R
Also in this edition...
A publication of the Asian Development Bank
GoingGreen Why Asia is moving toward a green model of economic growth Some solutions for climate change are blowing in the wind
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
PUBLISHER MANAGING EDITOR SENIOR EDITOR EDITORIAL ADVISOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR COPY EDITOR ART DIRECTOR Development Asia ! " " # # $ $ "
! # " % $ &" ' ( ) * " " COMMENTS % # $ ) + $ # ADVERTISING Development Asia " $ ) $ & & " ) SUBSCRIPTIONS $ " O O # - ) ) $ " . % $ / ) * 0 $ \ $ " 2 &2 3 ! ) " " REPRINTS Development Asia - . - " " 4 & Development Asia 5 5 ] $ "
0 ) $
7 8 "
CONTENTS YEAR V, NUMBER XII, JANUARY—MARCH 2012
FOCUS 24 DIRTY BUSINESS 46 PROFILES IN DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT Asia is on the receiving end of some of A LIFE EXAMINING the world’s most toxic waste. 5 ] 6 THE BIG READ By William Branigin breed of young development GROWING GREEN ______professionals who are working to \ 28 DRY COUGH test the effectiveness of development environment for economic prosperity? Booming economies and an expanding programs. A growing number of political leaders & By Jade Lee-Duffy think not. Asia’s skies… and they might be the ______By Gregg Jones best way to clear them. 48 RECONNAISSANCE ______By Floyd Whaley A REFRESHING DEVELOPMENT 14 THE BIG PICTURE In remote, impoverished places where ATMOSPHERIC EFFORTS Also, sidebar: FOUR-STROKE clean water and medicine are hard to Already among the top threats to SAVINGS \ $ " & health, outdoor air pollution is a ______Coke. concern in cities across developing 32 MURKY WATER By Andrew Marshall Asia. Though the situation is Water pollution threatens millions in improving in many areas, challenges Asia but innovative solutions are being ______remain as populations shift to urban found. centers and growing economies By Jade Lee-Duffy and Karen Emmons DEPARTMENTS produce more vehicles and industry. ______By Mark Blackwell 36 CAMBODIA GOES GREEN 4 OFF THE PRESS ______Cambodia has aggressively embraced Noteworthy excerpts on global issues 16 THE BIG VOICE the concept of green growth but serious from the international press ASHOK KHOSLA challenges lie ahead. ______ ] ) By Karen Emmons 5 ON THE WEB environment explains why the planet ______Development hot spots on the \ worldwide web growth, and why Bhutan’s gross ARTICLES ______national happiness index is no joke. 40 OFF THE SHELF By John Otis 42 GOOD INVESTMENT Recommended reading on economic ______% " & and development topics 20 GREENBACK GROWTH market returns to achieve positive ______The divide between environmentalists social change are a rising force in global 52 ON THE RECORD and policy makers often remains wide, development. Notable quotes on key issues but bridges are being built. By Gregg Jones By Gregg Jones
2 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia Contributors
Mark Blackwell has more than 20 years of Jade Lee-Duffy has worked subjects. He is the author of the upcoming experience covering issues ranging from as a journalist in Hong Kong book Honor in the Dust: Theodore science and economics to politics and for more than 10 years, Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the international affairs for news organizations, covering education, property, Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream. including the Hearst Corporation and the arts, food, and health Capital Cities/ABC. He specializes in issues. She is a regular contributor to the Andrew Marshall is a Bangkok-based information graphics. South China Morning Post. journalist and the author of The Trouser People, a political travelogue about William Branigin served as Karen Emmons is a Bangkok-based Myanmar. Southeast Asia bureau chief journalist who writes on public health and of The Washington Post social issues. Floyd Whaley covers the Philippines for for 10 years, reporting from the International Herald Tribune and The more than a dozen countries Gregg Jones was a New York Times. He is the senior editor in the region. He was based in Bangkok correspondent in Asia for 10 of Development Asia and operates Asia from 1981 to 1986 and in Manila from 1990 years, covering development Editorial Services. to 1995. issues, civil wars and other
Development Asia House AD
www.development.asia
Blame Game Private Money for the Public Good “Human activity has caused profound P8 \ changes to the climate, biodiversity, \ { % oceanic acidity and greenhouse-gas $ \ | " }$ " levels in the atmosphere. But it does |S~ " 8 | " not automatically follow that the more \ ] $ people there are, the worse the damage. | Q " & ] Q—The Guardian, 9 November 2011 % Q emitted almost 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide each. In contrast, more than 60 O ' Dirty Recovery O “Analysis by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Low Carbon Economy Index shows tonne per person…. Global pollution that during the recession, many countries including Britain saw emissions fall will be more affected by the pattern faster than gross domestic product, a measure of the total economy, because their O manufacturing output fell. But in 2010, global GDP growth was just above 5%, whether emerging nations become as while emissions rose by nearly 6%.”—Daily Telegraph, 7 November 2011 energy-intensive as America, Australia and [the People’s Republic of] China.”—The Economist, 22 October 2011 Consumption Trumps Growth “As the UN report points out: ‘Considerable population growth continues today because of the high numbers of births in the 1950s and 1960s, which have A Bright Idea resulted in larger base populations with millions of young people reaching their reproductive years over succeeding generations…’ Yes, population growth “While switching to compact contributes to environmental problems. No, it is not the decisive factor. Even the ] " " OQSU \ availability of grain is affected more by rising livestock numbers and the use of O " " O $ " O " Q— unremarkable in some developed George Monbiot’s Blog, The Guardian, 27 October 2011 $ \ X People’s Republic of] China’s move should not be underestimated…. With [the PRC] churning out billions Get Used to High Prices \ " " $ ! P2 ] ! $ means it will be possible to cut carbon # $ " \ emissions from lighting around the disquieting is the possibility that the world may have already entered a new world without denying the most basic era where persistently high food prices are the ‘New Normal.’ At a time when of amenities to the world’s poor.”— policymakers are grappling with a host of thorny economic issues, the possibility Damian Carrington’s Environment Blog, may be unwelcome, but must not be ignored.”—Asian Development Bank’s Iwan J. The Guardian, 5 November 2011 Azis in an opinion piece for The Japan Times, 7 November 2011
Signs of the Times Good as Cash “Vouchers solve many of the serious “Any economic model that does not properly address inequality will eventually problems that have always plagued face a crisis of legitimacy. Unless the relative economic roles of the market and in-kind food aid…. [And] Aid is the state are rebalanced, the protests of 2011 will become more severe, with social multiplied as it helps not only and political instability eventually harming long-term economic growth and recipients, but merchants.” welfare.”—Economist Nouriel Roubini, writing for Project Syndicate in October 2011 —The New York Times, 3 November 2011
4 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia What’s Your Footprint? Global Footprint Network
ow much of an impact does your lifestyle make on Earth? How much land area does it take to support H your consumption? Global Footprint Network has made this a personal question with a quiz on their website that gives users an estimate of their ecological footprint. The website walks users through a variety of questions, such as how often they eat meat, how they heat their home, and how often they take the train. After answering the questions, a report card on the user’s impact on the earth is provided. It includes such admonitions as: “If everyone lived the same lifestyle as you, we would require the regenerative capacity of 1.6 planets each year” and “to support your lifestyle, it takes 2.8 hectares of the earth’s productive area.” Although the science behind such a quiz might be Reality questionable (the website provides a link that outlines its \ " $ \ ! Hedley Environmental Index mere answering of the questions forces users to contemplate how much they are consuming and the impact it is having. At the end of the quiz, a link is provided to assess how overnments around Asia are grappling with how users can lessen their ecological footprint, which after all to monitor and respond to air pollution. Few have is the whole point of the exercise. For now, the quiz is only G come up with estimates on how much poor air offered in Asia for residents of the People’s Republic of quality costs society. China, India, and Japan; but work is underway to add more The public policy think tank Civic Exchange, based in countries. Hong Kong, China, has taken the initiative and hosts a ! / . " \ website that has become an example of how to measure and organization, Global Footprint Network, to develop a illustrate the impact of air pollution. standardized method of measuring human impact on the The site publishes in real time the economic costs of Hong earth. The group seeks to develop ecological footprint report Kong, China’s air pollution in terms of public health impacts cards for cities, companies, and individuals to be used as a and their monetary value. This includes premature deaths, tool to lessen the impact on the environment. hospital bed days, and doctor visits. Their plan is ambitious, but it all starts by taking a quiz. 0 \ $ ) them how many dollars have been lost due to air pollution in Hong Kong, China, since midnight. Click another button and it tells how many lives have been lost since January 1 ~~ 5 " Q ) " reminder of the impact of air pollution on society. The site also includes an air quality tracking tool that allows users to compare current air quality to World Health Organization air quality guidelines in real time, or to compare historical records of good and bad air days. It includes a photo of the Hong Kong, China skyline that is updated every 15 minutes by the Hong Kong Observatory. The index is the brainchild of Anthony Hedley, the chair of Community Medicine at the School of Public Health at Hong Kong University, and a team of researchers who have for decades worked on air-related health issues in Hong Kong, China; and southern People’s Republic of China.
Researched and written by Floyd Whaley
www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 5
Growing Green Must developing Asia sacrifice its environment for economic prosperity? A growing number of political leaders think not BY Gregg Jones
t the Boao Forum for Asia in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2010, some 2,000 political and business Aleaders from around the region applauded when PRC Vice-President Xi Jinping in his keynote address called for “green and sustainable development.” His forward-thinking blueprint for future Asian development included the promotion of renewable energy and low-carbon technology, and efforts aimed at steeping Asians in the culture of conservation—ideals that were hardly priorities for most leaders in the region just a few years ago. ! 8 \ have dazzled the world with their robust economic growth over the past 2 decades, reducing poverty rates and delivering middle-class comforts to millions. But the region has also become a leader in the unwelcome byproducts of traditional development: reduced water and air quality, depleted natural resources, and imperiled biodiversity. That is beginning to change. “Green growth” projects are sprouting around the region. The PRC, for years best known for its spectacular economic growth and spiraling environmental problems, has also become a leader in the development of green technologies. In 2009, the PRC overtook Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States to become the
GREEN PATH Soft light illuminates a forest path in Bosung, Republic of Korea. The country has committed to investing 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in green growth.
