Month: December 2016

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Inclusive Cities, Habitat III, the New Urban Agenda

The United Nations had their conference on housing and sustainable urban development in Quito this October, which had the aim of discussing how to improve urban development in cities around the world.  The New Urban Agenda outlines the next steps with which to tackle the Grand Challenge of sustainable urban development.  This is an extremely important issue, especially when we consider the number of people that are moving from rural to urban areas every year.  Urban areas are exploding in size, and it is crucial that we properly manage them.  IF poorly managed, these urban centers could have detrimental effects on society and on the environment.  Managing this growth is so important, and in fact, by the year 2050, the number of people living in urban areas will double.

Urban development affects every aspect of a person’s daily life, from education to health care, economy, food security, and sanitation, just to name a few.  The ideas laid out in this Urban Agenda have a lot to do with my own capstone project, which was about sustainable urban transport in São Paulo, Brazil.  Public transportation is one of the main challenges that hose focusing on improving urban sustainability focus on.  That’s mainly because public transportation is in many ways the backbone of an urban center, and is what allows a city to develop and thrive.  Half the battle of development is providing access to the different centers of urban activity, like schools, the workplace, hospitals, and more.  Without access to these places, or with poor urban transport infrastructure where commutes to these places can take hours, one cannot live a sustainable and healthy lifestyle, and more importantly, it makes it more difficult for everyone to contribute their skills and talents to the development of the city.

There are many different ways to improve urban transport, whether that be through actual construction of more public transportation networks, or through restructuring new urban development around pre-existing transit stations to increase accessibility (especially for the urban poor, who are the most often excluded from urban activity.)

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Multistakeholder Global Governance

Internet governance is a sticky issue, because it is used in every corner of the world and not directly controlled by any one specific entity.  The internet is a public good where information is freely shared.  While the internet was invented in the United States and originally began as a research project done by our military, it has spread to be used worldwide.

In 2005, the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) created the concept of internet governance.  Since almost everyone is affected by these decisions, WSIS took a multistakeholder approach to their internet governance and encouraged all to be involved.  Some stakeholders in decisions that are made about the internet include individuals, schools, businesses, and many others.

The Internet Governance Forum was created to be an outlet for voices and opinions of stakeholders to be heard, and for informed decisions to be made.  While governing a free-flow of information is a daunting task, creating this outlet for input from many different groups has helped the situation.

Another important group is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).  This group’s main goal is more administrative in nature, and a common critique with the group is there isn’t a strong enough focus there on international development through the internet.  However, their main objective is the run the technical side of the web, and do things like assign domain names.

In my opinion, having multiple organized groups that administer the internet and monitor its usage allows everyone to benefit, because each of the groups keeps the others accountable for their actions and keeps everyone’s needs in mind.

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Intersectionalities

An intersectionality is how different issues, solutions, and areas of interest converge and coincide. Many issue areas may face the same problems. Or the solution for an issue may be multidisciplinary, requiring input from multiple interested actors. In the extremely globalized world that we now live in it is nearly impossible to find two issues that are totally disconnected. There are always factors that can totally reinvent something because of an innovation that happened thousands of miles away. This has serious benefits in international relations. Innovations in communications and technologies benefit all aspects of society. They increase profits for corporations, help educate children in developing countries learn, allow two politicians speaking different languages to communicate, and much more. This is a wonderful aspect of international relations because you can always find a way to make something in the best interest of multiple stakeholders. Technological developments benefit big corporations, so they invest large amounts of money in them. These developments also help the disenfranchised as an externality. It may not be the intention of the corporation to help these people but because of the intersections it benefits them and it helps the world as a whole. Politicians may fund research into a certain scientific process because of economic or social impacts only to discover that this research can help ease climate change.

 

This is why it is now more crucial than ever to be aware of these intersectionalities. If we are unaware of the unintentional benefits of our disciplines, we may fail to apply these benefits and lose so much in the process. Awareness of intersectionalities is crucial to sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals reflect this. Though there are seventeen different goals, there are clear areas of crossover between the goals. Climate change affects certain areas far more strongly than it does others. This combines two different goals, #13 climate action and #16 peace and justice, to create a new discipline of climate justice. Remaining cognizant of these overlaps ensures that we can share solutions and innovations to benefit both disciplines.

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Education and Development

If a country is to achieve progress on social, economic, and political levels they need to have the human capacity to reach these heights. Progress comes from the people of the country. One cannot import politicians, businessmen, laborers, etc and then leave the people of the country in the dark. A state needs to look inward and build the capability of their own people through education. When I studied in Denmark I learned about the governance of their satellite state Greenland. While Greenland is technically governed by the indigenous people who live there, closer inspection reveals that their bureaucratic and high income positions are all occupied by wealthy Danes who work in Greenland for a year or two before returning home. The Greenlandic people themselves do not occupy these positions because they do not have the skills, most of them barely graduate high school. If they do not receive the education necessary they can never develop economically or politically.

