HC7-development strategies SDG en REDD Flashcards
two different arguments for focusing attention on the state
- the process of decolonization itself: independence often followed a period of popular struggle, which was itself important in mobilizing a sense of national identity and
a desire for a dramatic transformation of people’s lives. Many leaders of newly emergent nations in the South could therefore legitimately claim that they had a mandate to undertake sweeping social and economic change, and that state-led development offered the most effective way to respond to these expectations - the experiences of Europe and the USA immediately before decol- onization suggested that the economic and technical knowledge to bring about this transformation of Southern economies was available. The 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression had thrown millions of people out of work (national unemployment rates exceeded 20 per cent in the USA and the UK, with local peaks still higher), suggesting that private markets needed a degree of government regulation to avoid damaging cycles of boom and bust
Modernization theory
The hopes of newly independent countries and the
North’s experience of state intervention in the economy
both came together within modernization theory, the newly emergent field of Development Studies’ dominant perspective in the 1950s and 1960s. The central problem here was how to achieve rapid transformation towards modern, industrialized societies, and for Walt W. Rostow (1960) the answer was relatively simple: learn from the experience of the North. Looking at global economic history, he claimed to identify five key ‘stages of growth’ through which all countries had to pass to transform from static traditional societies to a ‘developed’ age of high mass consumption. Crucial for him was the stage of ‘take-off’ – where a local modernizing elite saw the potential of industrialization, and concentrated a growing proportion of savings and investment in this sector. Once a high savings ratio was established, the high-productivity of industrialization would become self- sustaining, eventually leading to a diversifi ed economic base and growth that ‘trickled down’ from leading sectors and regions to create a fully modernized society.
power (james scott 1998) (2 problems)
James Scott (1998) has argued that, in general, centralizing
power in the hands of the state can lead to the production of standardized, simplified ‘solutions’ to development problems that ignore local diversity and local knowledge (as happened in the collectivization of Tanzania’s agriculture:
Box 6.4) When this is coupled with the desire of political leaders to impress their supporters or the international community with a symbol of their power or ‘modernity’, such as the building of Brasília, the chances of failure on a grand
A second question concerns the degree to which the actions of the technocrats and political elites guiding the development process can be trusted to act in good faith, rather than out of narrow self-interest
4 state led concerns
- One important question is whether the state is effective in delivering development outcomes that are appropriate for the people and areas concerned.
- A second question concerns the degree to which the actions of the technocrats and political elites guiding the development process can be trusted to act in good faith, rather than out of narrow self-interest.
- A third question revolves around whose interests are represented within stateled development.
- Finally, questions need to be asked about the spatial scale at which economic transformation can be managed
good governance (6 dimensions)
6 dimensions:
1 Voice and accountability: the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and free media
2 Political stability and absence of violence: perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including political violence and terrorism
3 Government effectiveness: the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government’s commitment to such policies
4 Regulatory quality: the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development.
5 Rule of law: the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence
6 Control of corruption: the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as ‘capture’ of the state by elites and private interests
2 current debates on reducing emissions
- reduce emissions: shift to green energy
2.offsetting (compenseren) emissions: purchase carbon credits
REDD+
REDD+ is a proposed mechanism aimed at slowing down climate change, by rewarding developing countries for halting deforestation and forest degradation. If tropical countries can prove that more carbon is stored in their forest by adopting these measures, they can sell emissions rights to western countries
effectiveness REDD+
- Effectiveness:
- carbon offsetting does not reduce emissions, but it only
shifts them → carbon leakage (overall increase instead
of decrease) - Carbon price/ton provides no incentive (beloning) (if economic benefits are only incentive and intrinsic/ecological
incentive is missing) - Reference-level: Incidences of results-based payments even if overall deforestation rates are increasing in a jurisdiction
- Complexity: some emissions difficult to calculate (e.g., from peatlands → excluded) → focus on ‘on-paper’ then actual emissions
- Timeline: costs of carbon remains stored in the forest continue to accrue for decades after REDD payments have been received
conclusions on REDD+ (5)
- Overall: does not address the causes of deforestation (e.g.,
unsustainable consumption patterns, land grabbing, trade, corruption, bad governance, etc.) - Does not distinguish between biodiverse forests and monocultures
- Does not always respect the rights and culture of local and indigenous communities (e.g., free prior-informed consent; to protect sacred sites; livelihoods)
- Kuna people in Panama → reject all REDD projects
1. Evo Morales (Bolivia) « Nature, forests and indigenous peoples are not for sale » - Diverts attention away from industrialized countries’ climate debt; developing countries are the least contributor to climate change, why should they carry the burden?
DILEMMA: DEVELOPMENT AND
COLONIALISM (?) – GUSTAVO ESTEVA (1993)
- 1875-1900 – idea of development as evolution and growth
- Beginning of the XX Century – urban development
- 1939: British government turns the Law of the Development of the Colonies into the Law of Development and Wellbeing of the colonies: dual mandate the conqueror should be capable of economically developing the conquered region and at the same time accepting the responsibility of caring for the well-being of the natives (…)
- Level of civilization – level of production
- dual mandate collapsed into one: development
- Development = urban development, colony development, growth, evolution, maturation
- Not much precision but very much settled in the popular and intellectual perception
- Up to now – development is understood as a favorable change – a step from the simple to the complex, from the inferior level to the superior level, from worse to better
- The word indicates that one is doing well because one is advancing in the sense of a necessary, ineluctable, universal law and toward a desirable goal (…) (Esteva, 1993 p. 10)
- But for two-thirds of the people on earth, this positive meaning of the word ‘development’ - profoundly rooted after two centuries of its social construction – is a reminder of what they are not. It is a reminder of an undesirable, undignified condition. To escape from it, they need to be enslaved to others’ experiences and dreams. (Esteva 1993, p. 10)
COMMUNITY LED (WILLIAMS ET AL 2014)
GRASSROOTS DEVELOPMENT
(2 voor, 3 vragen)
More state or more market?
- Third source of development ideas, that of autonomous development or development in which communities, civil Society and NGOs are key actors
- Arguments for – recognize agency, alternatives
- Social capital, moral economy
- Gandhi – self-rule (swaraj) political Independence and non-violence; welfare of all (Sardovaya) recognition of dignity of all work, comunal self-sufficiency and practical education
- Paulo Fire – conscientization – awareness of the structures of oppresion, and action –subjects of education, dialogue and mutual learning
- Respecting communities and local knowledge
- How development academics and practioners have engaged
- Questions
- Who gets to represent, or speak for, the Community
- When and how can grassroots ́s views be accommodated within wider institutional systems?
- When does na emphasis on grassroots empowerment allow states and powerful market actors to
pass the risks and responsibilities of development to communities
developmentalism
big infra projects
socioenvironmentalism
living with-in-through the forest
sdg problem
Decent work and economic growth. The goal targets 7% annual economic growth, among other myopic (kortzichtig) standards. Targeting growth, instead of balance in a resource-finite world, is a recipe for environmental degradation
critique modernization theory
- There are numerous criticisms of modernization theory, not least that it uncritically holds up a Western model of high mass consumption as a universal goal, and sees ‘traditional society’ in the South as something that is irrelevant to this transformation (or still worse a barrier to beremoved – Hoselitz, 1952).
- It is also rather geographically naive: it gives the impression that modernization is a process that nations go through individually and in virtual isolation – with the possible exception of benign outside investment. The
existing concentrations of wealth in a fundamentally international economy (Chapter 4) clearly shape the South’s possibilities for development, but they get scant attention within a theory thatportrays Northern countries as historical models to be followed, rather than current and powerful competitors with interests of their own.
