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5. Those looking for success and signs of hope can find many: infant mortality is falling; human life expectancy is increasing; the proportion of the world's adults who can read and write is climbing; the proportion of children starting school is rising; and global food production increases faster than the population grows.

6. But the same processes that have produced these gains have given rise to trends that the planet and its people cannot long bear. These have traditionally been divided into failures of 'development' and failures in the management of our human environment. On the development side, in terms of absolute numbers there are more hungry people in the world than ever before, and their numbers are increasing. So are the numbers who cannot read or write, the numbers without safe water or safe and sound homes, and the numbers short of woodfuel with which to cook and warm themselves. The gap between rich and poor nations is widening - not shrinking - and there is little prospect, given present trends and institutional arrangements, that this process will be reversed.

7. There are also environmental trends that threaten to radically alter the planet, that threaten the lives of many species upon it. including the human species. Each year another 6 million hectares of productive dryland turns into worthless desert. Over three decades, this would amount to an area roughly as large as Saudi Arabia. More than 11 million hectares of forests are destroyed yearly, and this, over three decades, would equal an area about the size of India. Much of this forest is converted to low-grade farmland unable to support the farmers who settle it. In Europe, acid precipitation kills forests and lakes and damages the artistic and architectural heritage of nations; it may have acidified vast tracts of soil beyond reasonable hope of repair. The burning of fossil fuels puts into the atmosphere carbon dioxide, which is causing gradual global warming. This 'greenhouse effect' may by early next century have increased average global temperatures enough to shift agricultural production areas, raise sea levels to flood coastal cities, and disrupt national economies. Other industrial gases threaten to deplete the planet's protective ozone shield to such an extent that the number of human and animal cancers would rise sharply and the oceans' food chain would be disrupted, industry and agriculture put toxic substances into the human food chain and into underground water tables beyond reach of cleansing.

8. There has been a growing realization in national governments and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environment issues; many forms of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based, and environmental degradation can undermine economic development. Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality.

9. These concerns were behind the establishment in 1983 of the World Commission on Environment and Development by the UN General Assembly. The Commission is an independent body, linked to but outside the control of governments and the UN system. The Commission's mandate gave it three objectives: to re-examine the critical environment and development issues and to formulate realistic proposals for dealing with them; to propose new forms of international cooperation on these issues that will influence policies and events in the direction of needed changes; and to raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutes, and governments.

10. Through our deliberations and the testimony of people at the public hearings we held on five continents, all the commissioners came to focus on one central theme: many present development trends leave increasing numbers of people poor and vulnerable, while at the same time degrading the environment. How can such development serve next century's world of twice as many people relying on the same environment? This realization broadened our view of development. We came to see it not in its restricted context of economic growth in developing countries. We came to see that a new development path was required, one that sustained human progress not just in a few pieces for a few years, but for the entire planet into the distant future. Thus 'sustainable development' becomes a goal not just for the 'developing' nations, but for industrial ones as well.
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11. Until recently, the planet was a large world in which human activities and their effects were neatly compartmentalized within nations, within sectors (energy, agriculture, trade), and within broad areas of concern (environment, economics, social). These compartments have begun to dissolve. This applies in particular to the various global 'crises' that have seized public concern, particularly over the past decade. These are not separate crises: an environmental crisis, a development crisis, an energy crisis. They are all one.

12. The planet is passing through a period of dramatic growth and fundamental change. Our human world of 5 billion must make room in a finite environment for another human world. The population could stabilize at between 8 and 14 billion sometime next century, according to UN projections. More than 90 per cent of the increase will occur in the poorest countries, and 90 per cent of that growth in already bursting cities.

13. Economic activity has multiplied to create a $13 trillion world economy, and this could grow five to tenfold in the coming half century. Industrial production has grown more than fiftyfold over the past century, four-fifths of this growth since 1950. Such figures reflect and presage profound impacts upon the biosphere, as the world invests in houses, transport, farms, and industries. Much of the economic growth pulls raw material from forests, soils, seas, and waterways.

14. A mainspring of economic growth is new technology, and while this technology offers the potential for slowing the dangerously rapid consumption of finite resources, it also entails high risks, including new forms of pollution and the introduction to the planet of new variations of life forms that could change evolutionary pathways. Meanwhile, the industries most heavily reliant on environmental resources and most heavily polluting are growing most rapidly in developing countries, where there is both more urgency for growth and less capacity to minimize damaging side effects.

15. These related changes have locked the global economy and global ecology together in new ways. We have in the past been concerned about the impacts of economic growth upon the environment. We are now forced to concern ourselves with the impacts of ecological stress - degradation of soils, water regimes, atmosphere, and forests upon our economic prospects. We have in the more recent past been forced to face up to a sharp increase in economic interdependence among nations. We are now forced to accustom ourselves to an accelerating ecological interdependence among nations. Ecology and economy are becoming ever more interwoven locally, regionally, nationally, and globally into a seamless net of causes and effects.

16. Impoverishing the local resource base can impoverish wider areas: deforestation by highland farmers causes flooding on lowland farms; factory pollution robs local fishermen of their catch. Such grim local cycles now operate nationally and regionally. Dryland degradation sends environmental refugees in their millions across national borders. Deforestation in Latin America and Asia is causing more floods, and more destructive floods, in downhill, downstream nations. Acid precipitation and nuclear fallout have spread across the borders of Europe. Similar phenomena are emerging on a global scale, such as global warming and loss of ozone. Internationally traded hazardous chemicals entering foods are themselves internationally traded. In the next century, the environmental pressure causing population movements may be increase sharply, while barriers to that movement may be even firmer than they are now.

17. Over the past few decades, life-threatening environmental concerns have surfaced in developing countries. Countrysides are coming under pressure from increasing numbers of farmers and the landless. Cities are filling with people, cars, and factories. Yet at the same time these developing countries oust operate in a world in which the resources gap between most developing and industrial nations is widening, in which the industrial world dominates in the rule-making of some key international bodies and in which the industrial world has already used much of the planet's ecological capital. This inequality is the planet's main 'environmental' problem; it is also its main 'development' problem.

18. International economic relationships pose a particular problem for environmental management in many developing countries. Agriculture, forestry, energy production, and mining generate at least half the gross national product of many developing countries and account for even larger shares of livelihoods and employment. Exports of natural resources remain a large factor in their economies, especially for the least developed. Most of these countries face enormous economic pressures, both international and domestic, to overexploit their environmental resource base.

19. The recent crisis in Africa best and most tragically illustrates the ways in which economics and ecology can interact destructively and trip into disaster. Triggered by drought, its real causes lie deeper. They are to be found in part in national policies that gave too little attention, too late, to the needs of smallholder agriculture and to the threats posed by rapidly rising populations. Their roots extend also to a global economic system that takes more out of a poor continent than it puts in. Debts that they cannot pay force African nations relying on commodity sales to overuse their fragile soils, thus turning good land to desert. Trade barriers in the wealthy nations - and in many developing countries - make it hard for African nations to sell their goods for reasonable returns, putting yet more pressure on ecological systems. Aid from donor nations has not only been inadequate in scale, but too often has reflected the priorities of the nations giving the aid, rather than the needs of the recipients.

20. The production base of other developing world areas suffers similarly from both local failures and from the workings of international economic systems. As a consequence of the 'debt crisis' of Latin America, that continent's natural resources are now being used not for development but to meet financial obligations to creditors abroad. This approach to the debt problem is short-sighted from several standpoints: economic, political, and environmental. It requires relatively poor countries simultaneously to accept growing poverty while exporting growing amounts of scarce resources.

21. A majority of developing countries now have lower per capita incomes than when the decade began. Rising poverty and unemployment have increased pressure on environmental resources as more people have been forced to rely more directly upon them. Many governments have cut back efforts to protect the environment and to bring ecological considerations into development planning.

22. The deepening and widening environmental crisis presents a threat to national security - and even survival - that may be greater than well-armed, ill-disposed neighbours and unfriendly alliances. Already in parts of Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, environmental decline is becoming a source of political unrest and international tension. The recent destruction of much of Africa's dryland agricultural production was more severe than if an invading army had pursued a scorched-earth policy. Yet most of the affected governments still spend far more to protect their people from invading armies than from the invading desert.

23. Globally, military expenditures total about $1 trillion a year and continue to grow. In many countries, military spending consumes such a high proportion of GNP that it itself does great damage to these societies' development efforts. Governments tend to base their approaches to 'security' on traditional definitions. This is most obvious in the attempts to achieve security through the development of potentially planet-destroying nuclear weapons systems. Studies suggest that the cold and dark nuclear winter following even a limited nuclear war could destroy plant and animal ecosystems and leave any human survivors occupying a devastated planet very different from the one they inherited.

24. The arms race - in all parts of the world - pre-empts resources that might be used more productively to diminish the security threats created by environmental conflict and the resentments that are fuelled by widespread poverty.

25. Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress, to meet human needs, and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable - in both the rich and poor nations. They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts. They may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses. We borrow environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to them. We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.

26. But the results of the present profligacy are rapidly closing the options for future generations. Most of today's decision makers will be dead before the planet feels; the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, or widespread desertification and species loss. Most of the young voters of today will still be alive. In the Commission's hearings it was the young, those who have the most to lose, who were the harshest critics of the planet's present management.
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27. Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development does imply limits - not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities. But technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth. The Commission believes that widespread poverty is no longer inevitable. Poverty is not only an evil in itself, but sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations for a better life. A world in which poverty is endemic will always be prone to ecological and other catastrophes.

28. Meeting essential needs requires not only a new era of economic growth for nations in which the majority are poor, but an assurance that those poor get their fair share of the resources required to sustain that growth. Such equity would be aided by political systems that secure effective citizen participation in decision making and by greater democracy in international decision making.

29. Sustainable global development requires that those who are more affluent adopt life-styles within the planet's ecological means - in their use of energy, for example. Further, rapidly growing populations can increase the pressure on resources and slow any rise in living standards; thus sustainable development can only be pursued if population size and growth are in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem.

30. Yet in the end, sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs. We do not pretend that the process is easy or straightforward. Painful choices have to be made. Thus, in the final analysis, sustainable development must rest on political will.
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31. The objective of sustainable development and the integrated nature of the global environment/development challenges pose problems for institutions, national and international, that were established on the basis of narrow preoccupations and compartmentalized concerns. Governments' general response to the speed and scale of global changes has been a reluctance to recognize sufficiently the need to change themselves. The challenges are both interdependent and integrated, requiring comprehensive approaches and popular participation.

32. Yet most of the institutions facing those challenges tend to be independent, fragmented, working to relatively narrow mandates with closed decision processes. Those responsible for managing natural resources and protecting the environment are institutionally separated from those responsible for managing the economy. The real world of interlocked economic and ecological systems will not change; the policies and institutions concerned must.

33. There is a growing need for effective international cooperation to manage ecological and economic interdependence. Yet at the same time, confidence in international organizations is diminishing and support for them dwindling.

34. The other great institutional flaw in coping with environment/development challenges is governments' failure to make the bodies whose policy actions degrade the environment responsible for ensuring that their policies prevent that degradation. Environmental concern arose from damage caused by the rapid economic growth following the Second World War. Governments, pressured by their citizens, saw a need to clean up the mess, and they established environmental ministries and agencies to do this. Many had great success within the limits of their mandates - in improving air and water quality and enhancing other resources. But much of their work has of necessity been after-the-fact repair of damage: reforestation, reclaiming desert lands, rebuilding urban environments, restoring natural habitats, and rehabilitating wild lands.

35. The existence of such agencies gave many governments and their citizens the false impression that these bodies were by themselves able to protect and enhance the environmental resource base. Yet many industrialized and most developing countries carry huge economic burdens from inherited problems such an air and water pollution, depletion of groundwater, and the proliferation of toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes. These have been joined by more recent problems - erosion, desertification, acidification, new chemicals, and new forms of waste - that are directly related to agricultural, industrial, energy, forestry, and transportation policies and practices.

36. The mandates of the central economic and sectoral ministries are also often too narrow, too concerned with quantities of production or growth. The mandates of ministries of industry include production targets, while the accompanying pollution is left to ministries of environment. Electricity boards produce power, while the acid pollution they also produce is left to other bodies to clean up. The present challenge is to give the central economic and sectoral ministries the responsibility for the quality of those parts of the human environment affected by their decisions, and to give the environmental agencies more power to cope with the effects of unsustainable development.

37. The same need for change holds for international agencies concerned with development lending, trade regulation, agricultural development, and so on. These have been slow to take the environmental effects of their work into account, although some are trying to do so.

38. The ability to anticipate and prevent environmental damage requires that the ecological dimensions of policy be considered at the same time as the economic, trade, energy, agricultural, and other dimensions. They should be considered on the same agendas and in the same national and international institutions.

39. This reorientation is one of the chief institutional challenges of the 1990s and beyond. Meeting it will require major institutional development and reform. Many countries that are too poor or small or that have limited managerial capacity will find it difficult to do this unaided. They will need financial and technical assistance and training. But the changes required involve all countries, large and small, rich and poor.
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41. In many parts of the world, the population is growing at rates that cannot be sustained by available environmental resources, at rates that are outstripping any reasonable expectations of improvements in housing, health care, food security, or energy supplies.

42. The issue is not just numbers of people, but how those numbers relate to available resources. Thus the 'population problem' must be dealt with in part by efforts to eliminate mass poverty, in order to assure more equitable access to resources, and by education to improve human potential to manage those resources.

43. Urgent steps are needed to limit extreme rates of population growth. Choices made now will influence the level at which the population stabilizes next century within a range of 6 billion people. But this is not just a demographic issue; providing people with facilities and education that allow them to choose the size of their families is a way of assuring - especially for women - the basic human right of self-determination.

44. Governments that need to do so should develop long-term, multifaceted population policies and a campaign to pursue broad demographic goals: to strengthen social, cultural, and economic motivations for family planning, and to provide to all who want them the education, contraceptives, and services required.

45. Human resource development is a crucial requirement not only to build up technical knowledge and capabilities, but also to create new values to help individuals and nations cope with rapidly changing social, environmental, and development realities. Knowledge shared globally would assure greater mutual understanding and create greater willingness to share global resources equitably.

46. Tribal and indigenous peoples will need special attention as the forces of economic development disrupt their traditional life-styles - life-styles that can offer modern societies many lessons in the management of resources in complex forest, mountain, and dryland ecosystems. Some are threatened with virtual extinction by insensitive development over which they have no control. Their traditional rights should be recognized and they should be given a decisive voice in formulating policies about resource development in their areas. (See Chapter 4 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)
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47. Growth in world cereal production has steadily outstripped world population growth. Yet each year there are more people in the world who do not get enough food. Global agriculture has the potential to grow enough food for all, but food is often not available where it is needed.

48. Production in industrialized countries has usually been highly subsidized and protected from international competition. These subsidies have encouraged the overuse of soil and chemicals, the pollution of both water resources and foods with these chemicals, and the degradation of the countryside. Much of this effort has produced surpluses and their associated financial burdens. And some of this surplus has been sent at concessional rates to developing countries, where it has undermined the farming policies of recipient nations. There is, however, growing awareness in some countries of the environmental and economic consequences of such paths, and the emphasis of agricultural policies is to encourage conservation.

49. Many developing countries, on the other hand, have suffered the opposite problem: farmers are not sufficiently supported. In some, improved technology allied to price incentives and government services has produced a major breakthrough in food production. But elsewhere, the food-growing small farmers have been neglected. Coping with often inadequate technology and few economic incentives, many are pushed onto marginal land: too dry, too steep, lacking in nutrients. Forests are cleared and productive drylands rendered barren.

50. Most developing countries need more effective incentive systems to encourage production, especially of food crops. In short, the 'terms of trade' need to be turned in favour of the small farmer. Most industrialized nations, on the other hand, must alter present systems in order to cut surpluses, to reduce unfair competition with nations that may have real comparative advantages, and to promote ecologically sound farming practices.

51. Food security requires attention to questions of distribution, since hunger often arises from lack of purchasing power rather than lack of available food. It can be furthered by land reforms, and by policies to protect vulnerable subsistence farmers, pastora1ists, and the landless - groups who by the year 2000 will include 220 million households. Their greater prosperity will depend on integrated rural development that increases work opportunities both inside and outside agriculture. (See Chapter 5 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)
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52. The planet's species are under stress. There is a growing scientific consensus that species are disappearing at rates never before witnessed on the planet, although there is also controversy over those rates and the risks they entail. Yet there is still time to halt this process.

53. The diversity of species is necessary for the normal functioning of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole. The genetic material in wild species contributes billions of dollars yearly to the world economy in the form of improved crop species, new drugs and medicines, and raw materials for industry. But utility aside, there are also moral, ethical, cultural, aesthetic, and purely scientific reasons for conserving wild beings.

54. A first priority is to establish the problem of disappearing species and threatened ecosystems on political agendas as a major economic and resource issue.

55. Governments can stem the destruction of tropical forests and other reservoirs of biological diversity while developing them economically. Reforming forest revenue systems and concession terms could raise billions of dollars of additional revenues, promote more efficient, long-term forest resource use, and curtail deforestation.

56. The network of protected areas that the world will need in the future must include much larger areas brought under so.ne degree of protection. Therefore, the cost of conservation will rise - directly and in terms of opportunities for development foregone. But over the long term the opportunities for development will be enhanced. International development agencies should therefore give comprehensive and systematic attention to the problems and opportunities of species conservation.

57. Governments should investigate the prospect of agreeing to a 'Species Convention', similar in spirit and scope to other international conventions reflecting principles of 'universal resources'. They should also consider international financial arrangements to support the implementation of such a convention. (See Chapter 6 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)
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58. A safe and sustainable energy pathway is crucial to sustainable development; we have not yet found it. Rates of increase in energy use have been declining. However, the industrialization, agricultural development, and rapidly growing populations of developing countries will need much more energy. Today, the average person in an industrial market economy uses more than 80 times as much energy as someone in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus any realistic global energy scenario must provide for substantially increased primary energy use by developing countries.

59. To bring developing countries' energy use up to industrialized country levels by the year 2025 would require increasing present global energy use by a factor of five. The planetary ecosystem could not stand this, especially if the increases were based on non-renewable fossil fuels. Threats of global warming and acidification of the environment most probably rule out even a doubling of energy use bared on present mixes of primary sources.

60. Any new era of economic growth must therefore be less energy intensive than growth in the past. Energy efficiency policies must be the cutting edge of national energy strategies for sustainable development, and there is much scope for improvement in this direction. Modern appliances can be redesigned to deliver the same amounts of energy-services with only two-thirds or even one-half of the primary energy inputs needed to run traditional equipment. And energy efficiency solutions are often cost-effective.

61. After almost four decades of immense technological effort, nuclear energy has become widely used. During this period, however, the nature of its costs, risks, and benefits have become more evident and the subject of sharp controversy. Different countries world-wide take up different positions on the use of nuclear energy. The discussion in the Commission also reflected these different views and positions. Yet all agreed that the generation of nuclear power is only justifiable if there are solid solutions to the unsolved problems to which it gives rise. The highest priority should be accorded to research and development on environmentally sound and ecologically viable alternatives, as well as on means of increasing the safety of nuclear energy.

62. Energy efficiency can only buy time for the world to develop 'low-energy paths' based on renewable sources, which should form the foundation of the global energy structure during the 21st Century. Most of these sources are currently problematic, but given innovative development, they could supply the same amount of primary energy the planet now consumes. However, achieving these use levels will require a programme of coordinated research, development, and demonstration projects commanding funding necessary to ensure the rapid development of renewable energy. Countries of the global South will require assistance to change their energy use patterns in this direction.

63. Millions of people in developing countries are short of fuelwood, the main domestic energy of half of humanity, and their numbers are growing. The wood-poor nations must organize their agricultural sectors to produce large amounts of wood and other plant fuels.

64. The substantial changes required in the present global energy mix will not be achieved by market pressures alone, given the dominant role of governments as producers of energy and their importance as consumers. If the recent momentum behind annual gains in energy efficiency is to be maintained and extended,governments need to make it an explicit goal of their policies for energy pricing to consumers, prices needed to encourage the adoption of energy-saving measures may be achieved through several means. Although the Commission expresses no preference, 'conservation pricing' requires that governments take a long-term view in weighing the costs and benefits of the various measures. Given the importance of oil prices on international energy policy, new mechanisms for encouraging dialogue between consumers and producers should be explored.

65. A safe, environmentally sound, and economically viable energy pathway that will sustain human progress into the distant future is clearly imperative. It is also possible. But it will require new dimensions of political will and institutional cooperation to achieve it. (See Chapter 7 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)
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66. The world manufactures seven times more goods today than it did as recently as 1950. Given population growth rates, a five- to tenfold increase in manufacturing output will be needed just to raise developing world consumption of manufactured goods to industrialized world levels by the time population growth rates level off next century.

