Governance & Sustainability - Understanding the Bond

The connection between environment and development challenges are reinforced through social, economic and environmental processes across the world. These challenges are based on set of some potential drivers. these drivers included population figures, technological innovations, cultural, social, political,and economic transformations. Based on report of World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission), with passage of time these drivers have become dominant.

Every country in the world is planning for sustainable development policies for almost every sector including urban development, industrialization, food production, agricultural resources, waste management, building design etc. For successful and effective running of the today world, the governance of sustainable development policies is the limelight of implementation. what is governance and how it links with sustainability is very important to understand. 

On this topic, inspiring & Beautiful lecture was delivered by one of guest lecturers in RPK 538 class. The name of talented teacher is "Dr. Rahmat Azam Mustafa" who taught us the concept of sustainability and its relationship with governance so intelligently that i got an idea of these terms in its connection with real world. An overview of my learning from the lecture is shared here. hope the readers will learn something too from it.

Concept of Sustainability: Sustainability is a theory based on retaining the current resources and life opportunities for furture generation. according to UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) , the sustainability theory should have the four main focuses:

• Eliminating poverty
• Creating jobs and sustaining livelihoods
• Protecting and regenerating environment
• Promoting advancement of women

There are most probably three types of sustainability:

• Environmental sustainability (saving the environmental resources for future)
• Socio-political sustainability ( ensuring the security of life in friendly living)
• Economic sustainability        ( creating opportunities for employment & investment)

Although our world is progressing economically, but its automatic lead is not towards interest of sustainable development. to avoid economic progress making it a threat for human living, it should be integrated with five following aspects:

• empowerment (involving people in decision making)
• cooperation     ( enhancing the teamwork )
• equity                (equal access of resources for everyone)
• sustainability    (saving for future generation)
• security             (safe and sound living)

Concept of Governance:

The concept of governance is about promoting and supporting the human development with its special consideration for poorest and most marginal groups of people, based on exercising the economic, political and administrative authorities engaging in terms of mechanisms and institutions. with this approach, common citizens participate through expression of their interests, meeting of requirements and intervention of their differences.

›A good governance is about ensuring participation, transparency and accountability. it basically comprises of three legs:

›Economic-decision making processes in country's economic activities 

›Political-the process of decision-making to formulate policy

›Administrative-policy implementation

The 9 Aspects of Good Governance: A fair governance policy includes ›9 aspects which can be explained like this:  

        The concept of participation of all with rule of law in a transparent manner serving in terms of responding in favor of concensus (public interest) to provide equal opportunities efficiently with an accountable approach incorporating the Vision for future perspective.

Domains coming under Governance:

the main domains of concern regarding governance are:

• The state (Government or the leadership of country)

• The private sector ( The primary source of development & employment)

• The civil society     ( community of common people, citizens )

The State:

The state mainly involved in maintaining macroeconomic conditions, health sector standards, safe environment for all, mobilizing resources for necessary public demands and infrastructure, law & order and social harmony.

The Private Sector:

›The private sector is the most active domain playing important roles like to create job 

markets, to ensure poor and especially women having easy access to credit, to create 

investment opportunities, to provide incentives for human development,to protect the 

environment and natural resources.

The Civil Society:

The civil society being a group of all citizens is mainly engaged in protecting human rights, channeling people participation in economic and social activities, enhancing the social capital.›

Summary:

Sustainable development in any sector is always driven by a country/state that governs well, a private sector that creates job and investment, and the civil society that ensure the participation of common people in social, economic and political activities.

›

Social & Economic Dimensions of Development

Dimensions of Development:

Development is the term which everyone wants to define or talk about as its the most positive thing showing the progress in an optimistic way. Development refers to the potential growth of something. while talking about countries, a lot of aspects involved in the process of development. 
Following are the general concepts of development countrywise:

• Development in terms of change: it involves transformation in social, political or cultural situations
• Development in terms of Growth: it involves growing population tends to increase the Productivity and employment opportunities
• Development in terms of Human Welfare: it involves achieving of human prosperity
• Development in terms of improving equality: it involves equal distribution of wealth, assets & benefits to reduce economic gap in society
• Development in terms of Independence: it involves getting rid or reducing down levels of dependency on other countries and making self-sufficient on its own.

Now there is need to look at the measure of development; how one can measure the development of countries. Well the two most talked about perspectives of measurement in this regard are social and economic perspectives. following is the individual description for both aspects:

Global Picture of Economic Development

Economic development aims to eliminate the economic inequality and encourage the distribution of assests, wealth among all income groups. The term "Economic inequality "refers to the gap of wealth, income between different income groups among the population. it involves the income difference, disproportion of ownership of assets.

Differences in national income equality is measured by the national Gini coefficient. Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 means perfect equality (everyone has same income) and 1means perfect inequality (one person has all income, and everyone else has zero income).

Over the centuries from 19th century to 20th century and from 20th to 21th century, the gini coefficient is fluctuating from o.43 to 0.68 and heading towards the 1 which is a clear indicator of perfect inequality in economical terms globally.

