Human Development and the Environment: Challenges for the United Nations in the New Millenium

326 Pages·2002·2.09 MB·English

by  United Nations University Conference on The Threshold Of The New Mill

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The United Nations University is an organ of the United Nations estab-
lished by the General Assembly in 1972 to be an international community
of scholars engaged in research, advanced training, and the dissemination
of knowledge related to the pressing global problems of human survi-
val, development, and welfare. Its activities focus mainly on the areas of
peace and governance, environment and sustainable development, and
science and technology in relation to human welfare. The University oper-
ates through a worldwide network of research and postgraduate training
centres, with its planning and coordinating headquarters in Tokyo.
The United Nations University Press, the publishing division of the
UNU, publishes scholarly and policy-oriented books and periodicals in
areas related to the University’s research.
Human development and the environment
UNU Millennium Series
Series editors: Hans van Ginkel and Ramesh Thakur
The UNU Millennium Series examines key international trends for peace, gov-
ernance, human development, and the environment into the twenty-first century,
with particular emphasis upon policy-relevant recommendations for the United
Nations. The series also contributes to broader academic and policy debate con-
cerning the challenges that are faced at the international level at the turn of the
millennium, and envisions potential for partnerships among states, international
organizations, and civil society actors in collectively addressing these challenges.
Titles in this series:
New Millennium, New Perspectives: The United Nations, Security, and Governance
Human Development and the Environment: Challenges for the United Nations in
the New Millennium
Embracing the Millennium: Perspectives and Challenges for the UN and the Inter-
national Community
The UN and Human Development in the New Millennium
Human development and
the environment: Challenges
for the United Nations
in the new millennium
Edited by Hans van Ginkel, Brendan Barrett, Julius Court,
and Jerry Velasquez
United Nations
aUniversity Press
TOKYO u NEW YORK u PARIS
( The United Nations University, 2002
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University.
United Nations University Press
The United Nations University, 53-70, Jingumae 5-chome,
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8925, Japan
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
E-mail:
Contents
Tables and figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
1 Reflections on human development and the environment . . . . . . 1
Hans van Ginkel, Brendan Barrett, Julius Court,
and Jerry Velasquez
Human development
2 Conceptual challenges of a globalizing economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Karel van Wolferen
3 Into the twenty-first century: Assessing social and political
concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Rolph van der Hoeven
4 Policy priorities for human development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Ruth Kagia
5 Poverty and inequality in the era of liberalization and
globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Giovanni Andrea Cornia
6 The future of technology and the implications for society and
the UN system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Jerome Glenn and Theodore Gordon
v
vi CONTENTS
7 Population – A global challenge for the twenty-first century . . . 126
Wolfgang Lutz
8 Institutions, corruption, and development, and their
ramifications for international cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Beatrice Weder
9 Future of global economic governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Walden Bello
Environment
10 Urbanization, industrialization, and sustainable development . . 185
Fred Langeweg, Henk Hilderink, and Rob Maas
11 Water in our future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Motoyuki Suzuki
12 The importance of tropical atmospheric chemistry in global
change research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Paul Crutzen
13 Energy requirements for the new millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Ingvar B. Fridleifsson
14 Global food security for tomorrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Monkombu Sambasivam Swaminathan
15 Land degradation: A global and regional problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Adel El-Beltagy
16 Global governance of biological diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
A. Hamid Zakri
17 International environmental governance and its impact on
social and human development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Akiko Domoto
Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Tables and figures
Tables
Table 3.1 Sub-Saharan Africa: Evolution of employment in
the formal sector during the adjustment phase (as
percentage of the active population) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Table 3.2 Informal employment as percentage of labour force
(non-agricultural), selected countries in Latin
America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Table 3.3 Gini ratios and per capita growth for selected
countries, 1970s–1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Table 3.4 Composition of social sector expenditures
(percentage of GDP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Table 3.5 Trends in selected social indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Table 3.6 Temporary employment as a share of total salaried
employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Table 3.7 Indicators for ‘‘unprotected’’ salaried employment
(percentage shares) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Table 4.1 Progress in social indicators, 1970–1998. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Table 5.1 Decomposition of the increase in the Gini coefficient
of the distribution of household incomes between
the pre-transition period (1989) and the years 1993–
1996. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Table 5.2 Evolution of the Gini coefficients and the income gap
in China, 1978–1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
vii
viii TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 5.3 Trends in the Gini coefficients of the distribution of
income from the 1950s to the 1990s for 77 developed,
developing, and transitional economies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Table 5.4 Analysis of differences between the results of LSZ
and the estimates presented in Table 5.3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Table 5.5 Estimated poverty rates for 1985–1998, and 1990
projection for 2000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Table 5.6 Decomposition of changes in poverty over time
into changes in mean income and changes in the
distribution of income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Table 7.1 Demographic trends in the world since 1950. . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Table 7.2 Population (in millions) by region for probabilistic
projections assuming uncorrelated fertility and
mortality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Table 8.1 The economic effects of corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Table 8.2 The effects of aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Table 11.1 Water resources and potential availability per capita
by continent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Table 12.1 Estimated rates of biomass burning in the tropics and
subtropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Table 13.1 Key energy data from 1990 for the 11 regions of the
world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Table 13.2 Characteristics of the three cases for the world in
2050 compared with 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Table 13.3 Assumed primary energy production from
renewables in 2020. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Table 14.1 Plant medicine and human health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Figures
Figure 4.1 A global view of HIV/AIDS: 33.4 million infected
adults and children, 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figure 5.1 Trends over time in the Gini coefficient for the UK
and the USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Figure 5.2 Trends over time of the Gini coefficient of India . . . . . . 83
Figure 5.3 Non-linear relation between inequality and growth . . . 98
Figure 5.4 Relation between changes in Gini coefficients over
time (during rising, stable, and falling periods for
which data are available) and changes in growth
performance over the same period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Figure 6.1 Regional demographics of Millennium Project
participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Figure 6.2 Sectoral demographics of Millennium Project
participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112