67. Experience in the industrialized nations has proved that anti-pollution technology has been cost-effective in terms of health, property, and environmental damage avoided, and that it has made many industries more profitable by waking them more resource-efficient. While economic growth has continued, the consumption of raw materials has held steady or even declined, and new technologies offer further efficiencies.

68. Nations have to bear the costs of any inappropriate industrialization, and many developing countries are realizing that they have neither the resources nor - given rapid technological change - the time to damage their environments now and clean up later. But they also need assistance and information from industrialized nations to make the best use of technology. Transnational corporations have a special responsibility to smooth the path of industrialization in the nations in which they operate.

69. Emerging technologies offer the promise of higher productivity, increased efficiency, and decreased pollution, but many bring risks of new toxic chemicals and wastes and of major accidents of a type and scale beyond present coping mechanisms. There is an urgent need for tighter controls over the export of hazardous industrial and agricultural chemicals. Present controls over the dumping of hazardous wastes should be tightened.

70. Many essential human needs can be net only through goods and services provided by industry, and the shift to sustainable development must be powered by a continuing flow of wealth from industry. (See Chapter 8 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)
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71. By the turn of the century, almost half of humanity will live in cities; the world of the 21st century will be a largely urban world. Over only 65 years, developing countries's urban population has increased tenfold, from around 100 million in 1920 to 1 billion today. In 1940, one person in 100 lived in a city of 1 million or more inhabitants; by 1980, one in 10 lived in such a city. Between 1985 and the year 2000, Third World cities could grow by another three-quarters of a billion people. This suggests that developing countries must, over the next few years, increase by 65 per cent its capacity to produce and manage its urban infrastructure, services, and shelter merely to maintain today's often extremely inadequate conditions.

72. Few city governments in developing countries have the power, resources, and trained personnel to provide their rapidly growing populations with the land, services, and facilities needed for an adequate human life: clean water, sanitation, schools, and transport. The result is mushrooming illegal settlements with primitive facilities, increased overcrowding, and rampant disease linked to an unhealthy environment. Many cities in industrial countries also face problems - deteriorating infrastructure, environmental degradation, inner-city decay, and neighbourhood collapse. But with the means and resources to tackle this decline, the issue for most industrial countries is ultimately one of political and social choice. Countries of the global South are not in the same situation. They have a major urban crisis on their hands.

73. Governments will need to develop explicit settlements strategies to guide the process of urbanization, taking the pressure off the largest urban centres and building up smaller towns and cities, more closely integrating them with their rural hinterlands. This will mean examining and changing other policies - taxation, food pricing, transportation, health, industrialization - that work against the goals of settlements strategies.

74. Good city management requires decentralization of funds, political power, and personnel - to local authorities, which are best placed to appreciate and manage local needs. But the sustainable development of cities will depend on closer work with the majorities of urban poor who are the true city builders, tapping the skills, energies and resources of neighbourhood groups and those in the 'informal sector'. Much can be achieved by 'site and service' schemes that provide households with basic services and help them to get on with building sounder houses around these. (See Chapter 9 for a wider discussion of these issues and recommendations.)
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75. Two conditions must be satisfied before international economic exchanges can become beneficial for all involved. The sustainability of ecosystems on which the global economy depends must be guaranteed. And the economic partners must be satisfied that the basis of exchange is equitable. For many developing countries, neither condition is set.

76. Growth in many developing countries is being stifled by depressed commodity prices, protectionism, intolerable debt burdens, and declining flows of development finance. If living standards are to grow so as to alleviate poverty, these trends must be reversed.

77. A particular responsibility falls to the World Bank and the International Development Association as the main conduit for multilateral finance to developing countries. In the context of consistently increased financial flows, the World Bank can support environmentally sound projects and policies. In financing structural adjustment, the International Monetary Fund should support wider and longer term development objectives than at present: growth, social goals, and environmental impacts.

78. The present level of debt service of many countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, is not consistent with sustainable development. Debtors are being required to use trade surpluses to service debts, and are drawing heavily on non-renewable resources to do so. Urgent action is necessary to alleviate debt burdens in ways that represent a fairer sharing between both debtors and lenders of the responsibilities and burdens.

79. Current arrangements for commodities could be significantly improved: more compensatory financing to offset economic shocks would encourage producers to take a long-term view, and not to overproduce commodities; and more assistance could be given from diversification programmes. Commodity-specific arrangements can build on the model of the International Tropical Timber Agreement, one of the few that specifically includes ecological concerns

80. Multinational companies can play an important role in sustainable development, especially as developing countries come to rely more on foreign equity capital. But if these companies are to have a positive influence on development, the negotiating capacity of developing countries vis a vis transnationals must be strengthened so they can secure terms which respect their environmental concerns.

81. However, these specific measures must be located in a wider context of effective cooperation to produce an international economic system geared to growth and the elimination of world poverty. (See Chapter 3 for a more detailed discussion of issues and recommendations on the international economy.)
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82. Traditional forms of national sovereignty raise particular problems in managing the 'global commons' and their shared ecosystems - the oceans, outer space, and Antarctica. Some progress has been made in all three areas; much remains to be done.

83. The UN Conference on the Law of the Sea was the most ambitious attempt ever to provide an internationally agreed regime for the management of the oceans. All nations should ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty as soon at possible. Fisheries agreements should be strengthened to prevent current overexploitation, as should conventions to control and regulate the dumping of hazardous wastes at sea.

84. There are growing concerns about the management of orbital space, centering on using satellite technology for monitoring planetary systems; on making the most effective use of the limited capacities of geosynchronous orbit for communications satellites; and on limiting space debris. The orbiting and testing of weapons in space would greatly increase this debris. The international community should seek to design and implement a space regime to ensure that space remains a peaceful environment for the benefit of all.

85. Antarctica is managed under the 1959 Antarctica Treaty. However, many nations outside of that pact view the Treaty System as too limited, both in participation and in the scope of its conservation measures. The Commission's recommendations deal with the safeguarding of present achievements; the incorporation of any minerals development into a management regime; and various options for the future. (See Chapter 10 for more discussion in issues and recommendations on the management of the commons.)
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86. Among the dangers facing the environment, the possibility of nuclear war is undoubtedly the gravest. Certain aspects of the issues of peace and security bear directly upon the concept of sustainable development. The whole notion of security as traditionally understood in terms of political and military threats to national sovereignty - must be expanded to include the growing impacts of environmental stress - locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. There are no military solutions to 'environmental insecurity'.

87. Governments and international agencies should assess the cost-effectiveness, in terms of achieving security, of money spent on armaments compared with money spent on reducing poverty or restoring a ravaged environment.

88. But the greatest need is to achieve improved relations among those major powers capable of deploying weapons of mass destruction. This is needed to achieve agreement on tighter control over the proliferation and testing of various types of weapons of mass destruction - nuclear and non nuclear - including those that have environmental implications. (See Chapter 11 for more discussion of issues and recommendations on the links between peace, security, development, and the environment.)
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89. The Report that follows contains throughout (and especially in Chapter 12), many specific recommendations for institutional and legal change. These cannot be adequately summarized here. However, the Commission's main proposals are embodied in six priority areas.
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90. Governments must begin now to make the key national, economic, and sectoral agencies directly responsible and accountable for ensuring that their policies, programmes, and budgets support development that is economically and ecologically sustainable.

91. By the same token, the various regional organizations need to do more to integrate environment fully in their goals and activities. New regional arrangements will especially be needed among developing countries to deal with transboundary environmental issues.

92. All major international bodies and agencies should ensure that their programmes encourage and support sustainable development, and they should greatly improve their coordination and cooperation. The Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization should provide a high level centre of leadership for the UN system to assess, advise, assist, and report on progress made towards this goal.
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93. Governments should also reinforce the roles and capacities of environmental protection and resource management agencies. This is needed in many industrialized countries, but most urgently in developing countries, which will need assistance in strengthening their institutions. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) should be strengthened as the principal source on environmental data, assessment, and reporting and as the principal advocate and agent for change and international cooperation on critical environment and natural resource protection issues.
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94. The capacity to identify, assess, and report on risks of irreversible damage to natural systems and threats to the survival, security, and well being of the world community must be rapidly reinforced and extended. Governments, individually and collectively, have the principal responsibility to do this. UNEP's Earthwatch programme should be the centre of leadership in the UN system on risk assessment

95. However, given the politically sensitive nature of many of the most critical risks, there is also a need for an independent but complementary capacity to assess and report on critical global risks. A new international programme for cooperation among largely non-governmental organizations, scientific bodies, and industry groups should therefore be established for this purpose.
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96. Making the difficult choices involved in achieving sustainable development will depend on the widespread support and involvement of an informed public and of NGOs, the scientific community, and industry. Their rights, roles and participation in development planning, decision-making, and project implementation should be expanded.
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97. National and international law is being rapidly outdistanced by the accelerating pace and expanding scale of impacts on the ecological basis of development. Governments now need to fill major gaps in existing national and international law related to the environment, to find ways to recognize and protect the rights of present and future generations to an environment adequate for their health and well-being, to prepare under UN auspices a universal Declaration on environmental protection and sustainable development and a subsequent Convention, and to strengthen procedures for avoiding or resolving disputes on environment and resource management issues.
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98. Over the past decade, the overall cost-effectiveness of investments in halting pollution has been demonstrated. The escalating economic and ecological damage costs of not investing in environmental protection and improvement have also been repeatedly demonstrated - often in grim tolls of flood and famine. But there are large financial implications: for renewable energy development, pollution control, and achieving less resource intensive forms of agriculture.

99. Multilateral financial institutions have a crucial role to play. The World Bank is presently reorienting its programmes towards greater environmental concerns. This should be accompanied by a fundamental commitment to sustainable development by the Bank. It is also essential that the Regional Development Banks and the International Monetary Fund incorporate similar objectives in their policies and programmes. A new priority and focus is also needed in bilateral aid agencies.

100. Given the limitations on increasing present flows of international aid, proposals for securing additional revenue from the use of international commons and natural resources should now be seriously considered by governments.
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10. There are more hungry people in the world today than ever before in human history, and their numbers are growing. In 1980, there were 340 million people in 87 developing countries not getting enough calories to prevent stunted growth and serious health risks. This total was very slightly below the figure for 1970 in terms of share of the world population, but in terms of sheer numbers, it represented a 14 per cent increase. The World Bank predicts that these numbers are likely to go on growing.

11. The number of people living in slums and shanty towns is rising, not falling. A growing number lack access to clean water and sanitation and hence are prey to the diseases that arise from this lack. There is some progress, impressive in places. But, on balance, poverty persists and its victims multiply.

12. The pressure of poverty has to be seen in a broader context. At the international level there are large differences in per capita income, which ranged in 1984 from $190 in low income countries (other than China and India) to $11,430 in the industrial market economies. (See Table 1-1)

Table 1-1 Population Size and per capita GDP by Groups of Countries
	Population	Per capita GDP	Average annual growth rate of per capita GDP, 1965-1984
	(millions)	(1984 dollars)	(per cent)
Countries
Low-income countries (excluding China, India)	611	190	0.9
China and India	1,778	390	3.2
Lower Middle-income Economies	691	740	1.0
Upper Middle-income Economies	497	1,980	3.1
High-Income Oil Exporters	19	11,350	3.2
Industrial Market Economies	732	11,430	2.4
Source: Based on data in World Bank, World Development Report, 1985. (New York, Oxford University Press, 1986)

13. Such inequalities represent great differences not merely in the quality of life today, but also in the capacity of societies to improve their quality of life in the future. Most of the world's poorest countries depend for increasing export earnings on tropical agricultural products that are vulnerable to fluctuating or declining terms of trade. Expansion can often only be achieved at the price of ecological stress. Yet diversification in ways that will alleviate both poverty and ecological stress is hampered by disadvantageous terms of technology transfer, by protectionism, and by declining financial flows to those countries that most need international finance.

14. Within countries, poverty has been exacerbated by the unequal distribution of land and other assets. The rapid rise in population has compromised the ability to raise living standards. These factors, combined with growing demands for the commercial use of good land, often to grow crops for exports, have pushed many subsistence farmers onto poor land and robbed them of any hope of participating in their nations' economic lives. The same forces have meant that traditional shifting cultivators, who once cut forests, grew crops, and then gave the forest time to recover, now have neither land enough nor time to let forests re-establish. So forests are being destroyed, often only to create poor farmland that cannot support those who till it. Extending cultivation onto steep slopes is increasing soil erosion in many hilly sections of both developing and developed nations. In any river valleys, areas chronically liable to floods are now farmed.

15. These pressures are reflected in the rising incidence of disasters. During the 1970s, six times as many people died from 'natural disasters' each year as in the 1960s, and twice as many suffered from such disasters. Droughts and floods, disasters among whose causes are widespread deforestation and overcultivation, increased most in terms of numbers affected. There were 18.5 million people affected by droughts annually in the 1960s, but 24.4 billion in the 1970s; 5.2 billion people were victims of floods yearly in the 1960s, compared with 15.4 million in the 1970s. The results are not in for the 1980s, but this disaster-prone decade seems to be carrying forward the trend, with droughts in Africa, India, and Latin America, and floods throughout Asia, parts of Africa, and the Andean region of Latin America.

16. Such disasters claim most of their victims among the impoverished in poor nations, where subsistence farmers must make their land more liable to droughts and floods by clearing marginal areas, and where the poor make themselves tore vulnerable to all disasters by living on steep slopes and unprotected shores - the only lands left for their shanties. Lacking food and foreign exchange reserves their economically vulnerable governments are ill-equipped to cope with such catastrophes.

17. The links between environmental stress and developmental disaster are most evident in sub-Saharan Africa. Per capita food production, declining since the 1960s, plummeted during the drought of the 1980s, and at the height of the food emergency some 35 million people were exposed to risk. Human overuse of land and prolonged drought threaten to turn the grasslands of Africa's Sahel region into desert. No other region more tragically suffers the vicious cycle of poverty leading to environmental degradation, which leads in turn to even greater poverty.

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18. In some parts of the world, particularly since the mid-1950s, growth and development have vastly improved living standards and the quality of life. Many of the products and technologies that have gone into this improvement are raw material- and energy-intensive and entail a substantial amount of pollution. The consequent impact on the environment is greater than ever before in human history.

19. Over the past century, the use of fossil fuels has grown nearly thirtyfold, and industrial production has increased move than fiftyfold. The bulk of this increase, about three-quarters in the case of fossil fuels and a little over four-fifths in the case of industrial production, has taken place since 1950. The annual increase in industrial production today is perhaps as large as the total production in Europe around the end of the 1930s. Into every year we now squeeze the decades of industrial growth and environmental disruption that formed the basis of the pre-war European economy.

20. Environmental stresses also arise from more traditional forms of production. More land has been cleared for settled cultivation in the past 100 years than in all the previous centuries of human existence. Interventions in the water cycles have increased greatly. Massive dams, most of them built after 1960, impound a large proportion of the river flow. In Europe and Asia, water use has reached 10 per cent of the annual run off, a figure that is expected to rise to 20-25 per cent by the end of the century.

21. The impact of growth and rising income levels can be seen in the distribution of world consumption of a variety of resource intensive produce. The more affluent industrialized countries use most of the world's metals and fossil fuels. Even in the case of food products a sharp difference exists, particularly in the products that are more resource-intensive. (See Table 1-2)

Table 1-2 Distribution of World Consumption, Averages for 1980-83
		Developed Countries (26% of population)		Developing Countries (74% of population)
	Units of Per Capita Consumption	Share in World Consumption		Share in World Consumption
Commodity		per cent	per capita	per cent	per capita
Food
Calories	kcal/day	34	3,395	66	2,389
Protein	gms/day	38	99	62
Fat	gms/day	53	127	47	40
Paper	kg/year	85	123	15	8
Steel	kg/year	79	459	21	41
Other Metals	kg/year	86	26	14	2
Commercial Energy	/year	80		20	0.5
Source: WCED estimates based on country-level data from FAO, UN Statistical Office, UNCTAD and American Metals Association

22. In recent years, industrial countries have been able to achieve economic growth using less energy and raw materials per unit of output. This, along with the efforts to reduce the emission of pollutants, will help to contain the pressure on the biosphere. But with the increase in population and the rise in incomes, per capita consumption of energy and materials will go up in the developing countries, as it has to if essential needs are to be met. Greater attention to resource efficiency can moderate the increase, but, on balance, environmental problems linked to resource use will intensify in global terms.
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23. The scale and complexity of our requirements for natural resources have increased greatly with the rising levels of population and production. Nature is bountiful, but it is also fragile and finely balanced. There are thresholds that cannot be crossed without endangering the basic integrity of the system. Today we are close to many of these thresholds; we must be ever mindful of the risk of endangering the survival of life on Earth. Moreover, the speed with which changes in resource use are taking place gives little time in which to anticipate and prevent unexpected effects.

24. The 'greenhouse effect', one such threat to life support systems, springs directly from increased resource use. The burning of fossil fuels and the cutting and burning of forests release carbon dioxide (CO2). The accumulation in the atmosphere of CO2 and certain other gases traps solar radiation near the Earth's surface, causing global warming. This could cause sea level rises over the next 45 years large enough to inundate many low lying coastal cities and river deltas. It could also drastically upset national and international agricultural production and trade systems.

25. Another threat arises from the depletion of the atmospheric ozone layer by gases released during the production of foam and the use of refrigerants and aerosols. A substantial loss of such ozone could have catastrophic effects on human and livestock health and on some life forms at the base of the marine food chain. The 1986 discovery of a hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic suggests the possibility of a more rapid depletion than previously suspected.

26. A variety of air pollutants are killing trees and lakes and damaging buildings and cultural treasures, close to and sometimes thousands of miles from points of emission. The acidification of the environment threatens large areas of Europe and North America. Central Europe is currently receiving more than one gramme of sulphur on every square metre of ground each year. The loss of forests could bring in its wake disastrous erosion, siltation, floods, and local climatic change. Air pollution damage is also becoming evident in some newly industrialized countries.

27. In many cases the practices used at present to dispose of toxic wastes, such as those from the chemical industries, involve unacceptable risks. Radioactive wastes from the nuclear industry remain hazardous for centuries. Many who bear these risks do not benefit in any way from the activities that produce the wastes.

28. Desertification - the process whereby productive arid and semi-arid land is rendered economically unproductive - and large-scale deforestation are other examples of major threats to the integrity of regional ecosystems. Desertification involves complex interactions between humans, land, and climate. The pressures of subsistence food production, commercial crops, and meat production in arid and semi-arid areas all contribute to this process.

29. Each year another 6 million hectares are degraded to desert-like conditions. Over three decades, this would amount to an area roughly as large as Saudi Arabia. More than 11 million hectares of tropical forests are destroyed per year and this, over 30 years, would amount to an area about the size of India. Apart from the direct and often dramatic impacts within the immediate area, nearby regions are affected by the spreading of sands or by changes in water regimes and increased risks of soil erosion and siltation.

30. The loss of forests and other wild lands extinguishes species of plants and animals and drastically reduces the genetic diversity of the world's ecosystems. This process robs present and future generations of genetic material with which to improve crop varieties, to make them less vulnerable to weather stress, pest attacks, and disease. The loss of species and subspecies, many as yet unstudied by science, deprives us of important potential sources of medicines and industrial chemicals. It removes forever creatures of beauty and parts of our cultural heritage; it diminishes the biosphere.

31. Many of the risks stemming from our productive activity and the technologies we use cross-national boundaries; many are global. Though the activities that give rise to these dangers tend to be concentrated in a few countries, the risks are shared by all, rich and poor, those who benefit from them and those who do not. Most who share in the risks have little influence on the decision processes that regulate these activities.

32. Little time is available for corrective action. In some cases we may already be close to transgressing critical thresholds. While scientists continue to research and debate causes and effects, in many cases we already know enough to warrant action. This is true locally and regionally in the cases of such threats as desertification, deforestation, toxic wastes, and acidification; it is true globally for such threats as climate change, ozone depletion, and species loss. The risks increase faster than do our abilities to manage them.

33. Perhaps the greatest threat to the Earth's environment, to sustainable human progress, and indeed to survival is the possibility of nuclear war, increased daily by the continuing arms race and its spread to outer space. The search for a more viable future can only be meaningful in the context of a more vigorous effort to renounce and eliminate the development of means of annihilation.
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34. The environmental difficulties that confront us are not new, but only recently have we begun to understand their complexity. Previously our main concerns centred on the effects of development on the environment. Today, we need to be equally concerned about the ways in which environmental degradation can dampen or reverse economic development. In one area after another, environmental degradation is eroding the potential for development. This basic connection was brought into sharp focus by the environment and development crises of the 1980s.

