Development dilemma haunts developing countries: UN
Development dilemma haunts developing countries: UN
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali
Sustainable development still poses problems for developing countries, including India, China and Indonesia, despite high economic growth and improvements in social development in these three prominent developing countries, a report has found.
The report, released here on Wednesday by the United Nations University based in Japan, stated that industrialization, which contributed to high economic growth, had developed well in the three countries over the past several decades.
In China, for example, industrial output growth averaged 12.6 percent a year in the 1980s. One decade later, growth had accelerated to 18 percent per year.
The three countries also enjoyed improving levels of social development as manifested in decreasing poverty levels, said the report.
The poverty rate in India declined steadily from 54 percent to 38 percent between 1973 and 1986.
Indonesia was able to dramatically reduce the poverty rate over the past 20 years, from 70 percent to below 10 percent in the early 1990s. Even after the financial crisis in 1997, Indonesia's poverty rate never reached higher than 20 percent.
While industrialization and high economic growth are hoped for, unfortunately they can later pose challenges to sustainable development.
Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization in Indonesia, the country will have to deal with an increase in solid waste of 500 percent by 2020 for the residential sector and 1000 percent in the case of the manufacturing sector.
Besides waste, the three countries also faced problems arising from increased demand for water.
Rapid industrialization increased industrial and residential water use in China from 45.7 billion cubic meters and 6.8 billion cubic meters in 1980 respectively to 112.1 billion cubic meters and 525 billion cubic meters in 1997.
To reduce the undesirable impacts of industrialization and social development, a researcher at the United Nations University suggested that multiple approaches be taken by the authorities, in partnership with the people.
"The three developing countries need more resources and better technology to implement Agenda 21 of the Rio World Summit," said Thangavel Palanivel, who presented the report on the sidelines of the ministerial/preparatory committee meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development here at the Bali International Convention Center.
Ambassador Milos Alcalay, a G-77 representative from Venezuela, praised the report, saying that it could provide a good model for developing countries to achieve higher standards of living.
He further suggested that science and technological development be pursued by governments in developing countries as this sector were crucial to sustainable development.
"The role of science and technology should be stressed since these could show us the way to sustainable development," he said in a keynote speech before the presentation.