Month: November 2017

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ICTs in Sustainable Development

Information and communications technology, ICT, combines information technology (IT) with telecommunications. The idea of ICT is fluid, constantly changing with the new adaptations and creations in the technological and communications fields. The global interest in ICTs sparked in 1998 when the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) called for the United Nations to hold a summit for world leaders to come together and discuss the up and coming information society and ICTs. This conference was called the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and was held in two phases: the first in 2003 and the second in 2005. In 2015, WSIS+10 took place, a conference that marked 10 years since the original conference and discussed progress and what still needs to happen.

ICTs play a large role in development today and have the potential to have a larger role in years to come. ICTs make every day life more efficient and easier. Radios, computers, and cellphones are just a few of the many ICTs that are a part of daily life for many people. However, there is a significant portion of the population, both in the USA and globally, that do not have this access. This “digital” divide is something that hinders development in many parts of the world. The large goal of WSIS was to develop a framework to combat the digital divide between nations. One of the earlier arguments of this divide was brought forth in the ITU’s “Maitland Commission Report,” highlighting the disparities in telephone access between nations. This continued with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) report “Falling through the Net,” which highlights internet access between individuals in the United States. The former was published in 1982 while the latter in 1995. These two reports were some of the many that set the stage for WSIS.

What if the internet just shut off tomorrow? What would happen? Chaos. Many people depend on the internet, whether for watching movies to sending emails to publishing articles. What these people do not realize is the amount of people that have never seen or used the internet. This is the digital divide that WSIS set out to solve. The outcomes of WSIS+10 highlight the need for a multistakeholder approach to this problem, arguing that the only way a solution can occur is through a variety of partnerships. We still have a long way to go, but often the recognition and acknowledgement of the problem is a huge step forward. We have made that first step and some baby steps after with the WSIS conferences.

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Smart Cities and the NUA

The world is becoming more and more urban each year. The vast majority of the world’s population lives in cities, a different case than 100 years ago. Even looking at the top 10 most populous cities, there is over 150 million people, or roughly 2% of the total population, that live between just those 10 cities. That does not include the metropolitan areas, which would inflate that number exponentially. Smart cities are cities that use technology and electronic data to more efficiently manage the cities. These cities are aimed to attract young adults through the integration of information and communications technology into the everyday aspects of the city, such as public transportation systems. Smart cities are becoming more and more prominent every year with more cities adopting smart city initiatives. Some examples of this include Madrid and Stockholm. Madrid adopted a policy called MiNT – Madrid Inteligente (Smart Madrid). Since the adoption of this policy, there has been significant improvement in sustainable and computerized management of city systems like garbage collection and recycling. Stockholm, like Madrid, has implemented citywide infrastructure policies. These include green buildings and traffic monitoring systems. Smart cities will continue to evolve in the years to come, getting more efficient and improving management with each new city.

While smart cities are clear and obvious examples of development, the New Urban Agenda focuses on the development of all cities. The New Urban Agenda is the global standard for sustainable urban development, causing us to rethink how we live in and manage cities. While some of the New Urban Agenda is basic, like providing access to housing and drinking water for everyone, parts are much more complex, like reducing the risk of impact for natural disasters. The New Urban Agenda is one way that the United Nations is using to achieve SDG 11, sustainable cities. With the world urbanizing, the need to address cities is great. The New Urban Agenda is a framework in which governments can look to when designing programs and improving infrastructure.

The Asian Development Bank published a report titled “Inclusive Cities” that helps to frame the history of urbanization in Asia. The report states that after World War II, there was a major influx of people in cities due to a spur in economic development. This influx of people put a strain on city planning and development causing a massive explosion in the slums, areas of the city where there is a lot of overcrowding and poverty. The Asian Development Bank highlights the amount of people in Asian cities that live in these areas, which ranges from about 30% to over 50%. This is one of the things that the New Urban Agenda aims to combat, allowing everyone to be prosperous and successful.

