Written evidence submitted by IIED (International
Institute for Environment and Development)
SUMMARY
1. HMG attention to climate change in developing
countries is greatly to be welcomed. IIED hopes, however, that
this will reinvigorate wider HMG efforts towards the sustainable
development of poor countries—rather than substitute for
them. Of particular concern is DFID's concentration on the economic
and social aspects of climate change, neglecting the environmental
component of the phenomenon. Climate change has several root causes—economic
(unfettered growth), social (consumption patterns) and environmental
(ecosystem degradation through eg misuse of land). Climate change
also has several consequences—economic (production system
collapses), social (poverty and vulnerability) and environmental
(further ecosystem degradation through eg loss of biodiversity
and changed flows of water). Attention to the combined economic,
social and environmental aspects of climate change would be more
robust and much more consistent with the sustainable development
objectives of the International Development Act, the UK Sustainable
Development Strategy and the UNFCCC.
2. This submission recommends that:
a) HMG should promote SD principles as the fundamental
framework for building the multilateral and national institutions
needed for tomorrow's world.
b) HMG's international development programme should
address the combined SD priorities of social justice, low-carbon
economy and biosphere protection.
c) In particular, DFID should give greater attention
to SD, given the social and environmental implications of its
focus on growth. This will require:
— complements to DFID's "upstream"
poverty reduction strategy/budget support work—supporting
diverse drivers of change towards SD;
— promoting climate screening, climate
proofing, climate capacity, and their synergies with DFID's poverty
reduction work;
— a focus on ecosystem management as
a key aspect of building resilience;
— promoting "socially just and
sustainable management of natural resources" rather than
"pro-poor exploitation of natural resources";
— supporting scale-up of pro-poor tourism
through public policy development—given the rapid growth
of tourism in poor countries today, and building on DFID leadership
in the late 90s and early 2000s;
— supporting real agents of change
towards SD in developing countries and not merely central ministries—civil
society, business, local authorities, etc; and
— a serious rethink of DFID's SD Plan,
so that it becomes an effective operational guide, rather than
window-dressing;
d) The mooted "Rio+20" review and "Post-MDGs
Initiative" should be supported, as they (respectively) present
opportunities to learn about what works for SD in developing countries
and to put these centre-stage in development policy.
e) The Sustainable Development Commission needs
to raise the profile of its international work above the status
of a barely visible "cross-cut" activity.
f) Meeting UK environmental priorities through
market-based approaches needs to be balanced with supporting the
development priorities of low-income countries. Carbon trading
emphasises mitigation, not adaptation; and campaigns for local
food to reduce food miles damage the prospects for exports. Ensuring
the participation of small-scale producers in market-based sustainability
approaches is a challenge for both carbon trading and certification
of sustainability claims. IIED promotes an "AdMit" approach
that combines mitigation, adaptation and engagement with small-scale
producers.
3. We attach a copy of IIED's submission
to the Environmental Audit Sub-Committee's inquiry into the role
of DFID in Trade, Development and Environment. Although this
is almost three years old, we note that the observations contained
in this submission almost all apply today.
4. IIED is an international policy research
institute, working for sustainable and equitable global development.
Set up in 1971, just before the first UN Earth Summit in Stockholm,
IIED was a major contributor to the Brundtland Commission of 1987,
the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, and WSSD in 2002 in Johannesburg.
Based in London, IIED works through a wide range of long-standing
relationships with partners in the developing world—and
notably with local research groups—thereby ensuring that
our policy advice and advocacy at national and international levels
are well informed by local realities. IIED's work broadly falls
into five areas: climate change, natural resources, urban, markets,
and governance—all of which emphasise low-income countries'
work towards sustainable development.
Q1. The effectiveness and coherence of the
UK Government's approach to sustainable development in developing
countries
HMG's sustainable development goals and definition
5. DFID's attention to climate change
impacts on development is greatly to be welcomed, but seems to
have substituted for any wider "sustainable development"
(SD) pursuit. DFID has concentrated on the economic and social
aspects of climate change, neglecting the environmental component
of the phenomenon. Climate change has several root causes—economic
(unfettered growth), social (consumption patterns) and environmental
(ecosystem degradation through eg misuse of land). Climate change
also has several consequences—economic (production system
collapses), social (poverty and vulnerability) and environmental
(further ecosystem degradation through eg loss of biodiversity
and changed environmental flows of water). A balanced attention
to the combined economic, social and environmental aspects of
climate change would be more robust and much more consistent with
the UK's sustainable development objectives and the UNFCCC.
6. There are inconsistencies between DFID's
definition of sustainable development and those accepted elsewhere:
Although SD appears as a goal in the International Development
Act (IDA), its definition is inconsistent with that of the Brundtland
Commission, the UK Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS), and
most developing countries' SD policies. The IDA accords the International
Development Minister too much "wriggle-room" in defining
SD. In practice, DFID interprets SD in terms of sustained economic
growth—rather than the integration of economic, social
and environmental objectives where possible, and informed trade-offs
where integration is not possible (the interpretation we commonly
observe in developing countries).
7. HMG should ensure that DFID's work
abroad is consistent with UK and developing countries' understanding
and pursuit of SD. For example, DFID should encourage the
same kind of bottom-up approaches to SD innovation and planning
that Defra and others are encouraging within the UK. It would
attempt to identify and support the wide range of existing SD
activity in developing countries—activities that are often
driven by civil society, enlightened businesses, local authorities
and line ministries, rather than the finance and planning authorities
with which DFID's engagements have become increasingly confined.
HMG's institutional coherence regarding SD in
developing countries
8. The international dimension of the
UK Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) needs to be strengthened.
It is to be welcomed that the revised UK SDS has an international
dimension, an advance on the first version. For the SDS to support
developing countries, however, DFID would need to take a lead
role. Yet DFID's engagement in the UK SDS has been noticeably
lightweight. DFID's own SD Plan appears to be a mere administrative
rearticulation of what it was going to do anyway; we cannot identify
any major areas where DFID has included major changes as a response
to the SDS. We understand that the process of preparing and reporting
on the DFID SD Plan barely involves senior DFID officials or their
major policy-making fora. Yet the pursuit of SD surely involves
fundamental assessment, reflection and new decisions?
9. The current framework for dividing departmental
responsibilities for international SD commitments is outdated.
This results from a bureaucratic sifting following the 2002 WSSD,
and is based on "obvious" division of responsibility,
with little in the way of creative partnerships or mutual monitoring.
Probably less than 1% of DFID staff knows of this set of responsibilities
and understands its implication for their own work. The framework
seems to be used for one-off reporting purposes, rather than preparing
strategies for supporting developing countries.
