NGO
Another Way (Stichting Bakens
Verzet), 1018 AM Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Edition
02: 21 April, 2010.
Edition
17 : 20 November, 2013.
01. E-course :
Diploma in Integrated Development (Dip. Int. Dev)
Quarter
1.
SECTION A : DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS.
Study value :
04 points out of 18.
Indicative
study time: 112 hours out of 504.
Study points are
awarded only after the consolidated exam for Section A : Development
Problems has been passed.
First block : Poverty and quality of life.
Study value : 02 points out of 18.
Indicative study time: 57 hours out of 504.
Study points are awarded only after the consolidated
exam for Section A : Development Problems has been passed.
First block :
Poverty and quality of life.
First
Block : Section 1. Analysis of the causes of
poverty. [26.50 hours]
First Block : Section
2. Services needed for a good quality of life.
First
Block : Exam. [ 4 hours each attempt]
Block
1 of Section
1. Analysis of the causes of poverty. [26.50 hours]
Part 2 : In depth analysis
of the causes of poverty. [14.00
hours]
01. In depth : definition
of poverty.
02. In depth : some
factors linked with poverty.
03. In depth : debts and
subsidies.
04. In depth : financial
leakages : food and water industries.
05. In depth : financial
leakage : energy.
06. In depth : financial
leakage : means of communication..
07. In depth : financial
leakage : health and education.
08. In depth : financial
leakage : theft of resources.
09. In depth : financial
leakage : corruption.
10. In depth : the
industry of poverty.
Report on Section 1 of Block 1 :
[06.00 Hours]
Part 2 : In depth analysis
of the causes of poverty. [14.00
hours]
02. In depth : some
factors linked with poverty. (At least one hour)
Refer to slide :
02. Some factors linked with poverty.
Monetisation.
“We are stealing the future, selling it in the present,
and calling it gross domestic product.” (P. Hawken, Healing or Stealing ,
Commencement address, University
of Portland, 03 May,
2009).
Students
interested in more information over the mounting criticism of orthodox
economics should start with Michael Marien’s article New and Appropriate Economics for the 21st Century : A Survey of Critical Books, 1978-2013, published
in Cadmus Journal, Vol, 1, Issue 5, October, 2012, Zagreb, October 2012. The
article accompanies lists of leading resources, with a couple of sentences of
basic information on each.
Do you know The system of National Accounts, 1993 (SNA) ?
See
: Stiglitz J., Sen A, Fitoussi J-P (coordinators), Report
by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social
Progress., Report for the President of France, www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr,
Paris, September 2009. Chapter 1 of the summary and chapter 1 of the body of
this report provide a detailed analysis of the term “gross domestic product
(GDP)” as used in the system of National Accounts and its
limitations.
Look at figure
1.6 on page 36 of Chapter 1 of the report
by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social
Progress.
“The gross
domestic product indicator by nature was not designed to and does not
adequately reflect the happiness and well-being of a country.” (United Nations General Assembly, 65 th session of the United Nations Assembly, Resolution
65/309, 109th plenary meeting, 19th July, 2011. For full notes, see Happiness : towards a holistic approach to development (Report
A/67/697) by the Secretary-General.
This was followed
up by the report A/67/697
by the Secretary-General, Agenda item 14, “Integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up
to the outcomes of
the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and
related fields” 67th session of the United Nations Assembly, 16 January, 2013.
The report summarises progress towards alternatives to the GDP system and,
under point 55, encourages governments amongst
other things to :
“(a) Consider
using a broader concept of well-being, going beyond GDP and economic growth,
adopting a new economic paradigm that encapsulates the social, economic and
environmental aspects of sustainable development.
….
“(e) Ensure
the minimum conditions for happiness for the majority of people in low-income
countries, as well as excluded groups in middle- and high-income
countries,
such as (i) access to food and basic services (ii)
basic human rights and social protection and (iii) reduced inequalities, before
pursuing broader well-being goals.”
For some
illustrations of non-paid work by women.
