Month: November 2017

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Grand Challenges of Sustainable Development: Encouraging Integrated Approaches

Grand challenges represent opportunities for collective efforts to work towards common goals. Historically, these grand challenges have presented themselves across various disciplines including medicine, space flight, energy, and development. For American physicist and policy advisor Lewis Branscomb, these grand challenges are extremely complex and stubborn in definition, requiring comprehensive solutions in which the scientific community, members of government, civil society, and public population must cooperate closely to focus their efforts. For Branscomb, accurately defining the Grand Challenge is crucial to finding an effective solution. In the realm of sustainable development, defining Grand Challenges of sustainable development has been achieved in the creation of a comprehensive frameworks like the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the creation of the SDGs, which expanded upon the Millennium Development goals, the development community effectively established measurements and indicators to track progress at specific challenges that make up the larger grand challenge of global sustainable development. The creation of this framework is landmark because it provides a concrete mechanism through which the international community can focus their ambitious vision of a sustainable future into practical, achievable measurements and indicators.

Since the end of the 20th century, it has become overwhelmingly apparent that global grand challenges of sustainable development are fundamentally intertwined with one another. For example, to address the issue of global food insecurity, issues of economic opportunity, agricultural sustainability, as well as peacebuilding must also be considered in strategies of improving food security. The interconnected nature of these issues of sustainable development has resulted in a need for integrated approaches to development. If we, as a society, are to achieve these grand challenges of sustainable development, a segmented approach in which actors in development operate independently of one another is not sufficient. In order to make the ambitious goals of the sustainable development community’s “moonshot thinking” a reality, then an integrated approach in which civil society, governments, private sector, and expert researchers can effectively implement initiatives and policies that navigate the intersections within issues sustainable development is required. In doing this, actors working within sustainable development can better ensure that the design of sustainable development initiatives work to advance multiple goals of sustainable development in addition to fostering an inclusive environment that does not discriminate along the lines of gender, ethnicity, economic status, or disability.

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Falling through the Net

The 1985 Maintland Report “The Missing Link” pointed out disparity in access to telephone in developed and developing country. The report emphasized importance of telecommunication in development and added a dimension to global inequality. Besides inequality at a global level, there is also domestic inequality in access to telecommunication, even in developed countries. “Falling Through the Net” is a survey that presents unequal access to the Internet in rural and urban areas of the United States. From “The Missing Link” to “Falling Through the Net,” we can observe two trends in discussion on role of telecommunication. One is the form of telecommunication has evolved from landline telephone to the Internet. The other trend is instead of limiting comparison at a global level, there is also examination within a country. But literature on access to telecommunication is still mainly focusing on economic development and regional disparity. In fact, there are certain social groups that are experiencing more difficulties than others, such as elderly persons, women, and persons with disabilities. Therefore, I see such exclusion as a new way to define of “falling through the net.”

Access to telecommunication is crucial to empowerment of vulnerable members of society. Internet and technology tools and help persons with disabilities overcome physical barriers. Virtual meeting platforms, online learning, and online business can all help persons with disabilities enhance their economic and political status. With access to the Internet, persons with disabilities can better participate in global governance. This participation will then lead to more inclusive policy-making on a global scale. The World Summit on the Information Society organized by International Telecommunication Union encourages multistakeholder global governance. As a summit that focuses on spread of Internet and bridging the digital divide, inclusion of persons with disabilities will not only better fulfill its mission but also improve such participation for other global governance platforms.

It is true that telecommunication, as an element contributing to development, is carrying more and more value in both policy making and in practice. Exciting technology advancements in this field help accelerate development and are enjoyed and welcomed by many. But it’s important to keep in mind that there are still members of society that are falling through the net. Only by including those who are traditionally marginalized, such as persons with disabilities, can we truly bridge the digital divide. In doing so, they can also have a greater say in policy making in other areas of development.

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Inclusive Education: Research to Implementation

SDG 4 “Quality Education” and CRPD article 24 for “Inclusive Education” work together to create a quality education system that is accessible to the needs of all. In fact, article 24 defines its goals as “ directed to:  

  1. The full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth, and the strengthening of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human diversity;
  2. The development by persons with disabilities of their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential;
  3. Enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society.”