10. The Sustainable Development Commission
(SDC) is a global leader in SD, but is inadequately linked to
developing country realities. The SDC is an acknowledged global
leader in analysis and policy formulation, and is well-linked
with counterparts in the OECD. However, it is less well linked
to developing country counterparts (eg the many national councils
for SD, or multi-stakeholder groups attached to poverty reduction
strategies). Although international SD issues are apparently "mainstreamed"
in the SDC's work programme, they do not appear as a separate
programme area. This lack of overt and consistent attention to
international issues, and to DFID's role in developing countries
in particular, results in an incomplete view of the UK's international
footprint (both positive and negative aspects of that footprint).
The SDC should be strengthened in its ability to engage with DFID
and others who aim to pursue SD with developing country partners;
this should result in a more positive view of DFID, and in DFID,
regarding its international SD role.
11. HMG has been a significant supporter
of international assessments of progress in SD, but has not yet
made these systemic: Defra and DFID have supported the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and the International Assessment of
Agricultural Sciences and Technology for Development (IIASTD),
as well as research on the impacts of UK biodiversity and non-biodiversity
policies and investments on developing country environments (by
JNCC and Scott-Wilson). However, there have neither been adequate
HMG responses to the findings of these one-off assessments—even
in relatively high-profile cases such as the MA, nor efforts to
install analogous approaches into mainstream development planning
and monitoring.
DFID's SD performance
12. DFID's work has often pursued some
of the principles of SD, even if that has not been its overt aim.
It is important to encourage positive discussion of SD in DFID,
to enable the department to be cognisant of its many SD contributions
(as well as its weaknesses). A number of recent Inquiries have
resulted in DFID's reputation in matters environmental or sustainable
being "blackened", damaging morale of concerned officers
in the system and perhaps marginalising these important issues
within forward-looking plans. Below, we cover intragenerational
equity, intergenerational equity, development within environmental
limits, institutional change to support sustainability, and monitoring
progress towards sustainable development.
13. Intragenerational equity—DFID has
an acute focus on governance but relative blindness to poor people's
environmental needs: Here, DFID's strong focus on poverty
reduction and improving governance to tackle inequality and corruption
is invaluable. Unless we achieve an equitable approach to resource
use in an increasingly resource-constrained world, we will lock
into enduring conflicts between groups for water, good land, energy,
etc. DFID's governance work is well-placed to tackle the rights
problems of, eg, people who might be displaced from national parks
or forest reserves. In this sense, DFID's governance work is potentially
more valuable than any "biodiversity support" that some
environmental groups might expect DFID to give.
14. However, the particular environmental
rights and needs of poor groups are given inadequate attention
by DFID. If issues such as water poverty, sanitation poverty,
and lack of access to land are picked up by local-level participatory
poverty assessments as part of the poverty reduction strategy
(PRS) process, they are dropped again when it comes to shaping
the PRS in discussions with developing country finance authorities.
15. Intergenerational equity—DFID
takes a rather short-term view and lack of consistency in support
over time: DFID has a weak long-term view, in spite of its
attempts to install a horizon-scanning facility. It exhibits inconsistency
in its theory of change, and consequent rapid policy flux with
major changes every few years (the latest development fashion
invariably being accompanied by invidious "fatwas" against
previous development fashion|). Promising approaches for SD are
regularly and inexplicably dropped eg the sustainable livelihoods
framework and support for national SD strategies (required by
Agenda 21 and apparently important enough for the UK itself to
have an SDS) were heavily promoted in the 1990s and then dropped
in favour of PRS procedures, in spite of their value beginning
to be realised in developing countries. This would be understandable
if it was the result of DFID learning from past approaches that
these approaches were not helpful, but lesson-learning with aid
recipients does not take place concerning sustainability.
16. Development within environmental
limits—a good DFID knowledge base (internal and in key partners)
is, however, underused: DFID maintains a policy and research
group which is examining some significant climate change issues
and, to a lesser extent, local and global environmental issues
(albeit not within a coherent SD framework). The climate and energy
teams have offered international leadership in engaging with developing
countries, and in producing advice on balancing mitigation, adaptation
and energy portfolio needs in developing countries (Q2). There
has been some highly significant support to the provision of clean
water and (to a lesser extent) sanitation. However, the environment
team is given very little priority except for a watching brief
and reporting, and has been allowed to diminish in size, scope
and influence. The lack of high-level DFID leadership for integrating
environmental issues as a foundation for development, in both
internal planning and external dialogue, exacerbates the lack
of incentives for regional and country offices to act.
17. "Environment safeguards"
are still treated as a one-off hurdle in DFID programme development,
rather than as a constructive set of guidelines on how to
make the most of environment for poor people and how to ensure
their protection from environmental damage. There is no clear
framework for identifying, understanding and acting on ecological
factors, either on the positive side (basing sustainable livelihoods
and economies on environmental assets) or on the negative side
(environmental risk schedules and management regimes). In neither
case are the costs and benefits of investment in environmental
management assessed. Almost no support is offered to developing
countries to build their own institutions to do this. Consequently
UK aid may, in some cases, be actively harming poor people's prospects
for SD in the pursuit of "pro-poor exploitation of natural
resources" (Q7).
18. Institutional change to support sustainability—in
PRSs and budget support, DFID has excellent entry points into
the "mainstream", but does not use them for SD:
DFID's focus on governance change may, at times, address some
of the political, market and institutional constraints that are
the underlying causes of poverty, environmental problems, and
economic unsustainability, as discussed above. However, more could
be done if environmental governance were more routinely included
in governance support, and if environmental information and stakeholders
were routinely engaged in PRSs.
19. DFID takes PRSs or their equivalent
national development planning processes very seriously, which
offers the potential to weave together a comprehensive plan and
budget that builds on sustainability goals. However, DFID makes
very little effort to encourage engagement of environmental authorities
or environmental interest groups in those processes. And, because
these processes are increasingly linked directly to developing
country budgets, this is shutting off opportunities to restructure
expenditure for SD.
20. We are equivocal about budget support
and SD. On the one hand, there are indications that budget
support has improved the predictability, flexibility and reliability
of aid delivery, in theory increasing the chance for developing
countries to develop longer-term SD policies and plans. On the
other hand, DFID's emphasis on budget support is politically risk-averse
when it comes to institutional change—its focus on central
planning and finance authorities tending to cut out opportunities
to support the many diverse national and local actors who in practice
are the real "drivers of change" towards SD—NGOs,
civil society organisations, watchdogs, local authorities, academics,
local businesses, etc. Many of these actors are also key deliverers
of outcomes' ie those who work "at the end of the MDG delivery
chain", and who might be in a position to change prevailing
practice towards SD. Many of these constraints are perhaps inevitable
if the PRS/Budget Support model is pursued; a further constraint
being that the PRS tends to be both marginal to private sector
investment and immune to sustainability issues—its effective
"added value" being to help a country to play "short-term
donor games".
