Environment, Poverty and Human Development: Exploring the Linkages

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• Environment, Poverty and Human Development
  Exploring the Linkages

Paolo Giuntarelli, Direttore Ente Regionale
RomaNatura
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A Vicious Circle?
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
POVERTY
Brundtland Report 1990 - poverty as a major cause
and effect of global environmental problems
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Responding to environmental threats

• Demand for environmental quality ...
• is a luxury - the poor are too busy thinking
  about basic survival to concern themselves with
  environmental issues
• Ability to respond to such demands ...
• is dependent on aggregate wealth - economic
  prosperity and technological sophistication allow
  nations to react to environmental challenges
• Ergo ...
• Environmentalism is the exclusive concern of the
  rich, in the advanced industrial nations

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Understanding responses

• Out of concern for nature
• as a source of cultural, spiritual, social and
  economic value ...
• To mitigate anthropogenic influences on the
  natural environment
• pollution, resource depletion, extinction of
  species ...
• To reduce the impacts of environmental changes on
  human society
• health impacts, livelihoods, needs, well-being
  ...

Are these concerns exclusively found in rich
nations?
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Views on poverty-environment linkages

• Conventional wisdom
• Deterministic relationship if one is poor, then
  one degrades the environment
• Poverty is negatively related to sustainable
  development - short time horizons of the poor
• Policy need for economic growth to break the
  downward spiral World Bank WDR 1992

Environmental degradation
Poverty
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Alternative perspectives

• Political economy
• Why are people poor? Poor as proximate causes,
  but (global) inequalities as the ultimate causes
• Evidence that the poor can and do care for the
  environment effective environmental stewardship
• The poor as environmental activists new social
  and ecological movements grassroots political
  action
• Policy - remove inequalities

Environmental degradation
Inequality (power, wealth)
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Alternative perspectives

• Market/institutional failure
• Price signals - perverse subsidies/taxes
• Tenure policies/property rights
• Legal framework
• Implementation capacity
• Competing policy demands
• Policy correct market/institutional failure

Environmental degradation
Policy imperfections
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Alternative perspectives

• Reversing the causality
• Dependence of the poor on natural resources for
  their livelihoods CPR studies
• Impact of internal and external pressures is to
  undermine the sustainability of the local
  resource base
• Policy - improved environmental sustainability as
  a poverty alleviation strategy

Environmental degradation
Poverty
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Understanding human well-being

• Multiple dimensions of well-being
• Physical/financial resources - wealth
• Human resources - education, health
• Natural resources - ecosystem services
• Political resources - democracy, accountability
• Social/cultural resources - networks, norms,
  relationships
• SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS (SL)

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The SL Framework
Livelihood Outcomes Sustainable use of NR base
Income Well-being Reduced vulnerability
Food security

• Policies Institutions (Transforming Structures
  Processes)
• Structures
• Government
• Private Sector
• Processes
• Laws
• Policies
• Culture
• Institutions

Livelihood Strategies

• Vulnerability Context
• Shocks
• Trends
• Seasons

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Its all about pushing out the area of these
assets
Are these assets fungible?
Human Capital
Natural Capital
Social Capital
Physical Capital
Financial Capital
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Rural poverty - environment linkages
Household objectives food/livelihood security
Available household assets on-and off-farm
physical/financial capital natural resources
human capital social capital
External factors
Household income/investment activities
Environmental/economic/social consequences
New stock of household assets
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Ecosystem services

• Definition
• Ecosystem services are the conditions and
  processes through which natural ecosystems, and
  the species that make them up, sustain and
  fulfil human life.
• Daily et al 1997
• Provisioning functions
• Regulating functions
• Enriching/cultural functions

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Ecosystem services provisioning

• Magnitude/rate of goods harvested (flows),
  e.g.
• Food
• Micro-organisms, plant and animal products
• Genetic material, biochemicals pharmaceuticals
• Fuels/energy
• Fodder
• Fibre
• Non-living material
• Fresh water

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Ecosystem services regulating

• Life support functions, determined by stock of
  the ecosystem, e.g.
• Purification of air and water
• Mitigation of floods and droughts
• Detoxification and decomposition of wastes
• Preservation of soil and soil fertility
• Pollination of crops and vegetation
• Control of pests
• Dispersal of seeds
• Maintenance of biodiversity
• Stabilisation of climate

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Ecosystem services enriching/cultural

• Beliefs and values surrounding natural forces,
  providing spiritual/religious/cultural support
  (determined by stock), e.g.
• Spiritual components
• Aesthetic values
• Social relations and values
• Educational/scientific values

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Ecosystem services well-being issues

• Provisioning access of the poor for basic needs
  distributional issues
• Regulating equitable sharing of benefits and
  costs associated with protection
• Enriching/cultural conflicting cognitive
  paradigms and value/moral systems
• Potential conflict between these services, but
  also scope for synergy/win-win scenarios

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What is Human Development?

• The basic purpose of development is to enlarge
  peoples choices. In principle, these choices can
  be infinite and can change over time. The
  objective of development is to create an enabling
  environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and
  creative lives.

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• HD is not only the rise or fall of national
  income
• Its about creating an environment in which
  people can develop their full potential and lead
  productive, creative lives in accord with their
  needs and interests.
• People are the real wealth of nations
• Fundamental to enlarging the peoples choices is
  building human capabilities the range of things
  that people can do or be in life.

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• Philosophers, economists and political leaders
  have long emphasized human wellbeing as the
  purpose, the end, of development.
• Aristotle said in ancient Greece, wealth is
  evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is
  merely useful for the sake of something else.
• The goal is human freedom
• Human development and human rights are mutually
  reinforcing, helping to secure the well-being and
  dignity of all people, building self-respect and
  the respect of others.

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Human development report

• HDR was first launched in 1990 with the single
  goal of putting people back at the center of the
  development process in terms of economic debate,
  policy and advocacy
• Since the first report, four new composite
  indices for HD have been developed the human
  development index, the gender empowerment
  measure, and the human poverty index.
• The HD report is an indipendent report. Its
  commissioned by the United Nations Development
  Programme. The report is translated into more a
  dozen language and launched in more than 100
  countries annually.

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Human development index

• The HDI is a summary measure of three dimensions
  of human development leading a long and healthy
  life, measured by life expetancy at birth, being
  knowleadgeable, measured by literacy and school
  enrolment and having a decent standard of
  living, measured by GDP per capita (gross
  domestic product consumptioninvestmentexports-i
  mports). Before the HDI itself is calculated, an
  index need to be created for each of these
  dimensions