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GLOBAL FORUM
The Global Forum section of Making It is a space for interaction and discussion, and we welcome reactions and responses from readers about any of the issues raised in the magazine. Letters for publication in Making It should be marked ‘For publication’, and sent either by email to: editor@makingitmagazine.net or by post to: The Editor, Making It, Room D2142, UNIDO, PO Box 300, 1400 Wien, Austria. (Letters/emails may be edited for reasons of space).
LETTERS Greenwash
Image: Damien Glez
“Building the architecture for green growth” by the Korean president’s representative in the last issue (Making It, issue 9) was a load of greenwash. Too bad that you were taken in. But not everyone is so gullible. This is from a recent article in the Financial Times: "South Korea has experienced one of the fastest development trajectories of any nation and has created a grim environmental mess. It is the fastest growing carbon emitter in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Environmental scientists are tearing their hair out, as Seoul rides rough-shod over international standards and agreements while being feted internationally for its green rhetoric." The billions that South Korea is pumping into what it calls ‘environmental projects’ are in fact funding construction work and tourist resorts, further eroding the eco-systems already battered by rapid industrial growth. As the FT rightly points out, "Much of the Korean countryside has already been savaged by construction and many so-called green projects are just an excuse to lay more tarmac, build hotels and develop wilderness that should be left as animal
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habitat.... South Korea’s continuing land reclamations of fragile wetlands are an environmental disgrace."
l John Devine, received by email.
Women as entrepreneurs I strongly support UNIDO’s programme of promoting women’s rural industries (Making It, issue 8). This effort continues a programme that we pursued for 26 years in Ghana, at the Technology Consultancy Centre of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi. The work involved upgrading the technology of existing women’s groups processing cassava and corn, extracting vegetable oils and spinning and weaving cotton. Just as in Mali, shea butter making featured in our programme and by upgrading the technology women’s groups in the Northern Region were helped to export directly to the Body Shop, an internationally known beauty products manufacturer. Perhaps the most widely adopted innovation was beekeeping using the Kenya top-bar hive, which was taken up by women throughout the country, enabling them to produce honey to nourish their children, as well as to sell to support their families. To learn more about books
describing the grassroots industrial revolution in the turbulent Ghana of the second half of the twentieth century, please refer to my website.
l John W. Powell OBE, www.ghanabooksjwp.com website comment.
I found the “Empowering women entrepreneurs, at home and abroad” article about gender equality and female entrepreneurship fascinating (Making It, issue 8). Thank you for discussing such an important and timely topic! I completely agree with Jan O’Sullivan that the lack of financing, experience and training are contributing factors, and also that the lack of high-profile role models and networks are other limiting factors.
As the founder of Australia’s number one organization for female entrepreneurs, Women as Entrepreneurs, I have been trying to identify some of the key challenges women face when it comes to entrepreneurship and investigate why only 17% of established entrepreneurs are women in Australia. In my opinion, in order to fix the global problem of gender gap and enable more women to be successful, we need to address and understand the main driving forces behind the complex system of issues. Some of these forces are differences in male and female thinking; society expectations towards men and women; and also how we raise our boys and girls. I believe that gender – and