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Based on these common factors, the United Nations agreed on international development goals and strategies for International Development Decades.. It comes therefore as a surprise that t

with high levels of population growth, unemployment, international dependence and a predominantly agrarian economy Based on these common factors, the United Nations agreed on international development goals and strategies for International Development Decades However, these agreements had to be revised repeatedly because of their failure at the national level As indicated in Box 3.2, this stark picture of development brought back, in the last Decade of the1990s, the first (1960s) Decade’s call for economic growth The absence of a widely accepted indicator of development, and hence the common use of per capita GDP as a proxy, could have been a factor in the return to a growth-oriented strategy.

Forty years of international development strategies were thus unceremoniously dumped It comes therefore as a surprise that the United Nations Millennium Declaration (General Assembly resolution A/55/L.2, A/56/326) brought about the

adoption of a new set of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) The time-bound

(mostly for 2 decades) and quantifiable goals and targets are meant to monitor the Declaration; they are summarized in Box 3.3 As a minimum, the focus on targets and indicators demonstrates the need to move beyond generic declarations about socio-economic development The MDG also indicate shifts in priorities reflecting new international concerns such as the AIDS epidemic and globalization

Box 3.2 International Development Strategies (IDS) – a history of failure

The International Development Strategy of the First United Nations

Development Decade of the 1960s called for economic growth in the belief

that its fruits would trickle down to the low-income population strata Since the

trickle-down effect did not materialize, the Second Development Decade

add-ed the objective of social justice in the distribution of the results of economic

growth The strategy for the Third Development Decade of the 1980s

rec-ognized that inequities and imbalances in international economic relations prevented meeting the objectives of the Second Decade The strategy includ-

ed, therefore, the goal of establishing a New International Economic Order (NIEO), earlier adopted by the United Nations General Assembly However, negotiations on the implementation of the NIEO broke down, and with it the Third Development Decade Facing falling economic growth rates in devel-oping countries and a deepening poverty gap within and between countries,

the Strategy of the Fourth Development Decade for the 1990s called again

for (accelerated) economic growth It also considered economic growth as a prerequisite for ‘priority aspects of development’ that included the eradica-tion of poverty and hunger, human resource development and the protection

of the environment

Source: United Nations General Assembly resolutions:

http://www.un.org/doc-uments/resga.htm

Box 3.3 United Nations Millennium Development Goals

● Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (reduce by half the number of

peo-ple suffering from both)

● Achieve universal primary education

● Promote gender equality and empower women (in education by 2015)

● Reduce child mortality (by two thirds)

● Improve maternal health (reduce mortality by three quarters)

● Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (halt and reverse spread)

● Ensure environmental sustainability (integrate sustainable development

into country policies, improve access to safe drinking water by 50%, improve lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020)

● Develop a global partnership for development (open and non-discriminatory

fi nancial system, needs of least developed and vulnerable countries, debt relief, work for youth, affordable drugs, benefi ts of new technologies)

Source: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

It remains to be seen if these goals will succeed in establishing development, rather than economic growth, as the primary policy goal of poor countries In 2002, the Secretary General of the United Nations commissioned the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University to develop an action plan for the implementation

of the MDG The final report (Sachs, 2005) identifies the grassroots needs of the poorest countries and suggests detailed measures such as insecticide-treated bed nets for malaria control – hardly a blueprint for development, but a welcome measure

of help [FR 3.1]

3.1.2 Which Countries Are Developing?

As discussed in Chapter 4, sets of indicators cannot define and assess development unequivocally This is the reason for the wide use of GDP for categorizing countries into developed and developing However, the above listing of development goals calls attention to the possible fallacy of using economic output as a welfare or development indicator

Table 3.1 gives a first impression of the suitability of GDP as a proxy for development and country ranking The table compares GDP per capita (grouped into five categories from A to E) with the Human Development Index (HDI) ( categories a to e) The HDI claims to capture development in terms of income, health and education levels.2 A further category of least developed countries