To control this shifting of gini coefficient and progressive economic development,  all national and international policies should be planned on the concept of sustainability as world can prosper equally from all ends only in this way. 

Global Picture of Social Development 

The term ‘social development’ describes company activities that provide the local community with opportunities to develop. While some activities may be part of the company’s core business, others may be additional activities that enhance the company’s reputation and its relationship with the community. (World Bank Forum Definition)

Globally speaking,more than 1 billion people are still living in extreme poverty, income inequality within and among many countries has been rising and, at the same time, unsustainable consumption levels and production patterns have resulted in huge economic and social costs and may endanger life on the planet.

Social development on equality basis ,hitting to all groups irrespective of their wealth, health or social status, is to be implemented to avoid the further gaps or indifferences among human beings living on earth planet. All people are meant to be taken care of and have right to live life with all adequate provisions of housing, food, transportation, and other infrastructure facilities.

The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat is 
a vital interface between global policies in the economic, social and environmental 
spheres and national action. The Department works in three main interlinked areas: 
(i) it compiles, generates and analyses a wide range of economic, social and environmental 
data and information on which States Members of the United Nations draw to review 
common problems and to take stock of policy options; 

(ii) it facilitates the negotiations of Member States in many intergovernmental bodies on joint courses of action to address ongoing or emerging global challenges; and 

(iii) it advises interested Governments on the ways and means of translating policy frameworks developed in United Nations conferences and summits into programmes at the country level and, through technical  assistance, helps build national capacities.

Conclusion:
Sustainable development strategies need to be inclusive and take special care of the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable. Strategies need to be ambitious, action-oriented and collaborative. They will need to change consumption and production patterns systemically, which might entail, inter alia, significant price corrections; encourage the preservation of natural endowments; reduce inequality; and strengthen economic governance.

Building cities through new technology

Technology - permanent companion of life today !
A very interesting topic come along in RPK 538 Course during one of the week lectures and it was about how a city can be shaped using the new technology. 

Technological innovation—combined with scientific research—has always proven to be
a driving power of makeover in our societies. The technology has been the foremost factor for the paradigm of present day urbanization. In fact, its the technology which is the driving force of globalization. Information Technology, Media, Social networking has made world a global village where you can access to each and every detail, product, information. now making friends globally and keeping in touch with your loved ones, even if you are far apart from them, is one of the wonders of modern day technology. 
As the advancement in technology influencing our everyday life, our communication, our behavior, our perspective for social, personal , working life is now being controlled by technology. So is our dwellings on micro-scale and our cities on macro-scale are being altered through the new technology.
The new technological advancements include invention of cars, buses ; development in IT sector making communication easier via telephone, internet, computer; being part of the whole world by watching television, reading news paper, internet surfing. In short, technology has made us as their servants. although it has made our life comfortable but at the same time we have stopped using our minds and this stops the process of creativity and innovation.now everything is technology based we want to incorporate technology in architecture as well as in the planning of urban development. 

An overview of today and old city Development
Old cities have not been aware of rapid transit systems for transportation. the horizontal expansion for housing and commercial development was considered to be the only possible solution to cope with the increasing population and employment opportunities. But what we see today now the glass blocks of extreme heights talking to the skies and it seems like man has been living near to the moon in reality. 

Even on sky heights, the provision for electricity, gas, water, sanitation is just a click of modern day construction techniques and skilled labor. One can enjoy in extreme hot weather with air-conditioned surrounding inside the scenic natural beauty around and the same can be enjoyed in extreme winter too with heater around you indoor.

The transformation of cities through technology has been well describer by Robert D.Atkinson (Progressive Policy Institute) in his paper Technological Change and Cities as follows:

"Indeed, technology has always shaped U.S. cities. For example, in the first part of this

century the wave of new technologies included:

■ Transportation technologies of automobiles and airplanes.

■ Infrastructure technologies, including widespread diffusion of electricity,

highways, and water systems.

■ Mass production manufacturing technologies.

■ Agricultural mechanization"

Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research • Volume 3, Number 3 • 1998 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development • Office of Policy Development and Research

The way to Look for Ahead:

Without amendment or adjustment, buildings can be turn out to be underutilized , ultimately making land a vacant space. Institutions can become rigid and poorly suited to new challenges. Such type of attitude can drive urban political leaders to become unwilling to work for needed change, especially when it requires challenging entrenched special interests. Work-force skills and capacities can diverge from new workplace needs.

Moreover, for some segments of the population, especially lower income groups, adapting

to economic change is difficult, resulting in mismatches between skills, attitudes, and

opportunity. 

the time is demanding to take along both sides with equal pace. we need to develop cities accordingly to technological innovations but the strong focus should be the comfort and ease of the low income group especially, because these population groups are more heavily concentrated in certain regions and parts of metros, these places have felt the effects of urbanization more profoundly. sustainable policies should be implemented to achieve long lasting results in a positive way.