Environmental & Natural Resource Management

Slogan for session 1: “Green pieces of heaven”

By Rodrigo Capriles, Natalia Díaz y Antonio Moreno

Comments Off on Environmental & Natural Resource Management / 12 Jan 2012 por Natalia Diaz Zamora
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DP: Communication for development

According to the surveys developed by the UN Global compact 2010 report, 93% of CEOs believe that sustainability issues will be critical to the future success of their business.

On the other hand, ” 72% of CEOs cite “brand, trust and reputation” as one of the top three factors driving them to take action on sustainability issues. 72% of CEOs see education as the global development issue most critical to address for the future success of their business. Climate change is second with 66%” ( UN, 2010).

Finally, “58% of CEOs identify consumers as the most important stakeholders that will impact the way they manage social expectations. Employees were second with 45%” ( UN, 2010).

Definitely, these are promising figures, full of hope for having a better world and preserving Earth’s ecosystems’, however what do we understand by sustainability, climate change and global development?

Probably, most CEOs understand these terms, but what about our biggest audience? Does society understand these concepts, and how the implementation can bring positive or negative consequences?

Perhaps the majority will answer they understand the issue. However, why is society not coherent with what they say and what they do? A classic example is to see a group finding environmental solutions using plastic water bottles instead of a glass pitcher of water with glasses.

I think people match sustainable development with environment, the protection of it and developed countries creating strategies to preserve natural resources of developing countries. But what about poverty and inequality?

On the following blogs entries, we will share some thoughts on what these concepts are according to experts, and how they are perceived by society, and how this misunderstanding of concepts can actually be a threat for the people in order to achieve the famous “sustainable development”

For the next post, I would like to analize key concepts such as communication, development, sustainability, sustainable development and how they are related. On the Third post, it will interesting to bring some comments of how communication will support the actions developed in cooperation and humanitarian aid arena and finally we will see the private sector and how it is related to CSR ( Corporate Social Responsibility).

Reference:

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/news_events/8.1/UNGC_Accenture_CEO_Study_2010.pdf

http://www.proyectoriofrio.org

Comments Off on DP: Communication for development / 12 Jan 2012 por Natalia Diaz Zamora
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Environment & Natural Resources Management: Slogan session 2.

Group 4: Iana, Patricia, Piotr, Carlos

“Each human being should consider our planet as a living organism in which the interdependency of ecosystem works like human cells”

Comments Off on Environment & Natural Resources Management: Slogan session 2. / 11 Jan 2012 por Carlos Cerdan Infantes
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Empowering Women through Tourism – DP

Do you think it is a coincidence that only 4,000 out of 80,000 pilots worldwide are women? Within the travel and tourism industry of developing countries, women have dealt with inequalities and lack of opportunities (Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010 Preliminary Findings). This is why empowering women trough tourism is part of the triple commitment to achieve the United Nations World Tourism Organization´s (UNWTO) Millennium Development Goals 2015. While in some countries tourism can improve women’s situation and can help decrease poverty, in other countries or specific communities tourism can degrade women and make social situation worse. This is why I consider that implementing a single plan to empower women through tourism is inappropriate and the methods that are used in every country and culture should be customized. This entry will analyse the empowering tools recommended by the UNWTO and will discuss some issues that should be taken into consideration order to achieve gender equality in the tourism industry.

The first UNWTO´s goal is to generate equal opportunities for women. This is one of the most important goals, and for me, it is a long process that can only be achieved if other strategies and actions are taken by government and society. Equality can be achieved or improved in some societies, but, in countries where by culture women are not supposed to work, it is impossible to generate equal labour opportunities. Changing culture, and sometimes religious beliefs is not something that tourism nor an imposed framework can change. Mind-set has to change in order to achieve equality of opportunities, and what the tourism industry can do is to provide tools that lead changes without going directly against what society currently accepts. Therefore tourism can contribute to achieve this general goal, but it is not possible to have equality of opportunities based solely on the tourism industry and overlooking other fields.

Advancing women through education and training is another tool that the UNWTO establishes to empower women. This can generate real changes on the industry and over women´s situation. I consider it completely achievable: it builds up human capital and makes women more competitive, which is at the same time a key aspect to achieve equality of opportunities. As women are more prepared, they will have more chances of getting involved and leading the industry. The most important issue when developing training plans is to provide professional and technical programs that help women add value to travel and tourism. Training women is not just teaching how to make handicrafts and sell them to wealthy tourists, it also entails training them on how the industry works, about entrepreneurship and tourist trends, among others. On the other hand, for countries where discrimination and gender inequality is very high, education and training should go beyond teaching women certain new skills. Courses should also involve men and industry players (managers and employees) and should emphasize on the importance of women for the industry, on how they should be valued and the ways in which they can improve local and international tourism. Company and public managers, hotels and airline supply chains are the first that should start considering women as important actors. Partnerships among governments, private sector and civil society can be an excellent tool to educate women and the industry.

