UTPOST#2 2015 Tidskriften för Utrikespolitiska Föreningen Umeå
Millenniemålen
Förord 2015 har varit ett händelserikt år och vi har under höstterminen kunnat följa många intressanta debatter. Stämningen kring kriget i Syrien och de efterföljande flyktingströmmarna har dagligen genererat uttalanden från politiker och åsiktspersoner såväl som nu på senaste tiden, lagändringar gällande asylpolitiken. Men för den här terminens utgåva av Utpost tänker vi fokusera på en annan högst relevant händelse, nämligen slutdatumet för uppfyllandet av FN:s millenniemål. 15 år har passerat sen de åtta målen antogs i New York 2000 och i år är tanken att alla dessa mål ska vara uppfyllda. Våra skribenter har i denna utgåva utvärderat och sammanfattat vad som hänt dessa 15 år och vår förhoppning är att ni ska finna det intressant och informativt! Mycket nöje!
//Rebecka Hedlund
@
redaktor@upfu.org
Utrikespolitiska föreningen Box 7652, 90713 Umeå
REDAKTIONEN HÖSTEN 2015 Rebecka
Nicklas
Hannes
Lucas
Redaktör
Redaktör
Skribent
Skribent
Hedlund
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Holm
Kuhl
Reitschuster
UTPOST#2 2015
Maria
Hammar Skribent
www.upfu.org
Innehåll 4
THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
A Recapitulation Hannes Kuhl
GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Planetary boundaries and the fate of millions of people living in the slum Lucas Reitschuster
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THE MILLENNIUM VILLAGES PROJECT Ett decennium senare Nicklas Holm
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COP21
Attending the youth conference and demonstrating in Paris
Maria Hammar
FOTO FRAMSIDA:
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Detta material är helt eller delvis finansierat av Sida, styrelsen för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete. Sida delar inte nödvändigtvis de åsikter som här framförts. Ansvaret för innehållet är uteslutande författarens eget.
MARIA HAMMAR TEMA:
Utrikespolitiska föreningen delar inte nödvändigtvis de åsikter som framförts i denna publikation. Ansvaret för innehållet är uteslutande författarens eget.
FN:S MILLENNIEMÅL UTPOST#2 2015
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THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
– A R E C A P I T U L AT I O N written by Hannes Kuhl
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UN PHOTO BY ESKINDER DEBEBE
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t has been 15 years now. 15 years since the leaders of the world converged at the UN and promised to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty”. Bold words, which later were the inspiration for the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In order to be able to keep track of the processes towards achieving the MDGs, each goal was matched with measurable indicators, the so-called Millennium Development Targets. Within 15 years’ time those targets were to be reached and thus the
promise the leaders of the world made, to be fulfilled. While the MDGs were formulated in a way that achieving them comes close to achieving a perfect world, their respective targets, however, are of a less idealistic and a more realistic nature. So much for the idea. But 15 years is a long time. Especially when lived in said conditions of extreme poverty. What has actually been done, achieved or missed since? With a new set of goals, the so-called “Sustainable Development Goals”, having been adopted recently, now is a good time to take a look back.
#1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER
#2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
When it comes to measurable targets, the word “eradicate” is to be defined as “halved compared to 1990”. Halve the proportion of people living on less than 1.25 $ per day. Halve the proportion of suffering from hunger. Remarkably, the poverty-target has indeed been achieved and even exceeded. Worldwide the quota of people living in extreme poverty has declined from 36 % to 12 % or from 1.9 billion to 836 million. However, this development is rather inhomogeneous: while the poverty-rate in China dropped by impressive 94 % to a total of 4 %, the poverty-rate in Sub-Saharan Africa only declined by 28 % to a still alarming total of 41 % in 2015. In contrast to the poverty-target, the target for hunger-suffering people was not reached. From 1990 the rate has sunk by 45 % to a total of 12.9 %. Furthermore, the absolute number of people suffering from hunger has gone back from 991 million to 780 million.