SDG 4 defines its goal more broadly as “ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”, but also includes specific targets and indicators for implementation. These international frameworks guide and unify behavior on the part of States and non-state parties like civil society and the private sector. This is necessary because as a marginalized group, persons with disabilities face barriers in transportation, employment, education, political representation, and access to ICTs.

Much has been done to implement action on the part of the grand challenge of accessible and inclusive education. For example, the G3ict has produced a “Model Policy for Inclusive ICTs in Education for Persons with Disabilities” discussing the implementation of the CRPD articles 9 (Accessibility), 21 (Freedom of Expression and Opinion, and Access
to Information), and 24 (Inclusive Education) explicitly for policy makers. In fact, the World Report on Disability 2011 estimates that there are between 93 and 150 million school-aged children with disabilities globally, making this a active and urgent field. Their ideal policies include mainstream technologies like computers and cell phones that contain in-built accessibility features, assistive technologies like screen readers, alternative keyboards, augmentative and alternative communication devices, etc, videos with captioning, DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) books, EPUB, etc., and more.

The ASEAN region, where an estimated 400 million persons with disabilities reside, is particularly active in disability work. These 10 countries include Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, and more. UNICEF’s 2003 report evaluates education policies like the those of the Royal Thai Government, the Golden Key Project in China, and the Disability Action Council in Cambodia.

The Institute for Disability and Public Policy, or IDPP, has worked heavily in this area as well by using its function as a virtual organization to use technology and cyber learning to drive accessibility through the creation of a virtual graduate institute in conjunction with a large network all over the world. This work offered a fully online Masters of Public Policy through AU (the first of its kind), continuing education through certificate programs, workshops, and capacity building, etc.

The research produced by the organizations is invaluable, but only if it is actually implemented. As with the ASEAN region’s Incheon Strategy “Make the Right Real Campaign”, the knowledge of existing gaps must be used in order to actually increase living standards of persons with disabilities and bringing them to the table in how education is actually used.

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Development Perspectives and the Green Revolution

Development is complex and ambiguous considering the varying conceptions of freedom and what a good life is. The realm of developmental studies is constantly evolving and thus requires constant innovation, multi-stakeholder participation, and knowledge circulation. Development studies and policies have generated transformations throughout the world since the end of World War II. The first perspective of development included grand visions of societal transformation and the emancipation from underdevelopment, however this grand vision limited the capacities to guide sustainable development. In response to the challenges of a complete societal transformation, development perspective shifted to focus on performance assessments and measuring progressive change on a short term basis. This perspective centralized focus on the outcome of change, which at times undermined the preferences of the local actors benefitting from development. The Western notion of development has dominated the field and the Post-modern approach aims to highlight the negative impacts of these notions. (Summer and Tribe, 2008)

Considering the power dynamics behind development, the public and scholars alike must be aware that forms of development must be attuned to individual communities needs and wants, since not all countries and regions are equally developed or underdeveloped. The Post-Modern approach acknowledges that a ‘one size fits all model’ cannot work effectively in the realm of development. Diverse populations require diverse mechanisms and community-based approaches allow communities to help guide development. International Development had been steered by Western ethnocentric notions, which have vastly expanded the role of technological innovations within the field. While technology offers many opportunities for progress,  various technical approaches have the power to undermine long-term sustainability efforts, especially within the agricultural sector of developing countries.

One example of Western ethnocentric development can be highlighted by the Green Revolution, which was the adoption and spread of high-yielding seed varieties (HYVs) (otherwise known as genetically modified organisms), among small-scale farmers in developing countries. The development of HYVs began in Mexico through a partnerships between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican Government. The HYVs were adapted to Mexican wheat varieties in 1961 (Wu 2004, 12). By 1965, the HYV of wheat improved yields by 400% in comparison to yields from 1950 (Randhava 1986, 365). This development highlights the first and second perspectives of development. The grand vision of societal transformation was marked with applied innovation and technologies to address one of the world most pressing problems, hunger. While the second perspective addresses the notion of performance assessment and measuring progress on a short-term basis. The rapid increase of yields provided the Development world a strong performance indicator of the short-term progress which aided in the implementation of the technologies worldwide.