Entrepreneurship is another of the Organization’s empowering mechanisms. Even though I consider it a positive alternative to empower women, it is not adequate for the majority of women because it requires economic resources and management knowledge. Entrepreneurship is directly related to better access to microcredits, but when the real problem of women is poverty, having access to loans becomes extremely difficult as well as the fact that it entails additional control mechanisms to ensure a correct deployment of the funds. Therefore, promoting entrepreneurship should be a targeted strategy focusing efforts were real effects can be achieved. The UNWTO also promotes protection for working home-based entrepreneurs. It sounds somewhat ambiguous, thus it would be interesting to know to what is it trying to protect women against and what and how are they going to be protected. Depending on the culture and on the security situation of each country, this kind of protection should also be constructed and implemented. Some laws that aim to protect women just for being the opposite sex can also be considered discriminatory.

Did you know that…• Women in tourism earn 10% to 15% less than their male counterparts? (Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010)• From 2% to 80% of the tourism labour force are women. In more mature countries women’s participation is around 50% (Gender makes the difference)• Women are carrying out a large amount of unpaid work in family tourism businesses? (Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010)• Women are being employed as waitresses, chambermaids, cleaners, flight attendants, (90% are women), whereas men are being employed with higher positions (Gender makes the difference)• In Belize 80% of women feel gender discrimination and sexual harassment at work (Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010)• Only 2 out of 77 women made it to become hotel managers in Singapore (Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010)• In Costa Rica, the ACA-Arenal project promoted women as tourism entrepreneurs for ecotourism (Gender makes the difference)

The last purpose of the UNWTO regarding women empowering is to encourage them to become leaders. Do you think it is applicable in all cultures? Women´s position in the tourism industry is the consequence of a process and it will continue to change as women demonstrate that they are capable of achieving results and as they become more involved by the industry leaders. Change happens at different speeds depending on the society. There are certain cultures that are not used or do not admit women as company leaders. Again, tourism cannot change the reality of women. Creating awareness and training industry stakeholders can promote positive change, but empowering women leaders is a process that might not have visible results in 2015.

There is a serious issue that the UNWTO’s proposals do not touch: sex tourism. A study by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Children revealed that in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia prostitution accounts for between 2 and 14% of the countries´ GDP (Brown Shane, Sex Tourism around the World). Sex tourism is a direct way of women’s degradation and can cause social problems such as disease propagation, child abuse, economic dependency on illegal activities, social exploitation and mafia development. Countries where sex tourism is a big portion of the industry, should address this problem in order to be able to empower women as proposed by the UNWTO. Education for tourists, strict legal frameworks and marketing campaigns can be used as preventive methods. But the real problem, which is lack of opportunities for women should be addressed. Working directly with sexual workers and providing decent employment opportunities within the tourism industry can provide insights on what kind of activities can be promoted and what kind of training can be given in order for them to search for new ways of life.

Gender inequality in tourism should be addressed locally. Some general and international recommendations for empowering women through tourism can be adopted, however depending on the culture, current situation and history of each region, an empowering plan can be implemented. I consider that the main action that should be taken in order to improve the situation of women is to educate them as well as train key actors in the tourism industry. As long as people understand what the role of women can be in tourism, different empowering plans and actions can be carried out. Degrading activities for women related to tourism should be addressed in order to start a developing process where women are more involved and where they become leaders.

Sources

Child Sex Tourism. For more information: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/sextour.html

Ethics and Social Dimensions of Tourism. UNWTO. For more information:

http://ethics.unwto.org/en/content/gender-and-tourism

Gender & Tourism: Women’s Employment and Participation in Tourism. Summary of UNED-UK’s Project Report. For more information: http://www.earthsummit2002.org/toolkits/women/current/gendertourismrep.html

Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010. UNWTO. For more information: http://www.e-unwto.org/content/j133q0/fulltext.pdf

Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010 Preliminary Findings. UNWTO. For more information: http://www2.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/folleto_global_report_on_women_in_tourism-corregido.pdf

Comments Off on Empowering Women through Tourism – DP / 11 Jan 2012 por Laura Rubio
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Sustainability: It is time to invert the trend

The society’s paradox

In the attempt of pursuing development, society is undermining its possibilities to achieve it.

