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The Sustainability Webring (http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=sustainability) provides a constantly-expanding set of links to organizations that encourage sustainable development; at last count, over 186 groups were listed.
Greenstar
http://www.greenstar.org
Think about economic development in emerging countries for a moment -- and you may conjure up grotesque images: smoke-belching factories, workers packed into dense megacities, the rape of rain forests, open-pit mines, the exploitation of women and children in sweatshops.
These ugly images have aroused the conscience of people around the world, who have headed into the streets in recent years to protest the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the G8, the World Economic Forum and other international organizations that are seen as part of the problem.
While some of these images are accurate, the real truth is even worse.
Much of the world is "off-the-grid" -- disconnected from the most basic tools that might empower isolated people to emerge from the shadows. More than two billion people live without electricity; more than four billion rarely make a phone call. Three billion people have never seen a doctor; more than a billion adults cannot read or write at all. At the dawn of the 21st Century, this disconnection is not only morally wrong -- it's also wasteful and unnecessary. It's a tragic squandering of human capital.
The "digital divide" is much-lamented and debated by coalitions, conferences and corporations. But there are many more divides in addition to the digital -- electrical, telephonic, media, economic, educational, social and environmental. These divides reinforce each other; they amount to a virtually complete disconnect between the economic top third of humanity and the bottom third.
Fortunately, there are constructive solutions; this article points to some of them, and to how anyone can get involved.
We in the connected world know the consequences of the great divides intuitively; we see the ugly images, we hear the tortured sounds, we read the tragic stories. But we avoid thinking about it, because it paralyzes us -- the problems are too complex, the solutions just seem to create more problems; there is apparently no meaningful action that one person can take. Out of sight, out of mind.
And out of pocket, too, apparently. Macro political and economic policies are a reflection of the common paralysis. The money spent by the West, especially the United States, on aid to poor nations has declined steadily since the mid-70s. A fearless indictment on the subject of economic development policies under the Clinton Administration (which are now in the process of being tightened even further by the Bush Administration) came from a Harvard professor, Jeffrey Sachs, speaking in the cathedral of the World Bank in Washington:
“In 1998, United States foreign assistance totaled around $8.8 billion, or 0.12 of one percent of the Gross National Product. And of this derisory sum, only around one-sixth went to the least developed countries. A sixth of twelve-hundredths of one-percent of GDP amounted to the grand total of around $4.95 per American in 1998 for the world's least developed countries. This is $4.95 per year in a country where the average income is more than $30,000...”
For the complete article, see http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Sachs-Aid-Analysis.pdf
Big business is not asleep to the implications, and to its responsibility to play a pro-active role. Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, said recently,
“... I believe the most immediate challenge is to set the poorest countries on a path to sustainable development. It's not just that a quarter of humans live on less than $1 a day. Or that the gap between them and others is widening. What really matters is that the poorest are going backwards... I don't think this will be accepted for much longer in a shrinking world -- where their misery is clear to us, and our wealth to them. Responsibility for action is widely shared -- for more and better aid, debt relief, fairer trade, investment.”
For the complete statement, see http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Shell-Statement.htm
The disconnected cannot be relied upon to remain passive and silent indefinitely, as their families sicken and starve, as their stake in the future shrinks. They will be heard, one way or another, in ways that cannot be ignored. If they are not connected, respected and made full partners in a positive future, they will be heard in other ways: through cartels, boycotts, ultra-nationalism, xenophobic fundamentalism, militarism, terrorism, and revolution.
Perhaps they can be heard through an enlightened partnership, a respectful dialog, a connection in which everyone has something important to learn and to gain from everyone else. It's time to try some new ideas: bold, impossible ideas. Ideas in which everyone, rich and poor, north and south, connected and disconnected, can participate and create value.
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Paul Swider
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