21. Monitoring progress towards sustainable
development—this has been limited in DFID: At national
level, development monitoring tends to exclude the non-financial
realities facing poor people, and notably their environmental
deprivations. DFID's focus on financial targets, whether 1-2$/day
or per cent budget support, exacerbates this. At global level,
the heavy emphasis on the MDGs—a construct created by the
UN Secretariat with only indirect input from developing countries—means
that DFID's work on sustainability is skewed by the MDGs' inadequate
incorporation of sustainability factors (an odd set of indicators
shoe-horned into MDG7). Potentially stronger sustainability goals
that might also be monitor—from Rio, Joburg and the MEAs—are
not used (they are collected for DAC aid statistics, but are not
reviewed within DFID).
Learning the lessons of SD in developing countries—and
adjusting policy: the potential value of a "Rio+20"
review and the "Post-MDGs" Initiative
22. With other donors, DFID is currently
supporting IIED in helping stakeholders in developing countries
to reflect on progress towards SD, and on the mechanisms and tools
that have supported this. Preliminary findings indicate the
value of:
— Public environmental expenditure
reviews in developing countries, assessing what each sector is
gaining and investing in environmental asset and risk management.
— A shirt from planning for "priority
sectors" to planning for "priority outcomes", enabling
environment and sustainability interests to show what they can
contribute to all such outcomes (instead of being absent as a
"non-priority" sector).
— Working on sustainability with "mainstream"
institutions such as finance and planning ministries rather than
environment authorities (an entry point open to DFID) especially
by making the economic case for environmental investment.
— Supporting civil society in watchdog
roles, in improving calls for environmental justice, and in generating
new approaches to SD in the kind of flexible "policy space"
that aid programmes can offer.
— Taking seriously the OECD-DAC Paris
Declaration, which has called for strengthening countries' own
sustainability systems, rather than requiring countries to follow
multiple donors' own "safeguard" measures.
23. This (and much more) research from
IIED, ODI, IDA and LDC institutions needs to be reviewed at high
levels in DFID—not to tinker with development policy
at its margins, but to reshape approaches towards sustainability.
With IUCN and WWF, IIED has been reviewing such lessons and exploring
what the shape of a future SD agenda might be: it is likely to
fall into three areas: social justice, decarbonising economies,
and biosphere protection.
24. With the exception of UNFCCC, DFID
is only very weakly engaged with the international institutions
and fora that enable developing countries to define SD and to
negotiate positions eg CSD, UNEP, IUCN, etc. Even if DFID
is (rightly) not too impressed by some of these initiatives, it
ought to be identifying and supporting the wide range of bottom-up
institutions, ideas and traditional knowledge that can support
SD within LDCs, so that they are in a position to truly inform
the prospective 2012 Rio+20 exercise, and to shape the "Post-MDGs"
Initiative. For several years now, IIED's research and advocacy
partners in developing countries have been calling for SD principles
to be reflected in the design of all multilateral and national
structures that are needed for tomorrow's world. They are concerned
that powerful countries are not also promoting SD seriously as
an international framework or lingua franca.
Q2. The extent to which climate change adaptation
is integrated into DFID's development policies
25. DFID's 2007 White Paper has clearly
made climate change, including adaptation, an important (if not
yet fully integral) part of DFID's overall strategy. Since
then, DFID has made significant efforts to develop activities
at international and national policy levels, country programme
level and research level to support adaptation to climate change.
These include the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) research
programme, capacity building of climate change negotiators from
the least developed countries through the European Capacity Building
Initiative (ECBI) through the Policy Dept, and support to the
Climate Change Trust Fund (MTDF) in Bangladesh through its country
programme strategy for Bangladesh. These have a valuable "bottom-up"
character, involving local scientists and stakeholders—indeed,
they are more participatory than many other DFID activities.
26. DFID should prioritise climate screening,
climate proofing, climate capacity, and their synergies with DFID's
poverty reduction work. While the above (and further DFID
initiatives) are important elements of ensuring that adaptation
to climate change is integrated into DFID's development policies,
they could be considerably enhanced and speeded up by:
— Climate screening: assessing
of all major DFID spending programmes at Policy, Programme and
Research levels for vulnerability to adverse impacts of climate
change.
— Climate proofing: where indicated
by the above, including climate risk management, adaptation and
mitigation measures in work at country level, especially for the
least developed countries where DFID has significant Country Strategies.
For example, DFID needs to do a bit more to make sure all its
development work in sectors such as agriculture, health and water
management considers climate change. There is no point digging
a bunch of new wells if the whole area is going to dry out entirely.
— Climate capacity: In addition
to climate screening and climate proofing its own portfolio at
policy and programme level DFID also needs to support government
and civil society groups within programme countries (with a focus
on the least developed countries) to be capable of climate screening
and climate proofing their own investment portfolios.
— Climate change impact information:
As climate change impacts are difficult to predict with great
accuracy and as the science improves over time, a prerequisite
for making adaptation decisions will be the provision and availability
of up-to-date and accurate climate change impact information.
Thus, supporting capacities to generate and update climate change
(especially impact assessments) for particularly vulnerable regions
and countries should be supported as matter of priority (by both
the country programme as well as research departments of DFID).
— Synergies between poverty reduction
and climate change adaptation: There is a great deal of overlap
between the poorest people living in the poorest countries, and
the communities and countries that are most vulnerable to climate
change. Thus it is advisable to link the poverty eradication agenda
with adaptation to climate change. This means investing in ways
to "mainstream" adaptation to climate change into regular
development (or "sustainable development") planning,
policies, projects and programmes at country, region and global
levels.
— Resilience conferred by ecosystems:
The extent to which the links between climate change and environment
more generally are addressed seem to be confined to Kyoto-related
mechanisms, notably REDD schemes. A more fundamental understanding
of how biodiversity protection can increase resilience against
climate shocks needs to be factored into climate change work—in
other words, inform that work by the economic, social and environmental
"pillars" of sustainable development.
Q5. The role of transport, including aviation,
in economic development in developing countries, particularly
freight and exports, and the impact of such transport on the environment
27. The aviation industry is a small—although
fast-growing—contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Per kilometre travelled, its impact outstrips that of any other
form of transport. As today's technology seems unlikely to reduce
that impact significantly over the next 25 years, aviation has
become a key issue in climate change policy. Nowhere are the concerns
about aviation expressed more vocally than in relation to tourism
and air freight.