35. The slowdown in the momentum of economic expansion and the stagnation in world trade in the 1980s challenged all nations' abilities to react and adjust. Countries of the global South that rely on the export of primary products have been hit particularly hard by falling commodity prices. Between 1980 and 1984, developing countries lost about $55 billion in export earnings because of the fall in commodity prices, a blow felt most keenly in Latin America and Africa.

36. As a consequence of this period of slow growth in the world economy - together with rising debt service obligations and a decline in the inflow of finance - many developing countries have facet) severe economic crises. Over half of all developing countries actually experienced declining per capita GDP in the years 1982-85 and per capita GDP has fallen, for developing countries as a whole, by around 10 per cent in the 1980s. (See Table 1-3)

Table 1-3 Annual Rate of Increase of Gross Domestic Product in Developing Countries, 1976-85
Indicator	1976-80	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985
	(per cent)
Gross Domestic Product All Developing Countries	4.9	1.3	0.2	0.8	2.1	2.5
Developing Countries Excluding Large Countries	4.5	1.0	0.6	0.1	1.5	1.4
Per Capita GDP All developing Countries	2.4	1.0	2.1	1.5	0.2	0.2
Developing Countries Excluding Large Countries	1.9	1.5	-3.1	-2.4	-1.0	1.1
Source: Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, Doubling Development Finance: Meeting a Global Challenge, Views and Recommendations of the Committee on Development and Planning (New York: UN, 1986)

37. The heaviest burden in international economic adjustment has been carried by the world's poorest people. The consequence has been a considerable increase in human distress and the overexploitation of land and natural resources to ensure survival in the short term.

38. Many international economic problems remain unresolved: Developing country indebtedness remains serious; commodity and energy markets are highly unstable; financial flows to developing countries are seriously deficient; protectionism and trade wars are a serious threat. Yet at a time when multilateral institutions, and rules, are more than ever necessary, they have been devalued. And the notion of an international responsibility for development has virtually disappeared. The trend is towards a decline in multilateralism and an assertion of national dominance.
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29. As indicated earlier, development that is sustainable has to address the problem of the large number of people who live in absolute poverty - that is, who are unable to satisfy even the most basic of their needs. Poverty reduces people's capacity to use resources in a sustainable manner; it intensifies pressure on the environment. Most such absolute poverty is in developing countries; in many, it has been aggravated by the economic stagnation of the 1980s. A necessary but not a sufficient condition for the elimination of absolute poverty is a relatively rapid rise in per capita incomes in the Third World. It is therefore essential that the stagnant or declining growth trends of this decade be reversed.

30. While attainable growth rates will vary, a certain minimum is needed to have any impact on absolute poverty. It seems unlikely that, taking developing countries as a whole, these objectives can be accomplished with per capita income growth of under 3 per cent. (See Box 2-1.) Given current population growth rates, this would require overall national income growth of around 5 per cent a year in the developing economies of Asia, 5.5 per cent in Latin America, and 6 per cent in Africa and West Asia.

31. Are these orders of magnitude attainable? The record in South and East Asia over the past quarter-century and especially over the last five years suggests that 5 per cent annual growth can be attained in most countries, including the two largest, India and China. In Latin America, average growth rates on the order of 5 per cent were achieved during the 1960s and 1970s, but fell well below that in the first half of this decade, mainly because of the debt crisis. A revival of Latin American growth depends on the resolution of this crisis. In Africa, growth rates during the 1960s and 1970s were around 4-4.5 per cent, which at current rates of population growth would mean per capita income growth of only a little over 1 per cent. Moreover, during the 1980s, growth nearly halted and in two-thirds of the countries per capita income declined. Attaining a minimum level of growth in Africa requires the correction of short-term imbalances, and also the removal of deep-rooted constraints on the growth process.

32. Growth must be revived in developing countries because that is where the links between economic growth, the alleviation of poverty, and environmental conditions operate most directly. Yet developing countries are part of an interdependent world economy; their prospects also depend on the levels and patterns of growth in industrialized nations. The medium-term prospects for industrial countries are for growth of 3-4 per cent, the minimum that international financial institutions consider necessary if these countries are going to play a part in expanding the world economy. Such growth rates could be environmentally sustainable if industrialized nations can continue the recent shifts in the content of their growth towards less material- and energy-intensive activities and the improvement of their efficiency in using materials and energy.

33. As industrialized nations use less materials and energy, however, they will provide smaller markets for commodities and minerals from the developing countries. Yet if developing countries focus their efforts upon eliminating poverty and satisfying essential human needs, then domestic demand will increase for both agricultural products and manufactured goods and some services. Hence the very logic of sustainable development implies an internal stimulus to Third World growth.

34. Nonetheless, in large numbers of developing countries markets are very small; and for all developing countries high export growth, especially of non-traditional items, will also be necessary to finance imports, demand for which will be generated by rapid development. Thus a reorientation of international economic relations will be necessary for sustainable development, as discussed in Chapter 3.
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35. Sustainable development involves more than growth. It requires a change in the content of growth, to make it less Material- and energy-intensive and more equitable in its impact. These changes are required in all countries as part of a package of measures to maintain the stock of ecological capital, to improve the distribution of income, and to reduce the degree of vulnerability to economic crises.

36. The process of economic development must be more soundly based upon the realities of the stock of capital that sustains it. This is rarely done in either developed or developing countries. For example, income from forestry operations is conventionally measured in terms of the value of timber and other products extracted, minus the costs of extraction. The costs of regenerating the forest are not taken into account, unless money is actually spent on such work. Thus figuring profits from logging rarely takes full account of the losses in future revenue incurred through degradation of the forest. Similar incomplete accounting occurs in the exploitation of other natural resources, especially in the case of resources that are not capitalized in enterprise or national accounts: air, water, and soil. In all countries, rich or poor, economic development must take full account in its measurements of growth of the improvement or deterioration in the stock of natural resources.

37. Income distribution is one aspect of the quality of growth, as described in the preceding section, and rapid growth combined with deteriorating income distribution may be worse than slower growth combined with redistribution in favour of the poor. For instance, in many developing countries the introduction of large-scale commercial agriculture may produce revenue rapidly, but may also dispossess a large number of small farmers and make income distribution more inequitable. In the long run, such a path may not be sustainable; it impoverishes many people and can increase pressures on the natural resource base through overcommercialized agriculture and through the marginalization of subsistence farmers. Relying more on smallholder cultivation may be slower at first, but more easily sustained over the long term.

38. Economic development is unsustainable if it increases vulnerability to crises. A drought may force farmers to slaughter animals needed for sustaining production in future years. A drop in prices may cause farmers or other producers to overexploit natural resources to maintain incomes. But vulnerability can be reduced by using technologies that lower production risks, by choosing institutional options that reduce market fluctuations, and by building up reserves, especially of food and foreign exchange. A development path that combines growth with reduced vulnerability is more sustainable than one that does not.

39. Yet it is not enough to broaden the range of economic variables taken into account. Sustainability requires views of human needs and well-being that incorporate such non-economic variables as education and health enjoyed for their own sake, clean air and water, and the protection of natural beauty. It must also work to remove disabilities from disadvantaged groups, many of whom live in ecologically vulnerable areas, such as many tribal groups in forests, desert nomads, groups in remote hill areas, and indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia.

40. Changing the quality of growth requires changing our approach to development efforts to take account of all of their effects. For instance, a hydropower project should not be seen merely as a way of producing more electricity; its effects upon the local environment and the livelihood of the local community must be included in any balance sheets. Thus the abandonment of a hydro project because it will disturb a rare ecological system could be a measure of progress, not a setback to development. Nevertheless, in some cases, sustainability considerations will involve a rejection of activities that are financially attractive in the short run.

41. Economic and social development can and should be mutually reinforcing. Money spent on education and health can raise human productivity. Economic developments can accelerate social development by providing opportunities for underprivileged groups or by spreading education more rapidly.
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42. The satisfaction of human needs and aspirations is so obviously an objective of productive activity that it may appear redundant to assert its central role in the concept of sustainable development. All too often poverty is such that people cannot satisfy their needs for survival and well-being even if goods and services are available. At the same time, the demands of those not in poverty may have major environmental consequences.

43. The principal development challenge is to meet the needs and aspirations of an expanding developing world population. The most basic of all needs is for a livelihood: that is, employment. Between 1985 and 2000 the labour force in developing countries will increase by nearly 800 million, and new livelihood opportunities will have to be generated for 60 million persons every year. The pace and pattern of economic development have to generate sustainable work opportunities on this scale and at a level of productivity that would enable poor households to meet minimum consumption standards.

44. More food is required not merely to feed more people but to attack undernourishment. For developing countries to eat, person for person, as well as the industrial world by the year 2000, annual increases of 5.0 per cent in calories and 5.8 per cent in proteins are needed in Africa; of 3.4 and 4.0 per cent, respectively, in Latin America; and of 3.5 and 4.5 per cent in Asia. Foodgrains and starchy roots are the primary sources of calories, while proteins are obtained primarily from products like milk, meat, fish, pulses, and oil-seeds.

45. Though the focus at present is necessarily on staple foods, the projections given above also highlight the need for a high rate of growth of protein availability. In Africa, the task is particularly challenging given the recent declining per capita food production and the current constraints on growth. In Asia and Latin America, the required growth rates in calorie and protein consumption seem to be more readily attainable. But increased food production should not be based on ecologically unsound production policies and compromise long-term prospects for food security.

46. Energy is another essential human need, one that cannot be universally met unless energy consumption patterns change. The most urgent problem is the requirements of poor Third World households, which depend mainly on fuelwood. By the turn of the century, 3 billion people may live in areas where wood is cut faster than it grows or where fuelwood is extremely scarce. Corrective action would both reduce the drudgery of collecting wood over long distances and preserve the ecological base. The minimum requirements for cooking fuel in most developing countries appear to be on the order of 250 kilogrammes of coal equivalent per capita per year. This is a fraction of the household energy consumption in industrial countries.

47. The linked basic needs of housing, water supply, sanitation, and health care are also environmentally important. Deficiencies in these areas are often visible manifestations of environmental stress. In the Third World, the failure to meet these key needs is one of the major causes of many communicable diseases such as malaria, gastro-intestinal infestations, cholera, and typhoid. Population growth and the drift into cities threaten to make these problems worse. Planners must find ways of relying more on supporting community initiatives and self-help efforts and on effectively using low-cost technologies. See Chapter 9.
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48. The sustainability of development is intimately linked to the dynamics of population growth. The issue, however, is not simply one of global population size. A child born in a country where levels of material and energy use are high places a greater burden on the Earth's resources than a child born in a poorer country. A similar argument applies within countries. Nonetheless, sustainable development can be pursued more easily when population size is stabilized at a level consistent with the productive capacity of the ecosystem.

49. In industrial countries, the overall rate of population growth is under 1 per cent, and several countries have reached or are approaching zero population growth. The total population of the industrialized world could increase from its current 1.2 billion to about 1.4 billion in the year 2025.

50. The greater part of global population increase will take place in developing countries, where the 1985 population of 3.7 billion may increase to 6.8 billion by 2025. The Third World does not have the option of migration to 'new' lands, and the time available for adjustment is much less than industrial countries had. Hence the challenge now is to quickly lower population growth rates, especially in regions such as Africa, where these rates are increasing.

51. Birth rates declined in industrial countries largely because of economic and social development. Rising levels of income and urbanization and the changing role of women all played important roles. Similar processes are now at work in developing countries. These should be recognized and encouraged. Population policies should be integrated with other economic and social development programmes female education, health care, and the expansion of the livelihood base of the poor. But time is short, and developing countries will also have to promote direct measures to reduce fertility, to avoid going radically beyond the productive potential to support their populations. In fact, increased access to family planning services is itself a form of social development that allows couples, and women in particular, the right to self-determination.

52. Population growth in developing countries will remain unevenly distributed between rural and urban areas. UK projections suggest that by the first decade of the next century, the absolute size of rural populations in most developing countries will start declining. Nearly 90 per cent of the increase in developing countries will take place in urban areas, the population of which in expected to rise from 1.15 billion in 1985 to 3.25 million in 2025. The increase will be particularly marked in Africa and, to a lesser extent, in Asia.

53. Developing-country cities are growing much faster than the capacity of authorities to cope. Shortages of housing, water, sanitation, and mass transit are widespread. A growing proportion of city-dwellers live in slums and shanty towns, many of them exposed to air and water pollution and to industrial and natural hazards. Further deterioration is likely, given that most urban growth will take place in the largest cities. Thus more manageable cities may be the principal gain from slower rates of population growth.

54. Urbanization is itself part of the development process. The challenge is to manage the process so as to avoid a severe deterioration in the quality of life. Thus the development of smaller urban centres needs to be encouraged to reduce pressures in large cities. Solving the impending urban crisis will require the promotion of self-help housing and urban services by and for the poor, and a more positive approach to the role of the informal sector, supported by sufficient funds for water supply, sanitation, and other services. See Chapter 9.
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55. If needs are to be met on a sustainable basis the Earth's natural resource base must be conserved and enhanced. Major changes in policies will be needed to cope with the industrial world's current high levels of consumption, the increases in consumption needed to meet minimum standards in developing countries, and expected population growth. However, the case for the conservation of nature should not rest only with development goals. It is part of our moral obligation to other living beings and future generations.

56. Pressure on resources increases when people lack alternatives. Development policies must widen people's options for earning a sustainable livelihood, particularly for resource-poor households and in areas under ecological stress. In a hilly area, for instance, economic self-interest and ecology can be combined by helping farmers shift from grain to tree crops by providing them with advice, equipment, and marketing assistance. Programmes to protect the incomes of farmers, fishermen, and foresters against short-term price declines may decrease their need to overexploit resources.

57. The conservation of agricultural resources is an urgent task because in many parts of the world cultivation has already been extended to marginal lands, and fishery and forestry resources have been overexploited. These resources must be conserved and enhanced to meet the needs of growing populations. Land use in agriculture and forestry must be based on a scientific assessment of land capacity, and the annual depletion of topsoil, fish stock, or forest resources must not exceed the rate of regeneration.

58. The pressures on agricultural land from crop and livestock production can be partly relieved by increasing productivity. But short-sighted, short-term improvements in productivity can create different forms of ecological stress, such as the loss of genetic diversity in standing crops, salinization and alkalization of irrigated lands, nitrate pollution of ground-water, and pesticide residues in food. Ecologically more benign alternatives are available. Future increases in productivity, in both developed and developing countries, should be based on the better controlled application of water and agrochemicals, as well as on more extensive use of organic manures and non-chemical means of pest control. These alternatives can be promoted only by an agricultural policy based on ecological realities. (See Chapter 5.)

59. In the case of fisheries and tropical forestry, we rely largely on the exploitation of the naturally available stocks. The sustainable yield from these stocks may well fall short of demand. Hence it will be necessary to turn to methods that produce more fish, fuelwood, and forest products under controlled conditions. Substitutes for fuelwood can be promoted.

60. The ultimate limits to global development are perhaps determined by the availability of energy resources and by the biosphere's capacity to absorb the by-products of energy use./ These energy limits may be approached far sooner than the limits imposed by other material resources. First, there are the supply problems: the depletion of oil reserves, the high cost and environmental impact of coal mining, and the hazards of nuclear technology. Second, there are emission problems, most notably acid pollution and carbon dioxide build up leading to global warming.

61. Some of these problems can be met by increased use of renewable energy sources. But the exploitation of renewable sources such as fuelwood and hydropower also entails ecological problems. Hence sustainability requires a clear focus on conserving and efficiently using energy.

62. Industrialized countries must recognize that their energy consumption is polluting the biosphere and eating into scarce fossil fuel supplies. Recent improvements in energy efficiency and a shift towards less energy-intensive sectors have helped limit consumption. But the process must be accelerated to reduce per capita consumption and encourage a shift to non polluting sources and technologies. The simple duplication in developing countries of industrial countries' energy use patterns is neither feasible nor desirable. Changing these patterns for the better will call for new policies in urban development, industry location, housing design, transportation systems, and the choice of agricultural and industrial technologies.

63. Non-fuel mineral resources appear to pose fewer supply problems. Studies done before 1960 that assumed an exponentially growing demand did not envisage a problem until well into the next century. since then, world consumption of most metals has remained nearly constant, which suggests that the exhaustion of non-fuel minerals is even more distant. The history of technological developments also suggests that industry can adjust to scarcity through greater efficiency in use, recycling, and substitution. More immediate needs include modifying the pattern of world trade in minerals to allow exporters a higher share in the value added from mineral use, and improving the access of developing countries to mineral supplies, as their demands increase.

64. The prevention and reduction of air and water pollution will remain a critical task of resource conservation. Air and water quality come under pressure from such activities as fertilizer and pesticide use, urban sewage, fossil fuel burning, the use of certain chemicals, and various other industrial activities. Each of these is expected to increase the pollution load on the biosphere substantially, particularly in developing countries. Cleaning up after the event is an expensive solution. Hence all countries need to anticipate and prevent these pollution problems, by, for instance, enforcing emission standards that reflect likely long-term effects, promoting low-waste technologies, and anticipating the impact of new products, technologies, and wastes.
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65. The fulfilment of all these tasks will require the reorientation of technology the key link between humans and nature. First, the capacity for technological innovation needs to be greatly enhanced in developing countries so that they can respond more effectively to the challenges of sustainable development. Second, the orientation of technology development must be changed to pay greater attention to environmental factors.

66. The technologies of industrial countries are not always suited or easily adaptable to the socio-economic and environmental conditions of developing countries. To compound the problem, the bulk of world research and development addresses few of the pressing issues facing these countries, such as arid-land agriculture or the control of tropical diseases. Not enough is being done to adapt recent innovations in materials technology, energy conservation, information technology, and biotechnology to the needs of developing countries. These gaps must be covered by enhancing research, design, development, and extension capabilities in the Third World.

67. In all countries, the processes of generating alternative technologies, upgrading traditional ones, and selecting and adapting imported technologies should be informed by environmental resource concerns. Most technological research by commercial organizations is devoted to product and process innovations that have market value. Technologies are needed that produce 'social goods', such as improved air quality or increased product life, or that resolve problems normally outside the cost calculus of individual enterprises, such as the external costs of pollution or waste disposal.

68. The role of public policy is to ensure, through incentives and disincentives, that commercial organizations find it worthwhile to take fuller account of environmental factors in the technologies they develop. (See Chapter 6.) Publicly funded research institutions also need such direction, and the objectives of sustainable development and environmental protection must be built into the mandates of the institutions that work in environmentally sensitive areas.

69. The development of environmentally appropriate technologies is closely related to questions of risk management. Such systems as nuclear reactors, electric and other utility distribution networks, communication systems, and mass transportation are vulnerable if stressed beyond a certain point. The fact that they are connected through networks tends to make them immune to small disturbances but more vulnerable to unexpected disruptions that exceed a finite threshold. Applying sophisticated analyses of vulnerabilities and past failures to technology design, manufacturing standards, and contingency plans in operations can make the consequences of a failure or accident much less catastrophic.

70. The best vulnerability and risk analysis has not been applied consistently across technologies or systems. A major purpose of large system design should be to make the consequences of failure or sabotage less serious. There is thus a need for new techniques and technologies - as well as legal and institutional mechanisms - for safety design and control, accident prevention, contingency planning, damage mitigation, and provision of relief.

71. Environmental risks arising from technological and developmental decisions impinge on individuals and areas that have little or no influence on those decisions. Their interests must be taken into account. National and international institutional mechanisms are needed to assess potential impacts of new technologies before they are widely used, in order to ensure that their production, use, and disposal do not overstress environmental resources. Similar arrangements are required for major interventions in natural systems, such as river diversion or forest clearance. In addition, liability for damages from unintended consequences must be strengthened and enforced.
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72. The common theme throughout this strategy for sustainable development is the need to integrate economic and ecological considerations in decision making. They are, after all, integrated in the workings of the real world. This will require a change in attitudes and objectives and in institutional arrangements at every level.

73. Economic and ecological concerns are not necessarily in opposition. For example, policies that conserve the quality of agricultural land and protect forests improve the long-term prospects for agricultural development. An increase in the efficiency of energy and material use serves ecological purposes but can also reduce costs. But the compatibility of environmental and economic objectives is often lost in the pursuit of individual or group gains, with little regard for the impacts on others, with a blind faith in science's ability to find solutions, and in ignorance of the distant consequences of today's decisions. Institutional rigidities add to this myopia.

74. One important rigidity is the tendency to deal with one industry or sector in isolation, failing to recognize the importance of intersectoral linkages. Modern agriculture uses substantial amounts of commercially produced energy and large quantities of industrial products. At the same time, the more traditional connection - in which agriculture is a source of raw materials for industry - is being diluted by the widening use of synthetics. The energy-industry connection is also changing, with a strong tendency towards a decline in the energy intensity of industrial production in industrial countries. In the Third World, however, the gradual shift of the industrial base towards the basic material producing sectors is leading to an increase in the energy intensity of industrial production.