The progress of this goal is measured by the proportion of pupils of official primary school age who are actually enrolled at a school, relative to the total number of people of that age. The developing regions manage to reach a quota of 91 % in 2015, coming from 80 % in 1990. Commonly universal enrolment is considered once a quota of 97 % is passed. A threshold which is about to be crossed in all developing regions of the world. Except for Sub-Saharan Africa. A region which has made remarkable progress increasing its enrolment rate for primary school from 52 % in 1990 to 80 % in 2015, but yet has to go a long way.
UN PHOTO BY MARIO RIZZOLIO
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World Food Programme and Partners March against Hunger in Burundi. Participants joined Buhiga School pupils in a six-kilometre march in the Karuzi province.
The target was to eliminate gender disparity in all levels of education by 2015. Although it was not fully achieved, great progress has been made. Two thirds of the developing regions can present gender equality in education in 2015. In some of the developing regions like Latin America and the Caribbean, the rate of women enrolled in secondary and tertiary education institutions nowadays even exceeds the enrolment rate of the men. Despite the positive general development in education, gender equality in other areas remains scarce. For example the share of women in wage employment outside of the agricultural sector amounts to 41 % in 2015, with considerable regional differences. The same share in political parliaments only amounts to 22 %.
The target for this goal goes as far as aiming to reduce the under-five year old mortality rate by two thirds in 2015 compared to 1990. And in fact, said rate has globally dropped by 53 %, with regional differences ranging from 78 % in Eastern Asia (China) to 31 % in Oceania. Not only are there great regional differences, but also socioeconomic ones. In 2013 a child from a rural area is 1.7 times more likely to die before its fifth birthday than a child from an urban region, a child to a mother with no education 2.8 times more likely than a child to a mother with secondary or higher education. And most of these deaths are due to causes which are preventable by modern medicine. Therefore the pursuit of this goal in the post-MDG-agenda remains crucial.
#3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN
#4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY
#5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH
In 2015 the number of maternal deaths should be decreased by two thirds compared to 1990. In short: it was not. On a worldwide scale the number was cut by 45 %, amounting to 210 deaths per 100,000 births. A problem with this target, however, is that only half of the countries can provide reliable data on maternal deaths. For this reason, the dark figure is assumed to be higher than the number stated by the data.
#6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES
Halt and reverse the spread of those diseases. That was the aim. Although it was not fully achieved, considerable progress was made. The number of new HIV infections decreased by 41 % and the malaria incidence rate by 37 %. Also did the number of deaths caused by the respective diseases decline due to higher availability of proper treatments. Nevertheless, a striking 60 % of the Sub-Saharan population is reported to have incorrect and incomprehensive knowledge about the transmission of HIV, with the dark figure being estimated even higher. UTPOST#2 2015
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#7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Acute challenges like climate change are increasing in significance. Therefore the implementation of this goal into national political agendas is key. However, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions rose by 50 % compared to 1990 or that Africa and Latin America witnessed the greatest net loss of forest ever during the first decade of the 2000’s, does not strengthen the assumption that serious measures were incorporated. Hence, this MDG will be reflected as one of the cornerstones of the post2015 development goals.
#8: ESTABLISH A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT
Deal comprehensively with the debt of developing countries, integrate them into the global trade, provide them with affordable access to modern medicine and telecommunications. Reaching these targets is to be understood as establishing a global development partnership. The worldwide development aid has increased by 66 %
between 2000 and 2015, amounting to a total of more than 120 billion USD. However, development has been stagnating since 2010 now. The same goes for the debts of developing countries. As a proportion of the respective export revenues they decreased by three quarter but have been stagnating for the last five years. A further pursuit of this goal is absolutely crucial as this MDG, more than the others, aim at enabling developing countries to help themselves and thus one day be able to cope independently from external aid.
School girls attend classes in a school built by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Wad Sherife refugee
UN PHOTO BY FRED NOY
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UN PHOTO BY DAVID OHANA
Children at the Provincial Baby Home supported by the UNICEF and the World Food Programme in Hamhung City, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In observance of International Women’s Day, participants march from the centre of Monrovia to the Temple of Justice, home of the Liberian Supreme Court.