As these technologies increased short-term yields, the long-term sustainability was not fully integrated in the approach. By the mid 1980s, yield growth slowed down and environmental degradation caused by intensified agricultural productions, which has been widely recognized as a downfall of these technologies (Pingali 2012). Furthermore, farmers who introduced the seeds in their farming practices were then required to buy new seeds externally on a yearly basis, contrasting the traditional manner of reusing seeds yearly. While Development and technological innovations go hand in hand, we must be aware of the implications of technology and address the short-comings of progress, such as the environmental and social implications of developmental strategies. Amartya Sen defines freedom as having the capabilities to live the life one desires to live, thus the Development community must understand the complexities of communities and their needs and desires before implementing strategies (Sen, 1999).

References

Randhawa, M. S. A History of Agriculture in India, Four Volumes. New Delhi: Indian Council of Agricultural Research, 1980.

Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom, Anchor Books, 1999.

Sumner, Andy and Michael Tribe. International Development Studies: Theories and Methods in Research and Practice.Sage, 2008.

Pingali, Prabhu L. “Green Revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead.” Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Boston, MA. Vol. 109 no.31.

Wu, Felicia, and William P.Butz. “The Green Revolution.” The Future of Genetically Modified       Crops: Lessons from the Green Revolution, 1st ed., RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA; Arlington, VA; Pittsburgh, PA, 2004, pp. 11–38.

 

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Why is Multi-stakeholder Cooperation Essential for Sustainable Development?

In the field of development, there is a multitude of actors that promote the SDGs and work towards improving the world on many different levels. These levels can go from grassroots movements, to local government action, to International cooperation. Each level of development has its own methodology, its own approach to resolving the Grand Challenges that we face, and each development actor presents different tools and knowledge for resolving the issues.

At the grassroots level where NGOs and other developmental organizations that are locally based perform hands on development work, they operate directly with the target population and do most of the developmental field work necessary to help local communities grow. These organizations collect over time the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work on a local scale, and it allows them to understand the needs of the population, making the development work as efficient as possible. However, grassroots organizations often lack the funding and resources to expand the scale of operations to affect more people, and because of this, the impact of their development work remains local.

Governments also play an essential role in development work as they manage the resources of the country and therefore have more power to fund development projects. The government also has a large extent of knowledge on the needs of the population. However, what the government has in resources and knowledge, it lacks in efficiency. Governmental development is often criticized for its bureaucratic red tape that makes it very difficult to efficiently manage and run development projects, and this lack of efficiency results in development operations that become much more expensive and yield lesser results.

Finally, international developmental organizations such as the World Bank, the IDB, the United Nations, the HLPF, and many others offer a macro approach to development through international cooperation. The advantages to this approach are that it allows to create a conversation surrounding specific developmental issues and brings them to light, making governments realize the importance of development work in the grand scheme of the SDGs. It is also a good place for different governments to propose ways to implement development with the purpose of meeting a particular criteria and through treaties, binds countries to meet the goals. Unfortunately, there is not a strong enforcement mechanism that forces countries to implement the development work they signed off to.

At each level of development there are partial solutions to meeting the SDGs but still encounter specific difficulties at each layer. The difficulties that the different levels of development encounter however can be solved using the tools and knowledge that other actors operating at different scales have to offer. No single actor possesses the solution to development, but by putting actors together, the optimal combination of knowledge and resources would be met, allowing for the maximum amount of progress to be made. This is fundamental to understanding the importance of multi-stakeholder operations in development and why it is essential to have platforms where the different actors operating at different levels of development can share ideas and knowledge to all resolve Grand Challenges.

