Poverty's threat

In the debate on the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, delegates to the UN General Assembly asserted that problems generated by the impact of poverty on the environment could not be solved by restricting aid to developing countries unless those countries promised to cease damaging their environment. Rather, most delegates agreed, aid should include the resources which would enable those countries to achieve "sustainable development," i.e., development that does not destroy the environment and deplete natural resources. The United States countered with the opinion that what is needed is not a UN organized "sustainable development program," but rather a grassroots "sustainable development movement" in all countries. Several delegates pointed out that it was the affluent countries which played a large part in the destruction of the environment. The Present of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, pointed out, for example, that the greenhouse effect, generated by the burning of fossil fuels, would raise the sea level 2 meters, virtually submerging his country. Mrs. Brundtland pointed out that it was not morally acceptable to suggest that the poor remain poor to protect the environment. Governments at all levels, she said, must include environmental concerns in their decision making in all sectors of governmental functioning, e.g., finance, industry, energy, and agriculture.     

To help our planet survive

The "Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond," a document which resulted from 4 years' work of the Intergovernmental Inter-Sessional Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), was approved by the UN General Assembly on Dec. 11, 1987. The purpose of the "Environmental Perspective" is to guide governments in achieving environmentally sound development. Major input into the document was the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by Norwegian Prime Minister, Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland. The "Environmental Perspective" sets out 14 "shared perceptions" on the nature of environmental issues and recommended actions in 6 major areas -- population, food and agriculture, energy, industry, health and human settlements, and international relations. It addresses questions of pollution, peaceful uses of outer space, endangered species, and the relation of security and environment. Finally, the "Environmental Perspective" calls for the collection of information upon which unified environmental policies may be based. In other environmental actions the General Assembly proclaimed the 1990s as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, reviewed the progress of the 1977 Plan of Action to Combat Desertification, and urged member states to become parties to the 1985 Convention for Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol restricting the use of substances that damage the ozone layer.     

From Coal to Wind

In March 1987, the Brundtland Report –Our Common Future – was published by the UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development. The recommendations of the report contributed worldwide to raising awareness of climate change. In particular, the energy sector became the object of anxiety, as production and the use of energy were pinpointed as some of the ‘crooks’ emitting most greenhouse gasses. Shortly after the publication of the report, the Danish government revised its energy planning and opened up for a radical change of the energy sector.

This article delves into this crucial change and, in doing so, suggests a historical answer to the question of why Denmark became one of the leading nations in transforming the energy sector from a power supply based on fossil fuels to a power generation system using a high percentage of renewables.     

Urban Planning and Sustainable Development

Following the discourse about sustainable development based on the Brundtland Commission's report and the processes in the UN Committee on Environment and Development, a sustainable urban development would require considerably more ambitious policies than today in order to limit energy consumption, reduce pollution and protect natural areas and arable land. Re-use of urban areas and more effective utilization of building sites is a possible strategy to this end. However, continuous growth in the building stock will make it increasingly difficult to bring urban development in wealthy countries within the frames of what is ecologically sustainable and equitable in a global perspective. Planning for a sustainable urban development must be oriented towards long-term goals and utilize knowledge about the environmental consequences of different solutions, but should not be based solely on means-ends rationality. Rather than aiming at consensus including all stakeholder groups, planning for sustainability should facilitate alliance-building among those population groups who can support the basic equity and environmental values of a sustainable development.     

Planning Sustainability: Intergenerational and Intragenerational Justice in Spatial Planning Strategies

Abstract: Subsequent to the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, Our Common Future), sustainability has been set up in many countries as a mission statement of cross‐sectoral policies. Sustainable development carries the normative notions of equity, empowerment and environmentally sensitive economic development. Thus, it seems to suggest a fundamentally different vision to neoliberal dogma, which is at the same time described as dominating all socio‐political processes. This paper intends to explore the relation between these two discursive framings of contemporary policies through the example of German spatial planning guidelines. More precisely, it addresses social justice as one pillar of sustainability and how it is operationalised in spatial planning policies in Germany. This may exemplify how the seemingly opposing discourses interact in policy practices. The empirical analysis suggests that the ways in which the German spatial planning report focused on social space in territorial terms promotes an economistic and truncated view of social justice, one which fosters the neoliberal idea of regional competition for global capital and reduces socio‐spatial justice to territorially equally distributed economic inclusion.     

