SURVIVING DEVELOPMENT

For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey - for 23 August 2015 issue
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

The other day I received a text message or SMS informing me that on 25 September, a Tuesday, the new global development agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SGS), would be launched in the country. I figured that would be less than two weeks after its official declaration by the UN General Assembly in New York. 

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I was specifically requested to inform the sender, nameless and only a number, on how we intend to launch the SGS in “your municipalities or cities.”

The request made me think that some official or unofficial groups must have been formed some time back to drum up involvement in this new global agenda. This way of announcing a major event is quite a departure from the usual procedure adopted by the UN or the national government. Usually arrangements for such big events is done through planning bodies such as the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and its counterpart bodies such as the planning and development offices at provincial and municipal levels.

I decided to ignore the request and wait for more details about the source of the message, the event that was announced in so informal and unorthodox way and to focus more on the purpose of this week’s column to continue to orient readers on the new global development agenda coming their way. I am doing this not in any official capacity with the Government but as a development worker with a development NGO.

The reader will recall that so far I have discussed in the two previous columns the basics about the 17 SDGs and the focus on Localizing SDGs, as well as the implications of the global agenda to our development work here in Bohol.

On the eve of the international community’s adoption of a new development agenda, it is important to pause, review what have gone before and understand precisely how do we relate to the new global development agenda which emphasizes local action and commitment more than in previous advocacies.

To be sure, the past four decades or so has been an exhilarating ride for those in the emerging development industry, the planners, implementers, evaluators, and consultants, mostly paid for by international donors. It is not yet a thrilling ride yet for the millions who have yet to be brought to the mainstream of global development and partake of the services, benefits and entitlements under a global partnership.

With this in mind, let’s take a quick look at this journey taken in efforts towards achieving global development during the previous decades -
In the 1950s , the UN recognized that the emphasis on economic growth was misplaced, that there should be practical measures adopted to address poverty other than to increase the Gross National Product (GNP). Consequently, during the First UN Development Decade (1960-70), the conversations were mostly about economic growth and its integration with social development.

The UN realized that development focused almost exclusively on economic growth “leaves behind, or in some ways, even creates, large areas of poverty, stagnation, marginality and actual exclusion from social and economic progress …,” as stated in the UN Report of the 1969 Meeting of Experts on Social Policy and Planning.

On 24 October 1970, the UN called for the need to formulate an International Development Strategy and launched a project to identify a unified approach to development and planning “which would fully integrate the economic and social components in the formulation of policies and programmes.” The concern for a unified approach among the countries resulted in a grand disarray with each key problem being identified as candidate for integration: environment, population, hunger, women, habitat or employment.

Subsequently efforts failed to produce simple universal strategies which would make possible integration among key problems and within each defined problem area. Those involved in this exercise were “constantly in dispute arising from the old controversy over priorities and the day-to-day disputes among bureaucratic bodies for survival and allocation of resources.”
Although disappointing, this initial search for a unified approach to development was able to characterize the components needed to bring about such sought-after integration.

The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), organized in 1963, cited the need for components designed:

1. To leave no sector of the population outside the scope of change and development;
2. To effect structural change which favors national development and to activate all sectors of the population;
3. To aim at social equity, including the achievement of an equitable distribution of income and wealth in the nation;
4. To give high priority to the development of human potentials … the provision of employment opportunities and meeting the needs of children.

These key ideas have been reflected in succeeding efforts to focus development on people, that the purpose of development “should not be to develop things but to develop man.”

In June 1976, ILO organized the Conference on Employment, Income Distribution and Social Progress which resulted in the popular Basic Needs Approach, “aiming at the achievement of a certain specific minimum standard of living before the end of the century.” The World Bank adopted it as an approach because it could serve as sequel to a strategy it started in 1973 which focused on the rural poor and small farmers. The approach was also promoted by many governments and experts from various international organizations.

The Basic Needs Approach deals directly with the needs of specific target groups rather than meet these needs as a result of a generalized and long-winded development process. It satisfied the need for an approach that can be universally applied and country-specific at the same time.

During the same period, UNESCO advocated the concept of endogenous development. It arose from an analysis that development could not proceed as imitation of the industrial growth model but instead it must take into account the particularities of each country. At a later stage, it was observed that such a model could lead to the “dissolution of the very notion of development, after realizing the impossibility of imposing a single cultural model for the whole world.”

For the 1980s, known as the lost decade for development, adjustments were made in many countries to dismantle previous accomplishments to cope wth massive problems brought about upheavals in the world economy. During this decade, however, UNICEF launched globally its basic services strategy which aimed to deliver integrated services for children in relatively remote and disadvantaged communities.

By the 1990s, among the rich and industrialized countries, the so-called structural adjustments of the previous decade led to reassessment of achievements in the economy and socio-political reforms, as well as use of technologies which posed a threat to the environment. For the poor countries, the decade saw the “last and definitive assault against organized resistance to development and the economy.”

During this decade the phrase “Sustainable Development” became current as strategy or goal for what was called by the Bruntland Commission a “common future” for humankind. This concept provided a perspective for looking at development in a new light, in the context of economic, social and environmental factors which need to be harnessed for international peace, survival and progress.

In 1990, UNDP published the first Human Development Report which defines human development as both a process of expanding options for relevant human choices and as a level of achievement which compares improvements in human development among countries through the Human Development Index, combining indicators in life expectancy, literacy and income. Through the HDI, countries can be compared as to their performance in achieving human development from year to year.

From 2000 to 2015, the whole world pursued what have been known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) consisting of 8 goals and 21 targets. Now by next month, a new global development agenda will be unfurled termed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
It will consist of 17 goals and 169 targets which will be pursued from September 2015 to September 2030.

All these global development agendas from the First Development Decade (1960s to 1970s) to the MDGs (2000 to 2015) have influenced in some ways development planning and implementation in Bohol. Now that a new development agenda is about to be launched next month, it is best to review previous experiences and formulate a strategy on how best to move the process forward through involvement of local government units, civil society organizations and local communities in translating a global development agenda into actual plans and programs.

Indeed localizing SDGs must result in actual and measurable benefits to specific poverty groups and communities in the province. Otherwise, we will just be surviving development agendas with their avalanche of consultations, workshops and assessments with no significant projects on the ground to benefit the poor . ‪#‎Sustainabledevelopmentgoals‬

NMP/19 Aug 2015/ 6.40 p.m.