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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.

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Monitoring the SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were established in 2015 as a way to unify the international community and guide UN member states objectives. As such, it’s a multi-stakeholder objective including states (with countries from both the global north and global south) and non-states (including the private sector, IGOs, and civil society). The UN charter’s preamble states that the UN pledges “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person… to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”. This was reaffirmed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Through the creation of 17 Global Goals with 169 targets, the UN persists in following these ideals. These include everything from quality education to gender equity to economic growth.

One prominent SDG is Goal 4, or “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, with ten targets and eleven indicators. Some targets are easier to measure than others, such as “4.2.2: Participation rate in organized learning (one year before the official primary entry age), by sex”. Others are more vague and harder to measure like “4.7.1: the extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development, including gender equality and human rights, are mainstreamed at all levels…”. These indicators are supposed to increase monitoring and accountability capacities from the preceding MDGs, but this ability depends more on the clarity of the targets and indicators themselves rather than the mere presence of them. The 2017 SDG 4 progress report addresses areas where the world is still lacking, specifically attacking efforts “in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia and for vulnerable populations, including persons with disabilities, indigenous people, refugee children and poor children in rural areas”.

The HLPF, or the high level performance forums, is yet another way to monitor progress. This body of heads of states implementing the SDGs meets annually under ECOSOC and every four years under the UNGA- it is known as the most inclusive and participatory forum at the UN as the MGOS (major groups and other stakeholders) are able to hold side events, attend and intervene in all official meetings of the forum; have access to all official information and documents, make recommendations, and more. These major groups are women, children, farmers, indigenous people, local authorities, businesses, civil society, and workers and trade unions- this framework is broadened by the more recent addition of other stakeholders, like persons with disabilities. However, this inclusivity is still limited to those with ECOSOC accreditation. Rimmerman, the author of Social Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, argues especially that persons with disabilities still are limited in participation both in UN function and in society worldwide. The HLPF and other monitoring measures must remember to take into account the lived experiences of individuals rather than keep working on such a macro scale.

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World Urban Forum

According to the United Nations World Urban Forum (WUF) website, the World Urban Forum is “the world’s premier conference on urban issues.” Established in 2001 by the United Nations, The World Urban Forum analyzes rapid urbanization and its effects on communities, cities, economies, climate change, and policies. The World Urban Forum was organized and convened by UN-Habitat and allows for high-level participation that creates a premier international gathering about one of the most pressing global issues. The World Urban Forum has three objectives:

  1. raise awareness of sustainable urbanization among stakeholders and constituencies, including the generic public;
  2. improve the collective knowledge of sustainable urban development through inclusive open debates, sharing of lessons learned and the exchange of best practices and good policies; and
  3. increase coordination and cooperation between different stakeholders and constituencies for the advancement and implementation of sustainable urbanization.

The World Urban Forum meets every two years to work toward these objectives. Coming in February 2018, The WUF will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Many people are excited about the WUF being held in Asia again as it accounts for about 65% of expansion in urban areas across the world. Hosting the forum shows a dedication to sustainable development that would benefit many locations in Asia as rapid urbanization is a heavy burden in many Asian countries. Those involved hope to see many practices and new knowledge being shared by all stakeholders involved in the World Urban Forum.

The relevant stakeholders span a wide range of actors. National and local governments, non-governmental organizations, business, and communities alI hold a large interest in the WUF and its policies to attain the goals of Habitat III. National and local governments will be required to offer much of the funding for sustainable urban development as they must provide infrastructure to accommodate any development. Non-governmental organizations will hold stakes concerning environmental and social concerns while development is under way. NGOs will likely be the ones to hold businesses and governments accountable for these concerns. Businesses will play a role when they invest in an area, creating much of the development through economic opportunity and therefore hope to see beneficial policies from the WUF. Communities will be affected by all of the above as they live in these areas. If the governments do not comply with the policies set by the WUF, businesses will be less likely to invest as there isn’t proper infrastructure, NGOs will continue to see social concerns and attempt to mend these, and these communities will lose economic opportunity and in turn a chance for development.

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Grand Challenges

The grand challenges of today are vast and many, as can be seen by looking at the Millennium Development Goals, the Millennium Development Goals Outcomes, and the Sustainable Development Goals. By following the changes between the Millennium Development Goals and its successor, the Sustainable Development Goals, we can see that there is an expanding understanding of what Grand Challenges we face as a society today. With the continuance of expanding technology and innovation, we are able to find more challenges surmountable even if we are unsure of just how to solve them.