75. These inter sectoral connections create patterns of economic and ecological interdependence rarely reflected in the ways in which policy is made. Sectoral organizations tend to pursue sectoral objectives and to treat their impacts on other sectors as side effects, taken into account only if compelled to do so. Hence impacts on forests rarely worry those involved in guiding public policy or business activities in the fields of energy, industrial development, crop husbandry, or foreign trade. Many of the environment and development problems that confront us have their roots in this sectoral fragmentation of responsibility. Sustainable development requires that such fragmentation be overcome.

76. Sustainability requires the enforcement of wider responsibilities for the impacts of decisions. This requires changes in the legal and institutional frameworks that will enforce the common interest. Some necessary changes in the legal framework start from the proposition that an environment adequate for health and well-being is essential for all human beings including future generations. Such a view places the right to use public and private resources in its proper social context and provides a goal for more specific measures.

77. The law alone cannot enforce the common interest. It principally needs community knowledge and support, which entails greater public participation in the decisions that affect the environment. This is best secured by decentralizing the management of resources upon which local communities defend, and giving these communities an effective say over the use f these resources. It will also require promoting citizens' initiatives, empowering people's organizations, and strengthening local democracy.

78. Some large-scale projects, however, require participation on a different basis. Public inquiries and hearings on the development and environment impacts can help greatly in drawing attention to different points of view. Free access to relevant information and the availability of alternative sources of technical expertise can provide an informed basis for public discussion. When the environmental impact of a proposed project is particularly high, public scrutiny of the case should be mandatory and, wherever feasible, the decision should be subject to prior public approval, perhaps by referendum.

79. Changes are also required in the attitudes and procedures of both public and private-sector enterprises. Moreover, environmental regulation must move beyond the usual menu of safety regulations, zoning laws, and pollution control enactments; environmental objectives must be built into taxation, prior approval procedures for investment and technology choice, foreign trade incentives, and all components of development policy.

80. The integration of economic and ecological factors into the law and into decision making systems within countries has to be matched at the international level. The growth in fuel and material use dictates that direct physical linkages between ecosystems of different countries will increase. Economic interactions through trade, finance, investment, and travel will also grow and heighten economic and ecological interdependence. Hence in the future, even more so than now, sustainable development requires the unification of economics and ecology in international relations, as discussed in the next chapter.
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12. Africa on the whole has been caught up in a series of downward spirals:

- poverty and hunger leading to environmental degradation, deteriorating agriculture, and hence more poverty and hunger;

- falling savings and a neglect of new investment in the wake of growing poverty;

- high infant mortality, poverty, and lack of education;

- high population growth rates; and

- a flight from rural hunger to the cities, leading to explosive levels of urban growth and squalor, compounding the problems of inadequate food supplies.

13. The situation is not everywhere so bleak. Some nations have coped well, and some far-reaching and courageous policy reforms begun in the last few years have begun to bear fruit. Encouragement also comes from South Asia, where a comparable crisis 20 years ago has given way to an upward spiral of rising food production, diminishing (but still vast) poverty, slowing population growth, rising savings and investment, and greater attention to the long-term questions of environmental management and appropriate technology.

14. Among the many causes of the African crisis, the workings of the international economy stand out. Sub-Saharan Africa's economic well-being depends even more than low-income Asia's on developments in the world economy. Within the last decade, many sub-Saharan countries have been hit by adverse trends in commodity terms of trade and external shocks such as higher oil prices, fluctuating exchange rates, and higher interest rates. Over the last 10 years, the prices of major commodities such as copper, iron ore, sugar, ground-nuts, rubber, timber, and cotton have fallen significantly. In 1985, the terms of trade of sub-Saharan countries (except oil-exporting countries) were 10 per cent below 1970 levels. In countries eligible for funds from the International Development Association (IDA), the average fall was well over 20 per cent, with even greater drops in some, including Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zaire, and Zambia.

15. The problem has been compounded by growing difficulties in attracting development capital from the industrial world. At the same time, debt repayments and interest charges have risen Debt service rose in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole from 15 per cent of export earnings in 1980 to 31 per cent in 1985. This combination of events has led to a situation where net resource transfers to the area fell from an estimated $10 billion a year in 1982 to $1 billion in 1985. Thus nations have been able to import far less. In countries eligible for IDA loans, the import volume per person in 1984 was only 62 per cent of the volume in 1970. Imports for agriculture - machinery, fertilizers, and pesticides - and of essential supplies to meet basic needs have all been cut. The combination of diverse international and internal factors cut per capita incomes by 16 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa between 1960 and 1985.

16. The economic difficulties of sub-Saharan countries have had devastating social impacts. Declining per capita rood production has contributed to growing undernourishment. The recent drought placed some 35 million lives at risk in 19845, and as the drought receded some 19 million people continued to suffer famine. Malnutrition and hunger have weakened much of the population, reducing their productivity, and made more of them (especially children and the old) more susceptible to debilitating diseases and premature death. The crisis has reversed progress in supplying safe drinking water and sanitation.

17. It is now more widely recognized that it is necessary to deal with the long-term causes rather than the symptoms. The vast misery brought on by the drought in Africa is now generally acknowledged, and the world community has responded with a substantial emergency programme. But emergency food aid is only a short-term reaction, and, at best, a partial answer. The roots of the problem lie in national and international policies that have bo far prevented African economies from realizing their full potential for economic expansion and thus for easing poverty and the environmental pressures that it generates.

18. The resolution lies in large part with African decision makers, but the international community also has a heavy responsibility to support Africa's adjustment efforts with adequate aid and trade arrangements and to see to it that more capital flows into poorer nations than out. These two complementary aspects of the resolution of the problems have been fully recognized by the African countries themselves and generally acknowledged by the international community. The World Bank estimates that even if external economic conditions are favourable over the next five years, and even if African governments implement key policy reforms, a substantial gap will still remain between the finance or debt relief available on current donor policies and the amounts needed to prevent a further deterioration in the living standards of low-income Africa. And there is no money in this grim equation for restoring the damaged environment.

19. The international community must realize that Africa cannot pull itself out of the planet's most serious economic and ecological crisis without much more long-term assistance than is currently envisioned. In addition, greatly increased external financing for development must be accompanied by policy changes that recognize the need to avoid environmental degradation.
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20. Debt is an acute problem for many countries of Africa. But, because of the magnitudes of debt involved, it has had its most visible impact in some middle-income countries - particularly in Latin America. The debt crisis remains a threat to international financial stability, but its main impact so far has been on the process of development, both in its economic and ecological aspects. Of the total world debt of around $950 billion in 1985, roughly 30 per cent was owed by four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela. Their debts constitute roughly two-thirds of the outstanding loans of banks to developing countries.

21. In the 1970s, Latin America's economic growth was facilitated by external borrowing. Commercial banks were happy to lend to growing countries rich in natural resources. Then major changes in international conditions made the debt unsustainable. A global recession restricted export markets, and tight monetary policies forced up global interest rates to levels far exceeding any in living memory. Bankers, alarmed by deteriorating creditworthiness, stopped lending. A flight of indigenous capital from developing countries compounded the problem.

22. The ensuing crisis forced governments into austerity policies to cut back imports. As a result, Latin American imports fell by 40 per cent in real terms over three years. The consequent economic contraction reduced per capita gross domestic product by an average of B per cent in the eight main Latin American countries. Much of the burden was carried by the poor, as real wages fell and unemployment rose. Growing poverty and deteriorating environmental conditions are clearly visible in every major Latin American country.

23. Further, the lack of new credit and the continuing burden of debt service forced these countries to service their debts by running trade surpluses. The net transfers from seven major Latin American countries to creditors rose to almost $39 billion in 1984, and in that year 35 per cent of export earnings went to pay interest on overseas debt. This massive drain represents 5 to 6 per cent of the region's GDP, around a third of the internal savings, and nearly 40 per cent of export earnings. It has been achieved by adjustment policies that impose severe and regressively skewed cuts in wages, social services, investment, consumption, and employment, both public and private, further aggravating social inequity and widespread poverty. Pressures on the environment and resources have increased sharply in the search for new and expanded exports and replacements for imports, together with the deterioration and overexploitation of the environment brought about by the swelling number of the urban and rural poor in desperate struggle for survival. A substantial part of Latin America's rapid growth in exports are raw materials, food, and resource-based manufactures.

24. So Latin American natural resources ate being used not for development or to raise living standards, but to meet the financial requirements of industrialized country creditors. This approach to the debt problem raises questions of economic, political, and environmental sustainability. To require relatively poor countries to simultaneously curb their living standards, accept growing poverty, and export growing amounts of scarce resources to maintain external creditworthiness reflects priorities few democratically elected governments are likely to be able to tolerate for long. The present situation is not consistent with sustainable development. This conflict is aggravated by the economic policies of some major industrial countries, which have depressed and destabilized the international economy. In order to bring about socially and environmentally sustainable development it is indispensable, among other elements, for industrial countries to resume internationally expansionary policies of growth, trade, and investment. The Commission noted that, in these circumstances, some debtor countries have felt forced to suspend or limit the outflow of funds.

25. Growing numbers of creditor banks and official agencies are realizing that many debtors simply will not be able to keep servicing their debts unless the burden is eased. Measures under discussion include additional new lending, forgiveness of part of the debt, longer-term rescheduling, and conversion to softer terms. But a necessary sense of urgency is lacking. Any such measures must incorporate the legitimate interests of creditors and debtors and represent a fairer sharing of the burden of resolving the debt crisis.
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29. Two interrelated concerns lie at the heart of our recommendations on financial flows: one concerns the quantity, the other the 'quality of resource flows to developing countries. The need for more resources cannot be evaded. The idea that developing countries would do better to live within their limited means is a cruel illusion. Global poverty cannot be reduced by the governments of poor countries acting alone. At the same time, more aid and other forms of finance, while necessary, are not sufficient. Projects and programmes must be designed for sustainable development.

Increasing the Flow of Finance

30. As regards the quantity of resources, the stringency of external finance has already contributed to an unacceptable decline in living standards in developing countries. The patterns and the needs of the heavily indebted countries that rely mainly on commercial finance have been described, along with those of low-income countries that depend on aid. But there are other poor countries that have made impressive progress in recent years but still face immense problems, not least in countering environmental degradation. Low-income Asia has a continuing need for large amounts of aid; in general, the main recipients in this region have a good record of aid management. Without such aid it will be much more difficult, to sustain the growth that, together with poverty-focused programmes, could improve the lot of hundreds of millions of the 'absolute poor'.

31. To meet such needs requires that the main donors and lending institutions re-examine their policies. Official development assistance (ODA) levels have stagnated in absolute terms, and most donor countries fall well short of internationally agreed targets. Commercial lending and lending by export credit agencies has fallen sharply. As part of a concerted effort to reverse these trends it is vitally important for development that there should be a substantial increase in resources available to the World Bank and IDA. Increased commercial bank lending is also necessary for major debtors.

Lending for Sustainable Development

32. In the past, development assistance has not always contributed to sustainable development and in some cases detracted from it. Lending for agriculture, forestry, fishing, and energy has usually been made on narrow economic criteria that take little account of environmental effects For instance, development agencies have sometimes promoted chemical-dependent agriculture, rather than sustainable, regenerative agriculture. It is important therefore that there should be a qualitative as well as a quantitative improvement.

33. A larger portion of total development assistance should go to investments needed to enhance the environment and the productivity of the resource sectors. Such efforts include reforestation and fuelwood development, watershed protection, soil conservation, agroforestry, rehabilitation of irrigation projects, small scale agriculture, low-cost sanitation measures, and the conversion of crops into fuel. Experience has shown that the most effective efforts of this type are small projects with maximum grass-roots participation. The programmes most directly related to the objective of sustainable development may therefore involve higher local costs, a higher ratio of recurrent to capital costs, and a greater use of local technology and expertise.

34. A shift towards projects of this kind would also require donors to re-examine the content of their aid programmes, particularly with regard to commodity assistance, which has sometimes served to reduce rather than enhance the possibilities for sustainable development. (See Chapter 5.)

35. The major priority is for sustainability considerations to be diffused throughout the work of international financial institutions. The roles of the World Bank and the IMF are particularly crucial because their lending conditions are being used as benchmarks for parallel lending by other institutions - commercial banks and export credit agencies. It is important in this context that sustainability considerations be taken into account by the Bank in the appraisal of structural adjustment lending and other policy-oriented lending directed to resource-based sectors - agriculture, fishing, forestry, and energy in particular - as well as specific projects.

36. A similar shift of emphasis is required in respect of adjustment programmes undertaken by developing countries. To date, 'adjustment' - particularly under IMF auspices - has led more often than not to cutbacks in living standards in the interest of financial stabilization. Implicit in many suggested plans for coping with the debt crisis is the growing recognition that future adjustment should be growth-oriented. Yet it also needs to be environmentally sensitive.

37. The IMF also has a mandate for structural adjustment lending, as in its new Structural Adjustment Facility. There has been a strongly expressed demand from developing-country borrowers for the Fund to take into account wider and longer-term development objectives than financial stabilization: growth, social goals, and environmental impacts.

38. Development agencies, and the World Bank in particular, should develop easily usable methodologies to augment their own appraisal techniques and to assist developing countries to improve their capacity for environmental assessment.
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39. The importance of foreign trade to national development has greatly increased for most countries in the post-war period. (See Table 3-2.) This is one measure of the extent to which trade has made nations, economically and ecologically, more interdependent. Patterns of world trade also have changed markedly. First, the value of trade in manufactured goods grew at a faster rate than that in primary products other than fuel, and a growing number of developing countries have emerged as major exporters of such goods. Manufactured goods now account for twice the value of developing countries' non-oil exports. (See Chapter 8.) Second, the industrialized market economies have come to depend more on fuel imports from developing countries, which accounted for 43 per cent of consumption in 1980-81 compared with only 16 per cent in 1959-60 and even less in pre-war years.

40. The dependence of the developed market economies on other mineral imports from the developing countries has also grown, and the share of these imports in consumption increased from 19 per cent in 1959-60 to 30 per cent in 1980-81. Non-renewable resources like fuels and minerals, as well as manufactured goods, are now far more important than tropical products and other agricultural materials in the flow of primary products from developing to industrial countries. In fact, the flow of food grains is in the opposite direction.

41. The main link between trade and sustainable development is the use of non-renewable raw materials to earn foreign exchange. Countries of the global South face the dilemma of having to use commodities as exports, in order to break foreign exchange constraints on growth, while also having to minimize damage to the environmental resource base supporting this growth. There are other links between trade and sustainable development; if protectionism raises barriers against manufactured exports, for example, developing countries have less scope for diversifying away from traditional commodities. And unsustainable development may arise not only from overuse of certain commodities but from manufactured goods that are potentially polluting.

International Commodity Trade

42. Although a growing number of developing countries have diversified into manufactured exports, primary commodities other than petroleum continue to account for more than one-third of the export earnings of the group as a whole. Dependence on such exports is particularly high in Latin America (52 per cent) and Africa (62 per cent). The countries recognized as 'least developed' for the purposes of the UN Special Programme use primary commodities for 73 per cent of their export earnings.

43. Non-oil commodity prices fell during the early 1980s, not only in real but also in nominal terms. By early 1985, the UNCTAD commodity price index was 30 per cent below the 1980 average. This recent weakness of commodity prices may not be only a temporary phenomenon. Commodity prices have not yet recovered from the depth of the world recession despite increased economic growth in consuming countries. The reasons may be partly technological (an acceleration in raw material substitution); partly monetary, caused by the high cost of holding stocks of commodities; and partly due to increases in supplies by countries desperate to earn foreign exchange.

Table 3-2
The Growing Importance of Trade
	1950	1982
Economic Group	(exports as a per cent of GDP or NMP)
Developed Market Economies	7.7	15.3
Developing Market Economies	15.5	23.8
Socialist Countries of Eastern Europe	3.4*	16.6*
Socialist Countries of Asia	2.9*	9.7*
* percentages to net material product (NMP).
Source: Based on UNCTAD, Handbook of International Trade and Development Statistics, 1985 Supplement (New York: United Nations, 1985).

44. These countries are turning the terms of trade against themselves, earning less while exporting more. The promotion of increased volumes of commodity exports has led to cases of unsustainable overuse of the natural resource base. While individual cases may not exactly fit this generalization, it has been argued that such processes have been at work in ranching for beef, fishing in both coastal and deep sea waters, forestry, and the growing of some cash crops. Moreover, the prices of commodity exports do not fully reflect the environmental costs to the resource base. In a sense, then, poor developing countries are being caused to subsidize the wealthier importers of their products.

45. The experience of oil has of course been different from that of most other commodities. (See Chapter 7.) It does provide one example of producers combining to restrict output and raise prices in ways that greatly increased export earnings while conserving the resource base and promoting energy saving and substitution on a large scale. Recent events suggest that regulation of the market by producers is very difficult in the long term, whether or not it is desirable in the wider, global interest, and in any event the conditions have not existed for other commodity exporters to operate in a like manner. Any arrangement encompassing measures to enhance the export earnings of producers, as well as to ensure the resource basis, would require consumer as well as producer support.

46. In recent years, Third World commodity exporters have sought to earn more by doing the first-stage processing of raw materials themselves. This first stage often involves subsidized energy, other concessions, and substantial pollution costs. But these countries often find that they do not gain much from this capital- and energy-intensive first-stage processing, as the price spread shifts in favour of downstream products, most of which continue to be manufactured mainly in industrial countries. Tariff escalation in the industrial market economies reinforces this tendency.

47. The main international response to commodity problems has been the development of international commodity agreements to stabilize and raise developing countries' earnings from these exports. But real progress has been very limited and in fact there have been reversals. Moreover, environmental resource considerations have not played any part in commodity agreements, with the notable exception of the International Tropical Timber Agreement.

48. Commodity agreements have not been easy to negotiate, and regulation of commodity trade has been notoriously controversial and difficult. Current arrangements could be improved in two crucial respects:

- Larger sums for compensatory financing to even out economic shocks - as under the IMF's Compensatory Financing Facility - would encourage producers to take a long-term view, and not to overproduce commodities where production is close to the limits of environmental sustainability during periods of market glut.

- Where producers need to diversify from traditional, single-crop production patterns, more assistance could be given for diversification programmes. The second window of the Common Fund could be used for promoting resource regeneration and conservation.

49. Individual governments can better use renewable resources such as forests and fisheries to ensure that exploitation rates stay within the limits of sustainable yields and that finances are available to regenerate resources and deal with all linked environmental effects. As for non-renewable resources like minerals, governments should ensure that:

- the leaseholder undertakes exploration aimed at adding to proven reserves at least the amount extracted;

- that the ratio of production to proven reserve remains below a pre-specified limit;

- that the funds generated by royalties are used in a way that compensates for the declining income when the resource deposit is exhausted; and

- that the leaseholder is responsible for land restoration and other environmental control measures in the area affected by mining.

50. Relevant international organizations such as various UN agencies, the World Bank, and regional groups could develop further their work on model contracts and guidelines incorporating these principles.

Protectionism and International Trade

51. The increase in protectionism in industrial countries stifles export growth and prevents diversification from traditional exports. The success of some Far Eastern developing countries in increasing exports of labour-intensive manufactured goods shows the development potential of such trace. However, other countries - especially low-income Asian and Latin American nations - seeking to follow the same route have found themselves severely handicapped by growing trade barriers, particularly in textiles and clothing. If developing countries are to reconcile a need for rapid export growth with a need to conserve the resource base, it is imperative that they enjoy access to industrial country markets for non traditional exports where they enjoy a comparative advantage. In many cases, the problems of protectionism relate to manufactures; but there are cases - sugar is a good example - where industrial countries employ agricultural trade restrictions in ways that are damaging ecologically as well as economically.

'Pollution-intensive' Goods

52. The processing of certain raw materials - pulp and paper, oil, and alumina, for example - can have substantial environmental side effects. Industrial countries have generally been more successful than developing ones in seeing to it that export product prices reflect the costs of environmental damage and of controlling that damage. Thus in the case of exports from industrial countries, these costs are paid by consumers in importing nations, including those in the Third World. But in the case of exports from developing countries, such costs continue to be borne entirely domestically, largely in the form of damage costs to human health, property, and ecosystems.