So how do you improve education in developing countries? And how do you do so without excluding certain groups? In many developing nations, a lack of infrastructure prevents children from attending schools. They may have to cross long distances without access to transportation. The schools may be built in a way that doesn’t accommodate students with disabilities such as no wheelchair access. The teachers may not be trained to teach students with disabilities. There are many cases such as this and students are left out because no one has the knowledge or experience to help them. This excludes a major segment of society and leaving people out of the workforce leads to a loss of innovation and expertise that can help economic and social development. Education is an example of how interconnected development issues truly are. Working on one area can lead to solutions in other areas. If infrastructure like roads and buildings cannot be changed to accommodate students, information and communicative technologies can help. ICT’s allow students to access information and attend class sessions without needing to be in there in person. They can also provide alternative methods of learning for those whom traditional modes of education fail. ICT’s also benefit educators, who can tune into training seminars online and educate themselves on new teaching methods from places around the world. Education is fundamental to development, but first we must develop education so that it accommodates everyone.

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Efficacy of Global frameworks

We’ve talked a lot about global frameworks as major steps towards sustainable development. Mobilization of multiple high level political actors is integral to successfully changing the world. Global frameworks keep powerful states and organizations engaged in the sustainable development process and demonstrate to the world that it is an issue that is being taken seriously and states want to see progress done.  However, frameworks are only solutions if they are actually working. A large problem with international law and policy is that there are no legal means to enforce cooperation. International law is really just an agreed upon code of conduct, which no country has the true power to enforce other than through coercion. There are no world police to arrest violators of international law, that would be ridiculous. Global frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights are signed and ratified by countries, but how do we know if requirements are being met or if they are even effective? The Millennium Development Goals, which came into effect in 2000 were supposed to be met by the year 2015.  For the reasons outlined above, their success was very limited. The goals were not legally binding to any country, and though many countries were on the right track, the goals ultimately were not effective enough. For this reason the follow up goals, the SDG’s, were far more detailed on how goals were to be met and provided specific targets and ways to operationalize sustainability. Though frameworks are not binding, there are ways to facilitate cooperation  and participation among states.

 

Having a multitude of countries signed on to the same framework makes them more likely to be followed. First and foremost is for the prestige and the social pressure to do the right thing. A sort of “peer pressure” system occurs where major states, particularly in the Western world, feel obligated to promote values of peace and sustainability in order to fit in with the progressive mentality that has become the norm. If a powerful state deviates from the norm it shows a lack of willingness to cooperate at a global level, which may make other states hesitate to work with said state. The integration of morality into politics plays a big role in the success of sustainable development initiatives. Moral obligations force states to commit to change. If we looked at sustainable development from a “realist” relative gains scenario, states would gladly let other states fail in order to increase their own success. However, globalization has connected all states together and introduced some semblance of morality into politics that makes it in a countries best interest to develop the world sustainably

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Multistakeholder Internet Governance

Internet governance is an issue growing in importance and it will continue to grow as the internet becomes the primary means by which people communicate. The internet is a method for sharing information that exists transnationally. How do policy makers and interested parties regulate a mechanism of communication that has no physical form? Internet governance is the tricky development of institutions, procedures, and rules that regulate how the internet is used across the world. One of the first questions is who gets to be involved in the process of governing the internet?

There are a variety of stakeholders. First and foremost are states, as they regulate most global interactions and must preserve the rule of law, even over the internet. Other stakeholders would be the corporations and businesses that benefit most from internet traffic and usage. Technology and information companies have a major stake in the successful regulation of the internet and achieving their goals without being restricted. The people themselves are major stakeholders as they are the average users who depend on the internet for daily use.

Internet governance plays a major role in sustainable development in terms of providing equal access to information for all. Without government regulation, the corporations who provide access to information and communicative technologies could pick and choose recipients based on whoever can pay more. While this trend already exists to some degree, government regulation ensures that corporations cannot monopolize internet access. Equal access to the internet is essential for developing communities to communicate effectively, encourage investment, build industry, and strengthen education.

There a variety of platforms and forums that promote and facilitate discussion on internet governance and how to manage it in the future. Netmundial was a meeting for the various stakeholders in internet governance to come together and discuss ideas that took place in Brazil in 2014. The meeting placed states and other international multistakeholders. The focus of the meeting was to create balance among the various stakeholders and foster open communication between all of the players. There is also the Internet Governance Forum, which is a multistakeholder platform that encourages discussion regarding public policy issues and the internet.