28. Aviation presents a development dilemma:
Tourism and air freight are very important for poverty reduction
and growth in many developing countries. Tourism generates up
to 40% of GDP in many developing economies (see Q6). Many jobs
are supported in part by the fresh produce trade with the UK (over
one million livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa). The sustainability
of tourism, fresh produce trade and other industries reliant on
aviation cannot be "fixed" simply by attention to air
travel without reference to the other environmental, social and
economic factors that contribute to sustainability.
29. Whilst air travel is iconically climate-unfriendly,
there is no a priori reason why a lower carbon budget needs to
cut out long-haul travel. HMG should be concerned both with
the quantity of air travel and with raising its quality—or
its sustainable development utility, considered from a holistic
viewpoint. HMG will wish to ensure that environmental concerns
do not inevitably trump development needs. Limiting the options
for people and materials to travel to and from developing countries
limits opportunities to upgrade industries and skills in those
countries. It limits export opportunities for fresh produce. It
constrains imports of vaccines and drugs for human and animal
health. And it greatly reduces wider business opportunities. The
history of economic failure of many colonial territories that
became cut off from major shipping routes reminds us that connectedness
and mobility are key to development.
30. Simplistic solutions are not always
helpful: Many air travellers and people working in the travel
industry see carbon offsetting as a viable green solution to the
aviation problem. But offsetting schemes based on tree planting
or forest conservation may simply shift sustainability problems
from air travel to land use in developing countries—and
consequently to the poor groups who are dependent on that land.
Forest-based offsetting schemes may result in communities losing
access to land that has become designated as protected carbon
stores; schemes are also subject to considerable uncertainty,
in terms of permanence and displacing land use.
31. Solutions need to be informed by
economic, social and environmental considerations—a holistic,
SD perspective: "Quality" could be raised by highlighting
and rewarding destinations with good environmental records (carbon
plus all other aspects of good environmental management), where
there are genuine benefits for the poor living in these countries.
Differentiated air travel levies based around per-capita carbon
emissions from individual countries—ie higher for developed
than developing countries—could provide one such nudge to
the industry, and reward carbon prudence. Preliminary calculations
by IIED suggest that a small levy per trip could raise US$8-10
billion a year towards adaptation (see Q8).
32. Fair miles not food miles: UK
concerns about the carbon footprint of food imports can work against
the interests of developing countries to increase exports, for
example concerns about the emissions from air-freighted flowers
and vegetables from Africa. Food miles need to be seen in perspective.
Fresh fruit and vegetables from Africa account for just 0.1% of
all UK emissions, and per capita emissions from Sub-Saharan Africa
are miniscule compared to those in industrialised countries. The
development benefits of the exported fresh fruit and vegetable
sector in Sub-Saharan Africa are substantial, supporting 1 million
plus livelihoods. (see Q8)
Q6. The role of tourism in economic development,
and the potential for sustainable tourism
Tourism's contribution to national economic development
33. Tourism is a major international
industry that is growing fast, particularly in developing countries:
The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that in 2008 the
industry contributed 9.9% (US$5,890 bn) to global GDP in 2008
and accounted for one in every 12 jobs. In 2007, international
tourist arrivals were over 900 million—up from 800 million
in 2005 and double what they were in 1990. Although the Middle
East led the growth in visitor numbers, developing countries have
shown significant increases. Asia and the Pacific account for
184 million of the 900 million arrivals (up 10% on 2006) and Africa
44 million (up 7%). Average annual growth in tourism receipts
since 2000 is 4.1% at a global scale, but 7.8% in Asia; 8.6% in
Central America; and 6.9% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the
UN World Tourism Organisation predicts continuing growth along
a similar trajectory to 2020.
34. The vast majority of countries where tourism
is a significant contributor to the country's GDP are small island
states—particularly in the Caribbean. The total amount
of tourism revenue earned by any country is closely related to
arrival figures (as the stats above show), and thus countries
with high arrivals numbers receive high levels of receipts. However,
countries where tourism makes the most significant contribution
to the national economy (in terms of proportion of GDP earnings)
are not necessarily those with the highest levels of receipts—such
as small islands.
35. The direct and indirect contributions
of tourism cannot be underestimated. WTO estimates that tourism's
contribution to GDP is up to 40% in small island states and developing
economies, compared to advanced economies at between 2 and 12%.
Indirect contributions include, but are not limited to:
— Enabling other businesses through
establishment and upkeep of necessary business infrastructure—eg
hotels, restaurants of a high standard, internet and other communications.
— Air freight opportunities for local
producers and for imported goods.
— Visiting friends and family opportunities
are enhanced, and in developing countries often a significant
proportion of journeys on new routes.
Distributional impacts of tourism—can tourism
benefit the poor?
36. Tourism clearly makes a significant
and growing contribution to the national economy of many developing
countries—including the least developed countries. However,
its size and significance reveals little about its distributional
impact.
37. Because of its significance and rapid
growth in developing countries, tourism affects the livelihoods
of many of the world's "poor" both positively and negatively:
— Many of the characteristics of the
industry lend themselves to pro-poor growth: it is labour-intensive
(on average, more labour-intensive than manufacturing) and employs
a high percentage of women and unskilled workers; it can build
on the natural and cultural assets of the poor; "eco-tourism"
is suited to certain remote areas with few other livelihood and
development options; it has high potential for multiplier impacts
which stretch to SME and informal sector development.
— However, tourism development can
disadvantage the poor—displacement of people from national
parks and "pristine" coastal areas, increasing local
livelihood costs, losing access to resources, and other social
and cultural disruption.
38. Pro-poor impacts are not guaranteed
without intervention. Traditionally much revenue from tourism
is captured by foreign companies (hoteliers, tour operators etc)
or is retained in metropolitan centres. Maximising the pro-poor
impacts of tourism requires intervention by both government (in
form of supportive policy and legislative framework) and the private
sector (in terms of local employment, sourcing and support policies).
"Responsible tourism" is being increasingly embraced
by the private sector as part of a broader "corporate social
responsibility" agenda and improved attention to thorny issues
such as local employment conditions and local/sustainable procurement
are becoming increasingly mainstreamed. Analogous public policy
development is less evident, or lags behind rather than leading—reducing
the potentials for poor groups to reap wider benefits from tourism,
and for removing systemic anti-poor biases in tourism development.
39. DFID helped to lead the field in
pro-poor tourism in the late 90s and early 2000s, but is no longer
active—in spite of the rapid growth of tourism in poor countries
today. Work for DFID by IIED, ODI and the International Centre
for Responsible Tourism brought the aspiration for "pro-poor
tourism" closer to the mainstream of the tourism industry
(if not the development business). It offered the original thinking
on pro-poor tourism strategies now adopted by the UN World Tourism
Organisation and others. The DFID Tourism Challenge Fund pioneered
a private sector approach to the issue. DFID could build on this
track record, now encouraging attention to the public policy environment
in its partner countries and within other development agencies.
