Inclusive Development
>> Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Ike Señeres
Growth can happen without planning, but
proper development can only happen with proper planning. Given that premise, it
should no longer be appropriate to use the term “inclusive growth”, and as an
alternative, we should instead use the term “inclusive development”.
Similarly, we should
no longer use the term “sustainable growth”, and as an alternative, we should
instead use the term “sustainable development”. Using the two corrected terms,
we should aim for development goals that are both inclusive and sustainable.
At the risk of
stating the obvious, growth can happen even without goals, because the elements
of growth come about independent of planning interventions. In contrast,
development could only happen with goals, because the outcomes should be measurable
in order to know whether the goals have been met or not. Again at the risk of
stating the obvious, there has to be benchmarks to begin with, and the status
of the goals have to be measured against the given benchmarks, in order to
determine whether these goals have been met or not.
Way back during
the term of President Fidel V. Ramos, the Philippine Council for Sustainable
Development (PCSD) was created, designating the Director General of the
National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) as Chairperson, and the
Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as Vice
Chairperson.
The members of the
Council were supposed to be “committed environmentalists” from several
Departments, with the minimum rank of Bureau Director. The primary function of
the Council was to “review and implement the commitments that the Philippines
made in the light of the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED)”.
The secondary
goal of the Council was to “establish guidelines and mechanics that will
expand, concretize and operationalize the sustainable development principles as
embodied in the Rio Declaration, the UNCED Agenda 21, the National Conservation
Strategy, and the Philippine Agenda 21, and incorporate them in the preparation
of the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) both at the national and local
levels with active participation from the non-government sector and people’s
organizations”. Very clearly, the PCSD as it was created was strongly inclined
towards sustainable development, albeit from a perspective that was limited
only to the scope of the environment.
Fast forward to
today, about 24 years later, so many changes have happened, and it is about
time to review and change the purposes and members of the Council. For one, the
UNCED Agenda 21 has already evolved into Conference of Parties 21 (COP21) that
will soon become COP22. The COP series, organized by the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP), is mainly about climate change and climate action.
With all the hype and attention that was given to the 2015 COP Conference in
Paris, it is very clear to the international community that the broader and
bigger programs of the United Nations are the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs).
To put this
discussion in the right perspective, the Philippine Agenda 21 is supposed to be
really just a localized adaptation of the UNCED Agenda 21. Given the fact that
the latter has already evolved into COP21, it goes without saying that the
former also has to evolve.
Take note however
that both are only supposed to be inputs to the preparation of the MTDP. Also
take note that the National Conservation Strategy is supposed to be the third
source of inputs, but it seems that the said document was neither submitted nor
approved. To give the benefit of the doubt to the DENR, being the Department
that was tasked to prepare it, it may have been submitted but was not approved,
or it may have been approved but was not released.
On the part of
the NEDA, it is very clear based on their statements that their goal is
“inclusive growth”. I do hope however that they would change that to “inclusive
development”, because among everyone else, they should be the first to
understand that it is not possible to plan for the inclusion of everyone in a process
that could not be planned. It took a long time for the government to realize
that disasters could not be coordinated; I hope that it will take the NEDA
lesser time to realize that growth could not be planned because only
development could be planned.
Fortunately, it
appears that the PCSD has already adjusted its agenda to already include the
SDGs, and perhaps the credit for that substantive shift should go to the NEDA,
being the Secretariat of the PCSD. As I see it however, that is not enough,
because the composition of the PCSD should already be changed to allow the
membership of government agencies and private organizations that are involved
in the 17 SDGs. The reason for that is very simple. As it was originally
created, it was only supposed to cover the environment, because at that time,
sustainable development meant only the protection of the environment.
As it is now
however, only 4 of the 17 SDGs are environment related namely Goal 6 (clean
water and sanitation), Goal 13 (climate action), Goal 14 (life below water) and
Goal 15 (life on land). As it is generally understood now, what is “inclusive”
should be sustainable, and what is “sustainable” should be inclusive. Although
practically everything in our daily life is actually environment related, we
should not be contented with an MTDP that is slanted only to the environment.
In other words, we should have an MTDP that adopt the broader definition of
sustainable development, as defined in the SDGs.
0 comments:
Post a Comment