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Digital Divides

The digital divide problem strongly relates to last week’s topic regarding rapid communication technologies.  It is a problem we see mainly in poor rural areas and economically depressed inner cities.  The digital divide refers to the gap in access to communication technologies and the internet, and this is a problem many development practitioners and multinational organizations have had to deal with.  This is because it’s been widely accepted that, for development to occur, this gap needs to close.

Many argue that the world got along just fine before the digital age.  This may be true, but we have now reached an era where these modern technologies have become seamlessly integrated into every aspect of our lives, and that fact simply cannot be ignored.  People can now finish tasks and achieve goals so much more rapidly, and the exchange of knowledge taking place over these systems is beneficial to many.  That being said, much of the world is being left out of these processes that enhance quality of life since they don’t have access.

It is important to look at the digital divide as a whole, but also through the lens of the different demographics being excluded.  As discussed in other weeks of the class, recognizing the intersectionality of different demographics in development speeds up the process.  We see gaps in the digital divide between different minorities, and also based on gender and economic status, for example.  A lot of people overlook the fact or simply don’t know about how large the digital divide actually is, but we have entered an era where these types of technologies are almost needed to survive.

One of the biggest challenges to getting access for everyone, especially in rural areas, is devising ways to put in the needed infrastructure for such technologies to be usable in the first place.  Many of these areas don’t have electricity, fiberoptic cables, computers, or even roads for deliveries.  There are many things we take for granted and don’t even think about that make access nearly impossible in many excluded areas, so work on this needs to be done from the ground up.

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ICTs and Sustainable Development

Communication technology is a crucial part, especially in this day and age, of successful development.  This has been demonstrated by documents like the Maitland Commission Report called the “Missing Link” that we read in class, as well as the WSIS+10 outcome document.  We’ve reached a point in society where communication technology is needed to function and participate in almost every aspect of life.  It has the ability to speed up and make more efficient every task we do from day to day, and contributes to quicker development.

The report called “The Missing Link” highlights the gap we see between certain demographics to rapid communication technology.  We commonly see disparities in access to this technology between the rich and the poor, urban and rural residents, and young or old people.  To give a sense of how big the gap really is, it is estimated that 75% of the world’s telephones are concentrated in only nine countries.

The poor and disadvantaged are excluding from contributing to development when they don’t have access to these technologies since they stimulate many social and economic activities in life.  The exchange of knowledge is a powerful tool.  An example we discussed in class was that a farmer without access to communication technology may fall behind on the latest farming methods or technologies.  They could also fall behind by being unaware of what the market prices for certain crops are, and that could result in earning less than they deserve.

Computer access specifically can help people by bringing to them information about job postings, or community resources they may have been previously unaware of.

The idea of knowledge sharing through this technology can specifically relate to my capstone on sustainable and reliable urban transportation.  As we know, adequate public transportation is required to live a sustainable and healthy lifestyle, and allows more people to contribute their talents to the development of society.  In developed cities, residents can use smartphone applications to get live updates on public transit arrivals and plan their commutes to work and school.  Those in underdeveloped cities or countries without access to these services may be left out of the equation, and will cause difficulties in securing a job or doing well in school, for example.

The WSIS+10 document explains that institutional changes will have to be made to fix this problem, like providing cheaper technology or installing infrastructure to allow the technology to be used.

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Efficacy of Global Frameworks

The global frameworks that we have, like Millennial Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals, represent ways to see the “grand challenges” the world is currently facing.  The Millennial Development Goals made significant progress since 2000, but there was still a lot of disproportionate growth and improvement worldwide.  There was a lot of disparity in wealth, for example, when comparing rural and urban areas.

The Millennial Development Goals were wide in scope and did cover lots of different problems that needed to be tackled, however the indicators of progress and plans to continue forward were not specific enough.  There wasn’t a reliable method of measurement laid out, and were less comprehensive than the SDGs since they did not have specific action plans for each step in the process.  Another issue with the MDGs was the inability to get a good picture of the progress made after 15 years, since there was strong enough measuring and recording of the starting point in 2000.  They didn’t have much to compare to at the end of that timespan to see how far they had really gotten.  While some thought the goals provided a nice framework for the world to come together and see a concrete way to fix these problems, others said there were too many sectors of development covered and that many would be spread too thin.

Another big critique of the Millennial Development Goals is that there was hardly any mention of what the plan was to include persons with disabilities.  15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, and when all those people are left out of the development conversation and unable to contribute their talents, everyone is at a loss.  The SDGs have paid much more attention to this problem, and the next step is also to focus more on the intersectionalities involved in development problems.  For example, women with disabilities will be affected differently by certain situations then children with disabilities.

The SDGs added a lot more goals and are much more comprehensive which is a huge positive, however the critics who said the MDGs were focused on too many different things at once certainly still remain.