53. In 1980 the industries of developing countries exporting to OECD members would have incurred direct pollution control costs of $5.5 billion if they had been required to meet the environmental standards then prevailing in the United States, according to a study conducted for this Commission. If the pollution control expenditures associated with the materials that went into the final product are also counted, the costs would have mounted to $14.2 billion. The evidence also suggests that OECD imports from developing countries involve products that entail higher average environmental and resource damage costs than do overall OECD imports. These hypothetical pollution control costs probably understate the real costs of environmental and resource damage in the exporting countries. Furthermore, these costs relate only to environmental pollution and net to the economic damage costs associated with resource depletion.

54. The fact that these costs remain hidden means that developing countries are able to attract more investment to export manufactured goods than they would under a more rigorous system of global environmental control. Many Third World policymakers see this as beneficial in that it gives developing countries a comparative advantage in 'pollution-intensive' goods that should be exploited. They also see that passing along more of the real costs could reduce the competitive position of their country in some markets, and thus regard any pressure in this direction as a form of disguised protectionism from established producers. Yet it is in developing countries' own long-term interests that more of the environmental and resource costs associated with production be reflected in prices. Such changes must come from the developing countries themselves.

The Mandates of Multilateral Trade Forums

55. Although a number of UNCTAD research projects have considered the links between trade and environment, these issues have not been taken up systematically by intergovernmental organizations. The mandates of these organizations - principally GATT and UNCTAD - should include sustainable development. Their activities should reflect concern with the impacts of trading patterns on the environment and the need for more effective instruments to integrate environment and development concerns into international trading arrangements.

56. International organizations dealing with trade will find it easier to reorientate their activities if each nation designates a lead agency with a broad mandate to assess the effects of international trade on sustaining the environmental and resource base of economic growth. This agency could be responsible for raising sustainability issues in the work of UNCTAD, GATT, OECD, CMEA, and other relevant organizations.
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57. Overseas investment activity by companies in market economies has grown substantially over the past 40 years. (See Box 3-3.) Foreign affiliates now account for 40 per cent of sales, 33 per cent of net assets, and 56 per cent of net earnings for 380 of the largest industrial corporations in the market economies, according to data compiled by the UN Centre for Transnational Corporations. A high proportion of transnational investment is within industrial market economies, another aspect of the growing integration of these economies.

58. Transnationals play an important role as owners, as partners in joint ventures, and as suppliers of technology in the mining and manufacturing sectors in many developing countries, especially in such environmentally sensitive areas as petroleum, chemicals, metals, paper, and automobiles. They also dominate world trade in many primary commodities.

59. In recent years, many developing countries have begun to take a more positive view of the role TNC investment can play in their development process. This has been somewhat influenced by these countries' needs for foreign exchange and their awareness of the role that foreign investment might play in providing it. Effective cooperation with TNCs is possible in creating equal conditions for all parties. This can be attained by a strict observance of the principle of sovereignty of the host country For their part, many corporations have recognized the need to share managerial skills and technological know-how with host country nationals and to pursue profit-seeking objectives within a framework of long-term sustainable development.

60. But mutual suspicions still exist, usually because of an asymmetry in bargaining power between large corporations and small, poor, developing countries. Negotiations are often made one sided by a developing country's lack of information, technical unpreparedness, and political and institutional weaknesses. Suspicions and disagreements remain, particularly concerning the introduction of new technologies, the development of natural resources, and the use of the environment. If multinationals are to play a larger role in development, these conflicts and suspicions must be reduced.

61. Strengthening the bargaining posture and response of developing countries vis a vis transnationals is therefore critical. Where nations lack indigenous capacity to deal with large TNCs, regional and other international institutions should assist. As indicated earlier, they could expand existing help in the form of model agreements with transnationals for different situations, such an lease agreements for the exploitation of a mineral resource. They could also field technical assistance and advisory teams when a country negotiates with a transnational.

62. Transnational can have a substantial impact on the environment and resources of other countries and on the global commons. Both the home and host countries of TNCs share responsibilities and should work together to strengthen policies in this sphere. For example, information on policies and standards applied to and followed by corporations when investing in their own home country, especially concerning hazardous technologies, should be provided to host countries. Moreover, the policies of some industrialized countries that major investments are subject to prior environmental assessment should be considered for application to investments made elsewhere and should be broadened to include sustainability criteria. The information and recommendations thus arrived at should be shared with the host countries, which of course would retain the final responsibility.

63. Despite their importance, international measures regarding transnational have been generally lacking and have proved extremely difficult to negotiate. The codes of conduct for transnational corporations formulated by the OECD and under discussion in the UN should deal explicitly with environmental matters and the objective of sustainable development. More detailed and specific instruments are needed for other problems. In particular, when introducing a new technology, plant, product, or process, or when setting up a joint venture in a developing country, the parties involved must also recognize and accept certain special responsibilities. (See Chapter 8.)
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64. The promotion of resource productivity is largely the work of domestic economic policy. But the international economy impinges on possibilities for productivity improvement in several ways, particularly in the transfer of technology from one country to another.

The Diffusion of Environmentally Sound Technologies

65. The promotion of sustainable development will require an organized effort to develop and diffuse new technologies, such as for agricultural production, renewable energy systems, and pollution control. Much of this effort will be based on the international exchange of technology: through trade in improved equipment, technology-transfer agreements, provision of experts, research collaboration, and so on. Hence the procedures and policies that influence these exchanges must stimulate innovation and ensure ready and widespread access to environmentally sound technologies.

66. The real challenge is to ensure that the new technologies reach all those who need them, overcoming such problems as the lack of information and in some cases an inability to pay for commercially developed technologies. The measures required at the national level to deal with these problems are discussed in Part II of this report. However, both these issues also arise in the international diffusion of technology.

67. Countries of the global South paid about $2 billion in 1960 by way of royalties and fees, mainly to industrial countries. The gap in scientific and technological capabilities is particularly wide in areas of direct relevance to the objectives of sustainable development, including biotechnology and genetic engineering, new energy sources, new materials and substitutes, and low-waste and non-polluting technologies.

68. The principal policy issue as regards the impact of payments is the impact of patents and proprietary rights. In 1980, industrialized market economies accounted for 65 per cent of the world total of patents granted, and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe held 29 per cent. Countries of the global South held only 6 per cent, and most of these had been granted to non-residents. Proprietary rights are a key element in the commercial development of technology. But their application in certain areas may hamper the diffusion of environmentally sound technologies and may increase inequities.

69. In the past, publicly funded research provided new technology to small producers, particularly farmers, on a full or subsidized basis. The situation is not very different now, and in areas such as new seed varieties there is some reason to believe proprietary rights could act as a major barrier to developing countries' acquisition of new technologies. International cooperation is essential to maintain the flow of genetic material and to ensure an equitable sharing of gains.

Building Up Technological Capabilities in Countries of the global South

70. At present, most of the global research and development effort is devoted to military purposes or the commercial objectives of large corporations. Little of this is of direct relevance to conditions in developing countries. In many areas the gap in technological capabilities is narrowing, but these efforts must be supported by international assistance, especially in such key areas as biotechnology. Unless action is taken to accumulate biological knowledge, valuable information as well as vital genetic variety will be lost forever, and developing countries will be at a permanent disadvantage in adapting the new biotechnologies to their own needs.

71. Countries of the global South therefore have to work, individually and together, to build up their technological capabilities. The creation and enhancement of the infrastructure for research and technology is a precondition for such cooperation. The countries concerned could share the burden by establishing cooperative research projects along the lines of the International Agricultural Research Centres. Mission-oriented cooperative research ventures could be developed in areas such as dryland agriculture, tropical forestry, pollution control in small enterprises, and low-cost housing. Specific responsibilities would be assigned to institutions and corporations in the participating countries, and the agreement could provide for the equitable sharing and widespread diffusion of the technologies developed.
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15. Population growth accelerated in the middle of the 18th century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and associated improvements in agriculture, not just in the regions that are more developed but elsewhere as well. The recent phase of deceleration started around 1950 with the sharp reduction in mortality rates in the developing countries.

16. Between 1950 and 1985, world population grew at an annual rate of 1.9 per cent, compared with 0.8 per cent in the half-century preceding 1950.2/ population growth is now concentrated in the developing regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which accounted for 85 per cent of the increase of global population since 1950. (See Table 4-1.)

17. The processes of population growth are changing in most developing countries as birth and death rates fall. In the early 1950s, practically all developing countries had birth rates over 40 and death rates over 20, the major exception being the low death rates in Latin America. (These rates refer to the annual number of births and deaths per 1,000 population.) Today the situation is quite different:

- Thirty-two per cent of the people in the Third World live in countries - such as China and the Republic of Korea - with birth rates below 25 and death rates below 10.

- Forty-one per cent are in countries where birth rates have fallen, but not as much as death rates, and their populations are growing at around 2 per cent - doubling, in other words, every 34 years. Such countries include Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Mexico.

- The remaining 27 per cent live in countries, such as Algeria, Bangladesh, Iran, and Nigeria, where death rates have fallen slightly but birth rates remain high. Overall population growth is in the range of 2.5 to 3 per cent (doubling every 28 to 23 years), with even higher growth rates in some countries, such as Kenya.3/

18. In the industrial world, fertility rates have declined and the population is not growing rapidly. In fact, it has stabilized in many countries. Still, the population in North America, Europe, the USSR, and Oceania is expected to increase by 230 million by the year 2025, which is as many people as live in the United States today.

Table 4-1 World Population 1950-85: Key Facts Size and Rates
	1950	1960	1970	1980	1985
Total Population	(billions)
World	2.5	3.0	3.7	4.4	4.8
More developed regions	0.83	0.94	1.05	1.14	1.17
Less developed regions	1.68	2.07	2.65	3.31	3.66
Annual Growth *	(per cent)
World		1.8	2.0	1.9	1.7
More developed regions		1.3	1.0	0.8	0.6
Less developed regions		2.1	2.5	2.3	2.0
Urban Population	(per cent)
World	29	34	37	40	41
More developed regions	54	67	67	70	72
Less developed regions	17	22	25	29	31
* Data are for growth over previous decade or, for last column, over previous five years. Source: Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects: Estimates and Projections as Assessed in 1984 (New York: UN, 1986)

19. The acceleration of population growth in the Third World and the decline in fertility levels in industrial countries are (changing age distribution patterns radically. In developing countries, the young predominate. In 1900, 39 per cent of developing country populations were younger than 15; the figure for industrialized countries was only 23 per cent.4/ Yet in these countries, the proportion of the elderly is growing. Those 65 or older accounted for 11 per cent of the population in 1980; in developing countries, they represented only 4 per cent.5/ Thus in the industrial world, relatively fewer people of working age will bear the burden of supporting relatively larger numbers of older people.

20. A changing age structure helps to set patterns of future population growth. The large number of young people in developing countries means large numbers of future parents, so that even if each person produces fewer children. The total number of births will continue to increase. Population growth can continue to grow for some decades after fertility rates decline to the 'replacement level' of slightly over two children on average per couple. Thus in many nations, high population growth over the next few generations are assured.

21. Population projections indicate an increase in global population from 4.8 billion in 1985 to 6.1 billion by 2000, and to 8.2 billion by 2025. (See Table 4 2.) More than 90 pet cent of this increase is expected in developing regions. Large differences exist among countries in these areas, and the momentum of population growth is higher in Africa than in Latin America or Asia. In some developing countries, such as China, population growth rates are already well below 2 per cent and are expected to fall below 1 per cent by the beginning of the next century.6/

22. Reflecting the 'momentum' of population growth, long term UN projections show that at the global level:

- if replacement-level fertility is reached in 2010, global population will stabilize at 7.7 billion by 2060;

- if this rate is reached in 2025, population will stabilize at 10.2 billion by 2095;

- if, however, the rate is reached only in 2065, global population in 2100 would be 14.2 billion.

23. These projections show that the world has real choices. Policies to bring down fertility rates could make a difference of billions to the global population next century. The greater part of the differences between the three variants is accounted for by South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Hence much depends on the effectiveness of population policies in these regions.
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24. The number of people in Europe, Japan, North America, and the Soviet Union quintupled between 1750 and 1950, and these regions' share in world population increased sharply over this period.8/ By the latter part of the 19th century, there was growing concern about population pressures in Europe. Migration to North America, Australia, and New Zealand helped to some extent. At its peak between 1881 and 1910, permanent emigration absorbed nearly 20 per rent of the increase in population in Europe.9/

25. Today, however, migration in not a major factor in determining population distribution among countries. Between 1970 and 1980 permanent emigration as a percentage of population increase fell to 4 per cent in Europe and was only 2.5 per cent in Latin America. The corresponding percentages in Asia and Africa were very much lower.10/ Thus the option of emigration to new lands has not been and will not be a significant element in relieving demographic pressures in developing countries In effect, this reduces the time available to bring population into balance with resources.

26. Within countries, populations are more mobile. Improved communications have enabled large movements of people. Sometimes as a natural response to the growth of economic opportunities in different places. Some governments have actively encouraged migration from densely to sparsely settled areas. A more recent phenomenon is the flight of 'ecological refugees' from areas of environmental degradation.

Table 4-2 Current and Projected Population Size and Growth Rates*
	Population			Annual Growth Rate
				1950	1985	2000
	1985	2000	2025	to	to	to
				1985	2000	2025
Region	(billion)			(per cent)
World	4.8	6.1	8.2	1.9	1.6	1.2
Africa	0.66	0.87	1.62	2.6	3.1	2.5
Latin America	0.41	0.55	0.78	2.6	2.0	1.4
Asia	2.82	3.55	4.54	2.1	1.6	1.0
North America	0.26	0.30	0.35	1.3	0.8	0.6
Europe	0.49	0.51	0.52	0.7	0.3	0.1
USSR	0.28	0.31	0.37	1.7	0.8	0.6
Oceania	0.02	0.03	0.04	1.9	1.4	0.9
* Medium-variant projections. Source: Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects; Estimates and Projections as Assessed in 1984 (New York: UN, 1986).

27. Much of the movement is from countryside to city. (See Chapter 9.) In 1985, some 40 per cent of the world's population lived in cities; the magnitude of the urban drift can be seen in the fact that since 1950, the increase in urban population has been larger than the increase in rural population both in percentage and in absolute terms. This shift is most striking in developing countries, where the number of city-dwellers quadrupled during this period.
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28. Improvements in the health and education of all, but especially of women and in conjunction with other social changes that (raise the status of women, can have a profound effect in bringing down population growth rates. In an initial period, however, better health care means that more babies live to reproduce and that women reproduce over longer time spans.

Table 4-3 Health Indicators
	Life Expectancy at Birth		Infant Mortality Rates
	1950-55	1980-85	1960-65	1980-85
Region	(years)		(deaths per 1,000 live births)
World	49.9	64.6	117	81
Africa	37.5	49.7	157	114
Asia	41.2	57.9	133	87
South America	52.3	64.0	101	64
North America	64.4	71.1	43	27
Europe	65.3	73.2	37	16
USSR	61.7	70.9	32	25
Oceania	61.0	67.6	55	39
Source: WCED, based on data in World Resources Institute / International Institute for Environment and Development, World Resources 1986 (New York: Basic Books, 1986).

29. The 'health status' of a society is a complex concept that cannot be measured easily. Two widely available indicators that reflect at least some aspects of a given society's health are life expectancy and infant mortality rates. These statistics suggest that health has improved virtually everywhere; and, at least with regard to these two indicators, the gap between industrial and developing regions has narrowed.

30. Many factors can increase life expectancy and reduce mortality rates: two are worth emphasizing. First, although generally speaking national wealth buys national health, some relatively poor nations and areas, such as China, Sri Lanka, and the Indian state of Kerala, have achieved remarkable success in lowering infant mortality and improving health through increases in education, especially of women; the establishment of primary health clinics; and other health care programmes.12/ Second, the principal reductions in mortality rates in the industrial world came about before the advent of modern drugs; they were due to improved nutrition, housing, and hygiene. The recent gains in developing countries have also been largely due to public health programmes, particularly for the control of communicable diseases.

31. Education is another key dimension of 'population quality'. The past few decades have seen a great expansion of educational facilities in virtually all countries. In terms of school enrolment, literacy rates, the growth in technical education, and the development of scientific skills, much progress has been achieved.
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35. Progress in population policies is uneven. Some countries with serious population problems have comprehensive policies. Some go no further than the promotion of family planning. Some do not do even that.

36. A population policy should set out and pursue broad national demographic goals in relation to other socio-economic objectives. Social and cultural factors dominate all others in affecting fertility. The most important of these is the roles women play in the family, the economy, and the society at large. Fertility rates fall as women's employment opportunities outside the home and farm, their access to education, and their age at marriage all rise. Hence policies meant to lower fertility rates not only must include economic incentives and disincentives, but must aim to improve the position of women in society. Such policies should essentially promote women's rights.

Table 4-4 Male and Female Enrolment Ratios, by Region, 1960 and 1982
	Male		Female
Region	1960	1982	1960	1982
World
First Level	92.2	101.3	7.1	87.3
Second Level	31.3	53.3	23.1	42.5
Africa
First Level	56.2	89.2	32.0	72.1
Second Level	7.3	29.6	2.9	19.5
Latin America and Caribbean
First Level	75.0	106.2	71.2	103.3
Second Level	14.9	46.6	13.6	48.5
North America
First Level	117.4	119.7	116.4	119.9
Second Level	69.4	85.4	71.4	86.6
Asia
First Level	94.9	100.1	63.1	79.9
Second Level	29.3	49.3	16.6	32.9
Europe and USSR
First Level	103.4	105.4	102.7	104.5
Second Level	46.5	76.2	44.6	81.3
Oceania
First Level	102.2	102.9	100.7	98.9
Second Level	53.8	71.1	58.8	72.0
Note; The figures are percentages of appropriate groups receiving a given level of education. As many older children are in primary school percentages can be over 100. Source: WCED, based on data in UNESCO, 'A Summary Statistical Review of Education in the World, 1960-1982, Paris, July 1984.

37. Poverty breeds high rates of population growth: Families poor in income, employment, and social security need children first to work and later to sustain elderly parents. Measures to provide an adequate livelihood for poor households, to establish and enforce minimum-age child labour laws, and to provide publicly financed social security will all lower fertility rates. Improved public health and child nutrition programmes that bring down infant mortality rates - so parents do not need 'extra' children as insurance against child death - can also help to reduce fertility levels.

38. All these programmes are effective in bringing down birth rates only when their benefits are shared by the majority. Societies that attempt to spread the benefits of economic growth to a wider segment of the population may do better at lowering birth rates than societies with both faster and higher levels of economic growth but a less even sharing of the benefits of that growth.

39. Thus developing-country population strategies must deal not only with the population variable as such but also with the underlying social and economic conditions of underdevelopment. They must be multifaceted campaigns: to strengthen social, cultural, and economic motivations for couples to have small families and, through family planning programmes, to provide to all who want them the education, technological means, and services required to control family size.

40. Family planning services in many developing countries suffer by being isolated from other programmes that reduce fertility and even from those that increase motivation to use such services. They remain separate both in design and implementation from such fertility-related programmes as nutrition, public health, mother and child care, and preschool education that take place in the same area and that are often funded by the same agency.

41. Such services must therefore be integrated with other efforts to improve access to health care and education. The clinical support needed for most modern contraceptive methods makes family planning services heavily dependent on the health system. Some governments have successfully combined population programme: with health, education, and rural development projects, and implemented them as part of major socio-economic programmes in villages or regions. This integration increases motivation, improves access, and raises the effectiveness of investments in family planning.

42. Only about 1.5 per cent of official development aid now goes for population assistance.13/ Regrettably, some donor countries have cut back on their assistance for multilateral population programmes and so weakened them; this must be reversed.

43. Zimbabwe is one nation that has successfully integrated its family planning efforts not only with its rural health services but also with efforts to improve women's abilities to organize group activities and earn money through their own labour. The government's initial efforts were aimed less at limiting population growth than at assisting women to space births in the interests of mother and child health and at helping infertile women to bear children. But gradually families have begun to use the contraceptives made available for child spacing as a way to limit fertility. Zimbabwe now leads sub-Saharan Africa in the use of modern contraceptive methods.
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44. Population distribution across a country's different regions is influenced by the geographical spread of economic activity and opportunity. Most countries are committed in theory to balancing regional development, but are rarely able to do thin in practice. Governments able to spread employment opportunities throughout their nations and especially through their countrysides will thus limit the rapid and often uncontrolled growth of one or two cities. China's effort to support village-level industries in the countryside is perhaps the most ambitious of this sort of national programme.

45. Migration from countryside to city is not in itself a bad thing; it is part of the process of economic development and diversification. The issue is not so much the overall rural urban shift but the distribution of urban growth between large metropolitan cities and smaller urban settlements. (See Chapter 9.)

46. A commitment to rural development implies more attention to realizing the development potential of all regions, particularly those that are ecologically disadvantaged (See Chapter 6.) This would help reduce migration from these areas due to lack of opportunities. But governments should avoid going too far in the opposite direction, encouraging people to move into sparsely populated areas such as tropical moist forests, where the land may not be able to provide sustainable livelihoods.