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Moonshot Thinking and the Grand Challenges

Moonshot thinking is the art of believing anything is possible and solvable despite preexisting capacities. In 1961, John F Kennedy presented to Congress his moonshot idea of putting the man on the moon, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Eight years later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the moon and lived to tell the tale. Critical, persistent, and complex societal problems require moonshot thinking. The Grand Challenges are pressing socioeconomic issues obstructing development efforts, such as global health epidemics and climate change. Adapting moonshot thinking calls for ambitious and defining goals for developing solutions to the World’s most pressing problems. The aim is to catalyze innovation and advancements within science and technology, and call attention to collaborative mechanisms for problem solving. Grand Challenges allow big and small picture thinkers to come together and create tools and innovations to address issues needed for the advancement of humankind. Overcoming challenges is a natural pursuit of the human race and requires constant forward and positive thinking. In the sphere of Grand Challenges and moonshot thinking, nothing is impossible and our capabilities are contingent upon the efforts and development of each other.

While our society is faced with an abundance of challenges towards development, technological and scientific innovations have provided us with greater understanding and capabilities to address these persistent problems. Grand Challenges require the involvement of diverse actors and perspectives that represent the complexities and localized differences of the problem at stake. Information and communication technologies (ICTS) are just one way to further moonshot thinking and addressing the Grand Challenges. ICTS improve our global network which propel collaboration and facilitate knowledge exchange. Monitoring the Grand Challenges and assessing progress requires multistakeholder collaboration and constant communication, thus ICTs are powerful mechanisms to propel moonshot thinking. Lewis Branstorm states that the heart of the innovation challenge is the process of “moving the products of science into innovations and from there to new industries” (Branstorm). Through this notion, policy makers are advised to deconventionalize policies to better support Jeffersonian science, which combines top-down and bottom-up strategies that encourage all kinds of research and innovation. The role of the government is thus to create policies and funding opportunities in disciplines that lack critical knowledge development.

Addressing the Grand Challenges requires top-down and bottom-up approaches and while these obstacles may yield concrete solutions, working towards these goals and targets provide inherent advancements in knowledge systems, which can be built upon to lead to future solutions. Furthermore, reassessing and reconfiguring the role of policy and policy makers is integral to addressing the Grand Challenges and expanding societies capacities and competences towards science and technological advancements. Individuals should be encouraged to enact moonshot thinking in their daily lives and to present the world with ‘crazy’ ideas that seem impossible. This ideology requires creativity and a sense of fearlessness of the potential societal repercussions of seemingly infeasible notions. Leaders from all different sectors must embrace the possibilities that derive from failure.

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How Does the NUA Include Rural Development as an Essential Part of Its Implementation?

When the New Urban Agenda: Habitat III conference was held in October, 2016, the main focus of the conference was to promote the idea of sustainable cities and start developing ideas on how to implement strategies of urban development. Although this document’s main purpose focuses on the urban landscape, the first draft of the NUA III official document contains fifteen mentions of rural development as a part of the plan for urban development:

Article 43: integration of rural development in the framework of developing cities and human settlements

Article 44: integration through ” transport and mobility, technology and communication networks and infrastructure”

Article 62: working with both urban and rural areas, “strengthening the sustainable management of resources ”

Article 77: ensuring coherence of local governmental policies regarding land development keeping rural areas in mind

Although it may not be evident how including rural development helps meet the targets of Habitat III, it is essential to consider what dynamics exist between the two and how improving one can indeed improve the conditions for the other.

One of the biggest challenges that we are currently facing is the overpopulation of our cities and how to accommodate for increasing numbers. This increase in population is mostly due to the migration of poor populations living in rural areas that look towards the city for better work opportunities. If we are to resolve overpopulation of cities, we need to look to what can be done in the rural landscape to provide sufficient opportunities and benefits to rural populations to keep them from migrating to the cities. This is the main goal of articles 43 and 44, where a stronger integration of rural-urban development through technology, communications, and infrastructure can bring a level of development to the rural setting, providing more economic opportunities in those areas and mitigating rural-urban migration.

