(ii) Demonstrates commitment to sustainable development,
including through consolidation of policies addressing existing
environmental concerns, operationalising their Environment Position
Paper, and targeting new resources and political will to ensure
effective environmental mainstreaming, policy coherence and effective
support for MDG7.
(iii) Enhances and does not further damage its
global leadership role in pro-poor, pro-environment, sustainable
development.
(iv) Builds on the substantial comparative advantage
the UK has, and learns from and applies its own research to regain
its reputation as a world leader in sustainable development and
ensuring environmental sustainability—this is even more
important in an ever more interdependent world.
(v) Have a flexible and transparent funding system
that can support fragile states, sub-national governance and local
institutions, address local needs where clearly indicated and
requested by the poor, and provide additional support for off-track
MDGs.
(vi) Considers how to avoid a development path
whereby individual rational decisions that are not individually
damaging, nonetheless cumulatively result in serious damage that
inhibits sustainable development.
3. We believe that a renewed focus on environmental
protection and sustainable development to eradicate poverty is
urgently needed—"The long term success in meeting
all of the Millennium Development Goals depends on environmental
sustainability. Without it the gains will be transitory and inequitable"
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Protecting global environmental
assets for present and future generations must take place within
a context of development. Conversely, poverty eradication will
be jeopardised without sustainable use of natural resources. DFID
itself realises the mutual interaction between development and
environment, but is failing to act upon it. Increasingly civil
society, the scientific community and some governments are waking
up to the need to coherently address poverty and the environment.
This is the post-2005 challenge that we feel DFID needs to take
most seriously.
4. The RSPB recognises the significance of international
development and trade to its sustainable development and biodiversity
objectives and works to ensure environmental sustainability is
central to UK policy and practise. We actively engage with DFID
on policy issues, including through building NGO consensus and
voice via the Development and Environment of Group of BOND (British
Overseas NGOs for Development), which RSPB co-chairs. We also
receive DFID funding for two poverty and biodiversity related
projects in Africa, which are being delivered in partnership with
BirdLife Partners and local communities.
5. The RSPB is the UK Partner of BirdLife International,
a network of over 100 grass-roots conservation organisations around
the world, including eighteen Partner organisations in Africa.
We are currently actively assisting BirdLife Partners in Africa,
Asia and UK's Overseas Territories with long term support programmes,
and in many countries are involved in projects on the ground,
which seek to both safeguard biodiversity and enhance people's
livelihoods. We were active participants in the 2002 World Summit
on Sustainable Development (WSSD), with two places on the UK delegation,
and have been actively engaged in its follow up through the UK,
the EU and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. We are
submitting this evidence based on our own experience, from working
closely with BirdLife Partners in developing countries, and on
our strong engagement with international sustainable development
policy at national, regional and international levels.
6. This inquiry is extremely timely and
welcomed. DFID has recently published its Sustainable Development
Action Plan and has just released a new Environment Position Paper.
It is also leading on a consultation for a third International
Development White Paper to be focused on delivery and aid effectiveness.
This follows an unprecedented year (2005) where both government
and civil society rallied around the global call to "Make
Poverty History".
7. The UK government's commitment to meet the
0.7% ODA target by 2015 is one positive outcome of this and DFID's
aid budget is set to triple. Ensuring that these resources reach
the poor and deliver sustainable development is now a crucial
challenge, particularly as government staffing and technical capacity
seem set to be further reduced[1]
and issues such as terrorism dominate the international agenda.
It is particularly concerning to note that USAID have "abandoned
the term sustainable development and now use the phrase "transformational
development' as the goal of [their] programmes. [2]DFID
and the UK Government have been a leading advocate for sustainable
development and better environmental protection globally—this
needs to be applauded, supported and strengthened, not only to
ensure effective poverty eradication but also to secure a safer
and better world.
8. We are very concerned that DFID's commitment
to and regard for the environment and sustainable development
as key to poverty reduction have declined. Despite rhetoric to
the contrary, DFID policy and action often seem to suggest a "grow
now and worry about environmental problems later on" approach
to development in reality. This is evidenced in many ways, including
through:
(a) Recent DFID publications which fail to
mention sustainable development or the environment, such as "What
are we doing to tackle world poverty? A quick guide to DFID";
their Water Action Plan which has little or no focus on integrated
water resource management and catchment protection; and DFID's
recent Agriculture Strategy which emphasises industrial agriculture
as route out of poverty with little regard in its policy recommendations
for well recognised environmental problems such as eutrophication,
water over-abstraction, land degradation and soil erosion etc.