2 See Sections 5.2 and 5.3 for a review of the HDI and sustainable development indices.

A B C D E

$470–1,833 $1,860–3,680 $3,720–6,400 $6,550–15,560 $16,060+

*Afghanistan b Albania c Algeria b Antigua and Australia e

*Bangladesh b *Angola a Belize d Barbuda d Austria e

*Benin a Armenia c Bosnia and Argentina e Bahamas d

*Bhutan b Azerbaijan c Herzog d Barbados e Bahrain d

*Burkina Faso a Bolivia b *Cape Verde c Belarus d Belgium e

*Burundi a *Cambodia b China c Botswana b Brunei Dar e

*Centr Afr R a *Djibouti a Dominica d Bulgaria d Cyprus e

*Chad a Ecuador c El Salvador c Chile d Denmark e Congo b Egypt b *Equatorial Colombia d France e

*Congo, D.R a *Gambia a Guinea cb Costa Rica d Finland e

Côte d’Ivoire a Ghana b Fiji c Croatia d Germany e

*Eritrea a *Guinea a Gabon b Czech R e Greece e

*Ethiopia a Georgia c Guatemala b Grenada c Hong Kong,

*Guinea-Bissau a *Haiti a Guyana c Dominican R c China/SAR e Kenya a Honduras b Iran, Islamic R b Estonia d Iceland e

*Kiribati b India b Jamaica c Hungary d Ireland e

*Lao’s People Indonesia b Jordan c Kazakhstan c Israel e

D.R b Kyrgyzstan c Lebanon c Korea, R e Italy e

*Liberia b *Lesotho b Macedonia d Kuwait d Japan e

*Madagascar a *Mauritania a *Maldives c Latvia d Luxembourg e

*Malawi a Moldova, R b Panama d Libyan A.J d Netherlands e

*Mali a Morocco b Paraguay c Lithuania d New Zealand e Mongolia b Nicaragua b Peru c Malaysia d Norway e

*Mozambique a Occup Palestine Philippines c Malta e Portugal e

*Myanmar b Territory c Romania c *Mauritius d Qatar d

*Nepal a Papua New *Samoa (West.) d Mexico d Seychelles d

*Niger a Guinea b St Lucia c Namibia b Slovenia e Nigeria a Pakistan a St Vincent and Oman c Singapore e

*Rwanda a *Solomon Isl b the Gren c Poland e Spain e

*Sao Tomé and Sri Lanka c Suriname c Russian Fed d St Kitts and

Principe b Syria A.R b Swaziland b Saudi Arabia c Nevis d

*Senegal a *Sudan b Thailand c South Africa b Sweden e

*Sierra Leone a Uzbekistan c Tunisia c Slovakia d Switzerland e

*Somalia b *Vanuatu b Turkey c Trinidad and United Arab

Tajikistan b Viet Nam b Turkmenistan c Tobago d Emirates d

*Tanzania a Zimbabwe a Ukraine c Uruguay d United Kingdom e

Notes:aCountry groupings: A to E by GDP per capita (in purchasing power parities), a to e by

corresponding HDI rank; an asterisk marks the ‘Least Developed Countries’ (LDC) b Not included in UNDP (2003a) c Position corrected according to World Bank data d Not yet a nation

in 2003.

Source: UNDP (2003a); http://www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/ldc%20criteria.htm (for LDCs).

(LDCs) (marked by an asterisk) adds political flavour to the identification of the poorest countries: the LDCs are determined by the United Nations as those countries which have a low GDP per capita (less than US$ 900), weak human assets

in terms of health, nutrition and education, and high economic vulnerability ( instability of agriculture and exports, low diversification, economic smallness, and exposure to natural disasters)