One example is Millennium Development Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. This was broken down into six different goals in the Sustainable Development Goals. These include Affordable and Clean Energy (7), Sustainable Cities and Communities (11), Responsible Consumption and Production (12), Climate Action (13), Life Below Water (14), and Life on Land (15). The expansion of this single goal under the MDGs into six separate goals with their own measurements and specified indicators under the SDGs at least shows our greater understanding of the issues our world faces today. At worst, we learned what needs to be fixed further and things that did not work under the MDGs. At best, we have a more clearly defined notion for the future of these works and are able to build off of and add to what was accomplished under the MDGs.

While this is an international idea about Grand Challenges that should be addressed, it was interesting to find the domestic take by looking at the White House website for Grand Challenges. It was down for maintenance and has been for at least a month and a half. While things like this are common under a new administration and the government tends to run slowly, Trump’s campaign was built off a series of his perceived Grand Challenges that have yet to appear on this site. Compared with the USAID take on Grand Challenges, which is very in depth and has specific examples they are working to fix, there is a disconnect. While Grand Challenges are inherently difficult, they are focused on because they are able to be solved in some way, even if that way is difficult and tiresome. But this distinction shows that one reason we have not worked as far towards accomplishing these things is because of a division of resources and focus. Before we are able to fix these things, agreements must be made about how to do so.

 

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Inclusive Development and the WUF

Under the United Nation’s Habitat, the World Urban Forum is an international conference dedicated to urban issues across the glove. The Forum has 3 objectives:

 

  1. Raise awareness of sustainable urbanization among stakeholders and constituencies, including the general public.
  2. Improve the collective knowledge of sustainable urban development through inclusive open debates, sharing of lessons learned and the exchange of best practices and good policies.
  3. Increase coordination and cooperation between different stakeholders and constituencies for the advancement and implementation of sustainable urbanization.

 

The WUF has gained international attention and has become one of the most inclusive forums within the United Nations. It’s next session, WUF9 taking place in February 2018 in Malaysia will focus on inclusive sustainable urban development. This forum follows the notion that it is a right for all citizens to have equal access to the services and benefits a city provides. Within many urban settings, access to resources is stratified not only across class but also across abilities. For instance, this forum will discuss inclusive transportation. There is a call for the expansion of public transportation to span across the entirety of the city, instead of centralizing busses and rails to certain parts. However, there is a large push for an increase in accessibility across other spectrums. There is a need for not only handicapped-friendly public transportation, but also transportation with audio for those who are blind and visually impaired, and accommodations for the elderly. The creation of inclusive mechanisms fully allows a city to reach a new level of development.

 

Another aspect of the WUF9 is their dedication to collaboration and coordination amongst various stakeholders and constituencies. In 2014 the Urban Thinkers Campus endorsed the idea of the General Assembly of Partners (GAP) in which acts as representative groups of the general assembly, all members of the United Nations, within the major international forums such as WUF. GAP will play a large role in the collaboration and coordination efforts within WUF9. They will actively advocate for marginalized groups, whether it be the disabled, elderly, indigenous groups, women and children etc. Having these representative groups present at WUF9 allows for conversation to be directed back to the needs of those marginalized and holds them accountable for implementing effective strategies for making sure all citizens have access to the benefits and services of a city.

 

Overall, the efforts set forth by GAP and WUF9 have actively worked to involve all types of people into the conversation of development and allow cities as well as its citizens to flourish.

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Cities for All by All

 

The 9th World Urban Forum (WUF9) will be held in Kuala Lumpur in 2018. The World Urban Forum is an important conference for governments to discuss and address urban issues. WUF9 will focus on implementation of the New Urban Agenda and using the New Urban Agenda as a tool for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030. This is an opportunity to examine the overlaps between the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs. No.11 of the SDGs “Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” is especially relevant to the New Urban Agenda. Holding WUF9 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will also help push the progress in building “cities for all” forward since with the efforts of UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific , Southeast Asia sets an example for other regions of the world in implementing inclusive policies for persons with disabilities. Besides member states, the General Assembly of Partners will participate in WUF9 to influence the policy making and implementation process as well. Other stakeholders from various sectors that have their own vision on inclusive cities such as the Special Olympics should also be included in the process.