Can tourism be sustainable?
40. Whether or not tourism can be sustainable
depends very much on our definition of sustainable tourism.
Some understand this as tourism that can be sustained or grow
over the long term (a view of SD consistent with the International
Development Act), others as a particular form of tourism that
does not undermine environmental and social parameters (a view
more consistent with the UK SDS).
41. Developing countries' reliance on an industry
that is so investment-intensive, notoriously volatile and reliant
on air transport brings its own set of challenges:
— Tourism is an industry that requires
considerable investment in set-up, infrastructure, training and
importantly run-on costs of marketing. This is often not available
in small island states or developing countries, creating challenges
of ownership, wealth distribution and impact on other productive
sectors.
— Tourism growth is also unreliable—like
other exports, tourism demand depends strongly on economic conditions
in the tourist generating countries; it is also subject to additional
influences such as threat of terrorism or civil unrest; and environmental
perspectives of consumers. Climate change also affects tourism—as
climate-conscious consumers cut down on air travel and as changing
climatic conditions affect the natural resource base on which
much tourism depends (eg affecting the viability of small island
destinations because of sea level rise or storm frequency; affecting
the attractiveness of natural resources such as coral reefs; exacerbating
the problem of high levels of water demand associated with tourism).
Equally, advice dispensed on reducing carbon footprints from tourism
include taking longer breaks in one place—which could ensure
higher economic impacts in destinations that are successful in
attracting tourists. As Tony Blair famously said he did not want
to limit UK public's choice of holiday destinations on the back
of climate change arguments.
— Aviation is an integral part of international
travel, especially to developing countries which are usually far
from OECD markets and, given its impacts on GHG emissions, the
aviation component of tourism is unsustainable (see Q5).
42. If aviation is taken out of the equation,
"responsible tourism", "pro-poor tourism",
"fair trade tourism" and other movements are already
making a contribution to the development of a tourism industry
that meets "triple bottom line" criteria of economic,
social and environmental sustainability. Sustainability standards
and criteria abound, and there are many examples of good practice
to counter the often cited examples of unsightly tourism sprawl
along coastlines, cultural disruption, economic displacement and
so on.
43. HMG has made significant contributions,
as far as the UK outbound tourism industry is concerned, in
particular through its support to the UK Sustainable Tourism Initiative—now
the Travel Foundation. Greater attention is however required to
consumer awareness and public policy within destinations. Sustainable
tourism cannot be achieved without this combination of public,
private and civil society levers. The issue is thus not to identify
what needs to be done to make tourism sustainable, but how to
scale up the current movement beyond the most responsible operators
to the mainstream; beyond niche destinations to the mass tourism
resorts; and complementing global standards with compatible local
standards that make sense for in-country SD goals. It is clear
that the success of niche movements such as fair trade tourism
will help build the business case for the whole industry to begin
adhering to sustainability standards.
Q7. Pro-poor exploitation of natural resources,
including minerals and forests, and the regulatory framework for
exploitation
Rethinking "pro-poor exploitation of natural
resources"
44. "Pro-poor exploitation of natural
resources" is potentially a one-way street to environmental
and—ultimately—social ruin, if it raids nature to
fix a part of today's perceived development problem. Instead,
what is needed is "socially just and sustainable management
of natural resources". To get there, we need to put decision-making
in the hands of those with the rights and capabilities to bring
such management about. Thus our focus should be on securing the
rights and strengthening the capabilities of those who are often
currently marginalised. For this we need:
— Governments to adopt and follow through
recent positive policy reforms.
— Civil society organisations and the private
sector to support small-scale natural-resource enterprises much
more vigorously.
— Donors to increase their support
to the above.
Governments and governance of natural resources
45. The governance of natural resources
in developing countries is inherently difficult:
— Laws are often contradictory and
incoherent across natural resource-dependent sectors such as agriculture,
mining, forestry, trade, land allocation, road building and infrastructure.
— Rights to own and access natural resources
are unclear or easily overridden, and procedures for communities
to secure rights are onerous.
— Natural resource access and use rules
are stacked in favour of large-scale institutions, which treat
small-scale enterprises and communities with disdain. Illegal
activity often underpins political systems and patronage.
46. As a minimum, a governance system
that works for natural resource development needs: strong
and fair rules and institutions; macro-economic and sectoral policies
to in tune; strong civil society engagement and local control
of natural resource management; and independent monitoring. To
get there, useful starting points are:
— Actively seeking practical, cross-sectoral
approaches—integrating actions in agriculture, forestry,
infrastructure, products industry, employment creation.
— Focusing on areas where institutional
capability and local property rights can be combined with good
natural resource management practice.
— Adopting "learning group"
approaches involving: mixed disciplines outside formal institutional
constraints doing honest diagnostics of what really works and
does not; building partnerships and tactical work to developing
counterweights to governance frameworks that are regressive in
practice; transparency initiatives and research/information use;
catalytic court cases; policy reform opportunism; and champions
for key issues.
Small natural resource-based enterprise
47. Small natural resource-based enterprises
are the predominant form of enterprise in most developing countries,
and are increasing in number. Some are good news, and some
are bad news for sustainable local development. They work best
for local development when rights and policy are favourable. This
often requires turning much of the natural resource governance
system "on its head"—to stop rigging the rules
in favour of large-scale actors only. Once this is done, effective
approaches for "socially just and sustainable management
of natural resources" can then focus on financial instruments,
information, connections between enterprises and support agencies,
and capacity.
48. To make progress in supporting sustainable
small-scale natural resource-based enterprises, useful starting
points are:
— Removing barriers eg to accessing
land and resources, business registration, credit, policy forums.
— Making good information available
eg databases of small enterprises, business service providers,
market trends.
— Linking, promoting, and building
capacity eg strengthening associations, marketing councils, business
support networks.
— Making finance available eg credit
lines, guarantees, subsidies, microfinance.
— Consumer mechanisms eg procurement
policies preferring small enterprises, certification, and initiatives
to distinguish community natural resource products in the market.
— Watchdog activities eg independent
forest monitoring, and other approaches to level the playing field
for big and small scales.
HMG has been a leader in this field—but
needs to pick up the ball again, given increasing pressure on
natural resources for poor people as both producers and consumers
49. HMG has had a strong track record
to date—but seems to have "dropped the ball" recently:
Several strong DFID country programmes emphasise parts of the
above agenda. A few years ago, DFID led the donor field in innovative
analytical approaches such as "sustainable livelihoods"
and "drivers of change" analysis that would help to
identify and develop pro-poor, sustainable resource management
regimes. But these approaches have lost prominence in DFID's work
(in spite of becoming common practice in developing country planning
institutions themselves). DFID has also been a leader backing
influential programmes such as the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative and the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade
programmes. These are two areas where we applaud DFID's continuing
strong leadership.