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47. When a population exceeds the carrying capacity of the available resources, it can become a liability in efforts to improve people's welfare. But talking of population just as numbers glosses over an important point: People are also a creative resource, and this creativity is an asset societies must tap. To nurture and enhance that asset, people's physical well-being must be improved through better nutrition, health care, and so on. And education must be improved to help them become more capable and creative, skilful, productive, and better able to deal with day-to-day problems. All this has to be achieved through access to and participation in the processes of sustainable development.

Improving Health

48. Good health is the foundation of human welfare and productivity. Hence a broad-based health policy is essential for sustainable development. In developing countries, the critical problems of ill health are closely related to environmental conditions and development problems.

49. Malaria is the most important parasitic disease in the tropics, and its prevalence is closely related to wastewater disposal and drainage. Large dams and irrigation systems have led to sharp increases in the incidence of schistosomiasis (small fever) in many areas. Inadequacies in water supply and sanitation are direct causes of other widespread and debilitating diseases such as diarrhoeas and various worm infestations.

50. Though much has been achieved in recent years, 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water, and 1.2 billion to adequate sanitation. Many diseases can be controlled not just through therapeutic interventions but also through improvements in rural water supply, sanitation, and health education. In this sense, they really require a developmental solution. In developing countries, the number of water taps nearby is a better indication of the health of a community than is the number of hospital beds.

51. Other examples of links between development, environmental conditions, and health include air pollution and the respiratory illnesses it brings, the impact of housing conditions on the spread of tuberculosis, the effects of carcinogens and toxic substances, and the exposure to hazards in the workplace and elsewhere.

52. Many health problems arise from the nutritional deficiencies that occur in virtually all developing countries, but most acutely in low-income areas. Most malnutrition is related to a shortage of calories or protein or both, but some diets also lack specific elements and compounds, such as iron and iodine. Health will be greatly improved in low-income areas by policies that lead to the production of more of the cheap foods the poor traditionally eat - coarse grains and root crops.

53. These health, nutrition, environment, and development links imply that health policy cannot be conceived of purely in terms of curative or preventive medicine, or even in terms of greater attention to public health. Integrated approaches are needed that reflect key health objectives in areas such as food production; water supply and sanitation; industrial policy, particularly with regard to safety and pollution; and the planning of human settlements. Beyond this, it is necessary to identify vulnerable groups and their health risks and to ensure that the socio-economic factors that underlie these risks are taken into account in other areas of development policy.

54. Hence, WHO's 'Health for All' strategy should be broadened far beyond the provision of medical workers and clinics, to cover health-related interventions in all development activities. Moreover, this broader approach must be reflected in institutional arrangements to coordinate all such activities effectively.

55. Within the narrower area of health care, providing primary health care facilities and making sure that everyone has the opportunity to use them are appropriate starting points. Maternal and child health care are also particularly important. The critical elements here are relatively inexpensive and can have a profound impact on health and well-being. An organized system of trained birth attendants, protection against tetanus and other childbirth infections, and supplemental feeding can dramatically reduce maternal mortality. Similarly, low-cost programmes to assure immunization, teach and supply oral dehydration therapy against diarrhoeas, and encourage breast-feeding (which in turn can reduce fertility) can increase child survival rates dramatically.

56. Health care must be supplemented by effective health education. Some parts of the Third World may soon face growing numbers of the illnesses associated with life-styles in industrial nations - cancer and heart disease especially. Few developing countries can afford the expensive treatment required for the latter diseases, and should begin efforts now to educate their citizens on the dangers of smoking and of high-fat diets.

57. A rapid spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in both countries of the global North and developing countries could drastically alter all countries' health priorities. AIDS is threatening to kill millions of people and disrupt the economies of many countries. Governments should overcome any lignering shyness and rapidly educate their people about this syndrome and about the ways in which it is spread. International cooperation on research and the handling of the disease is essential.

58. Another major health problem with international ramifications is the increase in drug addiction. It is a problem closely linked to organized crime in the production of drugs, in large-scale international traffic in these drugs, and in the networks for distribution. It distorts the economy in many poor producing areas and destroys people the world over. International cooperation is essential in tackling this scourge. Some countries have to deploy considerable financial resources to halt the production and traffic in narcotics and to promote crop diversification and rehabilitation schemes in the producing areas, which are generally impoverished. To sustain their efforts, greater international assistance is essential.

59. Most medical research focuses on pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other technological interventions for disease management. Much of this research is directed at the diseases of industrialized countries, as their treatment accounts for a substantial part of the sales of pharmaceutical companies. More research is urgently needed on the environmentally related tropical diseases that are the major health problem in the developing countries. This research should focus not merely on new medicines, but also on public health measures to control these diseases. Existing arrangements for international collaboration on tropical disease research should be greatly strengthened.

Broadening Education

60. Human resource development demands knowledge and skills to help people improve their economic performance. Sustainable development requires changes in values and attitudes towards environment and development - indeed, towards society and work at home, on farms, and in factories. The world's religions could help provide direction and motivation in forming new values that would stress individual and joint responsibility towards the environment and towards nurturing harmony between humanity and environment.

61. Education should also be geared towards making people more capable of dealing with problems of overcrowding and excessive population densities, and better able to improve what could be called 'social carrying capacities'. This is essential to prevent ruptures in the social fabric, and schooling should enhance the levels of tolerance and empathy required for living in a crowded world. Improved health, lower fertility, and better nutrition will depend on greater literacy and social and civic responsibility. Education can induce all these, and can enhance a society's ability to overcome poverty, increase incomes, improve health and nutrition, and reduce family size.

62. The investment in education and the growth in school enrolment during the past few decades are signs of progress. Access to education is increasing and will continue to do so. Today almost all the world's boys are getting some form of primary education. In Asia and Africa, however, enrolment rates for girls are much lower than for boys at all levels. A large gap also exists between developed and developing countries in enrolment rates beyond primary schools.

63. UN projections of enrolment rates for the year 2000 suggest a continuation of these trends. Thus despite the growth in primary education, illiteracy will continue to rise in terms of sheer numbers; there will be more than 900 million people unable to read and write at the end of the century. By then, girls' enrolment rates are still expected to be below the current rates for boys in Asia. As for secondary education, developing countries are not expected to attain even the 1960 industrial country levels by the year 2000.

64. Sustainable development requires that these trends be corrected. The main task of education policy must be to make literacy universal and to close the gaps between male and female enrolment rates. Realizing these goals would improve individual productivity and earnings, as well as personal attitudes to health, nutrition, and child-bearing. It can also instill a greater awareness of everyday environmental factors. Facilities for education beyond primary school must be expanded to improve skills necessary for pursuing sustainable development.

65. A major problem confronting many countries is the widespread unemployment and the unrest that it leads to. Education has often been unable to provide the skills needed for appropriate employment. This is evident in the large numbers of unemployed people who have been trained for white-collar employment in swelling urban populations. Education and training should also be directed towards the acquisition of practical and vocational skills, and particularly towards making people more self-reliant. All this should be supported by efforts to nurture the informal sector and the participation of community organizations.

66. Providing facilities is only the beginning. Education must be improved in quality and in relevance to local conditions. In many areas, it should be integrated with children's participation in farm work, a process requiring flexibility in the school system. It should impart knowledge relevant for the proper management of local resources. Rural schools must teach about local soils, water, and the conservation of both, about deforestation and how the community and the individual can reverse it. Teachers must be trained and the curriculum developed so that students learn about the agricultural balance sheet of an area.

67. Most people base their understanding of environmental processes and development on traditional beliefs or on information provided by a conventional education. Many thus remain ignorant about ways in which they could improve traditional production practices and better protect the natural resource base. Education should therefore provide comprehensive knowledge, encompassing and cutting across the social and natural sciences and the humanities, thus providing insights on the interaction between natural and human resources, between development and environment.

68. Environmental education should be included in and should run throughout the other disciplines of the formal education curriculum at all levels - to foster a sense of responsibility for the state of the environment and to teach students how to monitor, protect, and improve it. These objectives cannot be achieved without the involvement of students in the movement for a better environment, through such things as nature clubs and special interest groups. Adult education, on-the-job training, television, and other less formal methods must be used to reach out to as wide a group of individuals as possible, as environmental issues and knowledge systems now change radically in the space of a lifetime.

69. A critical point of intervention is during teacher training. The attitudes of teachers will be key in increasing understanding of the environment and its links with development. To enhance the awareness and capabilities of teachers in this area, multilateral and bilateral agencies must provide support for the relevant curriculum development in teacher training institutions, for the preparation of teaching aids, and for other similar activities. Global awareness could be fostered by encouraging contacts among teachers from different countries, for instance in specialized centres set up for this purpose.

Empowering VUlnerable Groups

70. The processes of development generally lead to the gradual integration of local communities into a larger social and economic framework. But some communities - so-called indigenous or tribal peoples - remain isolated because of such factors as physical barriers to communication or marked differences in social and cultural practices. Such groups are found in North America, in Australia, in the Amazon Basin, in Central America, in the forests and hills of Asia, in the deserts of North Africa, and elsewhere.

71. The isolation of many such people has meant the preservation of a traditional way of life in close harmony with the natural environment. Their very survival has depended on their ecological awareness and adaptation. But their isolation has also meant that few of them have shared in national economic and social development; this may be reflected in their poor health, nutrition, and education.

72. With the gradual advance of organized development into remote regions, these groups are becoming less isolated. Many live in areas rich in valuable natural resources that planners and 'developers' want to exploit, and this exploitation disrupts the local environment so as to endanger traditional ways of life. The legal and institutional changes that accompany organized development add to such pressures.

73. Growing interaction with the larger world is increasing the vulnerability of these groups, since they are often left out of the processes of economic development. SOcial discrimination, cultural barriers, and the exclusion of these people from national political processes makes these groups vulnerable and subject to exploitation. Many groups become dispossessed and marginalized, and their traditional practices disappear. They become the victims of what could be described as cultural extinction.

74. These communities are the repositories of vast accumulations of traditional knowledge and experience that links humanity with its ancient origins. Their disappearance is a loss for the larger society, which could learn a great deal from their traditional skills in sustainably managing very complex ecological systems. It is a terrible irony that as formal development reaches more deeply into rain forests, deserts, and other isolated environments, it tends to destroy the only cultures that have proved able to thrive in these environments.

75. The starting point for a just and human policy for such groups is the recognition and protection of their traditional rights to land and the other resources that sustain their way of life - rights they may define in terms that do not fit into standard legal systems. These groups' own institutions to regulate rights and obligations are crucial for maintaining the harmony with nature and the environmental awareness characteristic of the traditional way of life. Hence the recognition of traditional rights must go hand in hand with measures to protect the local institutions that enforce responsibility in resource use. And this recognition must also give local communities a decisive voice in the decisions about resource use in their area.

76. Protection of traditional rights should be accompanied by positive measures to enhance the well-being of the community in ways appropriate to the group's life-style. For example, earnings from traditional activities can be increased through the introduction of marketing arrangements that ensure a fair price for produce, but also through steps to conserve and enhance the resource base and increase resource productivity.

77. Those promoting policies that have an impact on the lives of an isolated, traditional people must tread a fine line between keeping them in artificial, perhaps unwanted isolation and wantonly destroying their life-styles. Hence broader measures of human resources development are essential. Health facilities must be provided to supplement and improve traditional practices; nutritional deficiencies have to be corrected, and educational institutions established. These steps should precede new projects that open up an area to economic development. Special efforts should also be made to ensure that the local community can derive the full benefit of such projects, particularly through jobs.

78. In terms of sheer numbers, these isolated, vulnerable groups are small. But their marginalization is a symptom of a style of development that tends to neglect both human and environmental considerations. Hence a more careful and sensitive consideration of their interests is a touchstone of a sustainable development policy.
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11. The food surpluses in North America and Europe result mainly from subsidies and other incentives that stimulate production even in the absence of demand. Direct or indirect subsidies, which now cover virtually the entire food cycle, have become extremely expensive. In the United States, the cost of farm support has grown from $2.7 billion in 1980 to $25.8 billion in 1986. In the EEC, such costs have risen from $6.2 billion in 1976 to $21.5 billion in 1986.

12. It has become politically more attractive, and usually cheaper, to export surpluses - often as food aid - rather than to store them. These heavily subsidized surpluses depress the international market prices of commodities such as sugar and have created severe problems for several developing countries whose economies are based on agriculture. Non-emergency food aid and low-priced imports also keep down prices received by farmers in developing countries and reduce the incentive to improve domestic food production.

13. The environmental consequences of a heavily subsidized production system are becoming evident within industrialized nations:

- lower productivity as soil quality declines due to intensive soil cultivation and overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides;

- the destruction of the countryside, through clearing of hedgerows, park belts, and other protective cover and the levelling, occupation, and cultivation of marginal land and watershed protection areas; and

- nitrate pollution of ground-water aquifers due to the often subsidized overuse of nitrate fertilizers.

14. The financial, economic, and environmental effects of the current incentive systems are beginning to be questioned by many governments and groups, including farm organizations. A particular area of concern is the impact of these policies on developing countries. They depress international prices of products, such as rice and sugar, that are important exports for many developing countries and so reduce exchange earnings of developing countries. They increase the instability of world prices. And they discourage the processing of agricultural commodities in the producing countries.

15. It is in the interests of all, including the farmers, that the policies be changed. Indeed, in recent years some conservation-oriented changes have taken place and some subsidy systems have increasingly stressed the need to retire land from production. The financial and economic burden of subsidies must be reduced. The harm that these policies do to the agriculture of developing countries by disrupting world markets must be eliminated.
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16. The new technology behind increases in agricultural productivity requires scientific and technological skills, a system for technology extension and other services for farmers, and commercial orientation in farm management. In many parts of Asia, in particular, small farmers have shown a remarkable capacity to use new technology once they are given incentives and adequate financial and infrastructural support. Small cash-crop farmers in Africa have demonstrated the potential of the smallholder on that continen, and in the last few years successes have been recorded in food crops also. But ecologically disadvantaged areas and land-poor rural masses have not benefited from advances in technology and will not until governments are willing and able to redistribute land and resources, and give them the necessary support and incentives.

17. Agricultural support systems seldom take into account the special circumstances of subsistence farmers and herders. Subsistence farmers cannot afford the high cash outlay of modern inputs. Many are shifting cultivators who do not have a clear title to the land they use. They may plant a variety of crops on one plot to meet their own needs, and are thus unable to use methods developed for large stands of a single crop.

18. Many herders are nomadic and difficult to reach with education, advice, and equipment. They, like subsistence farmers, depend on certain traditional rights, which are threatened by commercial developments. They herd traditional breeds, which are hardy but rarely highly productive.

19. Women farmers, though they play a critical role in food production, are often ignored by programmes meant to improve production. In Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia they form a large agricultural labour force, while most of sub-Saharan Africa's food is grown by women. Yet almost all agricultural programmes tend to neglect the special needs of women farmers.

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20. Short-sighted policies are leading to degradation of the agricultural resource base on almost every continent: soil erosion in North America; soil acidification in Europe; deforestation and desertification in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and waste and pollution of water almost everywhere. Within 40-70 years, global warming may cause the flooding of important coastal production areas. Some of these effects arise from trends in energy use and industrial production. Some arise from the pressure of population on limited resources. But agricultural policies emphasizing increased production at the expense of environmental considerations have also contributed greatly to this deterioration.

Loss of Soil Resources

21. Increases in cropped areas in recent decades have often extended cultivation onto marginal lands prone to erosion. By the late 1970s, soil erosion exceeded soil formation on about a third of U.S. cropland, much of it in the midwestern agricultural heartland. In Canada, soil degradation has been costing farmers $1 billion a year. In the USSR, the extension of cultivation to the so-called Virgin Lands was a major plank of agricultural policy, but now it is believed that much of this land is marginal. In India, soil erosion affects 25-30 percent of the total land under cultivation. Without conservation measures, the total area of rainfed cropland in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America would shrink by 544 million hectares over the long term because of soil erosion and degradation, according to an FAO study.

22. Erosion makes soil less able to retain water, depletes it of nutrients, and reduces the depth available for the roots to take hold. Land productivity declines. Eroded topsoil is carried to rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, silts up ports and waterways, reduces reservoir storage capacity, and increases the incidence and severity of floods.

23. Poorly designed and implemented irrigation systems have caused waterlogging, salinization, and alkalization of soils. FAO and UNESCO estimate that as much as half the world's irrigation schemes suffer in some degree from these problems. These estimates indicate that some 10 million hectares of irrigated land are being abandoned each year.

24. Soil degradation erodes the overall resource base for agriculture. The loss of croplands encourages farmers to overuse the remaining land and to move into forests and onto rangelands. Sustainable agriculture cannot be based on methods that mine and deplete the soil.

Impact of Chemicals

25. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have played a large role in production increases since the Second World War, but clear warnings have been raised against over-reliance on them. The run-off of nitrogen and phosphates from excess use of fertilizers damages water resources, and such damage is spreading.

26. Using chemicals to control insects, pests, weeds, and fungi enhances productivity, but overuse threatens the health of humans and the lives of other species. COntinuing, long-term exposure to pesticide and chemical residues in food, water, and even in the air is hazardous, particularly to children. A 1983 study estimated that approximately 10,000 people died each year in developing countries from pesticide poisoning and about 400,000 suffered acutely. The effects are not limited to the area where pesticides are used but travel through the food chain.

27. Commercial fisheries have been depleted, bird species endangered, and insects that prey on pests wiped out. The number of pesticide-resistant insect pest species worldwide has increased and many resist even the newest chemicals. The variety and severity of pest infestations multiply, threatening the productivity of agriculture in the areas concerned.

28. The use of agricultural chemicals is not in itself harmful. In fact, the level of use is still quite low in many regions. In these areas, response rates are high and the environmental consequences of residues are not yet a problem. Hence these regions would benefit by using more agrochemicals. However, the growth in the use of chemicals tends to be concentrated precisely where they may be doing more overall harm than good.

Pressure on Forests

29. Forests are crucial for maintaining and improving the productivity of agricultural land. Yet agricultural expansion, a growing world timber trade, and woodfuel demand have destroyed much forest cover. Although this destruction has occurred worldwide, today the greatest challenge is in developing countries, particularly in tropical forests.

30. Growing populations and the decreasing availability of arable land lead poor farmers in these countries to seek new land in forests to grow more food. Some government policies encourage the conversion of forests to pastures and others encourage large resettlement schemes in forests. There is nothing inherently wrong with clearing forests for farming, provided that the land is the best there is for new farming, can support the numbers encouraged to settle upon it, and is not already serving a more useful function, such as watershed protection. But often forests are cleared without forethought or planning.

31. Deforestation most severely disrupts mountainous areas and upland watersheds and the ecosystems that depend on them. The uplands influence precipitation, and the state of their soil and vegetation systmes influence how this precipitation is released into the streams and rivers and onto the croplands of the plains below. The growing numbers and growing severity of both floods and droughts in many parts of the world have been linked to the deforestation of upland watersheds.

Advancing Deserts

32. Some 29 percent of the Earth's land area suffers slight, moderate, or severe desertification; an additional 6 percent is classified as extremely severely desertified. In 1984, the world's drylands supported some 850 million people, of whom 230 million were on lands affected by severe desertification.

33. The process of desertification affects almost every region of the globe, but it is most destructive in the drylands of South America, Asia, and Africa; for these three areas combined, 18.5 percent (870 million hectares) of productive lands are severely desertified. Of the drylands in developing countries, Africa's Sudano-Sahelian zones and, to a lesser extent, some countries south of this zone suffer the most. In their arid and semi-arid lands are to be found 80 percent of the moderately affected and 85 percent of the severely affected people.

34. Land permanently degraded to desert-like conditions continues to grow at an annual rate of 6 million hectares. Each year, 21 million additional hectares provide no economic return because of the spread of desertification. These trends are expected to continue despite some local improvements.

35. Desertification is caused by a complex mix of climatic and human effects. The human effects, over which we have more control, include the rapid growth of both human and animal populations, detrimental land use practices (especially deforestation), adverse terms of trade, and civil strife. The cultivation of cash crops on unsuitable rangelands has forced herders and their cattle onto marginal lands. The unfavourable international terms of trade for primary products and the policies of aid donors have reinforced pressures to encourage increasing cash-crop production at any cost.

36. A Plan of Action conceived by UNEP and drawn up at the 1977 UN Conference on Desertification has led to some slight, mainly local gains. Progress on the plan has been hampered by lack of financial support from the international community, by inadequacies of the regional organizations established to respond to the regional nature of the problem, and by the lack of involvement of grass-roots communities.

