Ram Rattan Sharma
In 1992 at the Rio de Janeiro Earth summit five major agreements were signed by the participating Governments. These were:
(a) The Riodeclaration on Environment and development in the form of 27 Principles on environment and development
(b) Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development in 21st century
(c) The declaration on forest principles, a statement that calls for multiple use of the world forests
(d) The climate change convention, signed by 163 Governments and
(e) The convention on Biological diversity signed by 160 Governments. Agenda 21 outlines a comprehension programme of action to promote environmentally sound and sustainable development in the world. The agenda seeks to promote international cooperation in order to accelerate sustainable development in developing countries though much was said about poverty in Agenda 21. The eradication of poverty, hunger, greater equity in income distribution and development of human resources remain major challenges everywhere. The two conventions on climate and Biological diversity hardly addressed the key issue for two third of the world’s populations poverty. The debate on desertification has for too long been focused on the physical environment to understand the process of desertification and its interaction with climate change, Soil erosion, deforestation and drought. This issue must be broadened to include the eradication of poverty and to link humans and the cause of desertification. In order to survive, the poor are forced to engage in economic activities that are unsustainable. The interaction of poverty and environmental destruction sets off a downward spiral of ecological deterioration that threatens the physical security economic well being and health of millions of people. The problem of poverty is so enormous that developing countries cannot solve it with domestic resources alone.
Poverty is a complex multidimensional problem, with national and international problems. It is for more than an economic condition. Poor people become marginalized and suffer from exploitation and the loss of human dignity. No one solution will apply globally as country specific programs are crucial. The issues of poverty and marginality are fundamental to environment and development. Some people remain poor for most of, or all their lives, while for others poverty is only experienced during some stages of the individual life-cycle or during certain months of the year. Poverty is not confined to the third world and has increased in the industrialized countries. The first world rural Poverty report 1992 on 144 developing countries issued by UN’s international fund for agricultural development shows that the number of rural poor has increased to nearly one billion people to day, despite more than 40 years of international development assistance. The world development report 2005 estimates that 1.2 billion people of south east Asia contain the largest no of people in income poverty. During the 1990s the share of people suffering from extreme poverty fell from 30% to 23%. More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day. Out of them 300 million are children. After every 3.6 seconds a person dies of starvation. While Urban poverty is growing, the rural poor still account for over 80 percent of the total number of poor people, in the surveyed countries. The most important groups of rural poor are made up of small holding farmers and the land less, fishermen, pastoral nomads and indigenous ethnic groups. Some nations have experienced jumps in the percentage of their rural poor in the past twenty years. This shows that the development programmes over the past 40 years failed in large parts because they were based on a number of flawed assumptions.
An important aspect of the world’s poor is that there are large concentrations in areas which are ecologically fragile. These are lands which naturally have a low agricultural potential and they are also lacking in infrastructure and technology. Here, additional demographic pressure and inappropriate of practices result in greater environmental degradation and increased poverty The link between the state of the economy, poverty and the environment is evident in the developing countries where the entire economy is based on natural resources and the export of raw materials. Rural poverty is growing faster than world population and women are especially hard hit. Of the billion people living below the poverty line in the developing world, nearly 60 percent are women. Over the past two decades their number have increased by 50 percent, as compared to 30 percent increase for men. In Asia alone the number of poor rural women has reached 374 million, more than the total population of western Europe. Even though access to food has been recognized as a basic human right, hunger and malnutrition continue to be serious problem for many people in many countries. In 1944, the world food conference declared the inalienable right of every man, woman and Child to be free from hunger and malnutrition. The battle against poverty has simply made little headway . Some 1.2 billion in all still donot have access to a safe and reliable water supply for their daily needs. More than 2.6 billion people over 40% of the world population do not have basic sanitation and more than one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water. The poor not only suffer from environmental damage but they have become a major cause of ecological decline themselves as they have been pushed on to marginal land by population growth and inequitable development patterns. Economic deprivation and environmental degradation have thus come to reinforce on another in a developing countries.
The Global forum on environment and poverty based in Dhaka, Bangladesh has emerged as the leading network to address poverty, the main cause of environmental degradation. The forum has demanded that a global convention on poverty be called immediately. The peace dividend in a post cold war era must be assessed and redirected towards global poverty eradication, the rich must pay the full ecological costs of their consumption, and all people, including the poor, must have equal rights to global commons including the atmosphere and the oceans. The IFAD recommends a new development model based on three fundamental propositions, i.e. Sustainable rural development to start with, rather than ends with poverty alleviation, (ii) Poverty is essentially a production problem and poverty alleviation is an investment and (iii) the poor themselves are the primary force that can bring change. The new model explains that the rural poor, with the proper resources and with political power , can act as a powerful engine for the enrichment of society as a whole.
The issue of population is no less important to poverty and environment fertility in the developing world. The world population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 according to UNDP. There is an urgent need to integrate environmental and population policies because poverty, population, natural resources and environment are closely related . But unfortunately the concept has still not been accepted by Pol leaders, officials and planners, unchecked population growth affects environmental quality and resources. On the other hand changes in resources availability and environmental quality affects the lives of people in many ways.
The consequences of ignoring population, environmental and natural resources factors will be disastrous and it is imperative that the Pol. leadership realize the urgency of the problem. UN agencies and non-governmental organizations have a responsibility to bring the long term programme to the attention of Political Leaders and the Govt,. should encourage the work of non-governmental organizations, universities and research institutes to promote awareness of these subjects, as not much has been done to preserve the environment which is the main hurdle in our developmental activities in the race for growth, our environment has been subjected to constant damage as there is need of an integrated approach to the problems of poverty population and environment for sustainable development.
(The author is former Dy. Librarian University of Jammu)
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