UN PHOTO BY ERIC KANALSTEIN
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UN PHOTO BY SOPHIA PARIS
Planetary b
a nand d t hthe e f afate t e oof f mmillions i l l i o n s oo
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y boundaries GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
ss of of pe living ople in living the slum in the slum written by Lucas Reitschuster
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n September 2000 world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership in order to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets. One of them, goal number 7, was to ensure environmental sustainability. Since this is quite a general goal, the UN declared sub goals, those are: Target 7A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of environmental resources Target 7B: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
force a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers. Target 7 C, to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation was already met five years ahead of schedule. According to the UN 2.6 billion people gained access to improved drinking water resources since 1990 and 2.1 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation. Even though those numbers look quite good, there are still 2.6 billion people lacking those improvements. Also there are huge regional disparities, while almost half of the people who gained access to safe drinking water live in China or India, many countries in Africa are not on track to meet the target by 2015, writes The Guardian.
Target 7C: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation Target 7D: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers. Now, let’s have a look how the UN is making progress. A measurement for target 7 A is difficult, as one would have to look into every country’s new policies since 2000 in order to find out how each one implemented these principals. Target 7 B was targeted to reduce the current amount of lost species every year. This ended up being fairly difficult to measure as well, after “[…] scientists have a better understanding of how many stars there are in the galaxy than how many species there are on Earth.” - World Resources Institute (WRI). However, estimates made by the WWF (assuming that there are around 2 million species living on our planet) indicate a biodiversity loss between 200 and 2,000 extinctions every year. Sadly, even with such a low estimation of existing species, this estimation is so high, but it also appears to be the fault of a single species – ours. As one can easily see in the illustration Planetary Boundaries we’ve reached a level of biodiversity loss, which is way out of our planetary boundaries. So far we have two out of four goals and the success stories are limited, so let’s see how the other two targets are coming along. Target 7 C and 7 D are dedicated to the poorest on our planet. They want to improve the sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, and also 12
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UN PHOTO BY MARK GARTEN
Target 7 D, to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers, was also reached nicely. Between 2000 and 2014, more than 320 million people living in slums gained access to improved water sources, improved sanitation facilities, or durable or less crowded housing, writes the UN. But like in Target 7 C the numbers don’t tell the whole truth. Even with such exceeding result, the number of people living in slums grew from 792 million in 2000 to more than 880 million nowadays. So all in all one can say that the UN did a
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great job with implementing the goal, but the execution lacks the possibility to oblige the states to implement the goals in their countries policies, also just by improving the life quality of a fixed number of slum dwellers doesn’t fight the reason for slum or poverty arising. But what to do? Well after it’s mostly easier to change yourself than to change politics everyone should look at his own lifestyle and see where he or she can be more sustainable, a good help for that is the ecological foot print calculator from the WWF.
UTPOST#2 2015 UN PHOTO BY EVAN SCHNEIDER
m u i n n e l l i M The ges Project Villa
ett decennium senare skrivet av nicklas holm
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illennium Villages Project (MVP) sattes upp som ett projekt av Earth Institute på Columbia University med United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) som en av flera partners. Målet har varit att arbeta med låga omkostnader och på lokal nivå för att hjälpa utvalda byar att nå Milleniemålen. Lite mer än ett dussintal afrikanska byar söder om Sahara har varit del av projektet som fortskrider i olika utsträckning även efter vi nu nått 2015. Idén att arbeta väldigt nära det lokala samhället ser vid första anblicken som en väldigt lovande strategi. Resultatet i de byar som varit en del av projektet visar också på en förbättring från deras tidigare situation. Frågan är hur utvecklingen sett ut i förhållande till liknande byar som inte varit en del av projektet under samma period. Jordbruket spelar såklart en central roll i utvecklingen för att nå det första Milleniemålet att utrota hunger och fattigdom så vi kan börja med att titta på hur MVP försökt lösa detta. Det amerikanska bolaget Monsanto är ett av