Even DFID's new Environment Position Paper (2006) suggests that
the environment is at fault rather than our mismanagement of it,
it states: "Environmental systems also produce hazards that
threaten development, such as floods and pollution".
(b) The current White Paper process where contradictions
abound. Hilary Benn's first White Paper speech, on 19 January
2006, focused on "economic growth as the means to achieve
poverty reduction", regarding the environment as one of seven
essential ingredients and a necessary resource for growth, but
conversely not as a required foundation for poverty eradication
and sustainable development. And his fifth White Paper speech,
"Development beyond Aid" on 23 February 2006, fell short
of fully explaining how DFID will reconcile its focus and the
mantra of "going for growth" with mitigating the effects
of climate change, for example. There has been a clear focus on
economic growth at the macro level with DFID pushing an agenda,
which underlies many of our escalating environmental problems.
(c) Whilst we appreciate that there is good environmental
expertise within DFID's Sustainable Development Team, and hope
this will continue, the overall downward trend in provision of
environmental expertise and advice across the whole of DFID is
leading to a downward spiral of capacity and effectiveness internationally.
The biodiversity advisor post in London, for example, has been
vacant for two years, although we understand is just about to
be filled by the environment advisor from Kenya—whose post
we hope will be replaced in a timely manner! Feedback from BirdLife
Partners highlights that environmental interest in DFID Country
Offices is closely aligned to having a committed environmental
advisor in post.
(d) The post of Chief Environmental Advisor has
been lost and not been replaced as a key post within the DFID
hierarchy. A Head of Profession Environment has been created but
the post has remained vacant since April 2005 and is still not
filled. We think this sends a confusing message to internal staff,
external stakeholders, other governments and multilateral institutions
if such a key post is not valued, and it seems unlikely that DFID
will devote sufficient priority to the environmental agenda, amidst
many other priorities, without a strong internal ambassador.
(e) Despite DFID having devoted a sizeable policy
resource in London to focussing on poverty-environment issues[3]
and MDG7 being way off-track, this is not complemented by practical
action. DFID has very few poverty-environment programmes on the
ground. Only 2% of DFID's bilateral spending in 2004/5 went towards
the environment, despite this being a key pillar of sustainable
development. [4]
(g) DFID's Sustainable Development Action Plan
states "DFID's procedures and programme guidance encourage
[emphasis added] assessment to ensure that economic, social
and environmental opportunities and risks, and their interactions
are identified and addressed." and a number of tools
are highlighted. This language seems particularly weak -more commitment
is clearly needed to ensure effective environmental mainstreaming
and screening.
9. By not wanting to portray sustainable development
as synonymous with or just about the environment, and to make
sustainable development relevant to macro-economists that dominate
government decision making, DFID now seems in danger of marginalising
the significance of the environment that it itself has recognised
is vitally important to poverty eradication and to the poor themselves.
10. On the ground, evidence demonstrates that
the international development system is failing the environment,
[5]and
consequently is failing the millions of poor people whose livelihoods
and security depend on it. The UK Sustainable Development Strategy
highlights that over 90% of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme
poverty depend on forests alone for some part of their livelihood.
However, economic development and population growth have led to
natural forests being felled for timber, and to make way for agricultural
land or urban expansion that has rarely benefiting the poorest.
11. We believe that the parlous state of our
natural systems, calls for far greater effort, action and resources
to be devoted to delivering Millennium Development Goal 7 (ensuring
environmental sustainability). Given the scale of the problem,
expressed forcefully and eloquently in DFID's Environment Position
Paper, the resources directed towards tackling it need to be scaled
up sufficiently to make a difference to its "off track"
status. Given DFID's stated objective of refocusing off track
MDG's, we believe it should set out more explicitly how it believes
MDG7 can be put back on track, and identify what role DFID can
play in ensuring that the necessary changes are made and adequate
resources are directed towards achieving this.
