not succeeded in eradicating poverty, only in
slowing its rate of growth. The distribution of the world's wealth has become
steadily more inequitable, in part because overtly redistributional policies
are so politically sensitive.
211. The numbers of people without access to basic energy, water and
sanitation services continue to rise. Despite major investments, State
provision has failed to keep pace with population growth and urbanization.
212. The rate of natural resource degradation is accelerating in many regions
of the world. In large measure, this can be attributed to the malign
influence of policy: ineffective or preferential land and water use policies,
distortionary pricing signals and inappropriate investment decisions.
213. Common characteristics of these failures include lack of financial
resources and institutional capacity in many developing countries, and
political unwillingness - in all countries - to reform traditional property
rights and fiscal policies. A further factor in the widespread failure to
protect land and water resources is the dispersed and incremental nature of
damage, which diminishes the perceived impact on the total resource base.
Priority strategies
214. Policy has a significant role to play in promoting economic development,
social equity, stable, educated and healthy populations, well-managed natural
resources and a clean environment. These factors are key indicators of what
might be termed "successful" transitions, and of sustainable development.
Achieving these goals is likely to depend on accelerating, not retarding, the
pace of global change. Developing countries must go through the process of
population stabilization and socio-economic development in order to attain
decent living standards; the more these transitions are prolonged, the greater
will be the economic, social and environmental costs. At the same time,
cleaner and more efficient development pathways must be found if economic and
social development is not to be frustrated by the destruction of natural
resources.
Three strategies represent promising policy approaches
215. Increased investment in people, through spending on social services,
especially basic education and health care, is essential (chaps. II and VI).
In addition to the benefits for GNP growth, an educated, healthy population
strengthens the capacity of society to manage problems and withstand external
shocks. The multiple challenges of creating or maintaining economic growth
while minimizing damage to the natural environment are too great to be managed
by Governments alone. Empowerment of people, through greater political and
economic independence and access to information, enables local communities,
organizations and business to contribute to effective solutions.
216. The encouragement of clean and efficient technologies, through
regulatory requirements and economic incentives, serves two key objectives.
Efficiency and productivity gains usually represent the quickest and cheapest
way to "expand" both non-renewable and renewable resources (chaps. III-V).
Efficient and clean technologies are cost effective and reduce the need for
government expenditures. For example, energy saving can reduce the need for
oil imports, and pollution control reduces environmental clean-up and health
care costs - now reaching billions of dollars in the developed world.
217. Pricing reform which begins to internalize the social and environmental
costs of key economic activities is critical if more sustainable use of
natural resources is to be achieved. Current market distortions too often
encourage (or force) short-term, wasteful and destructive consumption patterns
(chaps. III-V). The imposition of new taxes and the phase-out of subsidies
are fraught with political difficulty; changing incentive structures
inevitably creates losers, sometimes among powerful interest groups. The
challenge is therefore to experiment with fiscally neutral reforms which bring
about change on an incremental basis.
218. Positive developments are evident in each of these areas but the pace of
change is slow. Investment in human resources is increasing but tends to lack
priority relative to the traditional productive sectors of the economy.
Technological efficiency is constantly improving but innovation, and wider
deployment, must be speeded up in order to have a serious impact on global
levels of productivity and pollution - efficiency gains so far this century
have been more than offset by the volume of economic growth. Reversing
degradation of natural resources will take decades and delaying necessary
reforms will greatly increase the monetary and human costs involved.
219. The goal of sustainable development should serve, in practice, as a
wake-up call: to use and share the existing capabilities.
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