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Development
that takes families, communities and nations to higher levels of
peace and prosperity is a dream we would like to make a reality. The
sad truth is that after years of unbridled industrialization, this
is a dream that still remains unfulfilled for nearly half of the
world’s population.
Some
would argue that the world today is a better place to live in than
it was, say, a hundred years ago. The revolutions in materials,
energy and information technologies have opened dramatic arrays of
options for satisfying basic human needs and for extending our
capacities to shape our destinies in many new directions. Many
contemporary economies of the North have demonstrated how much ‘progress’
is possible by adopting an aggressive use of technology and
enterprise. But their experience has also pointed to the need for
careful selection of the types of technology and forms of
enterprise, to avoid wholesale destruction of human, social and
environmental values. It has become clear that how something
is produced, where it is produced, for whom it is
produced and how it is supplied are issues as important as what
is produced.
The
search for human well being has led to a growing demand for models
of development different from those that have thus far dominated
economic and political thinking. While development must certainly
create wealth, it must also directly and simultaneously enhance
social justice and equity. At the same time, it has to care for
environmental quality and the productivity of the resource base. And
it must do so not only for everyone now, but also for the
generations to come.
To
achieve these complex goals, we need technologies and institutions
that use resources efficiently, value systems that conserve and
regenerate the environment and economic structures that promote
self-reliant, endogenous choices.
It
is commonly believed that the goals for sustainability cannot be
achieved globally unless the principles of equity and of common, but
differentiated, responsibilities between the North and South are
respected.
Our
collective inaction on this front is particularly obvious in
developing countries. The differences between the North and South
are stark. Energy conservation, for example, is an everyday concern
that most Europeans can address with off-the-shelf products.
Villagers in many parts of India, on the other hand, still spend
upto four times the amount of fuel actually needed to fire bricks
for the most basic of human desires – a home. Yet a technology
does exist that can produce better bricks, while drastically
reducing the energy consumption and green house gas emissions at the
same time. There are hundreds of such examples. New products and
technologies, many with significant positive social and
environmental spin-offs, are available for mass distribution. These
have been the outcome of many decades of sophisticated science and
technological development as also of many centuries of traditional
wisdom and knowledge.
Why
then does the need for basic goods and services for the poor,
livelihoods for the unemployed and action to save the environment
continue to be unmet?
Globalization
has, in the last decade, added to the complexity of local and
national economic models, within which solutions must be found.
Conventional wisdom maintains that large scale industry will supply
the goods and services needed by people in a clean, efficient and
cost-effective manner. Our conviction is that this is not possible.
There has been a considerable progress in the manufacturing
efficiency but that is about all. In any case, these efficiencies
are derived from increasing the degrees of automation. Large
sections of our society are marginalized who are neither able to
access the large industry based manufacturing for goods and services
nor benefit by way of employment in these increasingly automated
systems. The very nature of technologies used in large industrial
systems put a cap to environmental sustainability and therefore to
sustained economic development. Material intensities, mass movement
of resources, transport energy and distribution costs are associated
with such scales of manufacturing and marketing that nature cannot
support.
Are
there any alternatives? Sustainability on a global scale must be
driven by a mix of clean and efficient production systems at all
scales, including the micro and small that create jobs by the
millions. Essentially, developing societies will need a large number
of technology
based sustainable livelihoods.
Sustainable livelihoods are jobs that generate income, create goods
and services for basic needs, and regenerate the environment and
natural resource base. And in doing so, sustainable livelihoods will
improve the quality of life of the poor in these countries. q
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