Models and Methods in Development–Induced Displacement (Review Article)

Books reviewed in this article: S. Parasuraman, The Development Dilemma: Displacement in India Michael Cernea, (ed.) Economics of Involuntary Resettlement: Questions and Challenges Michael Cernea and Chris McDowell, (eds) Risks and Reconstruction: Experiences of Resettlers and Refugees World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development, A New Framework for Decision–Making, Report of the World Commission on Dams Robert Picciotto, Warren van Wicklin and Edward Rice, (eds) Involuntary Resettlement: Comparative Perspectives     

What's wrong,what's ahead,how do we make it right?

The "Environmental Perspective" of the UN outlines 6 major problem areas and suggests what should be done about them. 1) Overpopulation exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment. Specific attention should be given to the problems of cities and public works projects should be designed to provide employment and improve the environment. 2) Food shortages must be dealt with to ensure security and restore the environment. Governments must adopt policies and institute regulatory measures for land and water use. 3) The available energy resources are being consumed at vastly different rates throughout the world. Policies should be devised to more equitably meet energy demands without further increasing the costs to the environment. 4) Industrial development is damaging the environment, and government policies, especially in developing countries, must be geared to minimizing waste of resources and increasing pollution. 5) Inadequate housing and public health services are causing high morbidity and mortality in many areas. Programs must be developed to deal with tropical diseases and unsanitary conditions. 6) International economic relations often adversely affect development. Aid to developing countries must be increased and trade patterns developed to mutual advantage and to safeguard the environment.     

"To change the world." Cairo conference reaches consensus on plan to stabilize world growth by 2015

After 6 days of debate and 200 speakers during September 5-13, 1994, participants from 180 countries at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agreed on a strategy for curbing global population growth over the next 20 years. The objective was sustained economic growth and sustainable development. In his opening remarks, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said that the objective was to balance humanity and the environment with the means to sustain life, and that the efficacy of the world economic order depended to some extent on the ICPD. Participants were urged to use rigor, tolerance, and conscience in conference deliberations. Men and women should have the right and the means to choose their families' futures. The preamble stated that the ICPD would probably be the last opportunity in the twentieth century to address globally the issues relating to population and development. UN Population Fund Executive Director Nafis Sadik remarked that the ICPD had the potential to change the world. Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak was elected president of the ICPD. Mubarak stated that solutions to population problems must go beyond demographic accounting and incorporate change in social, economic, and cultural conditions. Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland stated that development in many countries never reached many women. She called it a hypocritical morality that allowed women to suffer and die from unwanted pregnancies, illegal abortions, and miserable living conditions. US Vice President Albert Gore called for comprehensive and holistic solutions. The essential features of social change would involve democracy, economic reform, low rates of inflation, low levels of corruption, sound environmental management, free and open markets, and access to developed country markets. Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir urged the empowerment of women. Many expressed the concern about unsustainable consumption in industrialized countries. Prior world population conferences had been held in Rome (1954), Belgrade (1965), Bucharest (1974), and Mexico City (1984). The first World Plan of Action was adopted in 1974 and changed at the 1984 conference.     

Thinking about the World Bank’s “accordion” geography of financial globalization

Two “flagship” World Bank reports, entitled The Long March—A Reform Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean In The Next Decade (1997) and the World Development Report, 1999–2000 (2000), are the subject of this paper. Both publications attempt to come to terms with the policy and practice of structural adjustment in the context of a new geography of global finance. This paper argues that the geographical imagination employed in both World Bank reports is the product of a dominant statist geographical imagination that struggles to explain contemporary developments in the geography of money. The paper starts with a brief discussion of the Mexican peso and debt crisis, and the World Bank’s practice of structural adjustment. Through an interrogation of both World Bank papers, thought is then given to the purchase of territorialized state-based mappings of the global economy. The paper wraps up with a brief conclusion concerning the explanatory salience of scale.

Internationally mobile capital is here to stay. Growing trade links, new communication technologies, and increasingly sophisticated financial products are making national borders more porous to financial flows. The challenge facing policymakers in developing countries is how to navigate through this financially integrating world (World Development Report 1999-2000, 2000: 85).

[W]hereas the horizons of the world of money and finance are global and deterritorialized, the political imagination seems wedded to territorialism and the borders of the nation state (Leyshon &Thrift, 1997: 290).