Another important aspect is the effect that urban development has on the rural landscape. As cities grow, the need for resources such as land, water, food, electricity, etc… increases and most of the time, the use of those resources impacts rural communities. A lot of the waste generated by cities ends up polluting rural communities, which affects the crop outputs and therefore the livelihoods of the populations living in areas most affected. Article 62 emphasizes a strong partnership between the two in order to advance the goal of sustainable cities that would benefit rural areas as well. The urban sector bring to the table new technologies that can help improve the efficiency of the resources it uses, such as creating the infrastructure for green energy (solar panels, hydroelectric, wind energy) and reduce the amount of pollutants that cities emit, and the rural sector provides the conditions under which these resources work best, and provides insight on the effects that the pollution has. Sustainability is therefore an issue that needs to be addressed with the rural sector in mind if it will work at the highest degree of success.

It is impossible to achieve the goal of “sustainable cities” without considering the effects that it has on rural communities and without taking into account the tightly wound relationships that exist between the two. This is why rural development plays an important part in the development of Habitat III and helps us reach most of the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 agenda.

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Limitations of the MDGs

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), active from the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 to 2015, have been an important global framework for how state and nonstate actors address poverty reduction. The Goals successfully created a unifying framework to guide behavior around project premises, set norms and values, allow for an exchange and evaluation of best practices, start highly visible dialogue about new topics, etc.

One major limitation is access to the table of influence in the creation of the framework itself. If one does not understand the systems or cannot attend because of the financial burden, their ideas and values are automatically discluded from the conversation. Those able to attend and access Prep Coms must have the resources to be able to do so, so these resource disparities limit access to setting the agenda in a huge way. Before the major groups and other stakeholders framework, non-state actors had much less influence altogether.

Persons with disabilities are one group that was majorly left out of the MDG framework. By not including persons with disabilities, Kett, Lang, and Trani claim that the international community cannot achieve its goals of poverty reduction and human rights under the MDGs. There hasn’t been a lot of substantial research done on the subject, so the lack of information makes it hard to create inclusive policies and frameworks that really benefit the disability community. Janet Lord, a representative of the Landmine Survivors Network, indicates an example of doing this well was a recent decision to “give 12 seats on the Working Group that will formulate a negotiating text to NGO representatives”, which increases access to civil society and the agency of persons with disabilities as well as the outcome document of the 2013 HLPF meeting, which focuses on the lack of inclusion for persons with disabilities in the MDGs and how to correct for that going forwards.

Monitoring and implementation is another huge issue for the MDGs because the Goals are not legally binding. Rhetorical commitments and actual practices and implementation often have a huge disparity,  Caoimhe de Barra. A large part of this is because the MDGs set outcomes without elaborating on the process by which to get there. Deepak Nayyar highlights these limitations by discussing the multiplicity of objectives, particularly emphasized in the difficulty in contextualizing the Goals in different local and country settings.

Every framework has its limitations and its opportunities for success. By raising awareness of the MDG limitations, newer frameworks like the SDGs are able to correct for some of these failures by including 11 mentions of persons with disabilities. In the future, hopefully there will be an response to the increasing demand for accountability and access to the table.

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Implementation of NUA and its mindsets

“Unnecessary barriers continue to limit disabled people’s mobility and access to public resources; planning practitioners have failed to fully recognize the enabling or disabling powers of physical space” –Victor Pineda. Pineda argues that one is only disabled in respect to an environment, pushing for mainstreaming of disabled persons’ needs in everyday accessibility. This line of thinking directly influenced the global conversation about Smart Inclusive Cities and urban development in international policy making and guidance like Habitat III.

Habitat III was the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development in Quito, Ecuador, October 2016, focusing on sustainable urbanization. Building off of the 1996 Habitat II in Istanbul, Habitat conferences decide strategic frameworks for the next 20 years. Habitat III also welcomed the participation of all stakeholders, including the general assembly of partners (GAP). UNDESA, who is responsible for economic and social activities in the UN, reports that “urban areas are projected to house 60 per cent of people globally” by 2030, making this a crucial area for accessibility.