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SDGs and the HLPF

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an important part of our lives right now on a global scale. Since the expiration of the Millennial Development Goals in 2015, the SDGs are one of the most important things within the UN. While there has been a lot of change and additions to these goals, setting the bar ever and ever higher, the UN and the vast majority of the world has committed to obtaining them, as they are important to our future and the generations of people to come. This new set of goals is supposed to be obtained by 2030.

There are 17 SDGs we are aiming to achieve – covering a wide array of issues from poverty to clean water to the way that organizations/governments/people cooperate with each other. Because there are 17 goals, each with a specific focus, the roadmap until 2030 is relatively straightforward and defined. By separating the goals to be less overlapping, the UN allows a more clear definition and understanding of each one.

A major player in seeing how well the goals are being achieved, as well as a way to hold countries accountable, is the High Level Political Forum (HLPF). The HLPF was designed as a way to follow-up and review the successes and failures in obtaining the SDGs. The HLPF is made up of the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The HLPF meets every year for eight days and has a set agenda to discuss. For example, this past year (2017), the HLPF met and discussed SDGs 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, and 14 and the theme was “eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world.”

We have come a long way since 1992, when the UN held the Conference on Environment and Development, the first major step to fighting climate change together. From then until now, there is no doubt that we have done more to begin our steps in the right direction, but we are still far from becoming carbon-neutral and eventually stopping and/or reversing climate change. While the SDGs mention climate change, they are focused on much more than that – they are centered around being sustainable in all meanings of the word. Ending poverty and world hunger, making life better for every person and living thing, and providing clean water and energy to the people of the world are just examples of the high bar that has been set through the SDGs.

I believe we have made great progress, especially in regards to disabled persons. For a long time in history, 15% of our population was excluded on both a national and a global scale. The SDGs specifically mention to be inclusive of everyone and has a great “no person left behind” mentality that we have lacked for so long. While we are not anywhere near the end yet, we have been able to recognize and move forward with the understanding that we must be considerate and include everyone in order to be truly sustainable for the future. Going forward, there will be struggles, especially with need to meet the needs of everyone and for everyone to be able to come to the table and be heard, but that is a challenge we can face head on and conquer. In 13 years, the world will be a much better place than now, but I still suspect it will have a lot of room to grow.

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Development Theory

The word “development” has no clear and universal definition and understanding. It is vague. What does “development” mean? Is it different in different situations and contexts? Development is hard to define and even harder to understand, making it one of the most complex and most common terms used today. I could spend a lot of time defining the term from a variety of angles, but I will end it here. In his book, Amartya Sen defines development as the removal of unfreedoms and give back opportunities to those who were affected by these unfreedoms. Per Sen, an example of an unfreedom is poverty, something that has not purposefully been imposed on people but has affected people left and right.

To combat Sen, the authors of Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu and Robinson define development as how well economies are doing, whether they are succeeded, barely getting by, or failing. For Acemoglu and Robinson, economic indicators, such as GDP or unemployment, are important predictors in how well an economy is doing. If GDP is on a decline, the economy, and therefore the development, of a country is not doing well. If unemployment is high, that is also true. Acemoglu and Robinson believe that economic growth, measured by economic indicators and technological advancement, is development. This is more akin to how we understand development on a global level today. On a global scale, we classify countries as developed, developing, and least developed. In this idea of development, the concept of development is strictly based upon economies.

Development is more than just economies and freedoms. There are a variety of development theories out there, including modernization theory, structuralism, dependency theory, basic needs theory, and neoclassical theory. Out of these, basic needs theory is the one that I am most indifferent about. In the United States, we use the foundations of basic needs theory to determine poverty levels and how we distribute state and federal help programs like food stamps. Basic needs theory is rooted in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who created a five tier pyramid that has the basic human needs at the bottom and culminates with self actualization at the top. This pyramid emphasized basic needs to be air, food, and water on the bottom level and shelter and clothing on the second level. In the world, these basic needs are understood and that is why food shelters and homeless shelters exist to provide assistance for people to obtain these needs.