Low levels of output and income clearly dominate the position of the LDCs in the A column Some small islands, which enjoy income from tourism but are vul-nerable to natural disasters, are exceptions Less pronounced, but still discernible,

is the correlation between the HDI and GDP per capita (a major ingredient of the HDI) The fluctuation is usually restricted to neighbouring columns Namibia and South Africa are notable exceptions: despite relatively high income they rank much lower on the HDI owing to low life expectancy, caused in particular by the sub-Saharan AIDS epidemic All in all, these country rankings do not refute the significance of economic growth as a means of meeting human needs and as a sig-nificant factor in contributing to the three HDI dimensions of development

3.2 Towards an Operational Definition

of Sustainable Development

3.2.1 Cornucopia from Sustainable Development?

Section 3.1 gives a first impression of the scope and facets of development in terms

of human needs and wants Ranking and comparing countries with regard to their success in meeting these needs required the selection of pertinent indicators and combining them in an overall index The assumption is that such an index, through its underlying indicators, represents the main features of human or sustainable development, human quality of life, social progress, and ultimately well-being or even happiness All these paradigmatic notions have in common an implicit prom-ise of cornucopia in everything and for everyone It is no surprise that policymakers and other advocates of social progress make ample use of these concepts: they sound nice enough to gain popular acclaim and are vague enough to prevent accountability for their implementation

Box 3.4 shows the example of the USA where the euphoria of independence created belief in potential happiness for all The more realistic Constitution appears

to dampen these expectations with its reference to tranquillity, security and the promotion of welfare However, the success of industrialization and a concomitant growing materialism of society reduced the grand notions of happiness and general welfare to the pursuit of prosperity as the dominant paradigm for about two centuries More recently, the environmental movement cast doubt on the unfettered pursuit of material wealth, warning that nature’s capacity to support this objective might soon be exhausted

Box 3.4 The rights to happiness and welfare

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that

among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (Declaration of

Independence, July 4, 1776)

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,

establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common fense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the

de-United States of America (US Constitution, Preamble, September 17, 1787)

Reacting to these warnings, the United Nations convened the first global ence on the environment in 1972 and later established the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) to explore the interaction of environment and economic development (Section 1.2) The WCED’s (1987) popular definition

confer-of sustainable development resurrects the broad human needs concept:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Owing greatly to the WCED’s all-encompassing approach, the sustainable ment paradigm has shown a perhaps surprising staying power, insinuating itself into the policy agendas of governments and international organizations The two Earth Summits in Rio and Johannesburg embraced sustainable development as

develop-their leitmotif The Constitution of the European Union makes the transition from the more restrictive sustainability of growth, stipulated in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, to sustainable development in the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty.3 Sustaining development is thus perceived as an obligation for all countries at any stage of eco-nomic growth and development

But what does sustainable development really do for us? Are we to believe that this new paradigm will meet all or most of our needs and wants (cf Box 3.1)? Will sustainable development bring well-being or even happiness to all? The Brundtland definition does not answer these questions In fact it remains vague: it does not specify the categories of human needs, gives no clear time frame for analysis (future generations!), nor does it indicate how economic performance, social equity

3 1992 Maastricht Treaty: Declaration 20 on assessment of the environmental impacts of Community measures applies the ‘principle of sustainable growth’ (http://www.eurotreaties.com/ maastrichtfinalact.pdf); 1997 Amsterdam Treaty: Title I Common Provisions stipulates as the objective of the EU ‘to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment and

to achieve balanced and sustainable development’ (http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/treaties/dat/ amsterdam.html).

and environmental functions combine to satisfy human needs now and in the future Perhaps most disturbing is the absence of any reference to trade-offs among the different needs, for instance between the welfare of the current generation (and its poor) and the (largely unknown) needs of future generations Rather, with sustain-able development all is ‘in harmony’ and set to ‘enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations’ (WCED, 1987).

