Showing posts from category South Asia.
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Russell Sticklor, World Politics Review
The Hungry Planet: Global Food Scarcity in the 21st Century
›August 16, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Russell Sticklor, appeared on World Politics Review.
At the dawn of the 20th century, the world population was inching toward a modest two billion. In the 111 years since, notwithstanding the impact of war, genocide, disease, and famine, the global population has soared, reaching three billion around 1960 and now quickly approaching the neighborhood of seven billion. By 2050, the planet will likely be home to two billion more.
We may not be witnessing the detonation of the “population bomb” that Paul Ehrlich warned of in his seminal 1968 book, but such rapid demographic change is clearly pushing the international community into uncharted territory. With a limited amount of arable land and a finite supply of fresh water for irrigation, figuring out how to feed a planet adding upward of 70 million people each year looms as one of the 21st century’s most pressing challenges.
The push to ensure global food security transcends the desire to avoid repeating the famines that devastated the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Ethiopia, and so many other corners of the world during the past century. Instead, aid and development organizations today rightly view food insecurity problems as deeply intertwined with issues of economic development, public health, and political stability, particularly in the developing world. To maintain order in the international community and prevent the emergence of new failed states in the decades ahead, it will be critical to find innovative means of feeding the rapidly growing populations of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South and East Asia.
Continue reading on World Politics Review.
Note: World Politics Review has graciously white-listed all entrances from NSB for this article, so as long as you use the above link, you should be able to read the full article for free.
Russell Sticklor is a consultant for the Environmental Change and Security Program.
Photo Credit: “Crowded market street,” courtesy of flickr user – yt –. -
Michael Kugelman, Foreign Policy
Pakistan’s Demographic Dilemma
›July 15, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Michael Kugelman, appeared on Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel.
Pakistan’s 2011 census kicked off in April, but less than three months later, it is embroiled in controversy. Several members of the Sindh Census Monitoring Committee have rejected as “seriously flawed” the recently completed household count. They allege that census workers, directed by an unspecified “ethnic group,” have counted Karachi’s “inns, washrooms, and even electric poles” as households in an effort to dilute the city’s native “Sindhi” presence.
These Census Monitoring Committee members are not the only Pakistani politicians to be concerned about the census. Pakistan is experiencing rapid urbanization; while a third of the country’s people have long been rurally based, at least 50 percent of the population is expected to live in cities by the 2020s. Pakistan’s political leadership draws much of its power from rural landholdings, power that could be greatly reduced if a census confirms this migration toward cities.
This politicization underscores the perils of census-taking in Pakistan. In many other nations, it is a routine process completed regularly. Yet in Pakistan, myriad factors – from catastrophic flooding and insufficient funding to the turbulent security situation and intense political opposition – have conspired to delay it for three consecutive years, making the country census-less since 1998.
Accurate census data enables governments to make decisions about how to best allocate resources and services. In Pakistan, such decisions are critical. Consider that its current population, estimated at about 175 million, is the world’s sixth-largest. It has the highest population growth, birth, and fertility rates in South Asia – one of the last regions, along with sub-Saharan Africa, still experiencing young and rapidly rising populations. Additionally, with a median age of 21, Pakistan’s population is profoundly youthful. Two-thirds are less than 30 years old, and as a percentage of total population, only Yemen has more people under 24.
Continue reading on Foreign Policy.
Michael Kugelman is a program associate for the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center and co-editor of Reaping the Divided: Overcoming Pakistan’s Demographic Challenges.
Sources: UN Population Division.
Photo Credit: “Pakistan Diaster Relief,” courtesy of flickr user DVIDSHUB. -
Watch: Dan Smith on How International Alert Builds Peace
›April 6, 2011 // By Schuyler NullAddressing violent conflict is complex and difficult, but one universally important aspect of any peacebuilding operation is to understand the unique context of each situation, said Dan Smith, secretary general of International Alert, in this interview with ECSP. International Alert is a London-based NGO that works in 23 countries and territories in West and Central Africa, the Southern Caucasus, Central Asia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines.
The goal of International Alert, said Smith, is to help people “move from situations of danger and vulnerability…towards positions of greater safety.” In addition, the NGO tackles broader international policy questions, he said, such as how to manage and minimize the risks of conflict and hasten recovery from it.
Peacebuilding defies simplification, said Smith, but there are two broad recommendations to keep in mind. First, “going in with a preset form of analysis or of the action you will undertake, or the problems you will look at,” is the most significant mistake international actors can make. “If you’re a hammer, every problem for you is going to be a nail,” he said. “But there are many countries where you need screwdrivers or monkey wrenches… you’ve got to be open-minded about that.”