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Grand Challenges

Grand Challenges are complex problems that have no clear solutions. For USAID, these Grand Challenges include battling and curing Ebola and Zika, securing water for food, and having all children reading, among others. The United Nations addresses a variety of Grand Challenges in the Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from the elimination of poverty to affordable and clean energy to partnership for the goals.

Looking at the name, the two words “Grand” and “Challenge” are heavy, serious words. These words can overwhelm and overpower people. While “grand” does mean large in size, it also means magnificent in appearance and style. Similarly, “challenge” can denote something is hard to overcome, but it also means something that tests abilities. So while this phrase can mean large problems that are hard to overcome, it can also mean magnificent ways to test someone’s abilities. That is what organizations like the UN and USAID are doing: they are testing us, as a society, in our abilities to solve issues that we face every day.

These grand challenges have been used to frame the end of some of the world’s largest problems, like climate change or poverty. These frameworks make it so that we, as a society, see the means to the end – collaboration. This directly relates back to SDG 17: partnership. The rest of the goals tackle specific problems like poverty and hunger, but this final goal, number 17, tells us how to accomplish the rest: through partnerships. By framing it in a way that we believe that collaboration and teamwork is needed for success, it involves more people than it would if it solely dictated that we have to do x, y, and z in order to overcome the issue.

Grand Challenges exist on a local, state, federal, regional, and global scale. Each level has different challenges that it must solve and overcome. For example, the city of Bangor, ME might have accessible public transportation as a grand challenge. The state of Maine might not view this specific issue as a grand challenge, but might focus on accessibility for Medicare and Medicaid. On the federal level, a grand challenge is combatting drug trafficking. On a regional level, a grand challenge is migration within the region (people leaving country A to go to country B, etc.). On a global level, the grand challenges in the SDGs are some of the most prominent. On each stage of government and on each level of the scale, there will be overlap in grand challenges. Accessible public transportation is a grand challenge in Bangor, ME, but it is also one on the federal level with the idea that more big cities need better and more accessible public transportation. This is also reflected in SDGs 9 and 11.

Continuing with the challenge of accessible public transportation, a variety of organizations—governmental, non-governmental, and inter-governmental—have come together to try and solve this problem. One example of this MetroAccess in the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA, commonly referred to as Metro). When living in both Spain and Costa Rica, I did not see the same efforts put in for people who needed transit to be accessible. In Madrid, many of the metro stations are not accessible, but they do have a plan in place to make them so. The buses are not all accessible, but they are making progress into making them so. In Costa Rica, many people use buses to travel around, but a majority of these buses were not accessible. This has not been a priority for Costa Rica, with not a large need for accessible transportation, but even one person provides justification for need.

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Inclusive Cities and New Urban Agenda

According to the Collaborative for Inclusive Urbanism, an inclusive city is, “a city in which the processes of development include a wide variety of citizens and activities. These cities maintain their wealth and creative power by avoiding marginalization, which compromises the richness of interaction upon which cities depend.” Inclusive cities bring together marginalized groups and increased access to basic resources and share urban spaces. Inclusive cities allow all individuals to gain access to sustainable living, whether it be through housing, water, and sanitation, green energy, etc. Inclusive cities are also known as “smart cities” as they include the needs of everyone. 

Inclusive cities largely include rights to people with disabilities. For example, public transportation should not only be efficient in that it gives access to the entirety of the city for large ranges of the day, but also includes audio capabilities for those who are blind and visually impaired. Furthermore, it should have accessibility for those with physical impairments so they can easily utilize public transportation.

Inclusive, “Smart cities” also bear in mind how increased urbanization can also lead to increased pollution. As a result, there is a focus to increase green energy, and create buildings that are eco-friendly. The New Urban Agenda has a multitude of projects across the globe that are ensuring eco-construction. These projects include collaboration between private actors and civil society.