6 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia world’s top manufacturer of wind , laid out the harmful turbines, and its domestic market results of the region’s rush to deliver for turbines has already become the economic growth. Developing world’s largest. The PRC also boasts 8 \ the world’s longest high-speed rail themselves “challenged by associated network, and holds close to 1,000 local air and water pollution, degraded and international patents for high- natural resources and threatened speed rail technologies. ecosystems, worsening water stress, Support for environmentally natural disasters, and increased friendly growth isn’t limited to Asia’s generation of wastes including economically powerful. At the Boao hazardous waste.” And the problems Forum in the PRC, former Philippine are being exacerbated by climate President Fidel Ramos urged Asian change. leaders to pursue a green recovery, “Anthropogenic climate change is even if it meant a painful transition ONE WORLD Leaders from around the a serious challenge to sustainability,” for countries in the region. Mongolian world will convene in June for the Earth notes the report. “It threatens not Prime Minister Sukhbaataryn Batbold Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. only the integrity of natural systems, conceded that it would take decades to but also the very fabric of economic wean his country from its dependence and social systems, especially in the on fossil fuels, but pledged to promote developing world. Among all the green strategies in mining, railways, “The concepts of a $ 8 \ and construction. green economy and greatest number of people at risk from The talk was similarly bold in Seoul, climate change impacts.” Republic of Korea, in June last year green growth are With populations throughout much at the Global Green Growth Summit now moving into of the region continuing to rise, the hosted by the Government of the the mainstream of pressure to deliver economic progress Republic of Korea and the Organisation isn’t going to ease in the foreseeable for Economic Co-operation and global and regional future. Indeed, the political imperative Development. The theme of the policy discourse, not to create more jobs, modernize gathering was “Building Planet- to mention national infrastructure, and build new cities Responsible Civilization.” High-level only promises to increase. \ $ strategies. ” “The industrial transformation in PICTURE CREDIT: UN PHOTO/KIBAE PARK (REPUBLIC OF KOREA), NASA’S EARTH OBSERVATORY experts, and other participants shared Asia’s developing economies, the rise strategies for green growth and cross- in the material standard of living, border cooperation in the pursuit of and the reduction of poverty in many sustainable economies. In his opening of these countries will require great remarks, Lee Myung-bak, President to produce rising prosperity left those amounts of natural resources and of the Republic of Korea, set the tone warnings largely unheeded. In 2005, generate large quantities of emissions,” by calling for technological advances Asia’s voracious appetite for raw says Achim Steiner, an under-secretary- essential to building green economies materials hit a world-leading 35 billion general at the United Nations and that won’t threaten the prosperity of ! \ executive director of UNEP. “Because future generations. staggering 80 billion tons by 2050. The \ " “We can make changes,” he said, region’s soaring demand for energy capacity of the Earth’s ecosystems is “if we concentrate all our efforts on is similarly insatiable: Asia and the limited, the aspirations of these nations harmony between man and the Earth.” 8 \ " will most likely be constrained by spiked from about 20.5% in 1975 to environmental factors.” ‘VORACIOUS APPETITE’ about 35.6% in 2005, and it is projected Although rapidly growing countries Forward-thinkers in Asia have to reach 50% by 2028, according to in Asia are becoming more resource- warned for years that the days of the United Nations Environment \ $ growth without regard for resource Programme (UNEP). \ consumption or environmental costs A recent Asian Development Bank countries, says Nessim Ahmad, could not continue. But the pressure (ADB) report, Greening Growth in Asia director of ADB’s Environment and
www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 7
\ $ loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The concept is a derivative of “sustainable development,” an idea that arose in the 1980s with the belief that economic advancement around the world had to proceed in greater harmony with the natural environment. A 1987 report by the UN-backed World Commission on Environment and Development made the case for the interdependence of economic development and the environment. “The environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions, ambitions, and needs, and therefore it should not be considered in isolation WALL OF PROMISES United States region dearly, experts warn. from human concerns,” a summary of President George H. W. Bush signs the “Asia cannot continue its current the report states. “The environment is Earth pledge with his wife Barbara during path of development, which is where we all live; and development \ not sustainable,” says Nay Htun, is what we all do in attempting to Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, a former UN assistant secretary- improve our lot within that abode. The which set in motion the global drive for general with considerable experience two are inseparable.” sustainable development. in development, environment, and The idea gained critical mass in June energy issues. “The consequences 1992 when delegates from around the Safeguards Division. He notes that include increasing inequities, poverty, world convened in Rio de Janeiro, \ O social strife, retarding economic . $ \ 2 resources per unit of gross domestic development and growth and on Environment and Development. product—is a key factor in the region’s worsening environmental quality, with The Agenda 21 action plan adopted sustainable development. serious effects on human health and by the conference called on nations “In 2005, for instance, the PRC and well-being.” to adopt a model of sustainable India had material intensities of 9.2 The UN’s Steiner echoes that development in their pursuit of and 6.84 kilograms per dollar of GDP, dire note. “Ultimately, the region’s social and economic advancement respectively, while Japan had a material competitive viability will be governed in the 21st century. A year later, the intensity of under 0.30 kg per dollar by the speed and scale at which it UN established the Commission on (58 ! # \ adopts new industrial systems that use Sustainable Development to oversee signal a tremendous opportunity for a far less energy, materials, and water implementation of the agenda adopted & \ as well as its continued progress on at Rio. production processes while pursuing achieving prosperity for the people,” Ten years after the Rio gathering, growth,” he says. he says. the World Summit on Sustainable The challenge for Asia is to deliver Those stark realities have attracted Development convened in economic gains while setting aside Asian policy makers to the idea of Johannesburg, South Africa, to the growth-at-any-price development green development. reinvigorate the efforts set in motion in model. “Climate change and Brazil. environmental sustainability are INTERDEPENDENT AND Over the past decade, the concept among the key challenges,” Ahmad INSEPARABLE " \ $ says. “The grow-now-clean-up-later It’s hard to argue with the philosophy giving rise to a philosophy that places PICTURE CREDIT: AFP approach will undermine the future \ " 8$ greater emphasis on growth rather growth and poverty reduction potential it increases income and employment, \ " of the region.” reduces carbon emissions and to save the environment. It’s a critical The failure to change will cost the pollution, enhances energy and distinction for policy makers in Asia
8 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia and other developing regions of the He cites three countries in Asia that PRC also recently adopted a green world. are making progress on this front. development plan as part of its 12th “The concepts of a green economy # ! " + Five-Year Plan. and green growth are now moving \ $ Steiner notes other important into the mainstream of global and waste prevention and resource initiatives underway around the regional policy discourse, not to reutilization, extended producer region: Indonesia’s efforts to phase out mention national strategies,” said ADB responsibility, and recycling since fossil fuels and reduce deforestation, President Haruhiko Kuroda in a recent the early 1990s. In 2008, it developed Thailand’s initiative on clean speech. a national strategy and action plan technology, Viet Nam’s policies on P% " \ for low carbon green growth. More energy tariffs and subsidy reforms, countries to grow more sustainably. It recently, it has launched the Green India’s Rural Employment Guarantee seeks to create jobs and new sources New Deal Policy to invest 2% of its Act and Clean Energy Fund, and of economic advancement based on GDP in green growth and created the Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness the development and deployment of Global Green Growth Institute in Seoul. \ clean technologies that curb pollution, # wealth and economic progress. conserve our ecosystems, and prevent \ “In my opinion, leadership and resource depletion.” Fundamental Law and Plan for vision have been fundamental to the The campaign for green growth will Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle development of such green initiatives mark another milestone at a propitious Society, which was adopted in 2000, and the political leaders of Asia– moment in 2012, when delegates from and its Law on Promoting Green 8 \ " around the world return to Rio for Purchasing, enacted in the same year. recognizing the need to change and the UN Conference on Sustainable Numerous initiatives have followed. taking steps toward greener and more Development. # ! 82 sustainable development,” says Steiner. green growth initiatives, beginning “At the same time, the industrial LEADING THE WAY with a 2002 law promoting cleaner and business sectors, civil society At Rio, representatives of Asia and production, its Solid Waste Act organizations, and ordinary people are 8 \ " " (amended in 2004), and its Circular all making an important contribution.” substantial progress in several areas Economy Law in 2008, which promotes While working to achieve better critical to green growth: energy improved resource utilization and environmental balance in its conservation and renewable energy reduction, reuse, and recycling of development efforts, the PRC has also development, pollution mitigation, resources during production. The " \ expansion of clean mass transit systems, improved urban planning, and preservation of natural resources. “Reshaping and refocusing policies and investments can lead to better returns on natural, human, and economic capital,” says Steiner. “UNEP is already working with many countries in the region to make the transition to a sustainable development model, which is still the overarching goal.”
RECYCLING PIONEER A TV set is placed on a disassembly line in Japan where workers dismantle the appliance and remove parts that may be recycled. \ and recycling with its Fundamental Law and Plan for Establishing a Sound www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 9
potential of the shift to low-carbon, wildly oscillating commodity prices major industrial and residential estate green technologies—a fact underscored that we have recently witnessed, one developer in Indonesia, PT Jababeka by the PRC’s rapid emergence lesson learned from the crisis was that Terbuka, now advertises environmental as the leading world supplier of countries should not rely solely on responsibility as a selling point to wind turbines and high-speed rail exports for growth,” says Steiner. “As foreign corporations looking to relocate technology. In 2008, the PRC earned a result, there has been a shift in the to the Southeast Asian country. It touts more than $60 billion—1.4% of its region toward domestic consumption a pollution prevention program, the GDP—from green technology business as a driver of growth. Opportunities, “3R concept (reduce, recycle, reuse) activities. therefore, lie in the deployment of to lessen the negative impacts on the ! \ green technologies more widely Q & \ slowed the gathering momentum for within Asia, rather than emphasizing program “to reduce greenhouse gas green growth in Asia. In fact, the 2008– exclusively external markets for these emissions.” Working with Indonesia’s 2009 crisis was an impetus for clean products.” eminent environmentalist and growth. Australia, the PRC, Japan, Nay Htun notes that green sustainable development advocate, and the Republic of Korea have been initiatives have been launched not Emil Salim, the company has promoted singled out for praise by green growth just by governments, but also by tree planting and other green activities. \ nongovernment organizations and the ADB, the UN, the World Bank, and portions of economic stimulus funds 8 \ other institutions have provided vital during the crisis to green growth and “Universities, too, are greening their support to the green development clean technology investments. campuses and curricula,” says the efforts underway in the region. And “While countries across the globe \ this broad coalition of partners is what are now rethinking their economies research professor at Stony Brook is needed in the future as well. and patterns of development in order University in New York. “Japan, [the “A lot of progress has been to minimize the kinds of shocks and People’s Republic of] China, and made since the 1992 Conference on [Republic of] Korea have major green Environment and Development in Rio, CLEAN CATCH !\ " programs.” In Japan, the Fukushima and there is reason to be cautiously net over the Mekong River in Phnom earthquake and nuclear disaster “has optimistic about what comes in the Penh, Cambodia. Keeping water sources energized the government, business, future,” says Bindu Lohani, ADB vice- clean is one of the major issues facing and industry, and, importantly, the president for Knowledge Management Asia, which is under pressure to general public to go ‘green’ very and Sustainable Development. conserve this essential resource in the proactively and extensively.” “However, the challenges in "! " #"! " In another sign of the changing achieving green growth remain cities and industries. attitudes within the private sector, a numerous and varied,” he says. “This highlights the need for coordinated action and knowledge sharing to promote environmentally sustainable 8 \ Q
CARROT AND STICK APPROACH Among those challenges are thorny governance and regulatory issues. Carbon-polluting fossil fuels remain heavily subsidized in many countries. In many cases, entrenched business and political interests and corruption obstruct green policy changes. Proponents of green growth argue that ecological tax reform needs to PICTURE CREDIT: AFP take place to ensure equal treatment of traditional fuels and practices and clean technologies. They advocate the imposition of carbon taxes,
10 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia improve environmental compliance. an economist and an environmentalist. Another change that would facilitate He acknowledges that Indonesia greater acceptance of the green growth can’t sustain the depletion of natural philosophy is a new approach to resources caused by its mining and measuring economic performance, plantation-based economy. For some experts say. The contention is that Indonesia, the path to a greener GDP needs to be adjusted to account economy would mean adding value to for such factors as resource depletion its exports, transforming copper, palm and pollution. oil, and other raw products into more UNEP’s recent Green Economy " \ $ $ Report notes that “a major challenge is Indonesia’s efforts in this regard are reconciling the competing economic being thwarted by the cost of foreign SHIFTING GEARS A commuter rides past development aspirations of rich and technology, and the higher tariffs that transmission towers in Beijing. Asia has poor countries in a world economy that Indonesia’s value-added products made solid progress in reducing poverty. is facing increasing climate change, confront when exported to the US and Yet, experts say the only way to achieve energy insecurity, and ecological other developed countries. " $ scarcity.” It contends that this is “That is an inequity in the way the impact on the environment by using less possible through a green economy global market works,” he says, an energy and resources. that offers “a development path that inequity that is blocking Indonesia reduces carbon dependency, promotes from moving faster toward a green levies on the use of nonrenewable \ $ economy and preserving its natural energy and virgin materials, and lessens environmental degradation. resources. “We can’t solve this problem fees and charges on practices that As economic growth and investments on our own.” pollute the environment or waste become less dependent on liquidating Indonesia and other developing natural resources, and they call for \ countries face a similar dilemma when tax breaks on production methods or environmental quality, both rich confronted with outside pressure to consumption patterns that produce and poor countries can attain more shift from polluting fossil fuels to green outcomes. One example cited by sustainable economic development.” renewable energy sources, he says. green growth advocates is the PRC’s But forging a consensus between “The technology for renewable substitution of a standard road tax developing and developed countries energy is expensive,” he says. “When with a fuel tax that encourages energy on these issues may be the greatest the government is confronted with \ challenge of all, says Indonesia’s Salim, the choice—food for the poor or The key is a mix of market incentives technology for renewable energy—it and government regulation, experts will opt for food for the poor.” say. Indeed, throughout the region policy “Without a strong and credible “The technology for makers face the daunting challenge of compliance enforcement system, no renewable energy delivering environmentally sustainable incentives framework will deliver development while satisfying the behavioral changes necessary to is expensive. When economic demands of rapidly achieve green growth,” says ADB’s the government is growing populations. The accelerating Ahmad. “For example, experiences confronted with the migration of rural dwellers to cities in forest management show that a across Asia presents the region with moratorium on logging backed up by choice—food for the unprecedented infrastructure demands. incentives for sustainable management poor or technology for As Asia’s cities swell by 44 million and protection can work better than renewable energy—it people each year, policy makers are either approach on its own.” faced with the staggering prospect of The Asian Environmental will opt for food for the adding 20,000 urban dwellings, 250 Compliance and Enforcement poor” kilometers of roads, and 6 million liters Network, formed in 2005, has allowed of potable water each day to meet the \ soaring demands. around the region to compare notes as While acknowledging the they attempt to enforce regulations and daunting challenge this presents, www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 11
ADB’s Ahmad contends it is also far beyond the means of government policies, economic incentives, a “great opportunity to design, budgets. \ $ build, and operate infrastructure on The key is using limited public sector measures, technology? Asia’s principles of sustainability, including \ challenge, as in other countries, will " $ & \ $ amounts of private capital for green be the imperative behavioral change inclusiveness.” investments. toward a developmental paradigm of Complicating the enormous social Global venture capital investments sustainability, resilience, inclusiveness, and economic demands that the in clean technology soared from $2.0 / " " \ Q 8 \ billion in 2005 to $7.8 billion in 2010, will confront in the coming decades but only about 10% of that amount has GREENING THE GLOBAL ECONOMY are the mounting challenges posed found its way to the region. On 20–22 June 2012, world leaders, by climate change. ADB is among ADB has launched the Asia Climate development experts, environmental those advocating “ecosystem-based Change and Clean Energy Venture advocates, and other stakeholders approaches” to cope with the extreme Capital Initiative to increase that will gather in Rio de Janeiro for the effects of climate change. One such ratio. ADB aims to nurture the rise pivotal United Nations Conference example is making additional efforts of clean technology companies in on Sustainable Development. Rio+20, to protect mangroves rather than the region’s developing countries as the conference has been dubbed, building sea walls as a buffer against by supplementing the investments will mark the 20th anniversary of the increasingly violent storms—efforts of venture capital funds with historic United Nations Conference on that are not only cost-effective, but also equity infusions. The long-term Environment and Development in Rio, preserve vital ecosystems and generate goal is to stimulate the movement which set in motion the global drive " \ of venture capital toward climate for sustainable development. It will The political will of governments change mitigation and clean energy also coincide with the 10th anniversary will be further tested as the investments in the region. of the World Summit on Sustainable transformation to a greener economy “Energy, urban development, Development, which reinvigorated the unfolds. As many as 50 million green transport, infrastructure, water, movement. jobs could be in Asia by 2025, the wastes, [and] biodiversity are all The conference has three stated International Labour Organization interconnected,” says Nay Htun, the objectives: to secure renewed estimates, but millions of others will be \ P! political commitment to sustainable lost as the fossil fuel industry and other toward greening is an integrated development, assess the progress \ & and multisector, multidisciplinary and implementation gaps in previous decline. This will require interim efforts approach. The major challenge agreements, and address new and to cushion the impact. is how to integrate. What are the emerging challenges. But the theme
The transition to a sustainable PICTURE CREDIT: AFP (BANGKOK FLOOD), ADB PHOTO/GERHARD JOREN (SOLAR POWER) economy in the region promises to be costly, but green growth advocates contend that delay or inaction is even more expensive. Environmental mitigation costs in developing countries will top $100 billion by 2030. 8 \ costs estimated at $40 billion to adapt its economies to the demands of environmental sustainability—amounts
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER Buddhist monks build a bridge above ] ! & "'' ( # )) # Development Bank calls climate change “the most dramatic symptom of unsustainable development.”