företagen som donerat hybridfrön till byarna i Malawi och jordbrukare har där kunnat ta del av hybridfrön och gödningsmedel gratis i utbyte mot att en del av skörden går till lokala program för distribution av mat. Problemet är att United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) och Världsbanken redan 2003 utförde en stor studie som fann en problematik med ett så koncentrerat fokus på avkastningen i jordbruket. Den ensidiga odlingen skapar näringsfattig jordbruksmark som leder till att skog måste huggas ner för att skapa mer åkermark och det skapar en ond spiral jordbruksmarkens kvalité försämras alltmer. Frågan är då varför dessa metoder ändå använts i ett projekt som involverat UNDP samtidigt som ett annat FN-organ i UNEP stått bakom en studie som visat dess baksidor. Lägre omkostnader hade kunnat vara en förklaring då projektet med MVP handlat mycket om detta, men det verkar inte som det. The Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) är ett projekt lett av farmare i Malawi som stått utanför MVP och har valt ett mer agroekologiskt tillvägagångsätt i sitt arbete. Istället för inrikta sig på odlingen av konstgödslad majs förespråkar de en mer differentierad odling med baljväxter. Näringen i jordbruksmarken förbättras genom att baljväxter fångar upp bland annat kväve naturligt och på så vis gör det möjligt att efterföljande skörd plantera exempelvis majs. Detta har lett till lägre omkostnader än modellen med konstgödsel samtidigt som färre barn är undernärda och tillgången till mat har ökat. Innebär detta att MVP haft sämre framgång än SFHCs projekt? Gäller detta endast dessa specifika byar i Malawi eller även byarna i Rwanda, Senegal, Kenya och andra afrikanska länder som varit en del av projektet. 16
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The Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) är ett projekt lett av farmare i Malawi som stått utanför MVP och har valt ett mer agroekologiskt tillvägagångsätt i sitt arbete.
UN PHOTO BY EVAN SCHNEIDER
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Svårigheterna med att besvara den frågan verkar faktiskt vara den största problematiken med hela projektet. Problemet är att utvärderingarna som bäst är väldigt bristfälliga. Michael Clemens och Gabriel Demombynes från tankesmedjan Center for Global Development publicerade en genomgång av en av kontroverserna kring just detta. Efter MVP hade fått kritik då det såg ut som att större framsteg gjordes i regionerna än i de specifika byarna som ingick i projektet. Nationalekonomen Jeffrey Sachs, som varit ledare för projektet, var en av de som förklarade detta med att en jämförelse inte gick att göra på grund av effekten projektet haft i stort på regionerna. Medicinska tidskriften The Lancet har av MVP beskrivits som den primära källan för studier av projektet. De publicerade dock samma typ av jämförelse, som kritiserats av Jeffrey Sachs tidigare, när det visade på ett positivt resultat i byarna som ingick i
projektet. Studien som hade undersökt minskningen av barndödligheten visade sig dessutom vara felaktig och drogs tillbaka efter kritik. I protokollet för MVP slutliga utvärdering, som publicerades av The Lancet i höstas, uttrycks det att MVP inte var designat som ett kontrollerat experiment och att det därför kommer väljas ut retroaktiva kontrollgrupper i form av liknande byar. Utvärderingen beräknas vara klar i slutet av 2016. Oavsett om utvärderingen visar på en positiv effekt eller ej kommer är det förhoppningsvis gå att använda kunskapen i arbetet mot FNs nya hållbara utvecklingsmål. Även en negativ effekt skulle indikera vad som bör undvikas i framtida projekt. Det mest olyckliga scenariot som tyvärr inte verkar helt orimligt är att projektets ursprungliga design försvårar utvärderingen till den grad att potentiella effekter går oidentifierade.
UN PHOTO BY EVAN SCHNEIDER
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tests a water pump at Mwandama Millennium Village, Malawi.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his wife, Yoo Soon-taek, visit a classroom at Dindi Primary School in Mwandama Millennium Village, Malawi.camp.
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COP
Attending the youth conference an
written and ph
O P 21
nference and demonstrating in Paris
written and photographed by Maria Hammar
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oday is the 24th of November, 5.15 in the morning. We are living in the year of 2015, it is November and supposed to be freezing cold and snowy in Umeå, Northern Sweden. Instead, right now a look at the temperature shows just below zero degrees, with a forecast of even rising to plus during the day. Right now, we, a group of friends studying at Umeå University are starting our trip towards Paris to demonstrate and attend the youth conference leading up to COP21. At the same time people all over the world are forced out of their homes having to flee due to consequences of climate change. In fact, according to UNHCR, there are as many as 42 people every single minute. While in Umeå the sun will not be going up for another four hours, leaving a bit of winter atmosphere behind as we are travelling through Sweden to later cross Denmark, Germany and Belgium until we will reach our final destination Paris about 30 hours later. Climate change is already happening all over the world and humanity is suffering the consequences right now.