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45. Government intervention in agriculture is the rule in both industrial countries and developing countries, and it is here to stay. Public investment in agricultural research and extension services, assisted farm credit and marketing services, and a range of other support systems have all played parts in the successes of the last half-century. In fact, the real problem in many developing countries is the weakness of these systems.

46. Intervention has taken other forms as well. Many governments regulate virtually the entire food cycle - inputs and outputs, domestic sales, exports, public procurement, storage and distribution, price controls and subsidies - as well as imposing various land use regulations: acreage, crop variety, and so on.

47. In general, patterns of government intervention suffer three basic defects. First, the criteria that underlie the planning of these interventions lack an ecological orientation and are often dominated by short-term considerations. These criteria should discourage environmentally unsound farm practices and encourage farmers to maintain and improve their soils, forests, and waters.

48. The second defect is that agricultural policy tends to operate within a national framework with uniform prices and subsidies, standardized criteria for the provision of support services, indiscriminate financing of infrastructure investments, and so forth. Policies that vary from region to region are needed to reflect different regional needs, encouraging farmers to adopt practices that are ecologically sustainable in their own areas.

49. The importance of regional policy differentiation can be easily illustrated:

- Hill areas may require incentive prices for fruits and subsidized supplies of foodgrains to induce farmers to shift towards horticulture, which may be ecologically more sustainable.

- In areas prone to wind and water erosion, public intervention through subsidies and other measures should encourage farmers to conserve soil and water.

- Farmers on land over recharge areas for underground aquifers subject to nitrate pollution might be given incentives to maintain soil fertility and increase productivity by means other than nitrate fertilizers.

50. The third defect in government intervention lies in incentive structures. In industrialized countries, overprotection of farmers and overproduction represent the accumulated result of tax reliefs, direct subsidies, and price controls. Such policies are now studded with contradictions that encourage the degradation of the agricultural resource base and, in the long run, do more harm than good to the agricultural industry. Some governments now recognize this and are making efforts to change the focus of the subsidies from production growth to conservation.

51. On the other hand, in most developing countries the incentive structure is weak. Market interventions are often ineffective for lack of an organizational structure for procurement and distribution. Farmers are exposed to a high degree of uncertainty, and price support systems have often favoured the urban dweller or are limited to a few commercial crops, leading to distortions of cropping patterns that add to destructive pressures on the resource base. In some cases, price controls reduce the incentive to produce. What is required, in many cases, is nothing less than a radical attempt to turn the 'terms of trade' in favour of farmers through pricing policy and government expenditure reallocation.

52. Strengthening food security from a global point of view requires reducing incentives that force overproduction and non-competitive production in the market economies in countries from the global North and enhancing those that encourage food production in developing countries. At the same time, these incentive structures must be redesigned to promote farming practices that conserve and enhance the agricultural resource base.
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53. Trade in agricultural products tripled between 1950 and 1970; it has doubled since then. Yet, when it comes to farming, countries are at their most conservative, continuing to think mainly in local or national terms and concerned, above all, to protect their own farmers at the expense of competitors.

54. Shifting food production towards food-deficit countries will require a major shift in trading patterns. Countries must recognize that all parties lose through protectionist barriers, which reduce trade in food products in which some nations may have genuine advantage. They must begin by redesigning their trade, tax, and incentive systems using criteria that include ecological and economic sustainability and international comparative advantage.

55. The incentive-driven surpluses in market economies in countries from the global North increase pressures to export these surpluses at subsidized prices or as non-emergency food aid. Donor and receiving countries should be responsible for the impacts of aid and use it for long-term objectives. It can be beneficially used in projects to restore degraded lands, build up rural infrastructure, and raise the nutrition level of vulnerable groups.
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56. Agricultural production can only be sustained on a long-term basis if the land, water, and forests on which it is based are not degraded. As suggested, a reorientation of public intervention will provide a framework for this. But more specific policies that protect the resource base are needed to maintain and even enhance agricultural productivity and the livelihoods of all rural dwellers.

Land Use

57. The initial task in enhancing the resource base will be to delineate broad land categories:

- enhancement areas, which are capable of sustaining intensive cropping and higher population and consumption levels;

- prevention areas, which by common consent should not be developed for intensive agriculture or, where developed, should be converted to other uses; and

- restoration areas, where land stripped of vegetative cover has either totally lost its productivity or had it drastically reduced.

58. Identifying land according to 'best use' criteria requires information that is not always available. Most industrial nations possess inventories and descriptions of their lands, forests, and waters that are detailed enough to provide a basis for delineating land categories. Few developing countries have such inventories, but they can and should develop them quickly using satellite monitoring and other rapidly changing techniques.

59. Selection of land for each category could be made the responsibility of a board or commission representing the interests involved, especially the poor and more marginalized segments of the population. The process must be public in character, with publicly agreed criteria that combine the best use approach with the level of development required to sustain livelihood. Classifying land according to best use will determine variations in infrastructure provision, support services, promotional measures, regulatory restrictions, fiscal subsidies, and other incentives and disincentives.

60. Lands identified as prevention areas should be denied supports and subsidies that would encourage their development for intensive agriculture. But such areas might well support certain ecologically and economically sustainable uses such as grazing, fuelwood plantations, fruit farming, and forestry. Those redesigning support systems and incentives should focus on a broader range of crops, including those that enhance grazing, soil and water conservation, and so on.

61. In vast areas today natural factors and land use practices have reduced productivity to a point too low to sustain even subsistence farming. Treatment of these areas must vary from site to site. Governments should give priority to establishing a national policy and multidisciplinary programmes and to creating or strengthening institutions to restore such areas. Where these already exist, they should be better coordinated and designed. The UN Plan of Action to Combat Desertification, which is already in place, requires more support, particularly financial.

62. Restoration may require limits on human activities so as to permit the regeneration of vegetation. This can be difficult where there are large herds of animals or large numbers of people, for the agreement and participation of the local people are of the highest importance. The state, with the cooperation of those living locally, could protect these areas by declaring them national reserves. Where these areas are privately held, the state might wish either to purchase the land from the owners or to provide incentives for its restoration.

Water Management

63. Improvements in water management are essential to raise agricultural productivity and to reduce land degradation and water pollution. Critical issues concern the design of irrigation projects and the efficiency of water use.

64. Where water is scarce, an irrigation project should maximize productivity per unit of water; where water is plentiful, it must maximize productivity per unit of land. But local conditions will dictate how much water can be used without damaging the soil. Salinization, alkalization, and waterlogging can be avoided by a more careful approach to drainage, maintenance, cropping patterns, the regulation of water quantities, and more rational water charges. Many of these objectives will be easier to realize in small-scale irrigation projects. But whether small or large, the projects must be designed with the abilities and aims of the participating farmers in mind, and then involve them in the management.

65. In some areas excessive use of ground-water is rapidly lowering the water table - usually a case where private benefits are being realized at society's expense. Where ground-water use exceeds the recharge capacity of local aquifers, regulatory or fiscal controls become essential. The combined use of ground and surface water can improve the timing of water availability and stretch limited supplies.

Alternatives to Chemicals

66. Many countries can and should increase yields by greater use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, particularly in the developing world. But countries can also improve yields by helping farmers to use organic nutrients more efficiently. Hence governments must encourage the use of more organic plant nutrients to complement chemicals. Pest control must also be based increasingly on the use of natural methods. These strategies require changes in public policies, which now encourage the increased use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The legislative, policy, and research capacity for advancing non-chemical and less-chemical strategies must be established and sustained.

67. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are heavily subsidized in many countries. These subsidies promote chemical use preceisely in the more commercially oriented agricultural areas where their environmental damage may already outweigh any increases in productivity they bring. Hence different regions will require different policies to regulate and promote chemical use.

68. Legislative and institutional frameworks for controlling agrochemicals must be greatly strengthened everywhere. Industrialized countries must tighten controls on pesticide exports (See Chapter 8.) Countries from the global South must possess the basic legislative and institutional instruments to manage the use of agricultural chemicals within their countries. And they will need technical and financial assistance to do so.

Forestry and Agriculture

69. Undisturbed forest protect watersheds, reduce erosion, offer habitats for wild species, and play key roles in climatic systems. They are also an economic resource providing timber, fuelwood, and other products. The crucial task is to balance the need to exploit forests against the need to preserve them.

70. Sound forest policies can be based only on an analysis of the capacity of the forests and the land under them to perform various functions. Such an analysis might lead to some forests being cleared for intensive cultivation, others for livestock; some forestland might be managed for increased timber production or agroforestry use and some left intact for watershed protection, recreation, or species conservation. The extension of agriculture into forest areas must be based on scientific classification of land capacities.

71. Programmes to preserve forest resources must start with the local people who are both victims and agents of destruction, and who will bear the burden of any new management scheme. They should be at the centre of integrated forest management, which is the basis of sustainable agriculture.

72. Such an approach would entail changes in the way governments met development priorities, as well as the evolution of greater responsibility to local governments and communities. Contracts covering forest use will have to be negotiated, or renegotiated, to ensure sustainability of forest exploitation and overall environmental and ecosystem conservation. Prices for forest products need to reflect the true resource value of the goods.

73. Portions of forests may be designated as prevention areas. These are predominantly national parks, which could be set aside from agricultural exploitation to conserve soil, water, and wildlife. They may also include marginal lands whose exploitation accelerates land degradation through erosion or desertification. In this connection, the reforestation of degraded forest areas is of utmost importance. Conservation areas or national parks can also conserve genetic resources in their natural habitats. (See Chapter 6.)

74. Forestry can also be extended into agriculture. Farmers can use agroforestry systems to produce food and fuel. In such systems, one or more tree crops are combined with one or more food crops or animal farming on the same land, though sometimes at different times. Well-chosen crops reinforce each other and yield more food and fuel than when grown separately. The technology is particularly suitable for small farmers and for poor-quality lands. Agroforestry has been practised by traditional farmers everywhere. The challenge today is to revive the old methods, improve them, adapt them to the new conditions, and develop new ones.

75. International forestry research organizations should work in various tropical countries in various ecosystems along the lines now followed by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. There is considerable scope for institution building and additional research on forestry's role in agricultural production, for example by developing models that better predict the effects on water and soil loss of removing specific portions of forest cover.

Aquaculture

76. Fisheries and aquaculture are critical to food security in that they provide both protein and employment. The greater part of world fish supply comes from marine fisheries, which yielded 76.8 million tons in 1983. Landings have increased by 1 million tons per year over the past few years; by the end of the century, a catch of around 100 million tons should be possible. This is well short of the projected demand. There are indications that much of the naturally available freshwater fish stocks are fully exploited or damaged by pollution.

77. Aquaculture, or 'fish-farming', which differs from conventional fishing in that fish are deliberately reared in controlled water bodies, can help meet future needs. Yields from aquaculture have doubled during the last decade and now represent about 10 percent of world production of fishery products. A five- to tenfold increase is projected by the year 2000, given the necessary scientific, financial, and organizational support. Aquaculture can be undertaken in paddy fields, abandoned mining excavations, small ponds, and many other areas with some water, as well as on various commercial scales: individual, family, cooperative, or corporate. The expansion of agriculture should be given a high priority in countries from the global North and the global South.
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78. The conservation and enhancement of agriculture's resource base will increase production and productivity. But specific measures are required to make inputs more effective. This is best done by strengthening the technological and human resource base for agriculture in developing countries.

The Technological Base

79. Blends of traditional and modern technologies offer possibilities for improving nutrition and increasing rural employment on a sustainable basis. Biotechnology, including tissue culture techniques, technologies for preparing value-added products from biomass, micro-electronics, computer sciences, satellite imagery, and communication technology are all aspects of frontier technologies that can improve agricultural productivity and resource management.

80. Providing sustainable livelihoods for resource-poor farmers presents a special challenge for agricultural research. The major advances in agricultural technology in recent decades are better suited to stable, uniform, resource-rich conditions with good soils and ample water supplies. New technologies are most urgently needed in sub-Saharan Africa and the remoter areas of Asia and Latin America, which typically have unreliable rainfall, uneven topography, and poorer soils, and hence are unsuited to Green Revolution technologies.

81. To serve agriculture in these areas, research has to be less centralized and more sensitive to farmers' conditions and priorities. Scientists will need to start talking to poor farmers and basing research priorities on growers' priorities. Researchers must learn from and develop the innovations of farmers and not just the reverse. More adaptive research should be done right on the farm, using research stations for referral and with farmers eventually evaluating the results.

82. Commercial enterprises can help develop and diffuse technology, but public institutions must provide the essential framework for agricultural research and extension. Few academic and research institutions in regions from the global South are adequately funded. The problem is most acute in the low-income countries, where expenditure on agricultural research and extension amounts to 0.9 percent of total agricultural income, as against 1.5 percent in the middle-income countries. Research and extension efforts must be greatly expanded, especially in areas where climate, soild, and terrain pose special problems.

83. These areas particularly will need new seed varieties, but so will much agriculture in developing countries. At present, 55 percent of the world's scientifically stored plant genetic resources is controlled by institutions in industrial countries, 31 percent by institutions in developing countries, and 14 percent by International Agricultural Research Centres. Much of this genetic material originated in developing countries. These gene banks must increase their inventories of material, improve their storage techniques, and ensure that the resources are readily accessible to research centres in developing countries.

84. Private companies increasingly seek proprietary rights to improved seed varieties, often without recognizing the rights of the countries from which the plant matter was obtained. This could discourage countries rich in genetic resources from making these internationally available and thus reduce the options for seed development in all countries. The genetic research capabilities of developing countries are so limited that agriculture there could become excessively dependent on private gene banks and seed companies elsewhere. Thus international cooperation and a clear understanding on the sharing of gains are vital in critical areas of agricultural technology, such as the development of new seed varieties.

Human Resources

85. The technological transformation of traditional agriculture will be difficult without a matching effort to develop human resources. (See Chapter 4.) This means educational reforms to produce researchers more attuned to the needs of rural peoples and agriculture. Illiteracy is still widespread among the rural poor. But efforts to promote literacy should focus attention on functional literacy covering the efficient use of land, water, and forests.

86. Despite women's critical role in agriculture, their access to education and their representation in research, extension, and other support services is woefully inadequate. Women should be given the same educational opportunities as men. There should be more female extension workers, and women should participate in field visits. Women should be given more power to take decisions regarding agricultural and forestry programmes.

Productivity of Inputs

87. In traditional agriculture, local organic material provided farmers with sources of energy, nutrients, and ways of controlling pests. Today, these needs are increasingly met by electricity, petroleum products, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. The cost of these inputs forms a growing proportion of agricultural costs, and wasteful use does economic and ecological harm.

88. One of the most important energy-related needs is mechanical power for irrigation. The efficiency of pumps could be greatly improved by providing appropriate incentives for equipment producers and farmers, and through effective extension work. Energy for irrigation pumps can also be provided by wind generators or by conventional internal combustion engines running on biogas produced from local biomass wastes. Solar dryers and solar coolers can save agricultural products. These non-conventional sources should be promoted, particularly in areas poor in energy resources.

89. Nutrients are lost when fertilizers are improperly applied. Often they leach away with the flow of water in a field and degrade local water supplies. Similar problems of waste and destructive side effects occur in the use of pesticides. Hence extension systems and chemical manufacturers will need to give priority to programmes to promote careful and economical use of these expensive, toxic materials.
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90. The challenge of sustainable agriculture is to raise not just average productivity and incomes, but also the productivity and incomes of those poor in resources. And food security is not just a question of raising food production, but of ensuring that the rural and urban poor do not go hungry during the short term or midst a local food scarcity. All this requires the systematic promotion of equity in food production and distribution.

Land Reforms

91. In many countries where land is very unequally distributed, land reform is a basic requirement. Without it, institutional and policy changes meant to protect the resource base can actually promote inequalities by shutting the poor off from resources and by favouring those with large farms, who are better able to obtain the limited credit and services available. By leaving hundreds of millions without options, such changes can have the opposite of their intended effect, ensuring the continued violation of ecological imperatives.

92. Given institutional and ecological variations, a universal approach to land reform is impossible. Each country should work out its own programme of land reform to assist the land-poor and to provide a base for coordinated resource conservation. The redistribution of land is particularly important where large estates and vast numbers of the land-poor coexist. Crucial components include the reform of tenancy arrangements, security of tenure, and the clear recording of land rights. In agrarian reforms the productivity of the land and, in forest areas, the protection of forests should be a major concern.

93. In areas where holdings are fragmented into many non-contiguous plots, land consolidation can ease the implementation of resource conservation measures. Promoting cooperative efforts by small farmers - in pest control or water management, for instance - would also help conserve resources.

94. In many countries women do not have direct land rights; titles go to men only. In the interests of food security, land reforms should recognize women's role in growing food. Women, especially those heading households, should be given direct land rights.

Subsistence Farmers and Pastoralists

95. Subsistence farmers, pastoralists, and nomads threaten the environmental resource base when processes beyond their control squeeze their numbers onto land or into areas that cannot support them.

96. The traditional rights of subsistence farmers, particularly shifting cultivators, pastoralists, and nomads, must therefore be protected from encroachments. Land tenure rights and communal rights in particular must be respected. When their traditional practices threaten the resource base, their rights may have to be curtailed, but only when alternatives have been provided. Most of these groups will need to be helped to diversify their livelihoods by entering the market economy through employment programmes and some cash-crop production.

97. Research should give early attention to the varied requirements of the mixed farming typical in subsistence agriculture. Extension and input supply systems must become more mobile to reach shifting cultivators and nomads and priority given to public investment to improve their cropland, grazing areas, and water sources.

Integrated Rural Development

98. Rural populations will continue to increase in many countries. With existing patterns of land distribution, the number of smallholders and landless households will increase by about 50 million, to nearly 220 million, by the year 2000. Together, these groups represent three-quarters of the agricultural households in developing countries. Without adequate livelihood opportunities, these resource-poor households will remain poor and be forced to overuse the resource base to survive.

99. Considerable effort has gone into creating strategies of integrated rural development, and the requirements and pitfalls are well known. Experience has shown that land reform is necessary but alone is not enough without support through the distribution of inputs and rural services. Smallholders, including - indeed especially - women, must be given preference when allocating scarce resources, staff, and credit. Small farmers must also be more involved in formulating agricultural policies.

100. Integrated rural development also requires resources to absorb the large increases in rural working populations expected in most developing countries through non-agricultural work opportunities, which should be promoted in rural areas. Successful agricultural development and the growth in incomes should open up opportunities in service activities and small-scale manufacturing if supported by public policy.

Food Availability Fluctuations

101. Environmental degradation can make food shortages more frequent and more severe. Hence sustainable agricultural development will reduce the season-to-season variability in food supplies. But such systems cannot eliminate it. There will be weather-induced fluctuations, and the growing dependence on only a few crop varieties over large areas may amplify the effects of weather and pest damage. Often it is the poorest households and the ecologically disadvantaged regions that suffer most from these shortages.

102. Food stocks are crucial in dealing with shortages. At present, the world stock of cereals is on the order of 20 percent of annual consumption: Countries from the global South control about one-third of the stock and the industrial world, two-thirds. More than half the stock in developing countries is in two countries - China and India. Stock levels in most of the others provide only for immediate operational requirements; there is little by way of a reserve.

103. The food stocks of industrialized countries are essentially surpluses, and provide a basis for emergency assistance, which must be maintained. But emergency food aid is a precarious basis for food security; developing countries should build up national stocks in surplus years to provide reserves as well as encouraging development of food security at the household level. To do this, they will need an effective system of public support for measures facilitating the purchase, transportation, and distribution of food. The provision of strategically located storage facilities is critical both to reduce post-harvest losses and to provide a base for quick interventions in emergencies.

104. During most food shortages, poor households not only cannot produce food but also lose their usual sources of income and cannot buy the food that is available. Hence food security also requires that machinery is available promptly to put purchasing power in the hands of disaster-struck households, through emergency public works programme, and through measures to protect small farmers from crop failures.
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19. The burning of fossil fuels and, to a lesser extent, the loss of vegetative cover, particularly forests, through urban-industrial growth increase the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. The pre-industrial concentration was about 280 parts of carbon dioxide per million parts of air by volume. This concentration reached 340 in 1980 and is expected to double to 560 between the middle and the end of the next century. Other gases also play an important role in this 'greenhouse effect', whereby solar radiation is trapped near the ground, warming the globe and changing the climate.

20. After reviewing the latest evidence on the greenhouse effect in October 1985 at a meeting in Villach, Austria, organized by the WMO, UNEP, and ICSU, scientists from 29 industrialized and developing countries concluded that climate change must be considered a 'plausible and serious probability. They further concluded that: 'Many important economic and social decisions are being made today on ... major water resource management activities such as irrigation and hydropower; drought relief; agricultural land use; structural designs and coastal engineering projects; and energy planning - all based on the assumption that past climatic data, without modification, are a reliable guide to the future. This is no longer a good assumption'.