Second, “realize that the outsider, like us, is not going to make peace or build peace in a country – it’s the people there who are going to do it,” said Smith. The international community’s job is to assist.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as experience from other places,” he said, which can be provided by an NGO and transferred from one context to another. “As long as you don’t shove it down anybody’s throats – it’s always an assisting and a helping role.” -
Rural Poverty: The Bottom One Billion
›March 10, 2011 // By Hannah MarquseeThere are currently 1.4 billion people in the world living in extreme poverty, and 70 percent of them – about one billion people – live in rural areas, according to the Rural Poverty Report 2011, published recently by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The two regions most affected by rural poverty are South Asia, home to half of the world’s rural poor, and sub-Saharan Africa, where, team leader Ted Heinemann points in the accompanying trailer, “the number of rural people living in extreme poverty is actually increasing and the proportion is a very high 62 percent.”
The State of Rural Poverty
While the number of rural poor in the world has actually declined sharply since the late 1980s, the decline is due almost entirely to gains made in East and Southeast Asia, particularly China. Despite these gains, rural poverty remains a stubborn challenge in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa: three-quarters of the poor in these areas are rural, and “the proportion is barely declining, despite urbanization,” says the report. In the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, the majority of the extremely poor live in urban areas.
The number of undernourished people in the world has also declined slightly from its historic high of 2009, after a doubling of international food prices between 2006 and 2008 left a staggering one billion hungry. (However, food prices recently passed 2008’s historic high point, and some have argued they may have been a factor in the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.) From a high of one billion, the world’s hungry have since decreased to 925 million, a figure that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization nonetheless calls “unacceptably high.” The current rate of decline is far from meeting the MDG target of halving the number of people who suffer from hunger by 2015, says the IFAD report, and with continuing population growth and resource and energy scarcities, they predict little change in the number of hungry worldwide.
Meeting Rising Demand, Sustainably
“Feeding a global population of just over 9 billion in 2050 will require a 70 percent increase in global food production,” says the report. To do this, the report calls for more sustainable agricultural intensification driven by small-holder farmers. “Small-holder agriculture…can offer rural people a route out of poverty just as they can offer the world a solution to meeting its future food needs,” says IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze, in the trailer.
Increasing global agricultural production must be done “in the context of a weakened natural resource base, energy scarcities, and climate change,” says the report. This will require more efficient use of water, less waste, and a shift towards more resilient crops. It will also require linking scientific knowledge with local farmer knowledge in order to create a sustainable, context-specific approach. The report recommends a sustainable small-holder agriculture system that gives rural people incentives to protect their environment, while helping them adapt to climate change.
Providing Economic Opportunities
Since 80 percent of rural households “farm to some extent,” agricultural intensification will be “a primary engine of rural growth and poverty reduction,” says IFAD, especially in the poorest countries. In a statement to announce the launch of the report, Nwanze said, “rather than romanticizing the concept of lifting poor rural women, men, and children above the poverty line, like a plague that can be eradicated by charity and humanitarian gestures, we are advocating the proactive creation of vibrant rural economies.”
But lifting the one billion rural people out of poverty is not just about stimulating rural farm economies, says the report; it also means creating opportunities in the rural non-farm economy to minimize the risk of economic shocks that drive people into poverty in the first place. While agriculture remains central to rural economies, urbanization, globalization, improved information systems, and growing investments in renewable energy all offer opportunities for growth in rural, non-farm economies. Helping rural people take advantage of these opportunities will require multiple investments, says the report: in education to improve the capabilities of rural youth; in infrastructure and social services to make rural areas better places to live; and in governance mechanisms and collective organizing so that rural people can better represent their own interests.
“Robust action is required now to address the many factors that perpetuate the marginalization of rural economies,” says IFAD. “Above all, this action needs to turn rural areas from backwaters into places where the youth of today will want to live and will be able to fulfill their aspirations.”
Sources: AFP, FAO, IFAD, United Nations, The Washington Post.