See The invisible work of
women, Action Aid Senegal, Action Aid Regional office
Nairobi, 2012.
“According to
patriarchal economic models, production for sustenance is counted as
"non-production." The transformation of value into disvalue, labour
into non-labour, and knowledge into non-knowledge is achieved by the most
powerful number that rules our lives, the patriarchal construct of GDP—Gross
Domestic Product—which commentators have started to call the Gross Domestic
Problem.” ( V. Shiva, Our violent economy
is hurting women, Yes ! Magazine, Positive Futures Network, Bainbridge Island, January 18, 2013.)
“The SNA provides an incomplete picture of wealth because it
includes only property that generates
private claims to future benefits. It therefore excludes parts of natural
capital that is essential to human well-being but cannot be privately held
(e.g. the atmosphere, the ocean.)” (Agarwala, M. et al, Inclusive Wealth Report 2012 : Measuring progress
towards sustainability , executive summary, p. xxvi, United Nations University Human Dimensions Programme on
Global Environmental Change (UNU-IDHP) and United
Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge,
June 2012. ISBN 978-1-107-68339-6).
“Gross National Product counts air
pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of
carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the
people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the
loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts
nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to
fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's
knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys
to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the
health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their
play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our
marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public
officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our
wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our
country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life
worthwhile.” (Robert F. Kennedy, Speech University of
Kansa, 18th March, 1968, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, from collection of
Robert F. Kennedy Speeches originally available at website www.jfklibrary.org . This
extract accessed at www.qotd.org 11 March, 2013.)
“…calculations
[for the United States] show the GPI [Genuine Progress Indicator] at $4.4
trillion, compared with a GDP of nearly $10.8 trillion, implying that well over
half of the economic activity in the United States that year was unsustainable
and did not contribute to genuine progress.”
(Talberth, J., A New Bottom Line for Progress., Chapter 2, 2008 State of the World : Innovations for a
Sustainable Economy, The Worldwatch Institute, p. 22. Washington,
2008.)
Food and
Water Watch argue in And the Value of Nothing : Alternatives to Gross
Domestic Product and the Financialization of Nature (Washington, November, 2012) that alternative systems
like the GPI are also unacceptable because in reality they commoditise or “financialise” the commons by trying to give values to
general natural resources such as forests, water, and the oceans. The organisation
favours an ecological footprint approach which attempts to relate human
consumption and use of the commons to the amount of earth surface available for
each person, thereby avoiding some of the valuation issues. See also the Global Footprint Net including
the Footprint Factbook Africa 2009, Oakland 2009 (N.B. This is a 66 megabyte file), J. Kitzes (ed), Ecological Footprint
Standards, (Global Footprint
Network, Oakland, 2009) and J. Kitzes et al, Guidebook
to the National Footprint Accounts ((Global Footprint Network, Oakland, 2008).
The global
footprint of human beings, especially of those in industrialised countries,
includes that of their hundreds of millions of domestic pets, which is enormous.
On this neglected subject see L. Schwartz, The Surprisingly Large Carbon Paw Print of Our Beloved,
Polluting Pets, Alternet Environment
News, Berkeley, 17 November, 2014.
As Vandana Shiva puts it : “In effect
, “growth” measures the conversion of nature into cash, and commons into
commodities.
“Thus nature’s
amazing cycles of renewal of water and nutrients are defined into
nonproduction. The peasants of the world,who provide
72% of the food, do not produce; women who farm or do most of the housework do
not fit this paradigm of growth either. A living forest does not contribute to
growth, but when trees are cut down and sold as timber, we have growth. Healthy
societies and communities do not contribute to growth, but disease creates
growth through, for example, the sale of patented medicine.
“Water available
as a commons shared freely and protected by all provides for all. However, it
does not create growth. But when Coca-Cola sets up a plant, mines the water and
fills plastic bottles with it, the economy grows. But this growth is based on
creating poverty – both for nature and local communities….