12 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia that will dominate the Rio sessions is on sustainable development. I am the urgent drive to rebalance poverty hopeful that building upon this eradication and economic development consensus, Rio+20 will take sustainable efforts in an increasingly fragile global development to the comprehensive environment, experts and advocates paradigm of greening and the linkage say. with poverty eradication.” 8 \ $ But Indonesia’s Salim is skeptical growth and the Rio conference are that the conference will produce a topics of intense discussions these dramatic step forward in the struggle days. In early October, about 100 to achieve global green growth. He & \ notes that the US will be facing a and experts from around the world presidential election in November 2012, convened in New Delhi, India, for and sees little prospect that the country a dialogue on “Green Economy and will risk a bold initiative that might Inclusive Growth.” The meeting, alienate voters. Without US leadership, organized by the Government of India Europe is unlikely to support bold and the Rio+20 Secretariat, fostered steps, he says. a discussion on how green economy “Expect beautiful speeches,” he initiatives can advance poverty says, “but I don’t think there will be eradication and social development HARNESSING SOLAR POWER The meaningful progress.” efforts by enhancing food and energy largest solar photovoltaic power plant Steiner is more hopeful. security for the poor. Later that month, in Asia lies on the plains of Lopburi, “By all accounts, we are already the Republic of Korea hosted the Asia– Thailand. moving toward a green economy,” 8 \ 8 he says. “The economic imperative for Rio+20, co-organized by the UN example of the PRC, Japan, and the \ Economic and Social Commission for Republic of Korea coming together and develop new technologies 8 \ $ 8$ 5 to create a trilateral partnership to demands that we must also consider The meetings were something of a achieve low-carbon growth across the environmental and social aspects dress rehearsal for the Rio conference, the region will set the tone. “These of this development. The Rio+20 as participants attempted to reach a initiatives are setting the stage for the summit will be an opportunity to guide consensus on critical components of type of cooperation we expect to see on this development and to accelerate green development. a global scale at the Rio+20 Summit,” and scale-up its implementation. If While the nations of Asia and the he says. “In addition, we expect the governments fail to create the enabling 8 \ ) private sector and nongovernment frameworks needed for a global come together and speak as one voice organizations in the region to be transition to a green economy, they risk at Rio, a global consensus promises to increasingly vocal participants in the " \ " \ ! process.” could result from mutual collaboration. for sustainable development and But opinions are divided as to Also, in the long term, countries that green growth has been fragmented whether the differences between are already setting the pace in this area by a proliferation of environmental developing and developed nations and will have an advantage—from creating treaties over the past 2 decades. The " \ " \ " Rio conference offers an opportunity to produce a meaningful political buildings and industries to generating to bring about a more cohesive effort statement on how the global drive for huge cost savings by leapfrogging to help green development come to green development will proceed. developed countries.” fruition. “Major conferences like Rio+20 “Rio+20 can be just another date in “All of the governments raise considerable awareness among the calendar,” Steiner concludes, “or participating in the Rio+20 conference political leaders on the issues being an opportunity to evolve sustainable will have a historic opportunity to addressed,” says Nay Htun. “This development to meet the persistent and promote a green economy as a vehicle is always an important step leading emerging challenges of the 21st century for achieving sustainable development $ 8 \ while harvesting the opportunities for a and poverty eradication,” says the The Earth Summit at Rio 20 years fundamentally fresh, focused, and fair UN’s Steiner. He is hopeful that the ago raised awareness and consensus future for close to 7 billion people.” www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 13
Atmospheric Efforts Already among the top threats to health, outdoor air pollution is a concern in cities across developing Asia. Though the situation is improving in many areas, challenges remain as populations shift to urban centers and growing economies produce more vehicles and industry.
Air quality indicators Selected indicators; annual ambient levels in selected Asian cities, averaged, in micrograms per cubic meter.
a Particulate matter (PM10 ) Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) Sulfur dioxide (SO2) Associated with lung cancer, cardiopulmo- Long-term exposure may impair lung Can affect lungs and eyes. Evidence of nary disease; “Estimated to cause about 9% function and increase the risk of respiratory links to child respiratory disease and of lung cancer deaths, 5% of cardiopulmo- symptoms, including persistent cough in cardiac diseases, and increased mortality nary deaths and 1% of respiratory infection children, and exacerbate asthma. rate. Primary cause of acid rain. deaths,” according to the World Health Organization. 100
80
60
40 Concentration in Concentration 20 micrograms per cubic meter 0 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Deaths Due to Outdoor Air Pollution Per 100,000 population; 2008 data.
70 67
60 Listed as having a rate of less 49 50 than 1 per 100,000: Bhutan, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Mauritius, 40 40 FSM, Nauru, Niue, Palau, 35 Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu 28 30 25 21 20 14 14 16 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 12 13 778 10 66 2224444 0 Fiji PRC India Togo Nepal Ukraine Georgia Lao PDR Pakistan Vanuatu Malaysia Thailand Maldives Sri Lanka Viet Nam Tajikistan Myanmar Mongolia Indonesia Singapore Cambodia Azerbaijan Mauritania Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Philippines Kazakhstan Bangladesh Afghanistan Turkmenistan Papua New Guinea a PM10 = particulate matter of less than 10 microns in diameter
Note: FSM = Federated States of Micronesia, GDP = gross domestic product, Lao PDR = Lao People’s Democratic Republic, PRC = People’s Republic of China.
RESEARCH AND DESIGN: MARK BLACKWELL
14 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia Growing economy and air pollution Change in urban particulate matter Improvements in concentration of some pollutants despite concentration, by subregion economic growth and rises in energy use have been attributed to direct efforts to manage air quality. Cleaner fuels, growing energy efficiency, and falling emissions have been credited with much of the decline in urban PM10 Percent Change in Concentration of pollutants concentrations. and of economic indicators in Asia Ambient PM10 concentration, All Asia Electricity generation micrograms per cubic meter PRC Electricity consumption Other Southeast Asia 140 250 GDP India 129% 120 PM10 Other South Asia SO2 High-income Asia 100 200
80 79%
60 150 65% 40
20 100
0 –20% –20 50
–40 –32%
–60 0 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 1990 1995 2000 2005
Change in urban SO2 intensity Percent change from 1990 to 2000 in SO2 intensity, tons of anthropogenic
SO2 emissions per GDP in 1995 US$ Lao PDR
150 143
120 Sri Lanka 90 Singapore 69 Tajikistan 53
60 Indonesia 45 Pakistan Kazakhstan Thailand 25 Cambodia Tonga 30 FSM 17 13 11 7 3 3 Turkmenistan Armenia Vanuatu PRC Bhutan Malaysia Solomon Islands Georgia Kyrgyzstan Fiji Kiribati Viet Nam Bangladesh Mongolia Uzbekistan Philippines Nepal India Republic of Korea Papua New Guinea 0 –1 –3 –7 –30 –9 –16 –17 –18 –25 –26 –29 –31 –31 –60 –34 –34 –43 –43 –44 –49 –90 –74 –76
Sources: World Health Organization (WHO).Global Health Observatory Data Repository. http://apps.who.int/ghodata (accessed 28 November 2001); Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) Center, 2010. Air Quality in Asia: Status and Trends, 2010 Edition. Pasig City, Philippines; WHO. http://www.who.int/gho/phe/outdoor_air_pollution/en/ (accessed 28 Novermber 2011); WHO. Health Aspects of Air Pollution with Particulate Matter, Ozone and Nitrogen Dioxide. Report on a WHO Working Group Bonn, Germany, 13–15 January 2003. www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf__le/0005/112199/E79097.pdf (accessed 28 November 2011); WHO. Air Quality Guidelines for Particulate Matter, Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide and Sulfur Dioxide, Global Update 2005. Summary of Risk Assessment. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2006/WHO_SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_eng.pdf (accessed 28 November 2011); WHO. Air Quality and Health. www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/ (accessed 28 November 2011); HEI International Scientific Oversight Committee. 2010. Outdoor Air Pollution and Health in the Developing Countries of Asia: A Comprehensive Review. Special Report 18. Health Effects Institute, Boston, MA. www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 15 Natural Capitalist An influential thinker on the environment explains why the planet cannot cope with infinite economic growth, and why Bhutan’s gross national happiness index is no joke BY John Otis
shok Khosla is one of the world’s leading experts on the environment and sustainable Adevelopment. He is also a pioneer. In the 1960s, Khosla was part of a team that designed and taught the \ environment at Harvard University. One of his students was Al Gore. Born in India in 1940, Khosla has jumped from academia to government to business to civil society, all the while pursuing a green agenda. After spending 22 years studying and teaching overseas, he returned to his country where he became the founding director of the Government of India’s - \ 8 2 $ \ developing country. As one of the directors of the correspondent John Otis about the on chemical pollution, famine, and United Nations Environment challenges of sustainable development, population growth and that was about Program (UNEP), Khosla designed the looming possibility of a resource it. In the mid 1960s, because of the and launched Infoterra, the global crisis in Asia, and the misconceptions work of Rachel Carson and others, environmental information exchange. surrounding the term green growth. concerns also began to grow about In 1982, he left the United Nations contamination of our food chain, or to found Development Alternatives, DA: How did you become an acid rain. We became inspired by a Delhi-based nongovernment environmentalist? having to react to this one-sided view. organization devoted to promoting AK: I saw a lot of poverty and misery We came to the conclusion very early commercially viable, environmentally as a refugee and I thought that it in the game that environmentalism was friendly technologies. In 2002, he shouldn’t have to be like that. I became meaningless unless it was combined was awarded the prestigious UNEP determined to learn everything I could with the issues of society and human Sasakawa Environment Prize. The that would help me contribute to a development. selection committee said Khosla’s work better India. While many students “has had a large ripple effect not only and professionals were emigrating DA: What’s your view of Asia’s in India but around the world.” out of the country, I knew I was unprecedented economic growth? Khosla is currently president of the coming back to India and I wanted to AK: One problem is that gross International Union for Conservation be prepared. At Harvard, I worked domestic product (GDP) growth has of Nature, an alliance of conservation with Roger Revelle, a giant in the become a sacrosanct goal in its own PICTURE CREDIT: AFP \ realm of science whose work led to right. The Indian government talks workable solutions to the world’s most the discovery of climate change. This about GDP growth as if it’s the only pressing environmental problems. was way back in the 1960s when the thing that counts. So does the People’s He spoke with Development Asia environment movement was focused Republic of China (PRC). So does the
16 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia United States. So does everybody. But rivers, and groundwater are being continued exponential growth that “mined” without replacement and depends on the use of more and more “The word ‘growth’ therefore lost every year. This is so \ " carries a connotation obvious that no one can deny it. But will hit a dead end sooner or later. Asia the people who really understand this started out as a kind of workshop for which I think is very are not in mainstream economics, and industrialized countries. Now Asia unhealthy: that it’s a there are not enough of them to make a is becoming industrialized in its own desirable aim to keep difference. As for the costs of reform, if right. But it’s happening mainly by you change the patterns of production copycatting Western and Northern on growing. It is not, and consumption right now, it will cost models that haven’t worked and from unless one wishes to much less. If action is delayed and is which people are now trying to save be like a cancer” forced upon us, it will come at a much themselves. These models are totally higher cost. inappropriate in terms of resource management, energy, and water use, DA: Could Asia change its tax policies to and the treatment of human beings and in Bhutan, and even in India where foment a green agenda? nature. So the word “growth” carries we’ve had some highly dedicated AK: If you want to discourage bad a connotation which I think is very government ministers. But they have things—like resource consumption, unhealthy: that it’s a desirable aim to gained very little sustained traction. $ \ O keep on growing. It is not, unless one Most political leaders and captains should be taxing those things. And you wishes to be like a cancer. of industry don’t have any questions should subsidize the good things, like regarding the negative aspects of employment and the creation of jobs. DA: But economic growth has also growth at all. Zero. Nada. Zip. It’s But over the last 70 or 80 years, systems helped legions of Asians move up in the not just the Asian governments. have been designed to tax the good world. Most if not all governments are like things, such as income, and encourage AK: Yes, half a billion people have been this. They represent the interests of the bad things, such as resource pulled out of poverty. But tell me how the people who get them elected. extraction and wasteful use of energy. many people have been left behind in And those people are the rich, the That makes no sense whatsoever. poverty. And that’s a larger number. industrialists, and the business people. We have got to have a fundamental We have actually destroyed far more These are vested interests; people rethinking of our tax structure. But [natural capital] than we have created. with their snouts in the trough who I don’t see many governments or This is true in the PRC and India and are getting a great deal out of the even economists proposing changes. it is now beginning to happen all over present system. They have the power, And once you get locked into these Southeast Asia too. India has lost large money, connections, and ability to stop tax systems, you can’t get out of tracts of its forests and wetlands. The anything from changing. them because large bureaucracies PRC has neglected its resource base and government agencies acquire a to the extent that its rivers are drying DA: Do you see any major businesses permanent life of their own. up, its soils are degrading, and vast moving toward greener practices? areas must, for example, deal with dust AK: You tell me. Who are you talking DA: Do you see Asia heading toward an storms. about? Tell me which mining company environmental catastrophe? has improved its performance vis-à-vis AK: The short answer is “yes.” Simple DA: Are Asian nations discussing the people or nature? There must surely be computer models have already shown limitations of growth? some companies. But I’d rather you tell this. So did the 1972 book The Limits AK: Mahatma Gandhi raised many me who they are because none comes to Growth. Things are unfolding even of these same questions 100 years ago to the top of my mind very easily. faster than the book predicted—that and they are all coming back into the within 100 years from its publication mainstream discussion today. Many DA: Yet there is a strong economic in 1972, we are running into a situation civil society organizations and some argument in favor of a more sustainable of overshoot and collapse. The world’s academics question the way things model. population and economy increase; are going. There is a growing body of AK: Literally, trillions of dollars in food demand continues to grow; and forward-thinking political leadership. natural capital such as forests, soil, agricultural and industrial production I see that in the Republic of Korea, water sources in the form of glaciers, keep on going. But the resource base www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 17
HAPPY PEOPLE Bhutanese students cross a long bridge on their way to school. The King of Bhutan has made it a national priority to raise gross national happiness, which he considers a better measure of prosperity than gross domestic product (GDP).