50. However, much more could be done by HMG/DFID
to learn the lessons of what works and what does not, and to deepen
support for approaches that engage directly with existing
political systems that stifle local natural-resource based development;
as well as integrating disjointed efforts into practical packages
at effective scale. Without this, there are risks that attempts
at "pro-poor exploitation of natural resources" may
result in poverty traps at local level (eg people being led to
work small plots of unviable land) or "resource curses"
at national level (eg imbalanced attention to forest or mineral
exploitation resulting in uncompetitive other sectors). Thus HMG/DFID
may wish to consider:
— Collaborative approaches.
Collaboration is essential for natural resources work—often
requiring multidisciplinary teams that can appreciate differential
powers within communities, and multi-sectoral approaches that
can co-create programmes with government, NGOs and the private
sector, to provide a wider vision and engagement with local/ regional
actors.
— Crossing scales. Effects at
higher and lower scales should be considered, with cross-scale
analysis and planning routinely conducted and such analysis examined
against simulations of long-term processes at other scales—use
modelling to provoke (not divert) thinking.
— Timeframes long enough for adaptive
work to deliver. There is a need for support over longer timeframes
to enable natural resource management efforts to be adaptive and
responsive. Quality and depth should be the aim—with effective
impact tracking—to generate useful, reliable solutions for
a subset of problems rather than poor ones for many.
— Innovation funds. Relatively
small proportions of funding programmes (say 20%) should be set
aside for innovative ideas and one-off initiatives that meet programme
aims should be considered.
— Between-project funding. Ways
in which funding can be made available between programmes, to
maintain networks in priority areas and avoid "feast and
famine" programmes amongst key institutions, should also
be a priority.
Q8. Opportunities for developing countries
presented by sustainable approaches, such as carbon trading, direct
fiscal transfers and addressing the needs of increasingly environmentally-sensitive
consumers
51. Meeting the environmental priorities
of high-income countries through market-based approaches may not
always be compatible with the development priorities of low- and
middle-income countries. Carbon trading emphasises mitigation,
not adaptation; and campaigns for local food to reduce food miles
damage the prospects for exports. Ensuring the participation of
small-scale producers in market-based sustainability approaches
is a challenge for both carbon trading and certification of sustainability
claims.
Carbon trading
52. There are very few CDM projects in LDCs:
Opportunities for many of the poorer developing countries from
carbon trading have been limited. Clean Development Mechanism
projects have been concentrated in middle-income countries, and
there are very few projects in Africa (less than 2% of the CDM
pipeline in March 2008). Yet FDI to Africa has been increasing
in recent years, notably in sectors such as infrastructure which
could be eligible for carbon finance. This suggests that it is
not the overall investment climate in Africa that is the main
reason for the lack of investor interest in CDM projects. Requiring
investors in new capital projects to identify the CDM potential
of their projects before government approval is given may be one
way of boosting the share of CDM finance going to Africa.
53. And there are limited livelihood impacts
from CDM projects: CDM projects have not had major positive
impacts on livelihoods of local communities because they have
tended to focus on large scale HFC destruction projects, N2O abatement
or landfill gas recovery, none of which involve significant employment
generation. This situation is starting to change as some smaller
clean energy projects are coming on-stream. Land-based projects,
which might be expected to benefit rural communities, remain restricted
by the rules of the CDM.
54. There are a few examples of CDM projects
which demonstrate its development potential. One example is
the Kuyasa project in South Africa which improves thermal performance
of low-income housing units and solar water heating in Khayelitsha,
Cape Town. This project has been certified under the CDM Gold
Standard (an independent set of standards addressing social, economic
and environmental issues). But it has suffered from financing
constraints and has not been able to expand beyond the initial
pilot households. Some of the CDM projects supported by the World
Bank Community Development Carbon Fund have also provided benefits
for local communities as part of a planned community benefits
package. There are also new funds with explicit social or development
objectives such as UNDP's MDG Carbon Facility and the Brazil Social
Carbon Fund. But considerable support will be needed from donors
and NGOs to help small scale projects in poorer countries access
these funds.
55. The voluntary carbon market gives
more attention to small-scale projects with development attributes,
but is also often dependent on donor funds: Voluntary carbon
markets have targeted small producers and land-based activities
but have required a heavy input of donor funds. Meeting the demands
of the carbon market while continuing to provide social benefits
and ensure wide participation has proved challenging. If there
is a more sustainable role for donor funds, this might be in ensuring
that developing country capacity is installed.
56. Adaptation should be incorporated
in carbon projects: CDM and voluntary carbon projects are
focused on emission reductions, which may not be a high priority
for developing countries. In most poor communities in developing
countries, where emissions are very low compared to those in the
North, adaptation to the impacts of climate change is the greater
priority. If HMG is to support sustainable development in poor
countries, it is necessary to ensure that these countries' priorities
are reflected in carbon projects, in particular to look at ways
that adaptation to climate change can be incorporated in carbon
projects. IIED's "Admit" Initiative addresses both mitigation
and adaptation: it is based on increasing awareness that consumers
who wish to reduce the damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions
might also be willing to invest in adaptation, provided that rigorous
standards can be met. Admit is developing a set of standards for
community-based adaptation projects which will provide quality
assurance to purchasers (see Q2).
57. Other mechanisms to raise funds for
adaptation need to be explored, such as a levy on air travel:
An internationally collected levy on international air passengers
could contribute significantly to existing adaptation funds without
burdening national budgets. Preliminary calculations by IIED suggest
that a small per trip levy could raise US$8-10 billion a year
towards adaptation (see Q5).
Addressing the needs of increasingly environmentally-sensitive
consumers
58. There is limited participation of
small producers in environmental certification: Certification
of sustainability claims has expanded and for some products such
as coffee is beginning to move beyond a mere "niche"
status. However, with the exception of Fairtrade, certification
is not reaching smaller producers because of the high transaction
costs involved in application to the schemes, some management
requirements, and verification. Empirical evidence on the impact
of Fairtrade is generally positive in social, environmental and
economic terms, (at least for coffee) but is more mixed for other
types of certification.
28 November 2008
Annex
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT SUB-COMMITTEE
TRADE, DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT: INQUIRY
INTO THE ROLE OF DFID
BRIEF MEMORANDUM BY IIED, 27 MARCH 2006
DFID has, over the last decade, offered international
leadership in intellectual and policy terms for integrating environment
and development. Particularly well appreciated DFID contributions
include:
— Promoting the sustainable livelihoods
framework, which has improved understanding of the many assets
(including environmental assets) on which poverty reduction depends.