Environmentalists indicate what to look for in development Their argument is that the current malaise stems from our strife for economic growth and prosperity, despite the fact that wealth does not make us happy Rather, simplicity and frugality will lead us towards the ‘good life’ [FR 3.2] For some this implies the generation

of ‘qualitative development’ (Daly & Farley, 2004, p 6) in a ‘post-growth society’ (Hamilton, 2004)

The ultimate rewards of renouncing or at least curbing prosperity are of course

a near-religious question Theoretical investigations into the determinants of tastes and preferences stress the lure of attaining or maintaining desirable social status by more or less ‘conspicuous’ consumption [FR 3.2] However, frowning upon a sense

of identity and security through income, wealth and consumption might have little impact on general consumption behaviour Consider pleasure from a continuous flow of stimulating novelties (Scitovsky, 1976) and the attraction of choice from a large variety of goods and services (Broda & Weinstein, 2006), and you have a strong argument for working with, rather than against, economic wealth and consumption possibilities (Bartelmus, 2000)

But what do the consumers themselves have to say? Proliferating happiness surveys in the USA report little change in the happiness situation of its citizens [FR 3.2] This appears to confirm Duesenberry’s (1949) relative income hypothe-sis The hypothesis claims that relative standards of living (as compared to the neighbouring Joneses) count more for most people than an absolute increase in prosperity At the country level, the hypothesis appears to be responsible for the so-called Easterlin (1974) paradox, which finds that above a certain level of income and economic growth ‘national happiness’ remains stationary Max-Neef (1995) uses the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (see Section 5.2) to illustrate his

‘threshold hypothesis’ of actually declining, rather than stationary, welfare or quality of life in rich and growing economies

Proclamations on meeting human needs for development or on attaining ness through frugality remain vague and judgemental Should we really trust hap-piness surveys and statements that ‘almost everyone says no’ to the question: are you ‘happier now than 40 or 50 years ago?’ (Hamilton, 2004) Maybe a socialist

happi-playwright’s answer is more to the point: ‘Mir löst sich ganz von selbst das

Glücksproblem, nur wer im Wohlstand lebt, lebt angenehm’.4

4 ‘On happiness this I can tell, it is your wealth that makes you living well’ (Brecht, ‘Threepenny Opera’, the ballad of good living; own translation).

3.2.2 From Sustainability to Feasibility of Development5

Rather than focusing on unmeasurable happiness, a more realistic approach is to assess glaring symptoms and sources of unhappiness: these are obvious detractors

from social progress contributing to the non-sustainability of any type of development

Table 3.2 lists the main limitations of the three general – economic, ecological and social – ‘dimensions’ of sustainable development Beyond the impairment of eco-nomic growth by the loss of environmental source and sink functions, the table refers

to further social (including cultural and political) effects of human activity These effects include poverty and overconsumption, inequity in the current and future (intergenerational) distribution of income and wealth, deteriorating social cohesion from crime and social and cultural exclusion, and the loss of security from war, riots and terrorism An additional dimension of institutional sustainability is sometimes added It reflects laws, regulations, customs, and educational and other institutions; usually it is either ignored or subsumed in the social dimension as a means of facilitat-ing cooperation and participation

Table 3.2 translates the limitations of sustainable development into more operational limits In the absence of a real or simulated market for mitigating non-sustainability symptoms, monetary valuation of damages and benefits of development reaches its limits Setting desirable standards for maximally tolerable damage and minimum

Table 3.2 Non-sustainability in development: From limitations to limits

Sustainability categories Limitations Limits

- Produced capital consumption

- Natural (economic) resource depletion

- Degradation of environmental media as sinks for wastes and pollutants

- Productive capacities (produced capital)

- Natural resource availability (stocks)

- Absorptive capacities

of natural systems Ecological: Maintaining

environmental

functions

- Environmental degradation (pollution, degradation

- Carrying capacities

of natural systems Social: Attaining

social goals

- Unemployment

- Distributional inequity, poverty

- Crime and corruption

- Health and education needs

- Maximum consumption levels for sufficiency

- Social norms and conventions

5 See Bartelmus (1994a) for a more detailed analysis Some of the text of this section is from this source (with permission by the copyright holder, Taylor & Francis) and from Bartelmus (1997b).

