Cash-strapped Asia facing environmental reform crisis
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
PHNOM PENH: Asia-Pacific countries have a $30 billion financial gap to bridge annually in order to adequately invest in the development and environment needs of a region already strapped for resources, officials meeting here say. To raise these funds, the developing countries in the region - home to the bulk of the world’s poor — will have to turn to external and internal resources, environment officials from 48 countries said in a three-day meeting to shape a regional position for the World Summit on Sustainable Development next year.
But this task will not be easy, given the dip in overseas development assistance in recent years and the difficulties poorer economies face in trying to raise local resources during the current global economic downturn, difficult terms of trade and risk-wary private capital. Thus, while the role of developed countries is key to bridging this financial gap, the Asian officials said these nations have yet to honour commitments made 10 years ago at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to provide “official development assistance to meet the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP (gross national product) as soon as possible”.
For decades, the 0.7 per cent target has the international standard for the amount of aid industrialized countries are supposed to give to poorer nations. But only five countries - Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden - have met this.
Aid funds have also been stagnant or falling over the last decade and a hike is unlikely. Since 1992, 14 of 21 donor countries have seen their aid budgets decline. Japan cut its aid budget by 3 per cent in the last fiscal year. But apart from looking at external funds, Asia-Pacific governments from Iran to the Pacific island nations also have to shoulder responsibility in meeting the shortfall of environment and development funds, the draft platform says.
At the same time, Habito, a former economics and planning minister in the Philippines pointed to the pivotal role that the business sector plays in the Asia-Pacific’s goal of attaining sustainable development. “The current trends bear this out. Private financial flows have grown rapidly while overseas development aid has decreased,” he explained.
However, activists and NGOs were not impressed by the document being given its final touches by the region’s governments. “Financing sustainable development calls for a profound change in global and regional economic transactions,” stated a critique of the Asia-Pacific regional platform by a coalition of local and regional NGOs, the Asia-Pacific People’s Forum on Sustainable Development.
“Two critical issues here are the crippling debt burdens and deteriorating terms of trade faced by developing countries,” said a statement by the forum, which met a few days ago in order to submit proposals to the government delegations at the meeting. Some Asian countries, including those hit hard by the 1997 crisis, continue to juggle foreign debt problems. In Indonesia, for instance, the per capita debt burden stands at $700.
“Unless the structures are reformed and alternative financial and governance structures established, financing for sustainable development will remain beyond the reach of countries in the region,” it explained. The text is woefully short of clear “actions that can be pursued by governments at the national level,” said Shalmali Guttal, of the Bangkok-based independent research body Focus on the Global South. “It lacks being specific about sustainable forms of financing, like capital controls and progressive taxation.”
“Governments need to move away from accepting the current order, where development aid comes with strings attached and conditions,” she added, referring to what activists consider the downside of foreign assistance. “We are also concerned at the way the business sector is being involved. What matters is to encourage the local private sector, not create conditions for multinational companies to have bigger roles in Asia’s developing countries,” Guttal explained.
Joseph Weinstock, senior environment specialist at the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (AsDB), conceded: “The NGOs have a point in being concerned about multinational companies. But NGOs and civil society activists have the capacity to challenge multinationals. They can campaign against products, call for a boycott, expose multinationals that are damaging the environment,” he added. “More companies have realized it is good public relations to be green-friendly.”
The Asia-Pacific region faces increasing pressure on the environment, with problems such as deteriorating water resources, the effects of global warming, pollution, congested cities, and overexploitation of natural resources. “Most countries in the Asian and the Pacific region are currently characterised by high to very high pressure on land as indicated by the levels of per capita availability,” according to a report jointly published by the AsDB and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Already, some 851 million hectares or 25 per cent of the region’s land has been degraded, says the “State of the Environment in Asia and the Pacific” report for 2000. Half of the region’s forest area has already vanished and another 750,000 hectares are being lost each year. —Dawn/InterPress Service.