Why

Non-sustainable mechanisms embedded in our society have driven it into a tunnel where the walls are continuously narrowing: while population and global demand for goods is increasing, life supporting resources on Earth are declining; while waste and pollution are accumulating, soil productivity and biodiversity are weakening; while the gap between the haves and the haves not is widening, social fabric is shrinking. It means that the room for maneuver is continuously narrowing; it means that humanity’s potential for well-being and prosperity is diminishing.

What we need to do

Today’s societal challenges require us to respond quickly and globally if we are to embrace truly human development. It means acting locally to address humanitarian issues, while sharing a common global vision of a sustainable future. Failure to do so will make things worse and worse, till will be impossible for society to sustain itself. Worldwide people and businesses contribution with practical actions is vital to make the difference; In addition, a proactive governance which provides inputs to society is equally fundamental (laws, regulations, standards, mechanisms to stimulate change, etc.): the proportion of the problem calls the political international arena to pursue a common understanding of issues and roles, finally producing a common strategy toward a sustainable future. In brief, today the world to change need leadership in every component: civil society, private sector and government.

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What is the response in the international arena?

Environmental issues

Internationally, attempts to face environmental issues are trapped on endless negotiations, last chapter the COP 17 held in Durban UNFCCC, where we are still missing a globally binding agreement. In the meanwhile:

CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is today 391.57 ppm, with an increase of 2.07 ppm each year in the last decade, almost + 40% of the pre-industrial levels.
17 million hectares each year of rainforest is being removed
90% of large fishes have disappeared from oceans
75% of genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost

Social Issues

The widest attempt to address poverty and enhance people’s quality of life is represented by the Millennium Declaration, signed by 189 United Nations in 2000. Governments committed to achieve by 2015 8 millennium goals, including also environmental sustainability and global partnership.

To provide an insight of the current situation, let’s focus on the sub-Saharan Africa, the area of the world which incredibly describes another paradox: is the one which pays the toughest bills, while being the least in contributing to the damages.

Before analyzing some data to outline progress so far, let’s keep in mind few of the practices and mechanisms which are fundamental and interrelated to influence those indicators which could fulfill the millennium goals. If goals are attained, eventually success goes through such considerations, if objectives are missing, it is probably in these systems where humanity need to focus on new solutions.

food security: as food wastage, agriculture practices, distribution methods, consumption trends;
health: hygiene conditions , water sanitation, medicines and infrastructure availability, environmental quality, etc;
markets and economy practices: fair negotiations, business activities impacts, business practices, laws and regulations, distribution of resources and wealth, etc.;
governance: human rights, democracy, safety, policies and regulations, infrastructure, etc.
international organizations and institutions role: philanthropic aid, assistance programs, standards and guidelines, know how.
social fabric: culture, education, common sense, trust, connections, identity, etc.

Sub Saharan Africa, a disconcerting reality

While the percentage of people living under poverty line is slightly decreased, total amount is still above half population. Most of countries hold a proportion of undernourished population around 35%, with no or little improvement.

Half of the children out of school in the world are in Sub Saharan Africa, where conflicts and poverty issues are the factors more conditioning. The area holds additional 47 million young (15 to24 years old) illiterate. Here anyway we have a first sign of confort: regarding education, the area has shown a great improvement in gender equality, making the target achievable by 2015. This is great news, as women education can mean a lot in term of further gender empowerment in job creation, in maternity issues and child mortality, which often are related to high density population and very low income and education rate. Actually in countries were women are well educated the level of development is consistent: developing capabilities they involve in enriching society by political enrollment and leadership contribution; education means also better possibilities to work outside the house constraints, so that they help family toward wealth generation and food supply; finally adolescence maternity will be reduced has they devote time to school, so leading improvement in mothers and neonates mortality. As an evidence, notice that Sub-Saharan Africa show the better improvements in term of women access to paid work.

Child mortality rate has decreased showing a great improvement but still is far from other world zones, which are close to meet 2015 targets. Malaria is still a major killer in Sub-Saharan Africa, causing about 16 per cent of under-five deaths, nonetheless great improvements on the use of mosquito nets. Worryingly also increased the rate of neonate deaths. The number of people living with HIV is even increasing in most of the countries compared to 2000: the proportion of the problem is showed by this image. That is also because the use of contraceptives has presented very little improvement, making contagion easer as population grows.

Finally, a population which in big proportion is fighting against starvation, can hardly take care of environmental sustainability in term of ecosystem preservation and deforestation. Sanitation problems and population density are not helping. Infrastructures’ lack causes low access to fresh water, even if resources are available. Anyway, due to poverty levels, ecological footprint of people is widely in line with Earth capacity of regeneration and absorption. The problem is that external countries and businesses exploit here resources to serve other part of the world while avoiding to respect environment and even contributing to social distress: the example of oil companies destroying the Niger delta is not alone.