21. They estimated that if present trends continue, the combined concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be equivalent to a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels, possibly as early as the 2030s, and could lead to a rise in global mean temperatures 'greater than any in man's history'. Current modelling studies and 'experiments' show a rise in globally averaged surface temperatures, for an effective CO2 doubling, of somewhere between 1.5°C and 4.5°C, With the warming becoming more pronounced at higher latitudes during winter than at the equator.

22. An important concern is that a global temperature rise of 1.5-4.5°C, with perhaps a two to three times greater warming at the poles, would lead to a sea level rise of 25-140 centimetres. A rise in the upper part of this range would inundate low-lying coastal cities and agricultural areas, and many countries could expect their economic, social, and political structures to be severely disrupted. It would also alow the 'atmospheric heat-engine', which is driven by the differences between equatorial and polar temperatures, thus influencing rainfall regimes. Experts believe that crop and forest boundaries will move to higher latitudes; the effects of warmer oceans on marine ecosystems or fisheries and food chains are also virtually unknown.

23. There is no way to prove that any of this will happen until it actually occurs. The key question is: How much certainty should governments require before agreeing to take action? If they wait until significant climate change is demonstrated, it may be too late for any countermeasures to be effective against the inertia by then stored in this massive global system. The very long time lags involved in negotiating international agreement on complex issues involving all nations have led some experts to conclude that it is already late. Given the complexities and uncertainties surrounding the issue, it is urgent that the process start now. A four track strategy is needed, combining:

- improved monitoring and assessment of the evolving phenomena;

- increased research to improve knowledge about the origins, mechanisms, and effects of the phenomena;

- the development of internationally agreed policies for the reduction of the causative gases; and

- adoption of strategies needed to minimize damage and cope with the climate changes, and rising sea level.

24. No nation has either the political mandate or the economic power to combat climatic change alone. However, the Villach statement recommended such a four track strategy for climate change, to be promoted by governments and the scientific community through WMO, UNEP, and ICSU - backed by a global convention if necessary.

25. While these strategies are being developed, more immediate policy measures can and should be adopted. The most urgent are those required to increase and extend the recent steady gains in energy efficiency and to shift the energy mix more towards renewables. Carbon dioxide output globally could be significantly reduced by energy efficiency measures without any reduction of the tempo of GDP growth. These measures would also serve to abate other emissions and thus reduce acidification and urban-industrial air pollution. Gaseous fuels produce less carbon dioxide per unit of energy output than oil or coal and should be promoted, especially for cooking and other domestic uses.

26. Gases other than carbon dioxide are thought to be responsible for about one-third of present global warming, and it is estimated that they will cause about half the problem around 2030. some of these, notably chlorofluorocarbons used as aerosols, refrigeration chemicals, and in the manufacture of plastics, may be more easily controlled than CO2. These, although not strictly energy-related, will have a decisive influence on policies for managing carbon dioxide emissions.

27. Apart from their climatic effect, chlorofluorocarbons are responsible to a large extent for damage to the earth's stratospheric ozone. The chemical industry should make every effort to find replacements, and governments should require the use of such replacements when found (as some nations have outlawed the use of these chemicals as aerosols). Governments should ratify the existing ozone convention and develop protocols for the limitation of chlorofluorocarbon emissions, and systematically monitor and report implementation.

28. A lot of policy development work is needed. This should proceed hand in hand with accelerated research to reduce remaining scientific uncertainties. Nations urgently need to formulate and agree upon management policies for all environmentally reactive chemicals released into the atmosphere by human activities, particularly those that can influence the radiation balance on earth. Governments should initiate discussions leading to a convention on this matter.

29. If a convention on chemical containment policies cannot be implemented rapidly, governments should develop contingency strategies and plans for adaptation to climatic change. In either case, WMO, UNEP, WHO, ICSU, and other relevant international and national bodies should be encouraged to coordinate and accelerate their programmes to develop a carefully integrated strategy of research, monitoring, and assessment of the likely impacts on climate, health, and environment of all environmentally reactive chemicals released into the atmosphere in significant quantities.
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30. The past three decades of generally rapid growth worldwide have seen dramatic increases in fuel consumption for heating and cooling, automobile transport, industrial activities, and electricity generation. Concern over the effects of increasing air pollution in the late 1960s resulted in the development of curative measures, including air-quality criteria, standards, and add-on control technologies that can remove pollutants cost-effectively. All these greatly reduced emissions of some of the principal pollutants and cleaned air over many cities. Despite this, air pollution has today reached serious levels in the cities of several industrial and newly industrialized countries as well as in those of most developing countries, which in some cases are by now the world's most polluted urban areas.

31. The fossil fuel emissions of principal concern in terms of urban pollution, whether from stationary or mobile sources, include sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, various volatile organic compounds, fly ash, and other suspended particles. They can injure human health and the environment, bringing increased respiratory complaints, some potentially fatal. But these pollutants can be contained so as to protect human health and the environment and all governments should take steps to achieve acceptable levels of air quality.

32. Governments can establish and monitor air quality goals and objectives, allowable atmospheric loadings, and related emission criteria or standards, as some successfully do already. Regional organizations can support this effort. Multilateral and bilateral development assistance agencies and development banks should encourage governments to require that the most energy-efficient technology be used when industries and energy utilities plan to build new or extend existing facilities.
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33. Measures taken by many industrialized countries in the 1970s to control urban and industrial air pollution (high chimney stacks, for example) greatly improved the quality of the air in the cities concerned. However, it quite unintentionally sent increasing amounts of pollution across national boundaries in Europe and North America, contributing to the acidification of distant environments and creating new pollution problems. This was manifest in growing damage to lakes, soils, and communities of plants and animals. Failure to control automobile pollution in some regions has seriously contributed to the problem.

34. Thus atmospheric pollution, once perceived only as a local urban-industrial problem involving people's health, is now also seen as a much more complex issue encompassing buildings, ecosystems, and maybe even public health over vast regions. During transport in the atmosphere, emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons are transformed into sulphuric and nitric acids, ammonium salts, and ozone. They fall to the ground, sometimes many hundreds or thousands of kilometres from their origins, as dry particles or in rain, snow, frost, fog, and dew. Few studied of their socio-economic costs are available, but these demonstrate that they are quite large and suggest that they are growing rapidly. They damage vegetation, contribute to land and water pollution, and corrode buildings, metallic structures and vehicles, causing billions of dollars in damage annually.

35. Damage first became evident in Scandinavia in the 1960s. Several thousand lakes in Europe, particularly in southern Scandinavia, and several hundreds in North America have registered a steady increase in acidity levels to the point where their natural fish populations have declined or died out. The same acids enter the soil and groundwater, increasing corrosion of drinking water piping in Scandinavia.

36. The circumstantial evidence indicating the need for action on the sources of acid precipitation is mounting with a speed that gives scientists and governments little time to assess it scientifically. Some of the greatest observed damage has been reported in Central Europe, which is currently receiving more than one gramme of sulphur on every square metre of ground each year, at least five times greater than natural background. There was little evidence of tree damage in Europe in 1970. In 1962, the Federal Republic of Germany reported visible leaf damage in its forest plot samples nationwide, amounting in 1983 to 34 per cent, and rising in 1985 to BO per cent. Sweden reported light to moderate damage in 30 per cent of its forests, and various reports from other countries in Eastern and Western Europe are extremely disquieting. So far an estimated 14 per cent of all European forestland is affected.

37. The evidence is not all in, but many reports show soils in parts of Europe becoming acid throughout the tree rooting layers, particularly nutrient-poor soils such as those of Southern Sweden The precise damage mechanisms are not known, but all theories include an air pollution component. Root damage and leaf damage appear to interact - affecting the ability of the trees both to take up water from the soil and to retain it in the foliage, so that they become particularly vulnerable to dry spells and other stresses. Europe may be experiencing an immense change to irreversible acidification, the remedial costs of which could be beyond economic reach. (See Box 7-3.) Although there are many options for reducing sulphur, nitrogen, and hydrocarbon emissions, no single pollutant control strategy is likely to be effective in dealing with forest decline. It will require a total integrated mix of strategies and technologies to improve air quality, tailored for each region.

38. Evidence of local air pollution and acidification in Japan and also in the newly industrialized countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America is beginning to emerge. China and the Republic of Korea seem particularly vulnerable, as do Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. So little is known about the likely environmental loading of sulphur and nitrogen in these region and about the acid-neutralizing capacity of tropical lakes and forest soils that a comprehensive programme of investigation should be formulated without delay.

39. Where actual or potential threats from acidification exist, governments should map sensitive areas, assess forest damage annually and soil impoverishment every five years according to regionally agreed protocols, and publish the findings. They should support transboundary monitoring of pollution being carried out by agencies in their region and, where there is no such agency, create one or give the job to any suitable regional body. Governments in many regions could gain significantly from early agreement to prevent transboundary air pollution and the enormous damage to their economic base now being experienced in Europe and North America. Even though the exact causes of the damage are hard to prove, reduction strategies are certainly within reach and economic. They could be viewed as a cheap insurance policy compared with the vast amount of potential damage these strategies avoid.

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40. In the years following the Second World War, the nuclear knowledge that under military control had led to the production of atomic weapons was redeployed for peaceful 'energy' purposes by civilian technologists. Several benefits were obvious at the time.

41. It was also realized that no energy source would ever be risk-free. There was the danger of nuclear war, the spread of atomic weapons, and nuclear terrorism. But intensive international cooperation and a number of negotiated agreements suggested that these dangers could be avoided. For instance, the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), drafted in its final form in 1969, included a promise by signatory governments possessing nuclear weapons and expertise to pursue and undertake nuclear disarmament ad also to assist the non-nuclear signatories in developing nuclear power, but strictly for peaceful purposes only. Other problems, such as radiation risks, reactor safety, and nuclear waste disposal were all acknowledged as very important but, with the right amount of effort, containable.

42. And now, after almost four decades of immense technological effort to support nuclear development, nuclear energy has become widely used. Some 30 governments produce from nuclear generators a total of about 15 per cent of all the electricity used globally. Yet it has not met earlier expectations that it would be the key to ensuring an unlimited supply of low-cost energy. However, during this period of practical experience with building and running nuclear reactors, the nature of the costs, risks and benefits have become much more evident and as such, the subject of sharp controversy.
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43. The potential for the spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most serious threats to world peace. It is in the interest of all nations to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. All nations therefore should contribute to the development of a viable non-proliferation regime. The nuclear weapon states must deliver on their promise to reduce the number and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons in their arsenals and the role those weapons play in their strategies. And the non-nuclear-weapon states must cooperate in providing credible assurances that they are not moving towards a nuclear weapon capability.

44. Most schemes for non-proliferation mandate an institutional separation between military and civilian uses of nuclear energy. But for countries with full access to the complete nuclear fuel cycle, no technical separation really exists. Not all states operate the necessary clear-cut administrative separation of civilian and military access. Cooperation is needed also among suppliers and buyers of civilian nuclear facilities and materials and the International Atomic Energy Agency, in order to provide credible safeguards against the diversion of civilian reactor programmes to military purposes, especially in countries that do not open all their nuclear programmes to IAEA inspection. Thus, there still remains a danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Costs

45. The costs of construction and the relative economics of electricity generating stations - whether powered by nuclear energy, coal, oil or gas - are conditioned by the following factors throughout the service life of a plant:

the cost of borrowing money to finance plant construction,

the impact of inflation;

the duration of the period of planning, licensing, and construction;

the cost of fuel and maintenance ;

the costs of protective measures, to ensure safe operation; and

waste disposal costs (land, air, and water pollution containment) and the costs of dismantling at the end of service life.

46. All these factors vary widely depending on differing institutional, legal, and financial arrangements in different countries. Cost generalizations and comparisons are therefore unhelpful or misleading. However, costs associated with several of these factors have increased more rapidly for nuclear stations during the last 5-10 years, so that the earlier clear cost advantage of nuclear over the service life of the plant has been reduced or lost altogether. Nations should therefore look very closely at cost comparisons to obtain the best value when choosing an energy path.

Health and Environment Risks

47. Very strict codes of safety practice are implemented in nuclear plants so that under officially approved operating conditions, the danger from radiation to reactor personnel and especially to the general public is negligible. However, an accident occurring in a reactor may in certain very rare canes be serious enough to cause an external release of radioactive substances. Depending upon the level of exposure, people are under a certain level of risk of becoming ill from various forms of cancer or from alteration or genetic material, which may result in hereditary defects.

48. Since 1928, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has issued recommendations on radiation dosage levels above which exposure is unacceptable. These have been developed for occupationally exposed workers and for the general public. The 'Nuclear Safety Standards (NUSS) codes of IAEA were developed in 1975 to reduce safety differences among member states. Neither system is in any way binding on governments, if an accident occurs, individual governments have the responsibility of deciding at what level of radioactive contamination pasture land, drinking water, milk, meat, eggs, vegetables, and fish, are to be banned for consumption by livestock or humans.

49. Different countries - even different local government authorities within a country - have different criteria. Some have none at all, ICRP and NUSS notwithstanding. States with more rigorous standards may destroy large amounts of food or may ban food imports from a neighbour states with more permissive criteria. This causes great hardship to farmers who may not receive any compensation for their losses. It may also cause trade problems and political tension between states. Both of these difficulties occurred following the Chernobyl disaster, when the need to develop at least regionally conformable contamination criteria and compensation arrangements was overwhelmingly demonstrated.

Nuclear Accidents Risks

50. Nuclear safety returned to the newspaper headlines following the Three Mile Island (Harrisburg, United States) and the Chernobyl (USSR) accidents. Probabilistic estimates of the risks of component failure, leading to a radioactive release in Western style light water reactors wore made in 1975 by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The most serious category of release through containment failure was placed at around 1 in 1,000,000 years of reactor operation. Post-accident analysis of both Harrisburg and Chernobyl - a completely different type of reactor - have shown that in both cases, human operator error was the main cause. They occurred after about 2,000 and 4,000 reactor-years respectively. The frequencies of such occurrences are well nigh impossible to estimate probabilistically. However, available analyses indicate that although the risk of a radioactive release accident is small, it is by no means negligible for reactor operations at the present time.

51. The regional health and environment effects of an accident are largely predictable from radioactive fall-out studies following early atomic weapons testing in the atmosphere and have been confirmed in practice following the Chernobyl accident. What could not be confidently predicted before Chernobyl were the local effects of such an accident. A much clearer picture is now emerging as a result of the experiences there when a reactor exploded, following a series of infringements of the official safety regulations, on 26 April 1986, causing the worst reactor accident ever experienced. As a result, the whole district had to be managed on something like a 'war footing' and efforts resembling a large military operation were needed to contain the damage.

Radioactive Waste Disposal

52. Civil nuclear energy programmes worldwide have already generated many thousands of tons of spent fuel and high-level waste. Many governments have embarked on large-scale programmes to develop ways of isolating these from the biosphere for the many hundreds of thousands of years that they will remain hazardously radioactive.

53. But the problem of nuclear waste disposal remains unsolved. Nuclear waste technology has reached an advanced level of sophistication. This technology has not however been fully tested or utilized and problems remain about disposal. There is particular concern about future recourse to ocean dumping and the disposal of contaminated waste in the territories of small or poor states that lack the capacity to impose strict safeguards. There should be a clear presumption that all countries that generate nuclear waste dispose of it within their own territories or under strictly monitored agreements between states.
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54. During the last 25 years, a growing awareness of the difficulties outlined above has resulted in a wide range of reactions from technical experts, the public, and governments. Many experts still feel that so much can be learned from the problems experienced up to now. They argue that if the public climate allows then to solve the nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning issues and the cost of borrowing money remains reasonably below its 1980-82 peak, in the absence of viable new supply alternatives there is no reason why nuclear energy should not emerge as a strong runner in the 1990s. At the other extreme, many experts take the view that there are so many unsolved problems and too many risks for society to continue with a nuclear future. Public reactions also vary. Some countries have exhibited little public reaction, in others there appears to be a high level of anxiety that expresses itself in anti-nuclear results in public opinion polls or large anti-nuclear campaigns.

55. And so, whilst some states still remain nuclear-free, today nuclear reactors supply about 15 per cent of all the electricity generated. Total electricity production worldwide is in turn equivalent to around 15 per cent of global primary energy supply. Roughly one-quarter of all countries worldwide have reactors. In 1986, there were 366 working and a further 140 planned, with 10 governments possessing about 90 per cent of all installed capacity (more than 5 GW (e)). Of these, there are 8 with a total capacity of more than 9 GW (e), which provided the following percentages of electric power in 1985: France, 65; Sweden, 42; Federal Republic of Germany, 31; Japan, 23; United Kingdom, 19; United States, 16; Canada, 13; and USSR, 10. According to IAEA, in 1985 there were 55 research reactors worldwide, 33 of them in developing countries.

56. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the difficulties referred to above have in one way or another contributed to a scaling back of future nuclear plans - in some countries, to a de facto nuclear pause. In Western Europe and North America, which today have almost 75 per cent of current world capacity, nuclear provides about one-third of the energy that was forecast for it 10 years ago. Apart from France, Japan, the USSR, and several other East European countries that have decided to continue with their nuclear programmes, ordering, construction, and licensing prospects for new reactors in many other countries look poor. In fact, between 1972 and 1986, earlier global projections of estimated capacity for the year 2000 have been revised downwards by a factor of nearly seven. Despite this, the growth of nuclear at around 15 per cent a year over the last 20 years is still impressive.

57. Following Chernobyl, there were significant changes in the nuclear stance of certain governments. Several - notably China, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Japan, Poland, United Kingdom, United States, and the USSR - have maintained or reaffirmed their pro-nuclear policy. Others with a 'no nuclear' or a 'phase-out' policy (Australia, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden - and Ireland with an unofficial anti-nuclear position) have been joined by Greece and the Philippines. Meanwhile, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia are re-investigating nuclear safety and/or the anti-nuclear arguments, or have introduced legislation tying any further growth of nuclear energy and export/import of nuclear reactor technology to a satisfactory solution of the problem of disposal of radioactive wastes. Several countries have been concerned enough to conduct referenda to test public opinion regarding nuclear power.
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58. These national reactions indicate that as they continue to review and update all the available evidence, governments tend to take up three possible positions:

- remain non-nuclear and develop other sources of energy:

- regard their present nuclear power capacity as necessary during a finite period of transition, to safer alternative energy sources; or

- adopt and develop nuclear energy with the conviction that the associated problems and risks can and must, be solved with a level of safety that is both nationally and internationally acceptable.

The discussion in the Commission also reflected these tendencies, views, and positions.

59. But whichever policy is adopted, it is important that the vigorous promotion of energy-efficient practices in all energy sectors and large-scale programmes of research, development, and demonstration for the safe and environmentally benign use of all promising energy sources, especially renewables, be given the highest, priority.

60. Because of potential transboundary effects, it is essential that governments cooperate to develop internationally agreed codes of practice covering technical, economic, social (including health and environment aspects), and political components of nuclear energy. In particular, international agreement must be reached on the following specific items:

- full governmental ratification of the conventions on 'Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident' (including the development of an appropriate surveillance and monitoring system) and on 'Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency' as recently developed by IAEA;

- emergency response training - for accident containment and for decontamination and long-term clean-up of affected sites, personnel, and ecosystems;

- the transboundary movement of all radioactive materials - including fuels, spent fuels, and other wastes by land, sea, or air;

- a code of practice on liability and compensation;

- standards for operator training and international licensing;

- codes of practice for reactor operation, including minimum safety standards;

- the reporting of routine and accidental discharges from nuclear installations;

- effective, internationally harmonized minimum radiological protection standards;

- agreed site selection criteria as well as consultation and notification prior to the siting of all major civil nuclear - related installations;

- standards for waste repositories;

- standards for the decontamination and dismantling of time-expired nuclear reactors; and

- problems posed by the development of nuclear powered shipping.

61. For many reasons, especially including the failure of the nuclear weapons states to agree on disarmament, the Nonproliferation Treaty has not proved to be a sufficient instrument to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which still remains a serious danger to world peace. We therefore recommend in the strongest terms the construction of an effective international regime covering all dimensions of the problem. Both nuclear weapons states and non nuclear weapons states, should undertake to accept safeguards in accordance with the statutes of IAEA.

62. Additionally, an international regulatory function is required, including inspection of reactors internationally. This should be quite separate from the role of IAEA in promoting nuclear energy.

63. The generation of nuclear power is only justifiable if there are solid solutions to the presently unsolved problems to which it gives rise. The highest priority must be accorded to research and development on environmentally sound and economically viable alternatives, as well as on means of increasing the safety of nuclear energy.
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