opportunities where everyone can have a job, and a decent life, and can send their kids to school. But that’s not what’s happening in any of these and the systems that absorb our wastes to recognize environmental issues. But places. are breaking down. Today, the Arctic governments can repackage them in ice is melting at a rapid rate and could different ways and continue to do what DA: Why not? be gone in 30 years, something that they are doing. So the treaties are not AK: There’s this idea that green growth hasn’t happened in tens of thousands always lending to correct outcomes. is a hard thing to do. Most people of years. It’s dramatic. We are way Industrialized countries are playing a \ ahead of schedule. The Limits to Growth very negative role because they want are supposed to value for the good was talking only about 100 years. to palm off the costs of things they’ve of the planet, like switching from Already, within 40 years, we see all the been doing for the past 200 years onto comfortable fossil fuels to less familiar signs of overshoot and collapse. poor countries. Climate change, the and renewable energies like wind and loss of species, and the destruction of solar. But I don’t think that’s a good DA: Will it be overshoot and collapse that habitats have not been caused by poor way to pursue green growth. Green \ # "# " countries. And yet in international growth should be something that’s in the region? negotiations, the rich countries a great privilege to have. We have to AK: Our governments may gradually cynically want the poor countries to transform the thinking of people and start to react a little but reform is not take responsibility for doing something institutions so that they value things likely to come from within; it is likely about it without themselves making that are good for them in their own to be a waiting game for a while until any commitment at all. % \ \ $ \ be something positive, that involves are gone, there is no water to drink, DA: What about the concept of green changes in consumption patterns and and hungry people are rioting in the growth as an alternative path forward? production systems to make human life streets for reasonably priced food. This AK: Green growth does not simply $ \ $ could be in another 10 years, maybe mean making power plants more happier, then the term green growth 20, which is not long—during our \ % would be okay. But the concept of lifetimes. The fundamental premise of about making fundamental changes green growth also has to be tempered modern development is that the living in our consumption patterns and with the understanding that you standards of every generation should our production systems. Those ) \ be better than those of earlier ones. who are currently in positions of resource base. Sooner or later, the word
How are the governments, companies, privilege unfortunately see green “growth” will trip over itself. PICTURE CREDIT: ADB PHOTO/JAMES HUTCHISON, AFP (INDONESIA) international development agencies growth as a means to continue their going to explain the circumstances predatory patterns of exploiting the DA: Aren’t there some spots on the map that lead to a rapid, though avoidable, earth’s resources and wasting large where green growth is catching on? deterioration in the lives of our amounts of these while proselytizing AK: In Bhutan they are pursuing children? Very soon change will be to others that they must behave more sustainable development with great forced upon governments, businesses, responsibly vis-à-vis the environment. dedication and the people have and agencies by public opinion or Perpetual, lopsided, resource-guzzling wholeheartedly adopted the idea of international treaties—or major events " \ gross national happiness as a societal such as Hurricane Katrina or the planet or in a fair and just world. goal far superior to GDP. They don’t Fukushima Tsunami. Green growth is about an equitable \ ! bootstrapping of the economy so that great privilege and the best way to live. DA: What’s been the impact of " \ % From the King and the Prime Minister international climate treaties? environmentally and economically on down to the little schoolchildren, AK: ! \ sound way of creating economic they are basically willing to say: “No,
18 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia thank you; we don’t want the kind of 3 (58 ] society, which has the diversity and life ‘modern’ societies have become instrument that it actually includes the anger and the willpower to try to addicted to. We are interested in having the cutting down of trees—which is stop the inexorable drive with a foot a full life with clean, healthy food and the destruction of natural capital—as pressing the accelerator pedal toward good education.” And they made their positive income. It’s such a ridiculously the cliff. commitments. That doesn’t mean every bad measurement, yet GDP is accepted Bhutanese has made that commitment, by the experts who run our world DA: What role can new technology play? but a very large majority has. as being the only way to describe AK: Nature-based technological progress. On the other hand, if you tell innovations can help save humanity. DA: Is Bhutan’s experiment with gross them about gross national happiness, There’s a white beetle from Indonesia national happiness having much impact they will laugh. Still, these are from which we can learn about how elsewhere in Asia? concepts which, like others, have their to make a cement substitute without AK: What is the purpose of life? The tipping points. Once GDP becomes having to use any energy or high United States Constitution begins dysfunctional and disreputable, people temperatures. Spider silk is stronger with: “The pursuit of happiness” as will start looking for something else to than titanium per unit of weight and being next to only life and liberty. describe progress. Some work on this could be used on things normally So even 250 years ago, people were has already started, such as the [United made with aluminum, titanium, or talking about it. What’s more, the Nations Development Programme’s] steel. These technologies could have shortcomings of measuring progress Human Development Index. their renaissance in Asia because they through GDP are horrendous. It does \ not include the work of nearly half the DA: Do you expect any concrete region. They also provide Asia with population—housewives—or the loss progress to come out of the 2012 Rio an opportunity because we haven’t of environmental assets such as forests Summit? yet made all those investments in or soils, or the breakdown of social AK: ! \ " traditional infrastructure. For example, capital such as family and community. conference was in 1972 in Stockholm. we don’t have all the roads that And that is only the beginning of a Twenty years later we had the preordain the car as a main mode of whole litany of shortcomings of this Rio Earth Summit, then came transport. Why not try other ways, like so-called “measure” of societal Johannesburg, and now another one airships? progress. Who, other than an in Rio. In between we’ve had the economist, would consider this a Millennium Development Goals. Yet DA: What is Asia’s potential role in meaningful way to gauge the health the world isn’t better off. I don’t want setting a greener agenda? to sound like a one-string guitar, but AK: Asia is in a position to play a GLOBAL WARNING An activist dresses the vested interests are the root of major leadership role in the new as a penguin at a demonstration held the problem. The people who call the thinking that is required to make the during an international climate change shots are not really very worried about world a better place. It can set a real conference in Indonesia. Khosla sees what happens to the rest of us—now example by setting new kinds of social, civil society playing a major role in or in the future. But though nothing economic, and political goals that are convincing governments to address much has happened, each one of us not simply copycat goals from the West climate change issues. keeps saying: “If we don’t try now or the North, but ones that make sense then it will get even worse.” So we all to our traditions and cultures. The go to these summits and we all try to civilizations of Asia are quite ancient do something. And most of us keep and have centuries, if not millennia, of hoping that maybe something will thinking about how to live peacefully come out of it. and in harmony with nature. But it seems to me they have temporarily DA: What other developments give you forgotten many of these lessons. Deep optimism? down these lessons should still be AK: One can be optimistic that after available to them. And if they access a few encounters with catastrophe them soon, they could bring about people will realize that things have \ " to change. I also think that if there is model for the rest of the world. If not, hope for the future it is because of civil we are in real trouble. www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 19
Greenback Growth The divide between environmentalists and policy makers often remains wide, b u t b r i d g e s a r e b e i n g b u i l t BY Gregg Jones
nvironmental activists for sided. Corporations could lay out in the region’s natural capital. years have stressed the spreadsheets with revenue projections Lately, however, conservation- importance of preserving the for a proposed project, while minded policy makers and planet’s biological diversity. conservationists struggled to quantify \ EBut in a region that is home to two- \ " \ \ thirds of the world’s poor, it has % $ Changes underway in Viet Nam \ and around the globe, legal and illegal governments to turn away corporations commercial interests cut forests and years of mangrove destruction to and their cash-generating proposals for mangroves, mined the landscape, and ) \ exploiting scarce natural resources. harvested rare plants and animals— ponds, the government invested The debate has been largely one- setting in motion a precipitous decline more than $1 million in planting and
20 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of control, and resource management,” the vital coastal trees. The return on its & investment has been impressive: The celebration of biodiversity in 2010. “It “If you factor the true is a similar story in respect to all of value of coral reefs into annual savings of more than $7 million the planet’s nature-based assets, from in dike maintenance, a return that forests and freshwaters to mountains economic planning, it corporations around the world might and soils.” is likely that far more envy. Time is running short, he warns. rational and sustainable The loss of biodiversity—the totality “The urgency of the situation of the planet’s living organisms and the demands that as a global community choices would be made ecological complexes they inhabit—is we not only reverse the rate of loss, in terms of development, now recognized as perhaps the planet’s but that we stop the loss altogether emissions and pollution preeminent threat. and begin restoring the ecological 8 \ infrastructure that has been damaged control, and resource of the earth’s richest ecosystems, says and degraded over the previous management” $ century or so.” Development Bank’s Environment \ 5 £ U has been a UN-guided initiative N N of the world’s plants and animals are designed to calculate the value of $ " S U nature and the cost of lost natural of the planet’s remaining coral reefs $ QU 8 buildings and conference centers these resources is not just a matter of $ ! environmental stewardship; it is also biodiversity is the focal point of - ] / $ about economic growth. Ecosystem attention. annual investment of $45.0 billion in services are worth 10–100 times the cost global conservation efforts would yield of protecting them. ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIODIVERSITY $5.0 trillion in ecosystem savings, the $ The efforts to quantify and save study found. under-secretary-general and executive global biodiversity are being The TEEB initiative grew out of a director of the United Nations driven by the precarious state of 2007 proposal by the environment 8 8$ the world’s declining ecosystems. ministers of the Group of Eight leading cites an example that is critical to " . \ * between $2.0 trillion and $4.5 trillion, ' . $ coral reefs. Even as these vital ) \ the People’s Republic of China, tropical ecosystems are degraded and international initiative, The Economics % $ # $ destroyed at a soaring rate, their value has been overlooked by national policy makers and international development institutions, he says. “If you factor the true value of coral
8%2! 25%!* 8%! % ( -¡ !$ ¢8 reefs into economic planning, it is likely that far more rational and sustainable choices would be made in terms of development, emissions and pollution
CONVERSION COST India has created a system of compensatory payments for converting forest land to other use. Payments go to improving the country’s forest cover, conserving wildlife such as the Royal Bengal tiger, and creating rural jobs.
www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 21
AMAZON OF THE SEAS A local diver ! ( \!( through a maze of corals in Puerto Galera, Philippines. The country is part of the Coral Triangle Initiative, which was formed to save one of the world’s most diverse and threatened marine ecosystems. value the economics of biodiversity loss. Germany and the European Commission launched the study, with " / \ " by a mangrove forest. UNEP and several other European - # ! countries. The objectives included “Nature is the source of " \ drawing attention to the global much value to us every mangroves into shrimp farms in " \ " $ southern Thailand. With government highlighting the growing cost of day, and yet it mostly subsidies, commercial shrimp farms biodiversity loss and ecosystem bypasses markets, generate returns of about $1,220 per degradation, and providing practical escapes pricing, and hectare. But local communities lose solutions, such as establishing an about $12,000 per hectare in ecosystem objective global standard for natural defies valuation” services, stemming from the loss of capital accounting. wood and non-wood forest products, 4 " 8 ) $ \ $ $ banker at Deutsche Bank, TEEB study notes. \ \ $ 2008. Its studies have highlighted the wetlands are now seen as providers economic losses and human costs ¢ $ of economically valuable ecosystem caused by vanishing biodiversity. have struggled to convince policy services. Using new accounting tools, “Nature is the source of much value makers of the hidden costs of lost wetlands around the city of Vientiane, to us every day, and yet it mostly biodiversity and natural resources. the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, bypasses markets, escapes pricing, ¢ ) $ for example, have been estimated to \ $Q ) the value of exploiting resources was |S ] in the initial report. “This lack of far easier to measure: The government services. valuation is, we are discovering, an sells permits to allow a company The hidden costs of forest loss, underlying cause for the observed to mine copper or gold, cut timber, a major problem across much of degradation of ecosystems and the loss \ $ $ $ " " of biodiversity.” $ # \ - Biodiversity loss is critical to global activities. pollination services provided by forests development efforts because poverty, But what went unrecognized—or $ % $ " |£ climate change, biodiversity, and the at least unacknowledged in policy per hectare. The conversion of forested loss of ecosystems like tropical reefs or circles—for decades was the cost of areas to farmland and other uses is forests are “inextricably intertwined,” depleting those resources, and the expected to reduce those pollination the TEEB report notes. Indeed, resulting loss of ecosystem biodiversity. $ \ \ Now, the use of recently developed consequences for coffee growers: " \ accounting tools and techniques is " U$ of ecosystem services and biodiversity. allowing policy makers to weigh the revenues per hectare will decline by as “The livelihoods most affected are negative impact of certain activities U # subsistence farming, animal husbandry, against the value of ecosystem services, 2 8 \ $ O such as the carbon sequestration and the United Nations Convention on of the world’s poor are dependent on water cycle regulation of a tropical Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, them.” forest, or the storm protection provided in 2010, World Bank President Robert
22 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia HEART OF BORNEO Clouds cover a forested mountain in West Kalimantan province on Borneo island. In 2007, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, and Malaysia signed a declaration to protect the Heart of Borneo, where only about half of the original forests remain.
its development plans, has been a leader in protecting biodiversity in an " " Zoellick announced a 5-year pilot have agreed to pay $2.8 million to more Buloh, a mangrove park restored from program to expand the efforts to use than 2,000 forest-dwelling households shrimp farms, and Bukit Timah Nature innovative accounting tools to measure to help protect watersheds that Reserve, which encompasses primary the value of ecosystems. “It’s a way of supply the hydropower plants. This and secondary tropical rainforest. trying to help people understand better will increase incomes for subsistence The city of Nagoya, Japan, has also in economic terms the value of natural households while reducing operating distinguished itself by introducing a wealth,” says Zoellick. costs and improving the long-term system of tradable development rights sustainability of the plants. to help preserve its vanishing green COMPENSATING NATURE - " $ space. Developers who wish to exceed underway to reduce greenhouse gas limits on high-rise buildings must buy new methods designed to address the emissions through a program known as and conserve green areas at risk of loss of biodiversity and ecosystem Reducing Emissions from Deforestation - degradation, including payments for ¢ 5 55¤ discounted bank loans for developers 8 0 that incorporate more green space with £ 2 shifting from rural areas to urban their projects. India resulted in the creation of a centers, a major challenge for the City dwellers, along with rural system of compensatory payments region is addressing the ecosystem communities and businesses, can for converting various types of forest impact of overpopulated cities. Urban # " \ land to other use. Values were assigned " £QU according to the use of the land, of the world’s energy consumption international levels, the TEEB ranging from timber and ecotourism Q U researchers note, there is an added to such non-use values as conserving Urban dwellers also account for most payoff for policy makers who place of the global demand for fresh water, a premium on biodiversity and lion. Under the system, a permit must wood, and other raw materials. ecosystem services: They are likely to be obtained to convert a forest to $ enjoy stronger economic growth in the other uses and payments made into city biodiversity index to help guide decades ahead. 8%2! 25%!* ¢8$ 5 8{-!-¦4 ! 45 %( 8- a publicly managed fund devoted to improving India’s forest cover, conserving wildlife, and creating rural jobs. % ¥ $ 8 Regional Biodiversity Conservation Program, two hydropower facilities
GARDEN CITY A couple looks down from a walkway on a canopy of trees in Singapore, dubbed the “Garden City of Asia.” The city-state follows a biodiversity index in its development plans.