— Key documents and seminars on the links
between poverty and the environment offered at the 2002 WSSD,
which have subsequently influenced most other donors.
— Supporting, and twice chairing, the
OECD ENVIRONET as a way to improve environmental harmonisation
among donors on eg strategic environmental assessment.
— Catalysing the more informal Poverty
Environment Partnership as a means to share learning between donors
and identify best practice on eg environmental fiscal reform.
— Designing and implementing a comprehensive
"environmental screening" procedure for DFID activities,
which addresses environmental potentials as well as negative impacts—and
which other donors have copied (eg Irish and Belgian aid).
— Promoting a post-Kyoto regime that
ensures a fair deal for developing countries, addresses both mitigation
and adaptation to climate change; offering clear information;
and supporting engagement by their stakeholders in international
negotiations.
— Announcing research strategies in
climate change, environment/natural resources and sustainable
agriculture that will include significant involvement of Southern
groups; and a science and innovation strategy that will also help
to build capacity.
However, DFID's leadership has been less evident
in responding to the environmental aspects of poverty in specific
low-income countries (LICs). There are a few effective DFID environmental
projects, eg in Kenya, India and China. But these are in a minority
amongst other kinds of activity. Moreover, there has been no comprehensive
review of DFID environmental activity—either as part of
its recent environment policy review or as a recommendation from
it. Without such facts, IIED can only observe that:
— There has been no coherent, deliberate
approach to ensuring good environmental information, analysis,
prioritisation and planning in country-driven approaches.
— If environment does not "come
up" in discussions on country plans, it is not pursued further—even
if it might have been identified as a priority by local people
in the Participatory Poverty Assessments usually performed for
country-based planning. (This point is well documented by DFID
studies).
— Existence of environmental activities
tend to correlate with DFID environmental adviser presence in-country
or interest of the country office head.
The recent publication of "DFID's approach
to the environment" (2006) is extremely welcome in view of
the imbalance between DFID's intellectual/policy leadership and
practical support to LICs. This policy paper commits to greater
attention to three key needs. IIED supports these three levels
as a useful framework, but emphasises that more needs to be done
to make them operational and to engage the geographical and multilateral
divisions of DFID. Observations of gaps and recommendations follow
for each of these three areas:
1. Addressing the underlying institutional reasons
for environmental problems in LICs. IIED welcomes this emphasis
because it offers potential synergies with the cross-DFID priority
of improving LIC governance. However, DFID staff need more guidance
to understand how the underlying (institutional) causes of both
poverty and environmental degradation are similar, and how to
design DFID governance programmes to address both. Much more is
needed if the institutional base for managing the environment
in every LIC is to be adequate:
— supporting civil society to articulate
environmental concerns, to claim rights and to actively manage
the environment;
— building basic environment information
capabilities that reach to the heart of LICs' own poverty monitoring
and development planning processes; and
— strengthening the capacity of environmental
authorities to make their case to treasuries, and then to deliver
effective environmental management.
2. A commitment to supporting environmental management
where this can be shown to contribute directly to poverty reduction.
IIED welcomes this commitment because it is reveals an understanding
that environmental management is a foundation for lasting development.
It is neither appropriate nor efficient for DFID to address all
the environmental issues facing LICs. Rather, DFID should concentrate
on the major environmental deprivations and hazards suffered by
the poor, and/or the best environmental potentials for improving
livelihoods and economic growth.
Whilst DFID has contributed usefully to a number
of international processes that identify the generic case to invest
in the environment for poverty reduction (eg the multi-donor Poverty
Environment Partnership), the challenge now is making full and
specific investment cases at the country level. However, neither
the PRS planning process, nor DFID's own country assistance strategies
include adequate diagnostics or consultations which would enable
specific environmental priorities to be identified. This will
also require particular attention to investigating drivers for
and against the "resource curse" at macro level, and
"poverty traps" at micro level.
Finally, to give confidence to DFID country heads
to invest more in the environment, it would be helpful to draw
together the lessons from DFID's varied environmental projects—which
have worked; which have not; what the costs and benefits have
been; and what has contributed to success or failure?
3. Managing environmental risks associated with
development assistance. IIED welcomes acknowledgement of the environmental
risks associated with development assistance. However, DFID's
Approach to the environment gives no details of how risk management
is to be achieved. The current "environmental screening note"
procedure is fine on paper, but is separate from other procedures,
is very often applied too late in the day with inadequate technical
consideration of both environmental threats and (especially) opportunities.
It has tended to be applied to projects rather than to broader
programmes or policies. Thus it has become little more than one
bureaucratic step, and one which has been "pushed" by
DFID environment advisers with little other "power base"—serving
to reinforce "negative" impressions of the environment,
ie as a block to development plans, rather than an asset for development.
A more integrated approach to the environment is needed throughout
the activity cycle.
More should be done to consult with local environmental
expertise and stakeholders. Further environmental risks arise
when DFID neither listens to, nor responds to local groups that
both suffer from and understand environmental problems—thereby
risking the reversibility of poverty reduction programmes. Although
in-country procedures often exist to integrate local people's
perspectives into "country-driven" planning—such
as Participatory Poverty Assessments—DFID's promotion of,
support to and use of these procedures should be strengthened.
In addition, DFID's management board does not,
as far as we can ascertain, maintain an environmental risk profile
or horizon-scanning exercise to inform long-term development (although
recent inclusion of environmental scenarios in horizon-scanning
processes for the White Paper is a very welcome innovation).
Several constraints limit the potential of DFID's
Environment Approach—many of them deriving from the current
"development model" pursued by DFID:
DFID's Environment Approach is unlikely to be
achieve more than any "bolt-on" exercise unless key
DFID policy and structural issues are addressed:
— A larger DFID budget and limited
range of aid delivery instruments. The fact that DFID's budget
is growing rapidly tends to favour big, simple, "efficient"
development processes and relationships with central authorities
in LICs. Budget support is the epitome of this trend. Environmental
assets, environmental deprivations, environmental governance and
environmental management play no central part in such processes
or the development models they aim to support. Indeed, at national
level the specificity, complexity, uncertainty and diffuse responsibilities
for environment are very difficult to reconcile with such models.
Local stakeholders (key for integrating environment into development)
and research groups (key for handling environmental uncertainties)
tend to have been marginalized by budget support approaches. DFID's
extra funds need to be accompanied by extra responsibility to
tackle the wider impacts of bigger expenditure. As a minimum,
more needs to be done to lay out the "theory of change"
that underlies budget support, to assess its sensitivity to environmental
issues, and thus to incorporate environment in budget support
planning and monitoring.