The conception of an inclusive city by the Special Olympics focuses on four aspects for persons with intellectual disabilities: attitudes, access, opportunities and social inclusion. While the definition of persons with disabilities in the SDGs and in the New Urban Agenda is broader, persons with intellectual disabilities are included in this definition. The Special Olympics recognizes the challenges posed by growing urban population and aims at improving inclusivity and accessibility of cities through their games and programs. For example, since the Special Olympics World Summer Games will be held in Abu Dhabi in 2019, Abu Dhabi is one of the four pilot cities for the inclusive city initiative of Special Olympics. While the Special Olympics is seeking ways to make a positive impact on the Middle East and North Africa region, UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia has a lot of space for improving accessibility and inclusivity of cities in the region. Knowledge transfer and experience sharing with other regional agencies of the UN can move things forward. But multistakeholders such as businesses and NGOs can also provide valuable insights on building “cities for all” in MENA region. Therefore, on international governance platforms like the WUF9, participation of stakeholders from different sectors is indispensible and should be encouraged.

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The Grand Challenge of Disability and Development

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people….We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” John F. Kennedy announced at Rice University on September 12th, 1962. And we did- America landed on the moon that same decade on July 20th, 1969. That is the original “moonshot thinking”, or the idea that we must tackle ambitious, impossible projects in order to create change.

“Grand Challenges” encapsulates moonshot thinking, although the term itself is credited to David Hilbert, who laid out 23 mathematical questions at the International Mathematical Congress in Paris in 1900.  Those original Grand Challenges detailed “technically complex societal problems that have stubbornly defied solution” (as defined by Lewis Branscomb) and challenged a cross-section of experts to work together on solutions.  While traditionally focusing on science and technology, Branscomb and others instead favor larger societally-focused projects. Their vision of the Grand Challenges conceptual framework has been embraced by USAID, the White House, and the UN. Examples of programs oriented on the Grand Challenges framework include the USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s partnership on Ensuring Effective Health Supply Chain as well as other USAID projects like Scaling Off Grid Energy, Combating Zika and Future Threats, and All Children Reading.

The Grand Challenge is Sustainable Development Goals and its preceding Millennium Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals are a 15 year plan to tackle Grand Challenges across 17 different issue areas established in 2015. This look at systemic challenges worldwide creates an alternative mindset to development. In fact, they have become key in defining how we think about program effectiveness by giving targets and indicators to meet. These goals provide a unifying framework for state and nonstate actors worldwide to enact progress.

The SDGs made the UN framework more inclusive by including the grand challenge of disability and development with eleven explicit references to persons with disabilities. This is important because it will guide behavior by states. This has been furthered by high level work such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006 that shifted conceptual thinking from disabilities as a medical condition to a human right, which creates opportunities and higher equity for the traditionally marginalized 15% of every country’s population. This is an important step towards to true equality. While public policy focused on the inclusion of disabled persons may not spark the same initial general interest level as landing on the moon, it is surely a moonshot idea to radically shift how we think, talk, and create policy for this excluded group. This opens a window for a population whose potential contributions to society have been dismissed.

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Development and The Poverty Trap

“Why Nation’s Fail” discusses mechanisms of “inclusive economic institutions” that allow developed countries to continue to be wealthy. Acemoglu and Robinson state these wealthy, western world countries create incentives for citizens to be innovative, provide secure education and strong infrastructure, and create laws that benefit the entirety of the population. These facets parallel the ideas within Sen’s, “Development of Freedom,” chapters of discussing democracy, famine, and women and social change. In contrast, all authors talk about undeveloped countries and the ways in which they struggle to achieve development and westernized ideals. Although I agree that many underdeveloped countries want democracy, less political upheaval, and famine, it is paramount to understand the ways in which these countries have fallen into the vicious cycle of exclusion.

Sen’s chapter on famine and other crises strongly reminds me of the nutritional poverty trap that many under developing countries face in the wake of development. Sen explains that famine and malnourishment is due to the working of the state’s economy and society as a whole, and thus the ability to acquire food has to be earned. The nutritional poverty trap states that because the poor are too malnourished, they are unable to work productively, which results in scarcity in income and production. In turn, this lack of production works to continue the malnourishment within these populations. Ordinarily, calories are too cheap within nations for causal of poverty. But famines, natural disasters and lack of proper waste management can yield to nutritional poverty. This has long-standing impacts on one’s health, causing for an overall economy to weaken, making it even more difficult to fight famines.