12. DFID's current aid and development focus,
and the proposed White Paper consultation, begin to recognise
the interdependence of poverty eradication and environmental sustainability
but need to commit to dealing with these issues in a coherent
and integrated way. Poverty eradication depends on increasing
the volume and productivity of the real "assets" available
to the poor (including natural, man-made, social and human), not
only increasing a monetary measure such as GDP (Gross Domestic
Product) to the country's economy which fails to reflect inequality
or the condition of the world's natural life-support systems upon
which life depends.
13. Recommendation: DFID needs to drive
positive action to eradicate poverty and ensure environmental
sustainability in tandem and to demonstrate commitment to sustainable
development, including through consolidation of policies addressing
existing environmental concerns, operationalising DFID's Environment
Position Paper, and targeting new resources and political will
to ensure effective environmental mainstreaming, policy coherence
and effective support for MDG7.
MAINTAINING DFID'S
INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP
IN ENVIRONMENT
AND SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
14. Historically, DFID has been a leading change
agent in the International Development community. DFID has championed
a pro poor agenda, the livelihoods approach to development and
supported the most comprehensive analysis of Participatory Poverty
Assessments[6]—the
latter clearly highlighting the importance and value of environmental
assets to the poor.
15. DFID was recognised a world leader in understanding
and progressing sustainable development between the Rio and Johannesburg
World Summits—this no doubt created both high expectation
and demand, but DFID and the UK government were valued for their
expertise and depth of knowledge. There is real disappointment
as resources and commitments seem to have declined.
16. During this time, DFID led on understanding
and promoting National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSSDs).
They produced a number of excellent and important plans and briefings,
such as "Achieving sustainability—poverty elimination
and the environment" (DFID, 2000) and DFID's Sustainable
Development Background Briefing (September, 2000), which make
clear links between development and environment and stress that
"development will not be sustainable without effective
management of the environment". These need to be used
and not forgotten.
17. The 2000 White Paper on International Development[7]
clearly states that: "Developing countries are already
experiencing problems of environmental degradation and exhaustion
of environmental resources which are vital to their long term
development. As their economies grow, these problems will increase
unless there is a greater focus on the sustainability of their
development"—although the White Paper fails to
mainstream the environment throughout the document, the chapter
on `Global Environmental Challenges' is even more significant
today.
18. DFID has played a leading role in the OECD,
chairing the DAC-ENVIRONET and was a founder member of the Poverty
and Environment Partnership, which has worked to better address
environment and development linkages across bi-lateral donors.
The PEP has recently, with DFID support, led innovative work on
poverty and environment to raise the issues up the international
agenda at the 2005 World Summit. DFID has also recently commissioned
research on biodiversity and poverty reduction. [8]This
highlights the role biodiversity plays in underpinning ecosystem
services has development policy implications at all levels from
the international to the local or community. However, without
a Chief Environment Officer and strong political leadership, the
outcomes of these are likely to remain sidelined in the Sustainable
Development Team—despite the best intentions of the staff
engaged there.
19. DFID has recognised, and a the Sustainable
Development Team clearly still do appreciate, the wisdom and imperative
recently articulated by the UN Secretary General: "We
fundamentally depend on natural systems and resources for our
existence and development. Our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue
sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation
and natural resource depletion continue unabated", and
by the UN Millennium Project: "Environmental sustainability
is the foundation on which strategies for achieving all the other
MDGs must be built, because environmental degradation is causally
linked to problems of poverty, hunger, gender inequality and health.".
This needs to be prioritised and not marginalised in DFID London
and country offices.
20. DFID's Environment Guide was welcome
progress when published in 2003, and widely celebrated as best
practice. A full assessment of its effectiveness is now badly
needed—particularly in light of the changing way DFID is
working and the increasing push to Direct Budgets Support. A review
of DFID's environmental screening procedures has been awaited
for some time. Many problems have been highlighted that need to
be addressed, such as assessments taking place late in programme
development, lack of expertise and capacity, apathy to using the
Guide and its tools, etc. Parts of DFID therefore recognise that
there are problems in ensuring that the environmental impacts
of its other policies and programmes are understood and that there
is a need for appropriate changes.
21. We feel the environment will only increase
in importance in the coming years—particularly given the
off track status of MDG7 and increasing concern about global issues
such as climate change. Ensuring equity, accountability and sustainability
will be necessary to meeting the global challenges we face—DFID
is well placed to lead this challenge as long as its current expertise
and resource base linked to the environment and sustainable development
are not further eroded.