Video Credit: “Rural Poverty Report 2011,” courtesy of YouTube user IFADTV. -
Health, Demographics, and the Environment in Southeast Asia
›“Health and Health-Care Systems in Southeast Asia: Diversity and Transitions,” launches a series in The Lancet on health in Southeast Asia. While social, political, and economic development have paved the way for substantial health improvements in some countries, demographic transitions are taking place at among the fastest rates in the world, including reductions in fertility, population aging, and rural-to-urban migration. An epidemiological shift is occurring as well, from infectious to chronic diseases. Rapid urbanization and population movement can not only affect the emergence and spread of new infectious diseases directly, but can also exacerbate environmental changes that indirectly contribute to the burden of waterborne and vector-borne diseases. The series, available early online, addresses these concerns in more detail. Moving forward, the authors advocate for “enhanced regional cooperation in the health sector to share knowledge and rationalize health systems operations, leading to further public health gains for the region’s diverse populations.”In “A Stormy Future for Population Health in Southeast Asia,” author Colin D. Butler responds to the series, stressing that the health of the future generation is dependent on actions today. Environmental change will likely bring sea-level rise that threatens urban centers and food bowls, causing regional food scarcity, exacerbating diseases like dengue fever, increasing the number of extreme weather events, and contributing to resource scarcity throughout the region. With increasing need for sustainable development in the region, Butler concludes that “stronger human factors will be essential to counter the increased physical stresses that seem to be the inevitable destiny of Southeast Asia, largely as a result of the actions of people who have never seen its shores.” -
The International Framework for Climate-Induced Displacement
›In an article sponsored by the East-West Center, author Maxine Burkett discusses the challenges climate-induced migration presents to the people of the Pacific Islands. In the brief, titled “In Search of Refuge: Pacific Islands, Climate-Induced Migration, and the Legal Frontier,” Burkett states that millions of people in the Pacific Islands will be forced to leave their homes because of “increased intensity and frequency of storms and floods, sea-level rise, and desertification.” These low-lying islands could face a loss of agriculture and freshwater resources, or even be wiped out altogether, an outcome for which there is no international legal precedent.In “Swimming Against the Tide: Why a Climate Displacement Treaty is Not the Answer,” published in the International Journal of Refugee Law, Jane McAdam takes a different position on the plight of so-called “climate refugees.” McAdam argues that focusing on an international treaty for these migrants distracts from efforts to establish responses for adaptation, internal migration, and migration over time. The article, writes the author, “does not deny the real impacts that climate change is already having on communities,” but rather questions the utility and political consequences of “pinning ‘solutions’ to climate change-related displacement on a multilateral instrument.” -
Elizabeth Malone on Climate Change and Glacial Melt in High Asia
›“There’s nothing more iconic, I think, about the climate change issue than glaciers,” says Elizabeth Malone, senior research scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Malone served as the technical lead on “Changing Glaciers and Hydrology in Asia: Addressing Vulnerability to Glacier Melt Impacts,” a USAID report released in late 2010 that explores the linkages between climate change, demographic change, and glacier melt in the Himalayas and other nearby mountain systems.
Describing glaciers as “transboundary in the largest sense,” Malone points out that meltwater from High Asian glaciers feeds many of the region’s largest rivers, including the Indus, Ganges, Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, and Mekong. While glacial melt does not necessarily constitute a large percentage of those rivers’ downstream flow volume, concern persists that continued rapid glacial melt induced by climate change could eventually impact water availability and food security in densely populated areas of South and East Asia.
Rapid demographic change has potentially factored into accelerated glacial melt, even though the connection may not be a direct one, Malone adds.
Atmospheric pollution generated by growing populations contributes to global warming, while black carbon emissions from cooking and home heating can eventually settle on glacial ice fields, accelerating melt rates. Given such cause-and-effect relationships, Malone says that rapid population growth and the continued retreat of High Asian glaciers are “two problems that seem distant,” yet “are indeed very related.”
The “Pop Audio” series is also available as podcasts on iTunes. -
How Population Growth Is Straining the World’s Most Vital Resource
Turning Up the Water Pressure [Part Two]
›January 19, 2011 // By Russell SticklorThis article by Russell Sticklor appeared originally in the Fall 2010 issue of the Izaak Walton League’s Outdoor America magazine. Read part one here.
As concerns over water resources have grown around the globe, so too have proposed solutions, which range from common sense to absurd. Towing icebergs into the Persian Gulf or floating giant bags of fresh water across oceans to water-scarce countries are among the non-starters. But more moderate versions of those ideas are already being put into practice. These solutions showcase the power of human ingenuity — and reveal just how desperate some nations have become to secure water.
For example, India is doing business with a company out of tiny Sitka, Alaska, laying the framework for a water-export deal that could see huge volumes of water shipped via supertankers from the water-rich state of Alaska to a depot south of Mumbai. Depending on the success of this arrangement, moving bulk water via ship could theoretically become as commonplace as transoceanic oil shipments are today.
There is far greater potential, however, in harnessing the water supply of the world’s oceans. Perhaps more than any other technological breakthrough, desalination offers the best chance to ease our population-driven water crunch, because it can bolster supply. Although current desalination technology is not perfect, Eric Hoke, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of California-Los Angeles, told me via email, it is already capable of converting practically any water source into water that is acceptable for use in households, agriculture, or industrial production. Distances between supply and demand would be relatively short, considering that 40 percent of the world’s population — some 2.7 billion people — live within 60 miles of a coastline.