Progress conclusions

Generally speaking, targets in Sub Saharan Africa are not met, neither will they do in 2015 according to current trends. This is the area which most needs; little improvement can have big impact on improvement quality of life, but we can not be satisfied by current results as to attain truly global development, the gaps outlined are so important to be covered. No one can be left behind in this very interdependent world, overall the most needy.

While today the concepts of development and sustainability are widely adopted, the development we are pursuing is still close to the paradox’s one: new actions have been implemented, new strategies have been thought, but the results display so often a widening gap in society, cultural harassment and ecological degradation.

And the clock is going on…

Comments Off on Sustainability: It is time to invert the trend / 11 Jan 2012 por Francesco Mazzeo
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Environment & Natural Resources Management – Session 2, Group 6

Let´s come together: speak the same language to protect the environment!

By: Ildiko, Javier, Laura

Comments Off on Environment & Natural Resources Management – Session 2, Group 6 / 11 Jan 2012 por Laura Rubio
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Group 5: Natural Resources Slogan 2

After the second class, Tatiana, Lauren and I realized the importance of having all group members be at the same starting level, when working on any important topic. In regards to natural resources, we concluded that one should:

“Understand the natural world before deciding its future.”

Comments Off on Group 5: Natural Resources Slogan 2 / 11 Jan 2012 por Hokuma Karimova
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Slogan session 2: SUSTAINING THE ECOLOGICAL INTERCONNECTIVITY THROUGH SUSTAINABILITY

For environmental and natural resources management.

Group 1:

Aitana Leret
Syafrina Sharif
Luca Palma
Diana Sánchez

Comments Off on Slogan session 2: SUSTAINING THE ECOLOGICAL INTERCONNECTIVITY THROUGH SUSTAINABILITY / 11 Jan 2012 por Diana Patricia Sanchez Barajas
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Environmental and natural resource management

” Green pieces of heaven”

By Rodrigo Capriles, Natalia Díaz y Antonio Moreno

Comments Off on Environmental and natural resource management / 11 Jan 2012 por Antonio Calixto Moreno Zarco
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DP #4: Challenges with the evaluation of development aid projects

In 2010 the EU spent 53.8 billion Euros on Official Development Assistance (EU2011). What did it change? Lives, mindsets, behaviors? Laws, access to resources or education? A correct answer to this question is impossible because in many development aid projects the people know only the inputs and not the real impacts it had. Reviewing the project appraisals of the World Bank in 2000 shows that only 10% contain “planned impact evaluations” (Rawlings 2005). But evaluation is important for future learning and accountability (DAC 1991) to allocate the assigned money into projects with a high impact. The importance of evaluation increased further due to the claims that many years of development aid did not contribute positively to the development of a country.

To standardize the understanding of evaluation the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD designed already in 1982 five evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. Many international organizations use them to analyze the impact of their development aid projects.

However there might be evaluation, but too much data gained or not the right data, hence no proper result can be found for future learning. What makes the evaluation difficult is the asymmetry of the interests. Usually the donor wants to evaluate the development aid project in order to know that the money was used in the correct way. The recipient is only interested if the evaluation “lead(s) to future project possibilities” (Nagao 2006). Another asymmetry is the time horizon. The donors are spending a finite time with the project and want visible results within this horizon. The developing country is more interested in the long term impact of the project on its development (Nagao 2006). This asymmetry could lead to projects which are designed to have tangible outputs within 2-3 years and do not necessarily contribute to a sustainable development of the country.

The change of development aid projects and its complexity add further challenges on the evaluation. The Millennium Development Goals and multi-donor relationships in projects ask for enhanced accountability and increase complexity. These international expectations on aid increase the pressure even further and stress the tension between meeting the short term needs and addressing sustainable development in the long term.

Another consideration is the tension between standardized processes and the local conditions. One the one hand it should be simple and easy to apply and give a certain standard to be comparable as well. On the other hand the project should serve the community and be appropriate on the local level. This might not be easy to balance every time. Additionally it is difficult to measure the real impact because we cannot always determine cause and consequence – there are years lying in between.

However I believe that evaluation is an important topic which should be seriously addressed and added from the beginning in every project. Just if we know the outcomes we know how to go on further and which measures have actually the biggest impact (and not the one we think might have the biggest impact). Watch this movie about a talk from Esther Duflo where she finds answers to some urgent question with the help of randomized studies (16:47 min). I know that randomized studies raise new questions and ethical concerns, but isn’t it not worse to spend money on the measure where the impact is lower just because we don’t know?