www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 23 Dirty Business A s i a i s o n t h e r e c e i v i n g e n d o f s o m e o f t h e wo r l d ’s m o s t t ox i c wa s t e BY William Branigin
y the dozens each day, plastic, aluminum, computer chips, E-WASTE EXPOSÉ Activitists mount cargo ships pull into port & $ an installation made from computer in Hong Kong, China, and precious metals such as gold. But in monitors on a truck during a protest in ] & the process, they expose themselves New Delhi in 2007. Watchdog groups B\ and the environment to a host of toxins have exposed the threat posed by the from elsewhere in the world, mostly including lead, mercury, cadmium, improper processing of these toxic from North America. The refuse is " $ " ] materials to health and the environment. typically taken to fenced scrapyards or retardants. warehouses for initial sorting north of The situation in Guiyu, documented Kowloon, then moved into the People’s by watchdog groups, such as the Basel Republic of China (PRC) by truck or Action Network and Greenpeace, A FAST-GROWING PROBLEM boat. represents one aspect of the growing ¢ $ & The electronic waste, known as problem of hazardous waste in Asia. " & & & $ It also exposes what the groups have problem in the world, according to Guiyu, a town about 22 miles west called the dirty little secret of the the United Nations Environment of Shantou in rural Guangdong electronics recycling industry: the 8 8 \ PICTURE CREDIT: AFP Province. There, thousands of workers, & Basel Convention on the Control many of them women and children, # & $ of Transboundary Movements of use basic tools, open burning, and such as the United States, instead of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. acid baths to recover copper, steel, processing it safely at home. & " U
24 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia municipal waste and is estimated A PROLIFERATION OF PLASTICS AND to be piling up at 3 times the rate of TECHNOLOGY municipal waste worldwide. \ “It is exponentially growing,” says $ \ Katharina Kummer Peiry, head of to estimate how much of global or &" 2 regional waste is hazardous. But a secretariat. “At the time the Basel major concern is the soaring share 2 }}$ of municipal wastes represented by this did not even exist as a waste plastics. Now massively manufactured & ) all over the world, plastics are used in stream that the Basel Convention is more and more products, including looking at.” electronics, and can absorb and According to Jim Puckett, executive transfer persistent organic pollutants, &" known as POPs—chemicals, often Action Network, a group working used in pesticides, that endure in the to address toxic waste issues, up to environment and accumulate in the U & food chain. for recycling actually ends up being Although plastic waste often ends exported. Much of it comes from \ $ " entities such as government agencies in the world’s oceans, where large and schools that sign recycling rotating surface currents called gyres contracts with the lowest bidder, he P ] says. Shipping containers tracked by of marine debris,” according to Vital his group have made their way to Waste Graphics 3. 4 & India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, TOXIC EXPORT Greenpeace activists in concentrations of more than 50,000 and Viet Nam, Puckett says, but most Hong Kong, China lower a banner on a plastic particles per square kilometer are still going to Hong Kong, China, cargo ship allegedly carrying an illegal are found in the North and South en route to the PRC. shipment of electronic waste from the 8 \ Like hazardous waste generally, United States in 2008. $ & # & " $ & / driven in part by population growth also owes much to the astonishing ) ] % - $ and rising consumption. But it & the report says. Within those gyres, it worldwide, rapid obsolescence, says, “marine fauna ingest plastic or manufacturing techniques that become entangled in it,” while most ) " \ $ humans remain oblivious. “The world widespread unawareness—even in In Asia as in other regions, mounting developed countries—of the toxic concerns about hazardous waste have population is nature of materials hidden in personal been accompanied by a dramatic steadily increasing, computers, cell phones, monitors, and shift in the production and usage consumption levels many other electronic products. of information and communication “The world population is steadily technology (ICT). Since 2003, mobile are growing, and as a increasing, consumption levels are phone subscribers in the developing result the global waste growing, and as a result the global world have outnumbered those in heap is getting bigger waste heap is getting bigger and developed countries and now account bigger,” says a draft report, Vital Waste Q U ! and bigger” Graphics 3, produced for the Basel volume of obsolete personal computers S 2 8 & in developing countries is projected century, it says, a projected world to exceed the number in developed population of 9 billion is expected to nations by about 2016. generate more than 13.1 billion tons The International Telecommunication $ " U Union has estimated that the number in 2009. of mobile phones in use worldwide www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 25
MONEY FROM TRASH A boy collects usable materials among the garbage washed up at Manila Bay. More than 15 million people, almost all of them in developing countries, make a living by scavenging for recyclables.
The Government of India has drafted & $ " not cover the informal sector, where } U & is carried out, according to the 2010 report. In the Philippines, where mobile phone subscriptions have skyrocketed and electronics make up more than U $ increased from 145 million in 1996 to \ & { \ " $ Kong, China, each day, destined for & # sales of mobile handsets reportedly a recycling industry that since the waste. But under a recycling loophole reached 1 billion. With most mobile & }} ( in the Basel Convention, a trade in phones destined to be discarded within $ $ & secondhand electronics has developed, 1–3 years of purchase, it is no wonder community into a booming—but contributing to the growing heaps of that the ICT industry is projected to heavily polluted—processing center & $ (% 0 % Q S~ & " for discarded electronics. As a result, $ }$ ~ & 2012. the area’s groundwater has been electrical and electronic equipment contaminated, forcing authorities to were imported, mostly from Japan and A GLOBAL WASTE MARKET build a pipeline to bring in fresh water the Republic of Korea. - & $ " ~U from 30 kilometers away, Puckett says. $ reported to be recycled, with or without Levels of dioxins and heavy metals are Japan allowed the importation of adequate safety procedures, according some of the highest in the world, and Japanese chemical, hospital, and to the 2010 annual report of Global tests have shown elevated lead levels in municipal wastes into the Philippines, Information Society Watch (GISWatch), children’s blood, he says. angering environmentalists and a network that promotes sustainable Conditions in India and Pakistan, prompting one Philippine newspaper ICT. Yet, that is enough to fuel a & to complain that the country was global waste market worth roughly mushroomed, may be even worse than “positioning itself as a global waste $300 billion a year. Worldwide, waste those in the PRC, the Basel Action dump.” picking or scavenging in an informal Network reports. It cites the open recycling industry provides income to burning of circuit boards by child BASEL CONVENTION SEEKS more than 15 million people, almost all laborers in New Delhi neighborhoods SOLUTIONS of them in developing countries. and unventilated operations in Karachi Like the PRC, India, Japan, the In the PRC, at least 10 million people using blowtorches and acid—all to Republic of Korea, and most Southeast work in recycling, roughly 700,000 of recover chips and precious metals. Asian nations, the Philippines has & $ “Increasingly, India is becoming \ }} 2 $ to UNEP. There, Guiyu has emerged & $Q which was designed to reduce the as the “ground zero for the electronic according to a country report published movements of hazardous waste among waste trade,” says Puckett, who has by GISWatch. India generated about nations. It took effect in 1992 and now personally investigated conditions in ~ $ & Q$ Q ! " PICTURE CREDIT: AFP the town for the Basel Action Network. amount projected to grow to 1.6 million \ Although it is illegal to import tons by 2012. In addition, about 500,000 A more ambitious measure, known hazardous waste into the PRC, he says, & as the Ban Amendment, was adopted roughly 50–100 shipping containers illegally, the report says. by the convention’s parties in 1995
26 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia with the aim of prohibiting all exports says. One example is the development of hazardous wastes from developed of a “benign chemical method” countries to developing nations for “We could really have for stripping circuit boards using % " \ " Q toxic-free equipment “nonaggressive chemicals,” which countries, but it has not yet entered would at least mitigate some of the into force, and key countries such as now, and certainly in harmful health and environmental Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the 5 years, if the will was & US have refused to sign it or honor there” informal sector. its provisions. In the US, the world’s The Basel Action Network and other " & # $ Q P ) &" )Q industry has vigorously opposed such N programs in which manufacturers are provisions on grounds they restrict free required to accept their old products trade. from consumers for proper recycling. But advocates of the amendment adopted a “paradigm shift in the way Such programs have gained traction see some hopeful signs. A conference that wastes are looked at.” Instead in many countries, including the PRC, of the Basel Convention parties in of focusing mainly on controlling where consumers are paid to turn Colombia in October last year resolved “waste disposal and transboundary in equipment they no longer want, a longstanding deadlock by agreeing movements,” she says, the conference Puckett says. But the program applies Q \ " P & only to products sold in the PRC. the Ban Amendment to take effect. cycle approach, so that prevention 5 & P " $ Perhaps more importantly, according and minimization of waste should [the People’s Republic of] China is to Kummer Peiry, the Basel Convention be promoted by the parties and all working on it,” Puckett says. “But executive secretary, the parties stakeholders.” they’re turning a blind eye to the This means more emphasis on “green smuggling in Hong Kong, China and production,” aimed at minimizing the imports into Guiyu, unfortunately.” FASTER THAN TWEETING A gambler in toxic materials in the manufacture of Environmentalists are also pushing Phnom Penh talks on 18 mobile phones electronics, for example, and at “using cleaner production as a way to limit at the same time as he comments on a recycling as an acceptable way to hazardous waste at the source and boxing match. Environmentalists fear generate green jobs and opportunities.” & that the proliferation of mobile phones At the Basel Action Network and planet. Manufacturers “are doing much in Asia will compound the problem of other advocacy groups, innovative more work on that now,” although they e-waste in the region. solutions are in the works, Puckett are “not aggressive enough,” Puckett says. “They’re really timid to market green products.” He cites the example of a major mobile phone maker that has produced P # & Q " publicizing it. The company does not want to highlight the fact that the rest of its products contain toxic materials, of which the public is largely unaware, Puckett says. He adds that consultants of manufacturers have admitted to him that they have the ability to eliminate hazardous materials from computers & " S$ not before. “That’s the frustrating thing. We # & / now, and certainly in 5 years, if the will was there,” Puckett says. “So much of this stuff is avoidable.” www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 27
Dry Cough Booming economies and an expanding car-loving middle class are fouling Asia’s skies… and they might be the best way to clear them BY Floyd Whaley
PIERCING THE HAZE A policeman n the late 1990s, the Indian city motorized tricycles—were required to \ "" " ! of Delhi was nearly intolerable. convert to cleaner-running compressed * &!+ '! A thick haze blanketed the natural gas (CNG). ", -. metropolis on most days, and The results were impressive. The in the Indian capital. residentsI routinely had to breathe one country’s Central Pollution Control of the deadliest types of air pollution, Board reported a 24% decrease in the toxic particles blasted from the back deadly particulate matter in Delhi’s of vehicles called particulate matter. air from 1996 to 2002. This saved Driven by public outrage, and an estimated 3,629 lives per year, activist lawsuits, the country’s court according to a 2005 World Bank report. system compelled the city and national Though Delhi’s booming population governments to act. Thousands of and explosion of vehicle ownership PICTURE CREDIT: AFP polluting textile and chemical plants has reversed many of the gains were ordered to clean up or close, made by the CNG conversion of the \ $ " late 1990s, the experience of the city transport—including buses, taxis, and remains an example often cited by
28 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia environmentalists and government This rapid growth has left \ ) " ) governments in the region struggling can be cleaned up. “The public health to keep their skies clean. Few Asian Throughout Asia, major cities are countries have systematic air quality facing a similar situation. Thriving and social policy management programs that allow urban centers in some of the fastest implications of the governments to set standards, growing economies in the world are relations among implement broad-based programs, and producing more exhaust-belching monitor results, states the 2010 report vehicles, more private air conditioners, health, air pollution, Outdoor Air Pollution and Health in the more factory smokestacks, and levels and poverty are likely Developing Countries of Asia, by the of urban pollution unseen since the to be important, Health Effects Institute in the United \ } States. North America. especially in areas Though there are a few bright “In Asia, the high rate of such as Asia, where spots in terms of controlling vehicle urbanization and economic growth air pollution emissions, most parts of Asia still have has led to a rapid increase in vehicles old, high-polluting vehicles on their and energy consumption,” says concentrations are roads. Many of these vehicles run on Sophie Punte, executive director of the high and many live in / $ P Q \ Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities, poverty” modern pollution control systems, established by the Asian Development such as catalytic converters on vehicles Bank and other partners. “This has must be done in coordination with happened quickly. The economic the phasing out of low-grade gasoline development in Asia that has taken and diesel. This is a huge task for any place in the last 2 decades took city or rural area. Rapidly expanding hundreds of years in the West.” numbers of private vehicles throughout
N
n the Philippines, many people travel short distances around the city on motorized tricycles. They are cheap, popular, and powered byI two-stroke engines, one of the most polluting types of combustion on the road. The deadly white smoke a single two-stroke tricycle emits can pollute more than an entire bus. The more modern four-stroke engines run cleaner but they are expensive, which makes the drivers less inclined to upgrade. A project in the Manila-area city of Mandaluyong addressed this issue \ ! were lent enough money to buy a four- stroke bike if they agreed to give up their two-stroke engine. This created a 40% saving in fuel, part of which could scale up the effort to other cities in the /0 /0 * 1 " be used to pay back the loan. Several country. The drivers recognized that ! \ " ( drivers in the pilot project have already cleaner engines were also healthier for !' " ' paid back their loan in full and now themselves and their community, say " +! project administrators are looking to project organizers. www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 29
the region compound the problem found that two-thirds of the estimated further. 800,000 deaths and 4.6 million lost Complicating the situation is the fact “If someone is hit years of healthy life worldwide caused that in many countries in Asia, there is by exposure to urban air pollution a clash of interest in the government by a car, they know occurred in the developing countries agency responsible for addressing air why they died, but if of Asia. pollution, says Punte. someone has a stroke Despite the disturbing overall “There is a perverse incentive to estimates, data on health effects of air avoid air quality monitoring,” she or a heart attack, pollution in Asia are seldom directly says. “The agency mandated with how do you know if useable by policy makers, says Punte. addressing air quality problems— it was caused by air This gap between research and usually the environment ministry policymaking limits the abilities of in a country—is also the monitoring pollution?” politicians to make the hard decisions agency. If they monitor properly, and needed to address air pollution. \ $ " “If someone is hit by a car, you with extra work and responsibility in know why they died, but if someone " \ has a stroke or a heart attack, how So the incentive is to provide weak do you know if it was caused by air monitoring. What is their incentive situation stand to improve as well, pollution?” asks Punte. “The damage \ " experts note. Reducing local air is shared and less visible. If people on correct?” pollution reduces carbon emission and average die 1 year earlier, how do you Against this backdrop, the region thus mitigates climate change. know if that is due to poor air quality?” must also address a variety of other A study linking declining health and sources of air pollution, such as open QUANTIFYING THE HEALTH IMPACT air pollution in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet burning of trash and other materials, The region’s rapid growth without Nam has provided some of the best emissions from combustion of low- adequate air quality management evidence yet that dirty air puts people quality indoor fuels, and large numbers systems in place has made Asian cities into the hospital, and sometimes into of unregulated small businesses and some of the least healthy places in the the grave. industries. world to live. In 2000, the last time a The study, conducted between 2003 PICTURE CREDIT: AFP As these issues are addressed, the global study was done on the matter, and 2005, examined admissions of " \ " the World Health Organization (WHO) children under the age of 5 at the two main pediatric hospitals in the city. It looked at all children of this age admitted for acute respiratory illness. “Nearly all children admitted for respiratory illnesses in (Ho Chi Minh City) are hospitalized in one of these two pediatric hospitals,” a summary of the report notes. “Thus, we captured nearly all children’s admissions for acute respiratory illness.” The preliminary results of the study were startling. When looked at on a chart, the line illustrating the number of pediatric hospital admissions for
AT HIGH RISK Schoolchildren cross a # 2' 3/ 4 5" $ # 6 ( " 7 !