— A static or reduced overall DFID
staff complement, and disproportionate reduction in environmental
and natural resources skills. The reduced staff exacerbates the
problems inherent in "big, simple models" and creates
internal incentives for "efficiency" that are greater
than those for equity or diversity. IIED is pleased that the HQ
complement of environment advisers has been maintained (although
some policy teams eg the Urban Rural Change Team have been disbanded
before their conclusions have been fully internalised). In contrast,
there have been significant and apparently ill-planned reductions
in environmental advice in geographical offices. This may be due
to a lack of oversight of the cumulative effects of all country
office heads facing few incentives to employ anybody but economists,
governance advisers and administrators. This would be less of
a problem if DFID environmental advice were being replaced by
eg agreements with other donors in-country to take responsibility
for (cross-donor) environmental advice, or if DFID country offices
were better linked with in-country sources of environmental expertise
such as local universities and NGOs. There are signs that DFID
is now below critical mass in environmental advice—its advisers
are amongst the best, and efforts should be made to retain them
and place them in strategic positions. This should be complemented
(but not substituted for) by reinstatement of the in-house environment
training modules for non-environment staff.
Other major DFID-wide directions could be more
promising for the environment—if there were more active
promotion and implementation of its Environment approach:
— Donor harmonisation: On the one hand,
efforts to implement the OECD Paris agenda on aid effectiveness
are promising if they result in a more coherent and prominent
cross-donor approach to (a) taking responsibility for environmental
integration; (b) coordinating environmental activities in-country;
and (c) the environmental reporting requirements of country authorities.
For example, the donor group on environment in Tanzania, coordinated
by Denmark, is working fairly well. On the other hand, efforts
at donor harmonisation can take up so much time and political
capital that attention shifts even further away from the environmental
stakeholders who are already marginalized so much in country-driven
approaches.
— More development assistance delivered
through multilateral institutions: It can be effective to deliver
more aid through multilaterals such as the World Bank and the
EC if, at the same time, DFID strengthens its commitment as a
shareholder to assure the highest quality in multilaterals' environmental
policy and procedures, and scrutinises their implementation. Yet
the BTC oil pipeline experience, amongst others, suggests that
DFID is happy merely to defer to the development banks, rather
than to adopt a continuous improvement approach. Neither does
DFID's new SD Action Plan attempt to address the new European
Consensus on sustainable development. With the closing of 11 years
and 10 programmes of DFID's Renewable Natural Resources Research
Strategy, there is now considerable UK expertise that could be
deployed by DFID to improve environmental integration in the activities
of the multilaterals|
— Programme Partnership Agreements:
PPAs are analogous to budget support, offering DFID a way to provide
long-term, predictable supplies of flexible assistance to trusted
agencies. From July 2006, IIED will join WWF so that there will
be two organisations concerned with environment that have Programme
Partnership Agreements with DFID. For these "environment"
PPAs to work well, "carrots and sticks" need to be established:
for DFID country/regional office heads to engage with these PPAs;
for the PPAs to work coherently together (and with the "development"
PPAs); for WWF's PPA to encourage local civil society to articulate
environmental issues; and for IIED's PPA to offer better information
and analysis on poverty-environment links at national level.
— Joint working with Defra and the
UK Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS): There has been recent
progress in balancing DFID's (fairly clear) international development
agenda with Defra's international environmental agenda (which
has not always been very clear in relation to local and national
environmental issues). The UK SDS appears to have offered a good
framework for a mutual exploration and harmonisation of roles
between DFID, Defra and the FCO. However, following the flurry
of activity in preparing the SDS, this has not really been pursued
very actively beyond DFID's production of an SD Action Plan; it
is not clear how the latter commits DFID to anything that it would
otherwise not have done.
— Focus on climate change: DFID's climate
change initiatives are well appreciated (see p1). In addition,
DFID has been bold in highlighting the direct links between consumption
patterns in the North and climate-induced vulnerability in the
South. There is a danger that DFID's focus on climate change becomes
a substitute for balanced attention to the range of environmental
deprivations and hazards facing poor people—"ticking
the environment box" in one step. Instead, The links need
to be clarified between climate variability/change and soil, water,
biodiversity and environmental health, etc—so that climate
change becomes a useful "entry point" for environmental
action. DFID's upcoming climate change research programme offers
potential here.
— Focus on agriculture: Two recent
DFID documents, Strategy for Research on Sustainable Agriculture
2006-16 and Policy Strategy "Productivity growth for poverty
reduction: our approach to agriculture", have usefully raised
the profile of agriculture and rural development. But there are
inconsistencies. The research strategy promotes a wider definition
of "agriculture", including wildlife management, forestry,
and fisheries. This is welcome, as it recognises farmers' diverse
livelihoods and accommodates the possibility of a future where
such activities function better with each other and with environmental
processes. Yet the agricultural policy adopts a narrow definition
around farming—and a commercial focus aimed principally
at national economic growth. Whilst the policy reveals valuable
appreciation of the roles of value chains and market access, rather
than merely supply-side activities, poverty is treated as purely
income-based and the "safety net" functions of agriculture
are not well addressed. The problems faced by poor people in accessing
environmental assets are not addressed as a priority; neither
are the impacts of agribusiness gaining preferential access to
such assets.
In both the policy and research strategy, a narrow
emphasis on farming technology is inadequate and inconsistent
with the importance of demand-side constraints and with the other
natural resource activities on which farmers depend. There is
little emphasis on technology for soil and water management, on
other means to sustain the environmental asset base of agriculture,
and on approaches to minimise the energy intensity of farming
technology. Finally, there is inadequate commitment to more inclusive
science and technology, including building on traditional knowledge
which has proven so effective at working with natural processes—rather
than against them. Here, DFID's support to the current International
Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development
is to be welcomed, as it will attempt to bring together "scientific"
and traditional knowledge from almost a hundred countries.
In conclusion, DFID needs to improve efforts
towards MDG7, because this is one of the most "off-track"
MDGs. IIED welcomes this inquiry by the Environmental Audit Sub-Committee
and hopes that it will offer timely information and compelling
ideas that will influence the current International Development
White Paper process. Ultimately, development is not merely a function
of improved supply of finance to central governments. Development
is achieved through the accumulation and management of a portfolio
of assets—including environmental assets—in ways which
improve both their productivity and the equitable sharing of associated
costs and benefits. The evidence from national MDG reporting is
that MDG7 ("Achieve environmental sustainability") is
highly off-track, and that progress towards many other MDGs is
hindered by under-investment in environmental assets. DFID needs
to benchmark—and then regularly review and report on—its
investment in MDG7 according to the three categories in its Environment
approach.
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