satisfaction of human needs seems to be the only way to link the wide range of ment concerns to economic performance Table 3.2 identifies, therefore, in addition

develop-to economic capacity, sustainable development limits as:

● Ecological thresholds of ecosystem resilience (Section 2.4.1) to environmental impacts

● Limits to material throughput and consumption such as Factor X guard rails to prevent exceeding local and global carrying capacities (Section 2.4.1)

● Minimum and maximum standards of human needs satisfaction, which in turn affect carrying capacities of human populations

● Other social, cultural and political norms

The introduction of standards and targets in development analysis shifts the focus

of sustainability from capital maintenance in economic growth to compliance with minimum and maximum standards of living, natural resource exploitation, environmental degradation and other social norms Violation of standards or non-

achievement of targets indicates thus a development path that should not be pursued

in the long run In this sense, normative targets replace the relatively neutral sustainability criteria of dematerialization and capital maintenance

Development programmes would thus have to operate within a normative work defining a feasibility (or, more accurately, permissibility) space for these pro-grammes The determination of feasible programmes is a forward-looking approach, which requires the modelling of future scenarios of activities and impacts (Section 12.2) Assuming that such modelling can be carried out and focusing on the basic objective of human needs satisfaction and its environmental and social implications,

frame-an operational definition of sustainable (feasible) development cframe-an be put forward asthe set of development programmes that meets the targets of human needs satisfaction without violating long-term natural resource capacities and standards of environmental quality and social equity (Bartelmus, 1994a)

Compliance with social goals or norms may thus override individual (market) preferences for goods and services by social fiat – however democratically such fiat might have been achieved Market valuation would be replaced by social evaluation,

and sustainability by feasibility of human activity in terms of non-violation of

social norms To the extent that such standard setting affects market exchange a radical change in economic analysis would take place – from a focus on individual preferences to those of society, the government or self-proclaimed experts The invisible hand of the market is overruled in this case by the visible one of the standard setter(s)

3.2.3 Local (Eco-) Development

Scepticism about governmental development priorities and policies motivated

a shift of attention to local-level ‘eco-development’ (Box 3.5) [FR 3.3] Many interactions between human activities and the environment are best observed,

Box 3.5 Features of eco-development

A non-governmental organization, the Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement tested the eco-development concept for UNEP It established the following features for its case studies:

● Basic needs satisfaction

● Satisfactory social ecosystem

● Rational natural resource use in solidarity with future generations

con-Source: Sachs (1976, 1980).

evaluated and managed in situ Those directly affected by environmental impacts

should be in a better position to assess their responses than planners and policymakers

in distant capitals (Bartelmus, 1994a) Rather than forcing economic and non-economicvalues and activities together in an overwhelming normative framework, the close-ness of people in local communities might achieve a more spontaneous merger of local values, traditions and conditions through participatory, grassroots-democratic procedures

The United Nations Environment Programme defined eco-development asDevelopment at regional and local levels … consistent with the potentials of the area involved, with attention given to the adequate and rational use of the natural resources, and

to applications of technological styles … and organizational forms that respect the natural ecosystems and local sociocultural patterns (UNEP, 1975).

Such development would apply particularly to agrarian societies of developing countries, whose social and economic systems are closely tied to the rhythm and productivity of nature The ecological resilience concept (Section 2.4.1) can provide a useful understanding and managerial advice in this agrarian context.After a widely publicized flurry of case studies, the term eco-development disappeared from the vocabulary of local development strategies One reason might

be the variety of particular environmental, social, cultural and political conditions that thwart the promotion of locally conditioned programmes and techniques as a general development strategy This did not dissuade the 1992 Earth Summit to

launch a participatory local Agenda 21 movement [FR 3.3] A survey of progress

made since then identified about 6,500 communities involved in local Agenda 21 activities Most communities focused quite narrowly on municipal water supply, due to lack of resources and governmental commitment