30 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia respiratory problems and the line showing the day’s increase in air pollution run on very similar paths. There was variation between rainy and dry seasons, but the conclusions indicated by the data were compelling. “Increased concentrations of air pollutants… are associated with increased hospital admissions for acute lower respiratory infection in young children of Ho Chin Minh City, particularly in the dry season,” states $ \ " Asian Development Bank and Health Effects Institute. Though the Viet Nam study did not examine the poverty levels of the children admitted to the hospital, it is likely that most of them were poor. According to a broader study on the who reside or work in close proximity CONVERTED ""!' impact on health of air pollution, there to major roadways.” " '( & "'' is increasing evidence that poverty compounds the likelihood of suffering MIDDLE-CLASS DEMANDS government also mandated inspection from medical conditions related to poor In the last 3 decades, Thailand’s capital and maintenance programs, as part air quality. city of Bangkok underwent a transition of vehicle registration, and police “Economically disadvantaged common in Asia. As the economy conducted roadside checks on vehicles communities are exposed to higher expanded, vehicle ownership grew emitting smoke. concentrations of air pollution,” states rapidly. The number of motor vehicles As these measures were the recent Health Effects Institute registered in Bangkok soared to more implemented, roadside monitors report. “Because of poorer nutrition, than 5.6 million in 2007 from 600,000 ] less access to medical care, and other in 1980. As expected, this was followed decreases in air pollution. factors, people in these communities " \ In Bangkok, another dynamic experience more health impact per unit diesel fuel consumption. was also at play. The expanding of pollution exposure.” In cities throughout prosperous East economy did not only increase vehicle The comprehensive 284-page report Asia, the situation has repeated itself. ownership and fuel consumption, it notes that low levels of education, low Incomes, vehicle ownership, and fuel also increased the size of the middle family income, and residence in a poor &\ ) class, which demanded a cleaner neighborhood are all risk factors for follow. environment. This phenomenon is a developing health problems associated But in Bangkok, that was not the powerful driver of change throughout with poor air quality. case. While vehicle ownership and Asia and the world, says Punte. “The public health and social policy fuel usage increased, the government “Once you reach a certain level of implications of the relations among implemented emission control $ \ health, air pollution, and poverty are strategies and effective air pollution \ likely to be important, especially in monitoring systems that improved the that in Asia now,” she says. “As Asian areas such as Asia, where air pollution city’s air quality over time. economies grow, the pressure increases concentrations are high and many live The city obtained this result by for governments to address air quality in poverty,” the report states. enforcing vehicle emissions standards, issues. A growing middle class will Some of the hardest hit by poor air particularly the installation of catalytic demand better public spaces, improved quality, according to the WHO, are converters as well as incentives for ‘walkability’ in urban areas and a better “people living in poverty worldwide drivers to phase out two-stroke quality of life. who use dirty biomass fuels for indoor engines, which are some of the highest “Clean air is an important part of cooking and heating, as well as those polluting vehicles on the road. The that.” www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 31
Murky Water Water pollution threatens millions in Asia but innovative solutions are being found BY Jade Lee-Duffy and Karen Emmons
fter a heavy rainstorm in June, farmers around the townships of Qujing City in Yunnan Province in the Asouthwest People’s Republic of China’s (PRC), woke to a disturbing scene. Their goats, sheep, horses, and cattle lay dead on hillsides. The livestock had consumed water tainted by toxic waste. An investigation found that a local company had hired truck drivers to dispose of the waste at a treatment plant in the bordering Guizhou Province. To save on transport costs, the drivers instead unloaded the heavy- metal-laden slurry near a reservoir in Qujing’s rural areas. The rain washed the toxic sludge into a tributary of the Pearl River, one of the country’s extensive river systems. No human deaths or injuries were reported, but the waste turned the water in a nearby reservoir yellow and villagers up and downstream became afraid of all water. According to one of the world’s foremost water experts, a man who advises prime ministers and the United Nations, people in developing countries have many reasons to fear their water—beyond the reckless disregard of truck drivers. Asit Biswas believes the planet is choking on water pollution but that water quality “has disappeared from the radar as a critical environmental issue,” according to an editorial he cowrote that appeared in the Bangkok this resource but because of its quality FISH KILL Workers remove over 50,000 Post in June 2011. He also believes which is deteriorating continuously in ' " \ * " water experts, the media, and other nearly all developing countries,” he ' / 8 32£ ] wrote with his wife, Cecilia Tortajada, :# ) PICTURE CREDIT: AFP on a coming water crisis from the angle in the May 2011 issue of Asian Water. ! 8!! # of physical scarcity. Both water experts founded the Third “If there is a water crisis in the future, World Centre for Water Management it will not be due to physical lack of in Mexico and are visiting professors
32 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public - :& -* 2 #!"#" Policy in Singapore, among a variety of ; ( prominent positions. In 2006, Biswas, !* 3 (# who was born in India, was awarded 6 "#" ! <# the Stockholm Water Prize. ! !!",( Biswas and his wife are not the only £ !. water experts speaking out about )+< ' (( +' " quality issues. A recent report from the 6 Asian Development Bank, Greening notes that the precarious water situation pollution to agricultural development, will further be complicated by climate population growth, urbanization and change. industrialization, and market and “Many large Asian river basins are policy failures. particularly vulnerable to regional According to the UN, pollutants warming, given the critical role of “The statistics on water pollution include pathogens, organic matter, \ paint a grim picture—approximately nutrients, heavy metals (including 40% of [the PRC’s] waterways are arsenic) and toxic chemicals, sediments Grade IV to V+, meaning that the water and suspended solids, silts, and salts. is unsuitable for drinking, industry, “If there is a water or agriculture,” wrote Jennifer Turner, POLLUTERS crisis in the future, director of the China Environment Industry is certainly a major polluter, it will not be due to Forum at the Woodrow Wilson due to both accidents and the direct International Center for Scholars, release of toxic waste into water physical lack of this Washington D.C., in Asia Society’s 2006 resources. In the PRC in 2005, an resource but because Water Security Report. oil company was blamed for an of its quality which One of the report’s writers, Upmanu 80-kilometer spill of toxic benzene in Lall, director of the Columbia Water the Songhua River that supplies water is deteriorating Center at Columbia University in to Harbin, a city of 4 million people. continuously in New York City, says he suspects the Elsewhere in the PRC, according to nearly all developing situation is worse in India, much better the Water Security Report, as of 2006 in the Republic of Korea and Japan some 2,800 chemical factories are countries” and somewhere in between among located around Lake Tai near the Southeast Asian countries. PRC’s southeastern coast, the country’s The Challenges to International third-largest freshwater body now Waters—Regional Assessments in a “devastated by agricultural and Global Perspective report declares that industrial pollution as a consequence water pollution along with freshwater of [the PRC’s] economic boom and \ P poor management of waste.” The as ‘water towers,’ in supporting dry worldwide problems that are expected report noted that 2 million people had ] to increase in severity by 2020.” The lost access to their primary freshwater which hundreds of millions of Asians assessments used eight transboundary \ $ $ depend,” the report says. “Climate indicators when looking at pollutants: and tourism had declined. change is also warming water in large suspended solids, eutrophication While industrial accidents and lakes in the region. In past decades, (excessive nutrients in aquatic systems reckless truck drivers get headlines, temperatures have increased by 0.45°C caused largely by sewage and fertilizer water experts point to municipal on average, which, while seemingly runoff), microbial pollution, solid wastewater and agricultural runoff as modest, can have dramatic effects wastes, chemical pollution, oil spills, the main sources of pollution of both on water quality and ecosystems in radionuclides, and thermal pollution. surface and groundwater supplies. lakes. Further warming could result in The report, produced by the United In 2010, the PRC government rapid biodiversity loss in freshwater Nations Environment Programme, reported that water pollution in 2007 ecosystems.” also attributes the root causes of was more than twice as damaging as www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 33
\ \ \ % About a billion people still lack safe Instead of 13.8 million metric tons In the Philippines, densely populated drinking water and the Millennium of polluted discharges into the areas have created highly polluted Development Goal targets halving country’s water systems, a total of bodies of water. In the four urban that number by 2015. But the Water ~ ~ ] areas of Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Security Report ] $ the water bodies that year. The change Southern Tagalog, and Central Visayas, there has been “a focus on ensuring in numbers was due to the recent approximately 58% of sampled adequate supplies of water without inclusion of agricultural waste into the groundwater was contaminated appropriate consideration for water * ] with coliform bacteria and required supply safety and security, water . ] treatment. treatment and disposal, and demand ) \ Treatment, however, is poor across management.” The result, the report In India, large stretches of rivers are the region as it is around the world. says, “is dependence on increasingly dying. New Delhi’s Yamuna River has Research by the Third World Centre for contaminated water sources.” become a liquid garbage dump with 3 Water Management in Latin America According to the United Nations billion liters of waste and raw sewage found that 10% of wastewater point Children’s Fund (UNICEF), only 53% (over half of the city’s daily waste) sources (such as sewage and industrial of Indonesia’s population in 2004 pumped into the 1,300-kilometer river ] obtained water from sources that were every day, choking most of its aquatic facilities, and Biswas has estimated more than 10 meters from a waste life. To the east, the Ganges River is the situation was similar in Asia’s disposal site. In Jakarta alone, fecal one of the 10 most polluted rivers in developing countries. coliform was found in 84% of shallow the world. At the northeastern city of In terms of controlling what are well samples. Varanasi, the Ganges’ fecal coliform known as non-point sources of Climate change is exacerbating levels are more than 100 times the pollution (diffused sources such as many of these situations. Particularly runoff), Biswas writes that “the record in developing countries, where 15/5351 305 of developed countries is poor, and that governments have limited human, " \ ' of developing countries… abysmal.” $ \ $ 4 # +0 3( The source of this type of pollution the negative impact of torrential rains, !#" + source is primarily agricultural $ $ ] # / !;' activities, such as the use of pesticides ] "! and chemical fertilizers (although safe drinking water and improved $ human waste due to open defecation is sanitation for both groundwater and $ a serious problem also). surface water supply.
IMPACTS When he thinks of water pollution, Lall says he thinks of cancer impacts and the loss of biodiversity: the loss of aquatic ecosystems and food \ $ (high incidence of cancer, blue baby syndrome, blindness, and maternal and infant mortality) and economics (treatment costs for drinking water are inordinately high for the polluted water). A World Bank study found that PRC farmers were almost four times more likely to die of liver cancer and PICTURE CREDIT: AFP twice as likely to die of stomach cancer compared with the global average. Lall says “cancer villages” are also evident in India’s Punjab state.