The Lure of Desalination
Although desalination plants are already up and running from Florida to Australia, the jury is still out on the role desalination can play in mitigating the world’s fresh water crisis. Concerns persist over the environmental impact seawater-intake pipes have on marine life and delicate coastal ecosystems. Another question is cost: Desalination plants consume enormous amounts of electricity, which makes them prohibitively expensive in most parts of the world. Desalination technology may not be able to produce water in sufficient scale — or cheaply enough — to accommodate the growing need for agricultural water. “Desalination is more and more effective [in producing] large quantities of water,” notes Laval University Professor Frédéric Lasserre in an interview. “But the capital needed is huge, and the water cost, now about 75 cents per cubic meter, is far too expensive for agriculture.” Although desalination might be “a good solution for cities and industries that can afford such water,” Lasserre predicts it “will never be a solution for agricultural uses.”
Nevertheless, desalination’s promise of easing future water crunches in populous coastal regions gives the technology game-changing potential at the global level. “Desalination technology,” Columbia University’s Upmanu Lall told said in an email, “will improve to the point that [water scarcity] will not be an issue for coastal areas.”
A Glass Half Full
With world population projected to grow by at least 2 billion during the next 40 years, water will likely remain a chief source of global anxiety deep into the 21st century. Because water plays such a fundamental role in everyday life across every society on earth, its shared stewardship may become an absolute necessity.
Take India and Pakistan’s landmark Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which is still in effect today. The agreement — signed by two countries that otherwise can’t stand each other — shows that when crafted appropriately and with enough patience, international water-sharing pacts can help defuse tensions over water access before those tensions escalate into violence. Similar collaboration on managing shared waters in other areas of the world — a process that can be a bit bumpy at times — has proven successful to date.
Meanwhile, more widespread distribution of reliable family planning tools and services across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia will also be needed if the international community hopes to meaningfully address water scarcity concerns. Better access to healthcare and family planning tools would empower women to take greater control over their reproductive health and potentially elevate living standards in crowded parts of the developing world. Smaller family sizes would help decelerate population growth over time, easing the burden on water and soil resources in many areas. The key is ensuring such efforts have adequate funding. The United States recently pledged $63 billion over the next six years through its Global Health Initiative to help partner countries improve health outcomes through strengthened health systems, with a particular focus on improving the health of women and children.
Putting a dent in the global population growth rate will be important, but it must be accompanied by a sustained push for conservation — nowhere more so than in agriculture. Investing in the repair of a leaky irrigation infrastructure could help save water that might otherwise literally slip through the cracks. Attention to maintaining healthy soil quality — by practicing regular crop rotation, for example — could also help boost the efficiency of irrigation water.
Setting a Fair Price
The most enduring changes to current water-use practices may have to come in the form of pricing. In most parts of the world, including parts of the United States, groundwater removal is conducted with virtually zero oversight, allowing farmers to withdraw water as if sitting atop a bottomless resource. But as groundwater tables approach exhaustion, the equation changes; as Ben Franklin famously pointed out, “when the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
The key, then, is to establish the worth of water before this comes to pass. Smart pricing could encourage conservation by making it less economical to grow water-intensive crops, particularly those ill-suited to a particular climate. “Some crops being grown should not be grown . . . once the true cost of water is factored in,” Nirvikar Singh, a University of California-Santa Cruz economics professor who focuses on water issues, told me via email. Pricing would also provide a revenue stream for modernizing irrigation infrastructures and maintaining sewage systems and water treatment centers, further bolstering water efficiency and quality both in the United States and around the globe.
To be sure, implementing a pricing scheme for water resources — which have been essentially free throughout history — will be unpopular in many parts of the world. It’s natural to expect some pushback from the public as water managers and governments take steps to address the 21st century water crunch. But given the resource’s undeniable and universal value on an ever-more crowded planet, few options exist aside from using the power of the purse to push for more efficient water use.
In the end, however, water pricing must be combined with greater public value on water conservation — we must not flush water down our drains before using it to its full potential. Whether that involves improving the water transportation infrastructure, recycling wastewater, taking shorter showers, or turning to less water-intensive plants and crops, steps big and small need to be taken to better conserve and more equitably divide the world’s water to irrigate our farms, grow our economies, and sustain future generations.
Sources: Columbia Water Center, National Geographic, Population Reference Bureau, White House.
Photo Credits: “Juhu Beach Crowded,” courtesy of flickr user la_imagen, and “Irrigation (China),” courtesy of flickr user spavaai.