3.3 Normative Economics for Sustainable Development?

‘Whatever the definition, sustainable development is undoubtedly normative’ (Faucheux, 2001) As discussed (Sections 1.3, 2.2.3), faith, pre-analytic vision and moral convictions underlie the environmentalist view of development Putting economic activity into a frame of minimum and maximum constraints may tame economic growth, but at the same time mixes normative standards with factual assessment of economic performance – anathema to mainstream econo-mists (e.g Caldwell, 1982; Samuelson & Nordhaus, 1992; Beckerman, 1994)

‘Institutional’ economists and like-minded ecological ones counter that much of the positivist mainstream-liberal economics has become irrelevant for uncertain but urgent policy concerns because of its ‘puzzle-solving … ignorance of the wider methodological, social and ethical issues’ (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1991) ‘Value pluralism’ (Martinez-Alier, 2002) dissuades in their view the integration of environmental issues with conventional economic analysis and policy Instead, a co-evolutionary approach to development offers linkage of social values with ecological-evolutionary ideas, without risking ‘colonization’ by economists

Institutional economists address directly some of the concerns specified in Section 3.2.2 as the normative framework of sustainable development They view economicperformance as a function of exogenous factors such as technology, power structures and organizations, rather than as the endogenous workings of the economic exchange system Co-evolutionary economics extends institutional economics into the environmental field, and beyond into overall societal change [FR 3.4] Its basic tenet is that the institutional framework connects everything to everything else (Fig 3.1) Such a sweeping statement is, however, hardly condu-cive to practical application

The co-evolutionary explanation of social change argues convincingly about the relevance of institutional change and society’s evolution for sustainable growth and development At the same time its advocate admits that institutional reform for re-embedding humans into their natural and cultural environment would be difficult

to effect by top-down governmental policy The co-evolutionary approach should therefore focus on the local level At this level, a ‘coevolving patchwork quilt of dis-cursive communities’ could attain decentralization, participation and cultural diver-sity more easily and democratically than by central authorities (Norgaard, 1994) Such escape to local levels reflects the communitarian roots of the above-discussed eco-development concept [FR 3.3] From this point of view, co-evolutionary economics does not provide the means for achieving – national – sustainable develop-ment Rather, it looks more like a passive hope for a trickle-up of grassroots values for resetting society’s development path

Ecological economists embrace the institutional approach (1) from an moralistic point of view, calling for a better life (Section 3.2.1) and (2) for setting standards guiding the co-evolution and sustainability of interdependent social, eco-logical and economic systems ‘Ecologically and economically sensitive safe mini-mum standards’ that ‘hold back’ human activity (Perrings, 1995) would ensure the maintenance of carrying capacities and resilience of natural systems However, carrying capacity and resilience are complex and even ambiguous concepts; they face corresponding measurement problems, notably at national and global levels (Section 2.4.1), and when extended to social systems.

ethical-3.3.2 Has the Paradigm Run Its Course?

Neither the generics of co-evolutionary economics nor the specifics of local-level case studies provide a blueprint for overall sustainable development In practice, policymakers continue to see sustainable development as economic growth with some environmental protection Even the WCED (1987) found it necessary to pacify growth-oriented governments by calling for the revival of economic growth Undeniable successes of local pollution control appear to have turned the attention of industrialized countries to remote global concerns, at the expense of social problems and deteriorat-ing environmental conditions in developing countries Even if not openly admitted, EKC mentality seems to prevail: the ongoing transition to a non-material service society is expected to take care of the remaining environmental problems It remains to

be seen if the clamorous warnings of global warming reflect a genuine shift from economic to environmental priorities by society and policymakers (cf Section 4.3)

In principle we have several options of addressing the dilemma of operationality

vs comprehensiveness in covering simultaneously all dimensions of sustainable development They are

VALUES

ORGANIZATION KNOWLEDGE

Fig 3.1 Co-evolutionary process: Everything related to everything else?

Source: Norgaard (1994), fig 3.1; with permission by the copyright holder, Taylor & Francis.