     

从《气候变化框架公约》进展看当前国际环境关系

自1992年联合国环境与发展大会缔结了为气候变化问题上的全球合作提供法律框架的《气候变化框架公约》以来,国际上已经历六次缔约方大会。虽然1997年其第三次缔约方会议签订了具有削减温室气体排放数量和时间限制具体目标的《京都议定书》,取得了该领域的一个关键性进展,但最近在荷兰海牙召开的旨在就《京都协定书》的目标与措施达成具体协议的第六次缔约方会议却以失败而告终。纵观国际社会在《气候变化框架公约》问题上的后续行动进展,可以充分看出当前的国际环境关系具有环境问题政治化、环境关系复杂化、环境合作艰难化以及环境斗争激烈化的特点。这使中国今后在环境与发展的问题上将面临更加严峻的挑战,为此必须尽早采取有效对策。     

Regoverning markets: a place for small-scale producers in modern agrifood chains? * B. Vorley, A. Fearne and D. Ray (Eds)

The international expansion of supermarkets and concomitanttransformation of food production and distribution systems hasemerged as an issue of global importance during the past decade.As such, the purported globalization of food retailing has drawnincreasing attention from geographers and economists alike,who have identified a host of profound implications for producers,consumers, suppliers, domestic competitors and workers in bothdeveloped and developing countries. The salience of the ‘supermarketrevolution’ within developing countries is further highlightedby the World Bank's 2008 World Development Report Agriculturefor Development that focuses specifically on the barriers impedingparticipation of small-scale agricultural producers in globalcommodity chains and potential opportunities for improving rurallivelihoods. Like the 2008 World Development Report, Regoverning Markets:A Place for Small-scale Producers in Modern Agrifood Chains?attempts to understand how     

Children and War in Sierra Leone: A West African Diary

In June 2001, Richard Wilson participated in a technical meeting on children's participation and protection in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone, organized by UNICEF and the Human Rights Forum of Sierra Leone. The Report 'Children and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone', will be delivered in late 2001 to the UN Security Council. This is his diary of the drafting process.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: C. George Kahama, T.L. Maliyamkono and Stuart Wells, The Challenge for Tanzania's Economy John Sender and Sheila Smith, The Development of Capitalism in Africa Ted J. Davis (ed.) Development of Rainfed Agriculture under Arid and Semi-arid Conditions. Proceedings of the Sixth Agricultural Sector Symposium Jan Hesselberg, The Third World in Transition: The Case of the Peasantry in Botswana Samir Radwan and Eddy Lee, Agrarian Change in Egypt: An Anatomy of Rural Poverty. A study prepared by the International Labour Office within the framework of the World Employment Programme. Martin Fransman, Technology and Economic Development. Sudha V. Rao, Education and Rural Development. J.P. Lewis and V. Kallab (eds), Development Strategies Reconsidered. The World Bank, Antigua and Barbuda: Economic Report. The World Bank, Dominica: Priorities and Prospects for Development, The World Bank, Grenada: Economic Report The World Bank, St. Christopher and Nevis: Economic Report The World Bank, St. Lucia: Economic Performance and Prospects. The World Bank, St. Vincent and the Grenadines: Economic Situation and Selected Development Issues     

Reproductive rights and health discussed

The 29th session of the UN Commission on Population and Development (February 26 to March 1, 1996) focused on reproductive health and rights, including population IEC (information, education, and communication). Speakers relayed national responses to the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, highlighted the critical role of nongovernmental organizations in meeting reproductive health needs through IEC and advocacy, and applauded the recent expansion of the Population Information Network. The Director of the UN's Population Division noted that in 1946, when the Commission was founded, the Division estimated that the world population would reach 6.3 billion in the year 2000. The latest estimate of 6.2 billion confirms this early estimate. Sensitive issues which the Commission expects to face in coming years are abortion, the aging of populations, HIV/AIDS, and international migration. The Executive Director of the UN Population Fund reported that guidelines are being developed on the quality of reproductive health care and that gender concerns are increasingly being included in program design and implementation. The Commission also considered the Secretary-General's January 15, 1996, report on world population monitoring, reproductive rights, and reproductive health. Finally, the Commission announced that Leticia Ramos-Shahani, an advocate from the Philippines, and Pathfinder International would share the 1996 Population Award.     

Can South–South Cooperation Compete? The Development Bank of Latin America and the Islamic Development Bank

Southern‐led multilateral development banks (MDBs) play a key role in harnessing global capital to finance the sectors most important to borrowers, especially infrastructure. Two prominent Southern MDBs, the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), have become crucial drivers of regional infrastructure growth. This article explores whether their performance has lived up to their goals of establishing borrower control over bank governance without sacrificing financial dynamism. Using power‐weighted voting indices for member representation on bank boards, the authors determine that these banks offer borrowers much more representation on their boards than do their Northern‐based counterparts, the Inter‐American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The article also analyses bank operations to determine whether their governance structure impacts their internal performance, as reflected on balance sheets, and external performance — gaining relevance in development finance and particularly in infrastructure lending, including the burgeoning sector of sustainable (climate‐resilient) infrastructure. The authors find that the CAF and IsDB have become major players in development finance, including in sustainable infrastructure. However, important issues remain in relation to their continued internal capacity development, especially with regard to the environmental and social safeguards necessary to oversee lending.     