The New Urban Agenda (NUA) was Habitat III’s outcome document, which commits itself to preparing for a sustainable and equal urban future that includes “the rights and needs of women, children and youth, older persons and persons with disabilities, migrants, indigenous peoples and local communities, as appropriate, and to those of others in vulnerable situations”. This document is, instead, a call to action. NUA epitomizes the UN process as well: all influencers had the chance to contribute to the outcome document, but their last opportunity to do so was the Surabaya draft in Indonesia. This means the conference of Habitat III itself is actually an opportunity to discuss implementation, despite the general perception that the conference is where the outcome document is written. WUF9, held in Malaysia, also focuses on implementation of NUA goals, particularly banding around the role of technology. Its goals were 1) to advocate and raise awareness of sustainable development, 2) to improve collective knowledge, 3) to increase coordination and cooperation, and 4) to create a platform to incorporate the input of different organizations.

However, the representative nature of NUA is limited by those who are at the table. Despite the multi-stake holder involvement of Partner Constituent Groups (PCGs), civil society members must have rare ECOSOC accreditation to participate. Plus, the GAP started with the UN’s 9 major groups, slowly expanding to 16 (most recently, persons with disabilities); the GAP is pulled in many directions and is expensive, limiting access. Monitoring progress becomes even harder because NUA is not legally binding. These show that there is a long way to go for representation. Implementation of the progressive vision of the New Urban Agenda will require even higher multi-stakeholder buy in and a cultural mainstreaming of Pineda’s mindset that the only limit of a disabled person is their environment. It is the duty of the UN, complemented by the private and civil society sectors, to change that.

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Entitlement Theory and Access to Communication

Amartya Sen, author of “Development as Freedom,” first coined the term of entitlement theory in his paper “exchange Entitlements” as a way to describe the causes of famine. What he found was that famines often are not due to a lack of food, but rather a lack of access to the food that the country has available. In class, we discussed the importance of ICTs in the development framework and how people living in different societies and living in different areas of the world don’t have the same access to communications resources as people who live in large concentrated urban areas.

In the Maitland Commission Report, the ITU presented the idea of a “missing link” in the age of communication as there is still a large percentage of people that live completely isolated from the rest of the world due to a lack of access to telephone lines, internet and other forms of ICTs. One of the reasons that these populations remain without access to these technologies is because companies in charge of installing the infrastructure do not see any benefit in spending time and resources to provide this technology to marginalized communities. Another issue is that often, even if the technology is available to the communities, they are unable to afford the fees for using the internet or cellular reception. How then can these populations be given access to these technological entitlements?

One way to address this issue is through government intervention to ensure all people get access to the ICTs. By providing subsidies to companies providing the communications infrastructure, it gives private enterprises an additional motive to provide the services to marginalized communities. Another way to provide the service is through government acquisition of the technology and provide it themselves. However, involving the government in providing ICTs to the population leads to other challenges such as a loss in efficiency due to additional bureaucratic transaction costs, an increase in prices as the government tries to compensate for the higher costs, and problems with the quality of the good provided due to lack of competition.

In order to find the perfect combination of public and private that would allow marginalized communities to access ICTs, there are several conditions that need to be met that Amartya Sen defined. The first condition is that the highest level of efficiency is achieved in democratic governments. This is because democratic institutions provide greater stability and are subject to the interests of the voters, and therefore have a responsibility towards the population. There are cases in countries where the government intervened in the distribution of ICTs in order to spike the prices for personal gain or for military spending, but in the case of democratic institutions, there are checks and balances that keep that from happening.

A second condition is to ensure perfect competition and a breadth in the market. Having a large diversity of suppliers that can compete on an even playing field would cause prices of ICTs to go down and would also decrease the prices of the infrastructure, therefore making it more beneficial to provide the good to the most consumers possible, making it more affordable and more available to people in marginalized communities.

Finally, in order to set these things in motion, it is essential to raise awareness of the importance of bridging the “missing link” because through awareness, the government can act and start implementing strategies to provide greater access to the rest of the population living outside of concentrated rural areas.

In a quickly modernizing society where technological progress increases exponentially with each passing year, it is essential to make sure that no one gets left behind. ICTs are an essential part of development work, and without this access to information and communication, marginalized societies will be perpetually trying to catch up with the progress in the rest of the world and will never be able to achieve the same levels of development.