The New Urban Agenda, through the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, is a framework that outlines city planning and enables urban sustainability. The power of cities and its influence on overall development has lead to the continuation of strategizing further urban cultivation. The New Urban Agenda states, “By 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double, making urbanization one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends. In 2016, the UN conference focused on sustainable urban development through the inclusion of leaders from the local, and national level. Furthermore, Habitat III also included civil society and private actors in order to further promote its goals.

Habit III is unique in that it is committed to including multiple stakeholders in the conversation of urban development, as inclusive cities involve all marginalized groups. Allowing multiple groups to sit at the table increases personal responsibility in regards to urban development, which only further promotes overall development. It also gives others the opportunities to have side events that can have further detailed conversations regarding issues.

Citiscope has noted that “last year’s Habitat III negotiations were hung up for many months on what was known as “follow-up and review” — namely, whether UN-Habitat, the agency that focuses on urbanization, will be responsible for overseeing implementation of the New Urban Agenda at the U. N. level.” The General Assembly secretary has stated it is committed to monitoring and evaluating the New Urban Agenda and to ensure its impartiality and starting in 2018 will report back to the General Assembly every four years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Development, SDGs and the HLPF

According to Amartya Sen, development is the expansion of citizen capabilities through increasing access and opportunities. There are various stakeholders and aspects needed in order to continue development within societies. Sen discusses the importance of discussion, criticisms, and debates as a method of democracy that encourages constant reform. Furthermore, Acemoglu and Robinson state that the reasons for country’s lack of development lie in their inability to create incentives for institutions to save. As a result, the United Nations has developed methods of ensuring the increased opportunities and capabilities are given to various citizens. One of the most well-known methods is the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

 

The 2030 Sustainable Development goals are meant to be adopted by countries in order to end poverty, sustainability efforts on the planet, and to aid marginalized groups. Each goal is outlined with methods of measuring the success of each country and specific targets. In order to hold accountability and make sure countries are working towards targets, the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) was created. It further provided guidance on how countries can include multiple stakeholders such as governments, the private sector, civil society and other affected parties. The HLPF has an annual timeline up to 2030, and includes the various SDGs each year is currently focussing on.

 

One main issue I have with the HLPF guideline is that is extremely vague. Each SDG can be applicable to all countries. However, countries are at various points, and inequalities cannot be ignored. For instance, although a country in the global north and south have made efforts to increase green energy, countries in the global south may feel that poverty alleviation may be more important. As a result, they may not have the same timeline as the global north, who has already significantly decreased poverty. It would be interesting to see if the HLPF were able to further break down their timeline across the regions, taking their needs and abilities into account and then establishing a timeline that would best suit that region’s interest.

 

Furthermore, it is important to understand the intersectionalities within the SDGs. For instance, reducing inequalities intersects with reducing gender equality, quality education, and peace justice and stronger institutions. No poverty and zero hunger also largely intersect. While it is clear that the United Nations has separated these developmental goals because they are different in scope, it is important the the HLPF and other UN bodies work together to establish how the intersectionality of these development goals can be utilized in order to propel countries in achieving annual and millennial goals.  Overall SDGs and the HLPF confront Grand Challenges head on and have developed a collaborative approach to working towards creating a stronger, interdependent world. 

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State-Centered Approaches: Comparing the MDGs and SDGs

The United Nations is a fundamentally state-focused organization. This is not a value judgement of the organization, but rather a recognition of the UN’s structure and its major actors. However, as non-state actors have gained more influence in global affairs, the UN has slowly shifted to recognize this fact. Comparing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals to their predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals, it appears that the UN has made more room for participation for actors at the sub-state level, as well as for the participation of non-state actors.

Particularly within SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), the SDGs create spaces where smaller actors can participate. In addition to the demands placed upon states to meet the various targets of the SDGs, there are targets which could give initiative to private industry actors. SDG 12’s target to halve food waste at the retail and consumer levels, for example, could likely be handled best by reforms to limit food waste in the private sector; the title of SDG 11 speaks for itself as to the ability of sub-state actors to be involved in meeting the Goals by 2030. The shift in the UN’s development goals to include a wider range of actors reflects the growing influence of non-state actors in international politics.