34 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia and nitrate in the soil water, so that the timing and depth of irrigation, and the need for application of fertilizer and pesticide can be determined by the \ the amount used, save money, and also reduce pollution. As the climate changes, this approach would provide an adaptation strategy by tuning to the changing conditions. “In our experiments with 6,000 or so farmers, one can easily save 30% of water this way and recruiting and 5 =:30 -/ 30 35 :-; professor of hydraulics and water training farmers does not require a ' # " resources engineering, Veer Bhadra transformation,” Lall says. His research ! ( ; +2£ Mishra, won approval and support group is working in Brazil, the PRC, :# from the government for a gravity- India, Ethiopia, Mali, and the United ( £\"# " operated pilot sewage-treatment States, where agricultural pollution "+! )> program that aims to remove waste is also a huge problem. In Asia, he "! and disease from the Ganges River. adds, “the problem is exacerbated by Mishra’s cheap, sustainable system the monsoon—high-intensity rainfall uses the gradient, instead of electric that is episodic leads to a high rate of 0 \ pumps, to divert sewage into four wash-off of fertilizer and pesticides and anecdotal evidence also indicates that big pools outside the city of Varanasi, a reapplication, thus creating a cycle of the health and environmental costs of where harmful pollutants are broken pollution that is hard to manage.” water-quality deterioration are already down by algae, bacteria, and sunlight. Environmental activism, though in the billions of dollars each year, Most treatment plants along the Ganges hardly innovative, is popping up in # \ River only remove solid waste and not unexpected places. Discover magazine be deadly. Diarrhea contracted from microorganisms. reported that more than 3,500 sewage-contaminated water is one of The Huijia Peike Pig Breeding environmental organizations now the biggest killers in the region. The Company set up Yunnan Province’s have legal status in the PRC. “Through World Bank estimates that diarrhea \ & " ! a program called the Green Choice kills about 110,000 Bangladeshi children company’s large anaerobic digester Alliance, environmental groups publish younger than 5 years every year. Dirty treats up to 150 tons of pig waste a lists of companies in violation of water is one of the leading causes of day, generating an average of 250 cubic environmental regulations and offer death for children in India, according to square meters of biogas. The energy is to conduct a third-party audit if a the World Health Organization. used to power the on-site facilities, and company chooses to clean up its act,” the surplus is diverted, at no cost, to says the magazine in March 2011. POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS 42 households nearby, where they will Biswas recently applauded a new Although Biswas wrote in the Asian save about $92 annually in fuel costs. resource for innovative solutions. Water commentary that “there are no This eco-friendly process removes The Asian Institute of Technology in signs that governments and people about 90% of livestock pollutants that Thailand is setting up the Asian Water are aware of the seriousness of this would otherwise end up on nearby Research and Education Center with problem and the dangers they pose farmland and in waterways. experts from different disciplines to human health and ecosystems,” Lall and his group of researchers ) \ & \ there are many reports of innovations at the Columbia Water Center are to Asia’s water problems, current and in pockets of Asia working to better working on strategies that confront future. manage the problem. the pollution of water by agricultural “If the proper management of water In India, most sewage treatment runoff. One solution involves the use quality continues to be neglected,” plants suspend operations for months of very cheap and simple sensors to Biswas concludes in his Bangkok Post at a time due to power cuts and erratic detect soil moisture and the presence editorial, “there is no question that the ] { of the wetting front during irrigation, world is likely to face a water crisis.” www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 35
Cambodia Goes Green C a m b o d i a h a s a g g r e s s i ve l y e m b r a c e d t h e c o n c e p t o f g r e e n g r ow t h b u t s e r i o u s c h a l l e n g e s l i e a h e a d BY Karen Emmons
ey Leup has been a rice ] TEAM EFFORT A dragon boat team farmer all of her life. The \ " paddles in unison along the Tonle 56-year-old resident of she makes a much more comfortable Sap river during the Water Festival
northern Cambodia tried living. in Phnom Penh. Cambodia formed PICTURE CREDIT: AFP (DRAGON BOAT), CONOR WALL (LEY LEUP) toL grow vegetables, which generate When asked if she is an organic an interministerial working group to \ $ " farmer, she says: “I don’t know, but develop a strategy for the greening of its fertilizers and pesticides kept her the traders pay more if I don’t use economy. income so low that she gave up. chemicals on my vegetables so I don’t In the last few years, things use them.” have changed. She has undergone Ley Leup is one small example government training that has taught of a broader movement underway growth—the balancing of economic her how to improve her seed selection, in Cambodia to bring green and expansion and environmental use waste from around her farm as sustainable practices without preservation. organic fertilizer, and deter pests \ By some accounts, Cambodia’s without chemical pesticides. Though a small country, Cambodia efforts to green its economy began in a Today, the cabbage, morning is working to establish itself as a leader ) \ glory, string beans, asparagus, and in the emerging practices of green 2007. At that meeting, Raekwon Chung,
36 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia an environmental pioneer, talked - \ about the concept of green growth. He within the Ministry of Environment, remembered that Mok Mareth, senior everything was pointing to the need minister and minister for environment, “to develop in a sustainable way” and in particular was keenly interested. improve the country’s resilience. Chung, the director of the Environment and Development Division of the LOW-CARBON AND GREEN-GROWTH United Nations Economic and Social MODEL 2 8 \ The ESCAP approach to low-carbon (ESCAP), encouraged the Cambodians green growth and its technical to consider taking the concept further. guidance were an offer that Hak Mao Chung, a Korean, told the says the government would “never Cambodians that the only way they regret.” By following the ideas that could go forward was to bring in Chung and others encouraged, the \ $ country could sustain its natural capital most especially those with the clout and grow the economy. ) ] $ \ $ “The ESCAP green growth concept planning, and industry. promotes changes to the economic Chung was telling everyone at that system to close the gap between time—as he still does, passionately— \ that the current growth pattern of \ $ &$ the region is energy-, resource-, and resource-, carbon-intensive growth carbon-intensive, and that the region \ SMART FARMING Ley Leup, a 56-year- pattern—a critical strategy for coping + ' " \ with the looming multiple crises,” from raising pesticide-free vegetables. says Chung. “These changes include “We want to show She is one small example of a broader the change of the invisible structure the world this is movement underway in Cambodia to of the economy, such as market price, possible—to create bring green and sustainable practices regulation, social values, lifestyle ! \ " "! and technology, and the changes of a new way of growth the visible infrastructure, such as the that will allow director-general of Cambodia’s design of city, building, transport, Cambodia to enhance Ministry of Environment, having lived energy, water, and waste systems.” through a “black regime” in the 1970s Although less of an easy sell outside economic growth when infrastructure was decimated Cambodia’s environment ministry, while also preserving and human resources destroyed, he partly because so few people had and promoting its and other Cambodians were afraid of ever heard of green growth let alone the prospects of similar destruction of understand why it should involve environment and rich their natural resources. them, Mok Mareth and Koch Savath ecosystems” The Cambodians knew their forest eventually brought every government cover was dwindling fast and they ministry into an interministerial green Q had huge problems with waste growth working group. management. They also knew that as In time the working group became a least-developed agrarian country, impassioned about green growth they were highly vulnerable to climate and what Cambodia could achieve, will be hardest hit by the looming change impacts. explains Aneta Nikolova, an ESCAP energy, resource and climate crises. As green growth was being \ Caring about the environment, explains introduced, Cambodia also was part of a capacity-building team that 2 $ \ $ \ Chung created to help policy makers in which in turn leads to economic of action on adaptation to climate the region understand how to develop \ change. Says Hak Mao, chief of green growth policies and apply the According to Koch Savath, deputy the Climate Change Vulnerability concept to their context. www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 37
EMPOWERING CONSUMERS A family ] portable lamp during a power outage in Phnom Penh. A pilot project in Cambodia aims to give villagers a low-cost, clean energy option by training them to manage solar-powered recharging stations for rechargeable lamps.
After training Cambodian trainers, the capacity-building team and the working group over the span of 2 years, half a dozen seminars, and funding from the Government of the Republic of Korea put together an Korean International Cooperation is certainly heavy on zeal. It contains exhaustive strategy, right down to Agency, a low-fee rental scheme 37 priorities that address what it calls possible jobs, for the short-, medium-, for rechargeable lamps and solar- the seven access areas. The emphasis and long-term greening of Cambodia’s powered recharging stations were is on green economic growth projects economy. made available to residents in two $ & \ “We made them dream and see the ] " & \ horizon,” says Nikolova. Province. The villagers were trained can create opportunities and new green to maintain the scheme, giving them jobs. ILLUMINATING WHAT IS POSSIBLE energy independence. The plan is to The document states “while an They also showed them how to use the lanterns as a model for future instant paradigm shift toward green illuminate those dreams (both pro-poor green business projects both growth is not to be expected,” it is \ " in provincial Cambodia and in other looking for “an economic growth a demonstration project to illustrate developing countries. model that is more conducive for the pro-poor green business model and Cambodia has also tried to rev up human development, resilience, and how to put it into practice. The project interest in innovative technologies, environmental sustainability than the introduced an innovative, clean, safe, such as producing biogas energy current business-as-usual approach.” affordable, and of course environment- at a small scale. A garments factory ] currently operates from energy IMPLEMENTING THE ROAD MAP villages. ) \ Despite the impressive beginning, Cambodia is heavily dependent In early 2010, a senior representative there is yet no formal policy in place. upon energy imports and lacks a from every ministry met at a Additionally, awareness of green nationwide electricity transmission roundtable event to endorse what has growth or even of the road map system. Those who can access the become a historic milestone in regional remains extremely limited within the grid pay dearly for the unsteady efforts toward implementing green private sector and the general public. supply. Much of the country otherwise growth. There are some promising is dependent on expensive, dirty, A few months later, the Global Green projects underway, implemented unreliable, or potentially dangerous Growth Institute (GGGI) was set up with international donor support, sources for energy, heat, and light, in Seoul to help developing country including efforts to make rice farmers including portable generators, kerosene governments create green growth more resilient to climate change and lanterns, and lead-acid batteries. strategies. Although somewhat ahead encourage small farmers to adopt Through a pilot partnership with of the game but still needing immense sustainable practices and diversify Sunlabob Renewable Energy, the \ $ agriculture. PICTURE CREDIT: AFP Cambodian Renewable Development Cambodians asked GGGI for help to It will likely take several years to Team, the National Green Growth apply the road map. implement such a policy in Cambodia Secretariat of the Ministry of Reading more like an environment- on a broad scale, says Koch Savath. Environment of Cambodia, and the friendly shopping list, the road map He notes that it takes time to convince
38 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia people of the importance of sustainable a green growth policy, and a regulatory Can Cambodia lead the way for practices and to develop the political framework. The priority sectors that developing countries? Drafting will to make green growth the policy. " \ " legislation is the next big step. The The Cambodians, says Jieun Lee, a forestry, waste management, and green lifestyle changes may take longer. With \ (((%$ P job creation. The master plan also has all government employees above a afraid of learning. They’re not afraid room for intensive analysis of economic certain level entitled to a ration of free of potential hurdles that lie ahead no and institutional potential, training for petrol and some young civil servants matter how large. They know it’s a \ # $ feeling the need to drive a Lexus to be long road and they will have to work and raising public awareness. taken seriously, more environment- hard to achieve success.” GGGI wants to assist Cambodia friendly transport still looms as a GGGI and the Government of to create jobs and new options for dream on the horizon. Cambodia are in the process of economic growth while learning from Adding that she’s excited by developing a national green growth the Republic of Korea’s experience, Lee what has started in Cambodia, Lee master plan for building up the says, referring to the Korean economy concludes, “They have potential to country’s capacity to go green. that grew into an industrial power be a great example to the rest of the According to Lee, the government from a garments export beginning % \ 0 has committed to pursuing a but has been facing issues of air markets and opportunities. We want to more sustainable model of growth pollution and other environmental show the world that this is possible—to to alleviate the strain placed " \ $ " create a new way of growth that will on its environment and natural Korea can transfer the know-how and allow Cambodia to enhance economic resources. The master plan seeks to capacity generated through the creation growth while also preserving and establish a national committee on green of concrete policies and institutions, promoting its environment and rich growth to oversee the work to be done, she says. ecosystems.”
ADB Annual Meeting AD
www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 39
The Price of Borderless Economics Civilization Chinese Sea Turtles, Indian Fridges and the New Fruits of Global Capitalism The Price of Civilization By Robert Guest By Jeffrey Sachs Palgrave Macmillan, November 2011, $27.00 Random House, October 2011, $27.00 n Borderless Economics, Robert Guest, business editor n his latest book, Jeffrey Sachs, of The Economist, argues that “the free movement of one of the world’s leading people makes the world richer, accelerates technological development economists, offers progress, and helps disseminate good ideas, from a diagnosis of the economic genomicsI to democracy.” Icrisis in the United States, tracing the Guest notes that migrants create value in their adopted root of the problem country through the network of contacts that they build and to “the decline of maintain, thanks to cheap travel and cheap communications, civic virtue among such as through Skype. For instance, Indians in the United America’s political States collaborate with their colleagues in India to produce and economic elite.” $70 fridges and $300 houses. In the meantime, migrants also help boost their Sachs is the homeland’s economy through remittances and knowledge transfer. Known as director of The “sea turtles,” Chinese who study in the West and then return home share what Earth Institute they have learned, including, the author hopes, democratic ideas. and professor of Before joining The Economist, Guest was the Tokyo correspondent for The health policy and Daily Telegraph. He also wrote The Shackled Continent in 2004, which discusses the management at Columbia University. problems facing Africa. He is also special advisor to United “In this highly readable and personal account built on interviews with Nations Secretary-General Ban emigrants from many countries, Guest… contends that voluntary emigration Ki-moon. " \ " \ “This is the latest in a spate of books and destination, too. In recent decades, Chinese and Indian overseas diasporas provoked by the world economic crisis have played a crucial role in generating rapid growth in their home countries, and one of the best… In The End of as their members have created businesses and opened foreign marketing Poverty he applied his clinician’s skills channels.”—Richard N. Cooper, Foreign Affairs to the distempers of Africa; in this book he turns them to the hubristic and wasteful habits of America. The details of the Fall—if by that he means Grand Pursuit Nasar’s account the collapse of the American banking begins with Charles system in 2008—do not concern The Story of Economic Genius Dickens and him; it is what the Fall tells us about By Sylvia Nasar Henry Mayhew in contemporary American capitalism.”— Simon & Schuster, September 2011, mid-19th-century Robert Skidelsky, The Guardian $35.00 London. “Before “Sachs manages to paint an alarming 1870, economics was picture of the US, while leaving the uthor of the bestseller, mostly about what reader with a sense that its problems A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia you couldn’t do. \ # " Nasar writes another book After 1870, it was achievement is the sheer sweep of his on not just one but several mostly about what you could do,” she $ ] " A“geniuses” in modern history. writes in the preface. The last chapter of economics to encompass politics, Grand Pursuit is about the men of the book is on India’s Nobel Prize psychology and moral philosophy. The and women who transformed winner Amartya Sen. gain in perspective mostly outweighs economics from a dismal science to Nasar is the John S. and James the loss in authorial authority.”— “an instrument of mastery” that can L. Knight Professor of Business Martin Sandbu, Financial Times improve the human condition. Journalism at Columbia University.