Acemoglu and Robinson explain that issues of politics and economics influence a countries development. Continuing with various poverty trap theories, the geographical poverty trap explains the ways in which the environment can hinder a country’s ability to develop. Geographic characteristics are unchangeable and thus heavily influence available resources for production, technology, income and overall poverty. Even with proper investments, geographic can hinder households ability to increase wages and growth. Furthermore, geographical locations can hinder strong infrastructure. Environments that are prone to drought, floods, and natural disasters are unable to provide a continuous strong infrastructure that will enable societies to be innovative. One could argue mass migration from these high-risk areas, however, within underdeveloped countries the movement to urbanized, developed cities lead to the creation of the periphery in areas. Informal settlements, slums, and improper housing forms, ultimately sustain and create poverty in new areas.

Although underdeveloped countries desire development and innovation within their states, they face several setbacks that perpetuate their poverty and underdevelopment. I believe that poverty trap theories give valuable insight into the ways in which these countries fall into vicious cycles.

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Including Slums in Inclusive Cities: What ADB Got Right

While slums are often not thought of when people talk about cities, they are growing in size and population especially as more and more populations move from rural to urban environments. Some slum populations in India have grown so large that they can influence elections. Sustainable Development Goal 11 focuses on “Making cities inclusive, resilient, safe, and sustainable” and if we are to implement goal 11, then slums must be included and thought of as well. Including slums in sustainable development is often met with many barriers. Local governments do not want to acknowledge slums or provide them with services because they want the slums to disappear and think providing benefits such as water and sanitation will encourage the slum-dwellers to stay. Slums are also illegal settlements so there are other barriers to providing them with services such as schools and health clinics because they are technically not supposed to exist.

The habitat III conference’s new urban agenda commits itself to trying to end stigma surrounding slum-dwellers, making informal settlements more resilient, and upgradings slums. This is certainly a step in the right direction but I was more impressed with the concrete examples of slum rehabilitation the Asian Development Bank described in their document Inclusive Cities. Slum rehabilitation often doesn’t work out as planned because the project leaders don’t ask the residents what their needs are and don’t understand the attachment residents have to their homes, or interrupt their livelihoods. The phrase “Nothing about us without us” is credited to the disabled community but the ADB took that mindset to heart when constructing their slum rehabilitation programs. The ADB provided surveys and asked residents what their needs were. These surveys informed project developers what residents wanted and with this information they were able to provide some low cost sanitation, women’s support groups, schools, and clinics. The ADB was able to work with local governments and encourage them to recognize the slums and see them as a boon for the local economy. The reason ADB’s programs were successful was that they took into consideration what the residents wanted and the systemic problems that were preventing them from achieving their needs.

Including slum-dwellers in the conversation about inclusive cities is a concrete way of advancing SDG 11 because they are able to offer a more direct perspective of what would make their settlements inclusive, sustainable, and equitable.

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New Urban Agenda

The New Urban Agenda is pushing the idea that sustainable development and urbanization go hand in hand. There are many parts of development and urbanization that The New Urban Agenda focuses on which attain both of these simultaneously while promoting social agendas as well. Through poverty alleviation, inclusive economies, and environmental sustainability initiatives, The New Urban Agenda pushes for many benefits from cities themselves. Those listed include

  1. Adequate housing with accessible food, water, sanitation, and jobs
  2. Participatory communities in order to meet all needs
  3. Gender equality by ensuring numbers 1 and 2
  4. Meet social challenges in a way that is sustainable and inclusive
  5. Act as a center for the development at hand with administrative services
  6. Plan for age and gender mobility obstacles to link this population with people, places, goods, services, and economic opportunities
  7. Implement a disaster risk reduction and relief program as well as mitigate and adapt to climate change
  8. “Protect, conserve, restore, and promote” the environment within and around the city in order to minimize environmental impact and make a move to responsible production and production methods

All eight of these are included in the Outcome document of Habitat III as the vision of future cities. While these are all things every city should strive for, it is still a non-binding agreement with minimal accountability. As shown in the indicators under Sustainable Development Goal 11, the goals and indicators are clearly stated but do not mention clear measurements to strive for.

For example, 11.A aims to “support positive economic, social, and environmental links between urban, per-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning.” The indicator for this is 11.A.1, stated as “proportion of population living in cities that implement urban and regional development plans integrating population projections and resource needs, by size of city.” There are two large issues with this: a lack of measurement and not accounting for measures taken outside of cities. First, the lack of measurement relates back to the issues seen with the Millennium Development Goals. Without a set goal, these could be achieved in a minor way but have minimal impact. Second, while the goal is for urbanization, there will undoubtedly be interaction between rural and urban areas. Whether this is merely a trade of goods or includes people traveling regularly between the two, many of the urban plans should be applied to rural areas as well in order to have a fuller impact.