22. We believe two pressing challenges for
international development are:
(i) The need for better recognition of the system-level
impacts of environmental degradation that can put national and
international efforts to reduce poverty in jeopardy. Climate change
is the most obvious example, but the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
highlights that ecosystem degradation should be viewed in the
same light.
(ii) Addressing the cumulative effects of individual
actions, such as logging and land conversion, which are rational
at the individual or local level but which collectively result
in huge environmental problems (eg the mass conversion of rainforest
to palm oil in Indonesia[9]
or the loss of downstream water because of actions taken upstream).
There is currently a huge governance failing around planning as
well as a funding gap to offer long term sustainable alternatives
(or compensation) to off-set short term profitable conversion
(often asset stripping) and help conserve and sustainably manage
important ecosystems.
23. Recommendation: DFID should
enhance and not further damage its global leadership role in pro-poor,
pro-environment, sustainable development. It should build on the
substantial comparative advantage it still has and learn from
and apply its own research to maintain and live up its reputation
as a world leader—which is even more important in our ever
more interdependent world.
AID EFFECTIVENESS
AND GOOD
GOVERNANCE—MAINSTREAMING
THE ENVIRONMENT
24. The way in which DFID spends money—the
"aid modalities"—have changed radically under
the present government. The fundamental reason for this is a change
in development thinking, shared by most other leading agencies
including the World Bank and the European Commission. This new
paradigm argues that aid will be most effective in countries where
governments are accountable to their people, focused on poverty
reduction, and sufficiently well organised to implement their
plans and programmes effectively. Therefore aid should be used
to support such countries or to support change in other
countries so that they can move towards this model (ie building
effective states).
25. Moving away from the largely discredited
projects and programmes approach, DFID's preferred aid modality
is becoming the provision of `Direct Budget Support' (DBS)—putting
cash straight into government budgets—to those countries
that have clear and effective poverty reduction programmes and
meet (limited) criteria of good governance and democracy. In 2004-05
this amounted to 11% of DFID expenditure, up from 8.6% the previous
year.
26. The shift to DBS places the onus on recipient
countries to set their own priorities—to date environmental
concerns have not been well represented in most Poverty Reduction
Strategies Plans. [10]Meeting
MDG7 (Target 9) through DBS puts increased importance on good
governance and participatory decision-making that listens to the
voices of the poor and marginalised (including indigenous people)
and addresses power imbalances within governments that often marginalise
weaker departments such as those dealing with the environment.
DFID's Sustainable Development Team has recognised there is an
issue here. There is a Green Globe network and DFID co-hosted
workshop on integrating environmental management into Country-led
development planning and implementation being held in London on
23 March 2006, but more need to be done.
27. The majority of DFID expenditure still goes
through more traditional channels including programmes directed
at specific objectives. However, most of these are extremely large
in scope and are undertaken by consortia managed by large consultancy
firms. Having environmental matters written into terms and conditions,
the early and effective use of screening, safeguard and continual
assessment tools (eg SEA, EIA) become crucial under this model
of working.
28. Nearly half of DFID expenditure goes through
multilateral channels (contributions to the European Commission,
World Bank, UN Agencies etc). [11]How
these institutions take environmental sustainability into account
therefore has major implications. Concerns also include how DFID
will hold them accountable for the wise and effective utilisation
of DFID and UK taxpayer money—to ensure it both reaches
the poor and supports sustainable development. This should be
an issue that is taken up, including by the National Audit Office.
DFID has been commended for it's commitment to "no financial
conditionality", and for its Environment Guide with relevant
tools and safeguards to ensure environmental sustainability—DFID
should not fund multilateral institutions that are without such
commitments, and should be proactive in reforming their positions
to ensure environmental sustaibility and accountability to the
poor.
29. Recommendation: DFID should have
a flexible and transparent funding system that can support fragile
states, sub-national governance and local institutions, address
local needs where clearly indicated and requested by the poor,
and provide additional support for off-track MDGs.
March 2006
1 Due in part to the Gershon Review. Back
2
Five Debates on International Development: The US perspective,
Andrew S. Natsios, Development Policy Review, 2006, 24 (2): 131-139.
