Globalization, Poverty Alleviation and theEnvironmental Governance: The Strategic Policyand Operational Options for South Asia

Introduction:World population grew from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.3 billion in 2003 . By 2025 world's population is expected to exceed 8 billion and India will have the world's largest population. The income growth and food needs in developing countries including South Asia are expected to more than double and food demand could nearly double As a result, environmental conditions in cities and countryside may deteriorate at a rapid rate long-term economic development and aggravating the affecting incidence of poverty. The United Nations (UN) has developed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) including eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability and governance2 as two of the main goals in the Millenium RoadmaP South Asia has 1.4 billion or 22.7 per cent of the world's population (2003) and 43 percent of the world's poor (The World Bank, 2005; Mahabub ul Haq Human Development Centre, 2003). Despite its rich bio-diversity, the per capita availability of natural resources such as land, water, and forests is fairly limited.

Globalization and Its Likely Effects in the South Asian RegionDuring the development process in South Asia, the composition

of agriculture has been changed from labour intensive to capital intensive and from subsistence agriculture to large scale. The structure of industrial sector has also changed from inward-looking or import substitution industrialization (ISI) to outward-looking or export promotional through new dynamism in the wake of globalization and regionalization. Globalisation impacts trade policy; e-commerce; transfer of technology; protection of bio-diversity and environment and media and crosscultural issues. Particularly, technological advances in telecommunication networks or information super highways, information technology and modern transportation systems have radically changed production, investment and trading relations in most economies in South Asia by opening the path for a globalized world

In this context, the sectoral composition of the South Asian economies is changing from agriculture to industrial and service sectors including trade in services, particularly through harmonized trade agreements (like the Free Trade Agreements (FTA) between India and Sri Lanka and Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Further, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is moving ahead in line with the South Asian Free-Trade Area (SAFTA) by opening up opportunities for trade integration among member countries, which would eventually promote trade, investment, and technology transfer within the region. At the same time international policy environment may also change in the 'globalization3 scenario as international market integration pick up through removing trade barriers for encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI).

•Wit h these changes in the policy environment, agriculture, industries and service sectors in the South Asian region would quickly integrate. As a result, the agroenvironmental problems will become more pervasive. Rapid deforestation,excessive soil erosion, land degradation, loss of biological diversity,

•, watershed degradation, pollution including contamination of water, and overgrazing will be some of the common agro-environmental problems, which may eventually lead to extreme poverty levels.

Macroeconomic Linkages and the EnvironmentIn most developing countries,

macroeconomic policy environment has been reformed under the structural adjustment policies (SAP) to create an internationally competitive environment for agricultural and industrial products and trade in services. It further encouraged foreign direct investment (FDI) with new technologies in line with the globalization and regionalization processes.

Gandhi and McMorran (1996) have clearly identified four

relationships between macroeconomics and the environment.

First

•macroeconomic stability is a minimum and necessary condition for preserving the environment;

Second

•environmental degradation is generally caused by market, policy and institutional failures relating to the use of environmental resources;

Third

•macroeconomic policies can have an adverse impact on the environment but only when market, policy and institutional failures exist, although it is difficult in advance to judge how serious these impacts would be;

Conti………….

fourth

•macroeconomic policies are inefficient and blunt instruments for mitigating environmental degradation for which appropriate complementary microeconomic and environmental policies are the most efficient and direct instruments.

Poverty and Environmental Governance: Interactions

The 'World Development Report 1992' noted that the growing evidence of

the relationship between reducing

poverty and addressing environmental goals points to the need to

undertake poverty and population programmes as part of environmental

management efforts

The 'World Development Report 1992' noted that the growing evidence of

the relationship between reducing

poverty and addressing environmental goals points to the need to

undertake poverty and population programmes as part of environmental

management efforts

In any case, there may be problems in the quality of life of present and future

generations, if appropriate policy

initiatives are not so designed as to strike a

balance between development and

environment. The key challenge for sustainable development is to break

the 'cycle' of poverty, population growth and

environmental degradation. Rapid

population growth leads to rural and urban unemployment and aggravates poverty

levels.

The following four main relationships can be identified between poverty and environmental governance in the South Asian region.