“As long as
economics was focused on the household, it recognised and respected its basis
in natural resources and the limits of ecological renewal. It was focused on
providing for basic human needs within these limits.” (How economic growth has become
anti-life, Guardian, London,
01 November, 2013.)
1. Opinion.
Which activities
does the SNA measure? How much do you think is attributed to women a) in OECD countries; b) in emerging economies; c)
in the least developed countries?
What are
“monetised” activities ?
2. Opinion.
Which activities
are NOT measured by the SNA? How much do you
think is attributed to women a) in OECD countries; b) in emerging economies; c)
in the least developed countries?
These are
“non-monetised” activities.
3. Opinion.
How many
“monetised” activities do you think are truly “productive”?
4. Opinion.
How many
“non-monetised” activities do you think are truly “productive”?
5. Opinion.
What conclusions
can you draw from your notes?
Read Chapter
8 “From global
to local” of the book A Renewable World (Girardet H. and Mendonça
M, Green
Books, White River Junction, 2009 (The World Future Council) , which covers the
consequences of globalisation of food production in detail.
A can of peas.
A 400 gr. can
of peas is an example of a chain of production. You begin with the seeds. You
plant and cultivate them. You make commercial agreements. The peas (280 gr. of
them, the rest is water) are taken to a factory. They are cooked at the factory
and put into a tin which also has to be manufactured. Metal for the tin has to
be mined and treated or recycled from used materials. Paper for the label and
packaging have to be manufactured. Trees for the paper have to be cultivated,
cut, transported, and treated. Once the can of peas has been
«produced » it is taken to and stored in a distribution point, sold,
taken to a destination, stored again, sold again, transported again to a final
destination. The cycle ends with …….. 280 gr. of “consumable” peas, which might finally be
offered for sale at the place the peas were originally cultivated.
Generally
viewed, production of the can of peas may pass along a chain with hundreds of
links. The peas might have been consumed at their point of production, or
locally dried and conserved.. At the beginning of the chain, the peas were
fresh.. At the end of the chain, they are by definition less fresh.
The question
arises what the value added of the productive chain is. What has actually
been “produced” during the odyssey made
by the peas ?
6. Research.
Think of another
commercial product and set out the chain of activities for it to arrive at its
final point of consumption or utilisation.
What are your
conclusions?
The length of the production chain.
7. Opinion.
Considering the
conclusions you have reached on the chain of production you have set out, what
are the benefits of a long production chain? Who benefits from it? Which are
the benefits of a short production chain? Who benefits from it?
Who controls the
production chain at each of its links?
Marketing, packaging, and transport.
These are
specific phases in the production chain odyssey of our poor peas.
8. Opinion.
What is the
value added of these activities ? Who pays for them? How much time, energy and
money do they cost?
The role of money
The peas will
(often) have changed owner several times in the course of their long voyage.
9. Opinion.
Make a list
of [possible] moments of transfer of
ownership of the product for which you researched the chain of production.
Which operations were necessary at each transfer of ownership ?
How much money
was needed for the first transfer? How much for the last one ?
Take the case
of our can containing 280 gr. of peas.
10. Opinion.
What was their
harvested value when they were with the
farmer? What was their value at the end
of the production chain?
What are
your conclusions?
Girardet and Mendonça
cite in their book A Renewable World (details above) cite the one planet living
concept of the Bio Regional
Development Group.
In their view, One Planet Living involves respecting
the following principles:
01. Zero carbon.
02. Zero waste.
03. Sustainable
transport.
04. Sustainable materials.
05. Local and sustainable food.
06. Sustainable water.
07. Natural habitats and wild life.
08. Culture and heritage.
09. Equity, fair-trade, and local economy.
10. Health and happiness.
This course shows how integrated development projects
make this possible.
◄ ►
◄ First block : Poverty and quality of life.
◄ Index : Diploma in Integrated Development (Dip.Int.Dev)
◄ List of key words.
◄ List of references.
◄ Course chart.
◄ Courses available.
◄ Homepage Bakens Verzet.