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At the same time people all over the world are forced out of their homes having to flee due to consequences of climate change. In fact, according to UNHCR, there are as many as 42 people every single minute.
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Unfortunately though, the majority of people is not really aware of this problem or perhaps chooses not to think too much about it. Environmental issues and climate change have been included in political agendas in the past years but still lack top priority and sufficient connection with other issues like security policies and development issues. This can partly be explained due to the fact that climate change is such an abstract phenomenon in the first place and that its consequences are rather slowly evolving instead of hitting one in the face during everyday life. However, this mostly applies to people in the Global North and specifically to Europe, not intending to deny that some do already feel impacts in terms of an increasing amount of extreme weather events and climate variability. On the other hand though, there are people right now suffering from severe destruction of their livelihoods caused by sea-level rise, floodings, droughts, storms etc. They mostly live in the Global South and often have to flee becoming climate 20
refugees, a rather new phenomenon that is not really dealt with sufficiently in international and domestic law. The dilemma with climate change is furthermore that those who are responsible for it through emitting CO2 and other greenhouse gases as well as polluting the atmosphere in the past and present are the ones suffering the least while those who did not or very little contribute to climate change are most severely affected and often even more vulnerable due to being very poor countries.
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Climate change is one of the most serious and complex problems today and as environmental issues do not respect borders, it is a truly global one too, meaning every earth citizen should pay attention to it. The fact that we are the first generation that feels the impact of climate change and the last one that can do something about it should make us realise the enormous responsibility we should take upon us! COP 21 in Paris 2015 is probably the most important Climate Summit in history as the first global climate change deal, meaning involving all the parties of the UNFCCC convention has been sealed. Since the major failure of producing a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol at COP15 in Copenhagen 2009, preparations for this year have been going on for the past six years. Although the agreement seems ambitious with aiming for the 1.5 °C goal, there is no legally binding target on specific emission reductions for the parties. Instead, every country can bring forward individual measures, so called INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) that should altogether not raise temperature over more than 1,5-2 degrees. However, current analyses of existing targets rather resulted in a rise of 2,7-3 °C above pre22
industrial levels. Furthermore, the agreement is lacking in several other parts, especially concerning loss and damage, indigenous people’s rights, a fair distribution according to the CBDR-RC (Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities) principle, concrete implementation and compliance measures as well as climate justice. An interesting and rather worrisome fact is also that neither the term fossil fuels nor meat consumption is explicitly mentioned in the text despite the fact that those two industries contribute the most to global warming. Nevertheless, we should not forget that a global agreement on climate change is revolutionary in its existence itself and can be seen rather as a beginning than end for further and stronger action on climate change. During COP 21, civil society has demonstrated all over the world demanding climate justice. The seven of us who went to Paris did not only take part in that and the finish of the Swedish project “Run for your life” but also attended COY 11, the Conference of the Youth with around 5000 others from all over the world. Three days of lectures, workshops, presentations, discussions and spontaneous actions show that the movement is growing
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and that youth plays an important role in pushing forward towards a just and sustainable future. Open Source technology projects like POC21, Earth in Brackets, Green Offices at universities, as well as “Bye bye plastic bags on Bali” are just some of numerous initiatives invented by children and young people providing solutions that should be given an even greater voice in global climate negotiations. Every single one of us, especially those living in countries of the Global North that are highly responsible for climate change should take action at least on an individual level and try to hold their governments accountable to what they have committed to on December 12th, 2015 in Paris. Let us view the climate crisis as a window of opportunity like Naomi Klein presents in her latest book “This changes everything”. Science and technology have done their part, numerous solutions and alternatives are out there, now we have to put climate justice into practice and thrive for a sustainable and just future altogether.
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Further information: http://www.cop21paris.org/ http://thischangeseverything.org/ www2.runforyourlife.nu http://www.earthinbrackets.org/ http://rootability.com/the-green-office-movement/
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