1.For poor people, many environmental problems

are problems of poverty:

2. Poor people cannot

afford to conserve

resources:

3. Richer people

“demand” more pollution

control and conserve the environment

4. Population growth slows

with increased income and reduces the pressure on environment

Poverty Alleviation through Good Environmental Governance

In the process of poverty alleviation, there is a possibility to use various determinants of good environmental governance by creating

opportunities and security for the poor. In addition, provision of accurate environmental information for decision making may

empower the people through establishing partnerships in environmental governance . Finally it will increase the poor people's income and consumption level and thereby improve their health and

education prospects.

Green Accounting: An Element in Environmental Governance

Poverty, Environmental Good Governance5 and Political Economy

Poverty and political economy are closely linked in South Asia. The political and economic elites with political power and wealth and strong say in decision making

have influenced and exacerbated the poverty levels in South Asia. Smallscale peasants have no way to break the vicious cycle of poverty. They have no

accumulated capital, improved technology and other skilled manpower to enhance the productivity and income levels. They are condemned to a hand-to-mouth

economy for life without alternatives.

Strategic Policy and Operational Options for PovertyAlleviation and Improving Good EnvironmentalGovernance

Goods and services that sustain human development exist in environment. It is necessary therefore that human development sustains environment.

Better environmental governance including preservation and management of natural resources increases the income and nutrition of poor people and thereby reduces poverty. A robust environmental governance can further

reduce the risk of disasters from floods and droughts. Provision of improved water (for drinking and domestic use) and sanitation facilities

make living healthier for the poor. Managing and protecting the environment through efficient systems of environmental governance contributes to achieve other economic and social development goals.

Further, sound policies and programmes for poverty alleviation which help improvepeople's lives, can also help improve the environment through

'win-win' solutions.

Implementing Sound Strategic Policy Options

In South Asia, both conceptual and operational shifts are required to implement strategic pro-poor and pro-environment policy frameworks to gain 'win-win' options. Building partnerships with stakeholders is not a new phenomenon. To maintain sustainable partnerships, it is necessary to have goodwill, flexibility to experiment, develop leadership, fine-tune solutions and build institutions.

Conceptual ShiftsAs identified by Ambler (1999), the strategic conceptual shifts

for pro-poor environmental governance are as follows:1. Empowering the poor as actors in identifying their problems

and seeking their own solutions and not assuming that the poor are the problem;

2. Engaging poor people as partners not as beneficiaries in the process, and using people-centered frameworks for planning and implementation;

3. Building partnerships with private sector organizations through incentives to mobilize resources for poverty alleviation and environmental governance instead of relying solely on state resources;

4. And granting the poor real rights and ownership and not just a 'sense of ownership' of assets (eg. land rights) for further improvement and investment

Operational ShiftsThe following operational shifts are

suggested to reduce poverty and improve the good environmental governance in South Asia.

Reforms in GovernancCommunity-Based Actions

Creation of Employment Opportunities for the PoorThe benefits of projects on watershed protection or

nature reserves, which are public goods in nature, are gained by partially giving them over to rural poor people. The abilities are there to create employment opportunities through privatepublic partnerships for protection of natural resources in rural areas (eg. Hiring landless or poor persons as guards in community and national parks, forests and biodiversity reserves; hiring the poor for protecting and establishing wild life corridors and for water quality monitoring). In addition, developing eco-tourism6 projects with private sector investments to meet the demand of lovers of nature, heritage and pleasure through participation of poor communities.

Compensation for PoorThe systems should be developed to

encourage users to preserve environment and natural resources. By way of giving some incentives as compensation will lead to encourage users or farmers to preserve resources. For example, it is necessary to avoid agricultural burning paddy straw, slash and burn cultivation, to achieve the targets of national carbon emission or air quality.

Market and Planning ReformsPro-Poor Market ReformsElimination of Non-Poor SubsidiesPro-Poor GovernancePro-Poor Ecosystem Planning

Conclusion:

Continued population growth presents greater challenges in South Asia to efforts to maintain the

physical environment. Environmental damages are alarmingly high and

increase poverty levels in most South Asian

countries in line with the new dynamism in globalization and regionalization.

Poverty levels further devastate native forests, biodiversity, and genetic

resources. The poor quality of water supply,

air pollution, urban congestion, noise pollution and solid

waste disposal will be the major environmental

problems in these countries.

Poverty alleviation and environmental governance are two sides of the same coin. Without alleviating

extreme poverty, we are not in a position to improve the environmental governance, and without having prudent environmental governance, it is impossible to alleviate poverty in the South Asian

region.