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The Major Groups Framework Contribution to Intersectionality

Without committing to intersectionality, advocacy cannot act at its fullest potential. This term refers to how systems of oppression compound under identities of race, gender, class, ability, etc. This originates in feminist thought by Kimberle Crenshaw, a black legal scholar, in 1989 with the idea that the patriarchal system works alongside other societal constructs, but can and should be used when shaping larger policy frameworks in general.

One way this is accomplished is through the creation of the 9 Major Groups Framework in order to have greater inclusion to the formal UN process at the Earth Summit in UNGA Resolutions 66/288 and 47/191. These groups include Women, Children and Youth, Farmers, Indigenous people, NGOs, Trade Unions, Local Authorities, Science and Technology, and Business and Industry. These groups have benefits by being included at the table. For example, the official representative of these groups can register for conferences, intervene in official meetings, make recommendations, they can submit papers, comments, etc on topics discussed, they receive allotted time to speak, etc. This is a major advancement; however, there are also limitations to this framework by excluding stakeholders such as persons with disabilities and older persons. Although higher inclusion makes it more difficult to support the general groups, the HLPF’s overseeing of SDG implementation allows for the inclusion of the 16 identities under the MGoS framework through the UNGA Resolution 67/290.

Despite typically thought of as progress, the intersectionality of identities can be used to dampen specific voices like persons with disabilities under the idea that their voices can be heard in the other major groups. By using a multi stakeholder framework, the breadth of perspectives and identities heard can only improve the impact of policies, even if it takes longer to go through at first. This is another case where unintended consequences must be taken into consideration when creating and contributing to policy work. Scholarship and dialogue about intersectionality has flourished in recent years, allowing for greater counteraction to those systems of dominance and oppression.

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Development Theory and the Influence of Amartya Sen

The definition of development is one that has been contested by many economists, cultural theorists, politicians, and international organizations. Questions of “What is Development? How do we measure it? And how can we promote it internationally?” have long dominated discourse surrounding international development and have been answered in many different ways. Most notably, three major theories of internationally development have emerged over the course of history, with each building off each other. Modernization Theory, the idea that societies transition from pre-modern ones into modernized ones through similar processes, was a popular development ideology in the 1950s but eventually declined with the rise of Dependency Theory. Dependency Theory was theorized in direct response to the claims of Modernization Theory and suggested that development is driven by the flow of resources from undeveloped periphery states to industrialized core states, at the expense of the periphery. While neither Modernization Theory or Dependency have many modern day adherents, the ways in which the they came to prominence shows the way in which theories of development interact with one another and change over time.

One of the more significant contributions to international development discourse in recent history is that of economist Amartya Sen. For Sen, traditional measures of development that solely focus on economic production and growth cannot fully measure the living conditions and general well being of a nation’s people. In Development as Freedom, Sen outlines his “capabilities” approach to development in which human well being is best measured by assessing standard of living and access to individual freedoms like healthcare and education. Stemming from his conception of development, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) adopted the Human Development Index (HDI). The index incorporates Sen’s ideas of measuring well being by compiling indicators like life expectancy, expected years of schooling, and Gross National Income (GNI) into a single measurement.

In my opinion, Sen’s contributions to the way in which development is understood globally are incredibly valuable, especially in encouraging a more nuanced understanding of development that promotes sustainability and inclusion. In a world of incredible economic affluence, as well as immense poverty and inequality, it is easy to get trapped in the “GDP ideology” conception of development. But, to fully understand where societies need to improve, an understanding of development in terms of ability of all people within a nation to live a healthy, prosperous, and free life is essential. By adopting Amartya Sen’s understanding of Development as Freedom, the international community can work towards an inclusive, sustainable world that is not inherently biased towards Western conceptions of development.