Contesting ‘Global Sisterhood’: The Global Women's Health Movement,the United Nations and the Different Meanings of Reproductive Rights (1970s–80s)

The article contributes to a genealogy of the global articulation of reproductive rights principles, as established at the 1994 United Nations (UN) Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo and the UN Women's Conference held in Beijing the following year. It highlights the key role played by an emerging global women's health movement in the 1970s–80s, in shaping UN debates on family planning, women's rights in procreative choice and women's roles in socio-economic development. The article focuses on the International Campaign for Abortion, Sterilisation and Contraception (est. London 1978) and the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (Amsterdam and Manila 1984; ECOSOC consultative status in 1992). Adopting an intersectional perspective, the paper highlights the local embeddedness of feminist positions, the shortcomings of Western feminism and the ways in which conflicts between women's organisations allowed for an original and evolving concept of reproductive rights to emerge. It is based on UN papers and the archives of the above organisations and family planning movements.     

试论中国历史文化名城的创建与保护——以山东省泰安市为例

从长远看,创建与保护中国历史文化名城对保护城市风貌、延续城市文化以及发展城市经济都具有重要意义。本文对中国历史文化名城的创建和保护中的几个关系问题进行了阐述探讨,提出历史文化名城的发展必须在保护的基础上发展;发展旅游业必须处理好文物古迹保护和利用之间的关系;城市的建设和发展必须克服长官意志,注重长远利益和整体利益,保护好城市中的文物古迹和历史文化氛围。本文还针对山东省泰安市创建中国历史文化名城过程中的问题和对策进行了剖析。     

What contribution can International Relations make to the evolving global health agenda?

This article presents two approaches that have dominated International Relations in their approach to the international politics of health. The statist approach, which is primarily security-focused, seeks to link health initiatives to a foreign or defence policy remit. The globalist approach, in contrast, seeks to advance health not because of its intrinsic security value but because it advances the well-being and rights of individuals. This article charts the evolution of these approaches and demonstrates why both have the potential to shape our understanding of the evolving global health agenda. It examines how the statist and globalist perspectives have helped shape contemporary initiatives in global health governance and suggests that there is evidence of an emerging convergence between the two perspectives. This convergence is particularly clear in the articulation of a number of UN initiatives in this area - especially the One World, One Health Strategic Framework and the Oslo Ministerial Declaration (2007) which inspired the first UN General Assembly resolution on global health and foreign policy in 2009 and the UN Secretary-General's note "Global health and foreign policy: strategic opportunities and challenges". What remains to be seen is whether this convergence will deliver on securing states' interest long enough to promote the interests of the individuals who require global efforts to deliver local health improvements.     

Population. The new challenge: translating Cairo success into meaningful activities

The newly named Commission on Population and Development, at its 1995 session in New York, stated it should have the primary responsibility for reviewing the implementation of the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in September 1994. The Population Commission was renamed the Commission on Population and Development by the General Assembly. In debate, some countries reviewed their national experiences in population matters, stressing how the Program of Action would influence their policies. At mid-1994, world population stood at 5.63 billion persons, a report on world population trends and policies revealed. During the preceding 12 months, population had grown by 86 million and was expected to grow by an additional 87 million during the next 12 months. While China's representative described a near-crisis situation marked by a net increase in population of 14 million per year in her country, the representative of the Russian Federation expressed concern over the decrease in Russia's population. Between 1990 and 1994, world population had grown at 1.57% per annum. UN medium-fertility-variant projections indicated that the population growth rate would continue declining to 1.33% per annum between 2000 and 2010; 1.15% in 2010-2020; 0.95% in 2020-2030; 0.72% in 2030-2040; and 0.54% in 2040-2050. Consequently, the world population was projected to reach 7.5 billion by 2015 and 9.8 billion by 2050. Assistance for population programs had increased from $220 million in 1988 to $305 million in 1992, the bulk of which came from UNFPA. Family planning, integrated with reproductive health and carried out through a primary health care system, continued to receive the bulk of multilateral resources. Projects to improve the status of women, such as education for girls, leadership training, literacy programs, and projects designed to increase the income of women and their families were being supported by multilateral agencies. An update on global contraceptive requirements from 1994 to 2005 estimated that the total cost of contraceptive commodities would be $7.7 billion.