40 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia The Quest Stealth of Nations Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World The Global Rise of the Informal By Daniel Yergin Economy The Penguin Press, September 2011, $37.95 By Robert Neuwirth Pantheon, October 2011, $25.95 he Quest continues the story begun in Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history of oil, The Prize. The fter writing about the new book draws on 5 years of research to provide world’s 1 billion informal a comprehensive analysis of the global energy market and the dynamics settlers in Shadow Cities, shapingT its future. Robert Neuwirth focuses “The quest to secure the energy future will play out across the entire spectrum Ahis attention on the informal economy, of energy—from traditional sources like oil and gas to renewable energy and estimated to be worth $10 trillion. \ O $ $ The book’s title, Stealth of Nations, is a ingenuity,” says Yergin in a press statement. wordplay on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Yergin is a recipient of the United States Energy Award. He is chairman of Nations. Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). Neuwirth notes “An even better book [than The Prize]. It is searching, impartial and alarmingly that the informal up to date…. Mr. Yergin brooks no cant about climate-change denial, and lingers economy, or on the topic of cleaner future fuels. Our heads may be buried in our sleek laptops System D (a term and gadgets, his masterly book announces, but our toes are still soaking in dirty, that originated morally contaminated oil.“—Dwight Garner, The New York Times in Francophone P% $ \ $ Africa and the produce energy—by burning fossil fuels, harvesting the wind, brewing biodiesel Caribbean), is and trapping the sun’s heat. It is also an analysis of the increasingly fraught “based on small # " $ sales and tiny three big and longstanding fears: energy scarcity, energy security and, more and \ $ $ more, the environmental ruin that energy can cause. The Quest is a masterly piece cumulatively, a huge amount of wealth. of work and, as a comprehensive guide to the world’s great energy needs and It is massive yet disparaged, open yet dilemmas, it will be hard to beat.“—The Economist feared, microscopic yet global.” Neuwirth has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, and Wired { \ " ) “Nasar’s aim… is not to write wonderful parts that one is inclined to Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a intellectual history but to put the # Q—Justin Fox, New Urban World was published by reader into the lives of the characters The New York Times Routledge in 2004. of a sweeping historical drama that “If Nasar puts perhaps too much “A valuable book because it # ¥ ] challenges conventional thinking modern-day India. That she largely economic thinkers—who, after all, about what it means for an economy to ] " were observing conditions rather develop…. Mr. Neuwirth argues that of her research but also the elegance than creating them—she does show System D [the underground economy] of her prose.”—Steven Pearlstein, The how fully the profession has become fosters entrepreneurship while also Washington Post entwined with the way governments meeting governments’ needs to “At the core of Nasar’s narrative run…. Much of Grand Pursuit may be encourage employment; in some cases, is an account of the economically a reminder that as bad as things seem # troubled decades between the two now, they have been worse—much generated. Moving into the ‘formal’ world wars, as told through the O \ sector, he suggests, may not be a goal to # + $ % ¢ $ can shed light on what is happening which entrepreneurs in poor countries and Schumpeter and Hayek.… The today.”—Alana Semeuls, Los Angeles aspire.”—Marc Levinson, The Wall Street book as a whole is made up of so many Times Journal www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 41
Good Investment Investors willing to accept below-market returns to achieve positive social c h a n g e a r e a r i s i n g f o r c e i n g l o b a l d e ve l o p m e n t BY Gregg Jones
n late May, in what has become an annual event, more than a dozen graduate business students from the United States spent 10 days Iin Kenya, talking shop with grassroots " \ the power of free-market innovation and private-sector investments in \ Around the same time, 650 corporate executives, fund managers, investors, academics, and ordinary citizens from more than 50 countries gathered in the Netherlands to discuss how impact investing can lift living standards and reduce environmental problems around the world. From Asia to Africa, from the Americas and Europe to the Middle East, the deployment of patient capital by investors willing to accept below- market returns to achieve positive social change is a rising force in global development. Combining the idealism of traditional philanthropy with the innovation of free markets, these pioneering social capitalists are partnering with local entrepreneurs to manufacture antimalarial mosquito nets in Tanzania, deliver electricity to slum dwellers in India, and irrigate parched farms in Pakistan, to name just a few projects—all while striving to PICTURE CREDIT: JUPITERIMAGES, AFP (INDIA) \ In the last 4 years alone, more than these problems seriously will say we Their shared goal, says Kevin Jones, 100 new funds with the stated goal can solve everything with [traditional founder of a San Francisco, California- of investing for social good have development] grants, or that we can " \ ) emerged. Tens of millions of dollars solve everything with the markets,” as Good Capital and the annual from these funds and more established says Sasha Dichter, director of business Social Capital Markets Conference, players, such as the Acumen Fund, are development at Acumen Fund. “We is “investing with a desire for clear, delivering positive change to millions should ask what tools are there in the measurable social and environmental of poor in the developing world. chest to solve this particular problem, impact.” “I don’t think anybody who takes \ Q
42 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia CLEAR VISION !"\ Acumen Fund’s $60 million ! & " investment portfolio at the end of the " !;' “I don’t think anybody 2011 second quarter supported dozens # ? who takes these of enterprises in India, Pakistan, and ( ! 0 problems seriously East Africa. # Novogratz has become perhaps the # # will say we can most recognizable public advocate solve everything for market-based solutions to poverty with [traditional and other social and environmental COLD-EYED WALL STREET APPROACH problems. Her 2009 memoir, The Blue At the vanguard of the social capital development] grants, Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich movement is the New York-based or that we can solve and Poor in an Interconnected World, ¢ $ \ everything with the became a New York Times best seller. \ It tells the story of her transformation that provide clean water, health care, markets. We should from rising Wall Street banker to housing, alternative energy, and ask what tools are &\ other services to low-income people there in the chest to As a young globe-trotting banker ! \ charged with reviewing Chase was founded in 2001 by Jacqueline solve this particular Manhattan’s loans in Brazil and other Novogratz, a former Chase Manhattan problem, and figure struggling economies, Novogratz " ) \ out which ones to had been troubled by the fact that specialist who convinced the the bank’s doors were “closed to the Rockefeller Foundation and a handful apply” poor and working class.” She began to of other donors to provide seed money think how she could use her expertise ) &" \ to improve the lives of the world’s world poverty. dispossessed, and learned about the www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 43
INVESTING IN SOCIAL CHANGE2 products designer whose drip ( & irrigation systems have enabled 275,000 2 5 +! “Through investment, small farmers to double their yields ( \ 5 !' we seek to break the and income levels, and a company in Tanzania that employs more than \ ) cycle of dependence 7,000 people and produces 16 million Bangladesh by economist Muhammad that aid can create by lifesaving antimalarial bed nets a year. Yunus and his Grameen Bank. Back helping countries Over the past decade, Acumen in New York City, she quit Chase Fund and other impact investors have Manhattan and went to work for a build their own fostered dramatic changes in the world \ \ . institutions and their of philanthropy. for women, which sent her to Africa. own capacity to deliver “A lot more accountability has been There, she immersed herself in the built in,” says Dichter. “A lot more struggle to overcome poverty. essential services. innovation has been built in. We have Over time, Novogratz became Aid chases need; a lot more success stories, not just from convinced that the traditional investment chases patient capital but across the board. We development approach of throwing have a lot more players coming in. At " ] opportunity” Acumen, we have put $60 million of The solution, as she saw it, was to capital to work, serving tens of millions invest donations in entrepreneurial of people.” enterprises that provided basic services to the poor. It would be a cold-eyed A GROWING FRACTION Wall Street approach, with two notable Only a fraction of the world’s capital is exceptions: greater patience and a cost lens that could be implanted in the devoted today to impact investments, tolerance for lower returns. eyes of patients blinded by cataracts— such as those made by Acumen Fund Acumen’s initial investments restoring sight, as well as the ability to and its peers. But the space is attracting focused on technology-driven health work. growing interest and excitement, care efforts in India and East Africa. More recently, the fund’s investments experts say, and support from such One of these involved supporting the have included partnering with an \ 8 work of Govindappa Venkataswamy in entrepreneur in India whose company Bill Clinton, whose Clinton Global providing affordable eye care to India’s is providing safe water to more than Initiative has promoted patient capital poor, including development of a low- 250,000 rural poor, an agricultural as a development tool.
44 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia NET INVESTMENT " ! 3 $ 6 + \""
-15& 1 2 0- : ? " ; " 2£ :# ' ! 2 & @ " -#0 (+! ( "
In 2008, Clinton launched an the Netherlands, drew more than 650 “The students learn how other initiative by LeapFrog Investments, an people from 50 countries. people really live and why we need international microinsurance fund, to innovation and entrepreneurship so place $100 million in Asian and African CHASING OPPORTUNITY desperately,” says Christensen. “They businesses, providing insurance to Major development institutions, also see there are a lot of indigenous O \ such as the United States Agency for local entrepreneurs who aren’t waiting crucial to lifting people from poverty. International Development (USAID), for us to drop something into their After only 18 months, LeapFrog are embracing the possibilities of free- lap, and they see that not all great announced in 2010 that it had raised market investments as well. USAID innovations are coming from the US.” $137 million for its microinsurance has a Global Development Alliance In Washington, DC, Secretary of State investments in Africa as well as India, team that coordinates with private Hillary Clinton has acknowledged the Indonesia, and the Philippines. Its sector corporations and foundations work of Acumen Fund and the power 0 \ and manages 10 “global frameworks” \ J.P. Morgan, the World Bank, corporate signed between USAID and private- against global poverty. Traditional reinsurer Flagstone Reinsurance sector partners. aid would remain a “vital tool” for Holdings, and Omidyar Network, the At leading US universities, graduate the foreseeable future, especially
PICTURE CREDIT: AFP, EYEPRESS NEWS (YANG JIECHI AND BILL CLINTON) \ " students are studying impact investing in assisting the victims of natural founder Pierre Omidyar. and the efforts of patient capital- disasters and other emergencies, she A focal point of inspiration and infused entrepreneurs in developing says. But strategic investments would ideas has become the annual Social countries. eventually supplant traditional foreign Capital Markets Conference, which Lisa Jones Christensen, an aid, she predicts. held its fourth annual gathering assistant professor of strategy and “Through aid, we supply what is last fall in San Francisco. The buzz entrepreneurship at the University needed to the people who need it—be surrounding SOCAP, as it is commonly of North Carolina’s Kenan–Flagler it sacks of rice or cartons of medicines,” known, has grown each year since it Business School in Chapel Hill, recently she said in a speech last year. “But began with little fanfare in 2008. The returned from her annual immersion through investment, we seek to break 2009 conference attracted more than trip to Kenya, where her master of the cycle of dependence that aid can 900 participants from 32 countries. business administration students saw create by helping countries build The 2010 installment attracted 1,500 the real-life results of patient capital their own institutions and their own participants from 40 countries. The at work as entrepreneurs turned trash capacity to deliver essential services. \ -2 8 $ into cooking briquettes in a Nairobi Aid chases need; investment chases and early June 2011 in Amsterdam, slum. opportunity.”
www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 45
A Life Examining Annie Duflo is part of a growing breed of young development professionals who are working to test the effectiveness of development programs
BY Jade Lee-Duffy
n a sunny day in May, a surprise was waiting inside 300 primary schools across the African country ofO Ghana. Instead of one teacher in the classroom, now there were two. For 2 hours a day, new teaching assistants were going to help youngsters who couldn’t read or perform simple additions in math. Hired through the country’s National Youth Employment Program, teaching assistants across 42 rural and urban districts had to be trained to teach learning through playing games, singing songs, and presenting fun,
child-friendly material that appealed to PICTURE CREDIT: AFP (PLAYING FOOTBALL), PHOTO OF ANNIE DUFLO COURTESY OF INNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION all the senses. The impact evaluation of this remedial education program in Ghana DUPLICATING SUCCESS Children play " " 5 ] $ #' - *] the vice-presidents and the executive (right) has helped Ghana launch its director at Innovations for Poverty Teacher Community Assistant Initiative %8 $ \ by adapting similar successful remedial organization, based in New Haven, education programs in India. 2 5 ] $ several developing countries have a young development professionals who large fraction of primary students, aged work with economists in partnership 6 to 10 years old, that were not learning with development organizations, basic literacy and numeracy skills. \ $ $ The remedial program was targeted to and poverty alleviation programs to break this trend. develop and test solutions that aim With IPA projects in 46 countries, to improve the lives of low-income and aid organizations are fueling a 5 ] \ P families in developing countries. demand for more impact evaluations to works and what doesn’t” when it By showing which programs are ensure that money for programs isn’t comes to development programs & $ 5 ] wasted. and projects. Through the use of are helping to encourage evidence- . $ 5 ] based programs and policies, and to GIVING A HELPING HAND and her network of researchers assess move much-needed funding toward 5 ] ) whether development programs are these programs. As there is a growing in India in 2000. For half a year, she cost-effective and yield positive results. concern over the cost-effectiveness of volunteered in the Natural Resource She is part of a growing breed of programs, policy makers, governments, Development unit of Seva Mandir, a
46 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia nongovernment organization (NGO) of Ghana, met with the teachers’ in the historic city of Udaipur. She union, the NYEP, and they became then worked at the Jaipur branch of “My role is to reach $Q P Pratham, an education NGO spread out to NGOs and are convinced that the program works, across India. Shortly after, in 2002, since it’s based on rigorous evidence, 5 ] & governments and we are doing a new impact evaluation of 100 villages in Udaipur district explain to them in Ghana because the program will on health care status and health care what a rigorous always end up being a little different delivery, led by researchers at the [in another country]. Also, we are Massachusetts Institute of Technology evaluation is and evaluating different ways to do the (MIT) and Princeton University in how using evidence program to understand which one will collaboration with the NGO Seva when designing their work best.” Mandir and the World Bank. The India program revealed it was ¢ S $ 5 ] programs can increase " &/ \ executive director of the Centre for their impact; and to tutors to teach students in their own Micro Finance at the Institute for help implement new communities basic skills in a relatively Financial Management and Research short time using a simple methodology in Chennai. There she worked on studies” & P! ) improving the accessibility and quality focus instruction at the child’s level— \ $ has helped expand the organization’s and this can be done by having these evidence-based policies through network of researchers to more than tutors teach the lower-performing research. 100 from about 40. In the last decade, students separately from the rest of the Helping others runs in the family. the demand for rigorous impact $ $Q 5 ] 5 ] ] " $ evaluations by donors and practitioners In addition to helping students with Violaine, a pediatrician who works has increased tremendously, so essential skills, the TCAI provides with the French-based NGO l’Appel, having more researchers to lead these employment for the assistants over which supports children of armed evaluations is key. These researchers 2 years, and salaries of about $60 a ] $ $ ) %8 \ month from the government’s National professor of poverty alleviation and countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Youth Employment Program. development economics at MIT and a Mexico, Mongolia, and the Philippines. One of the program’s unknowns founder and director of the Abdul Latif is whether it’s best to pull students Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), REMEDIAL EDUCATION IN GHANA out of class during school hours for which helps determine what types of The remedial education program or additional instruction (and miss part aid and antipoverty programs work in the Teacher Community Assistant of the regular class) or to wait until poor countries. Initiative (TCAI), currently being after school hours when they may be The IPA’s executive director also " 5 ] $ tired, hungry, and want to go home holds a master’s degree in social of similar successful programs in " 5 ] sciences from l’École des Hautes Études India conducted by the NGO Pratham, are trying both options to assess en Sciences Sociales, l’École Normale and evaluated by J-Pal. Funded by " P0 Supérieure in Paris, and a master’s the United Kingdom-based Children evaluating whether the program degree in public administration in Investment Fund Foundation, the TCAI can work without assistants by just international development from the is being implemented by the Ghana training the teachers to assist the John F. Kennedy School of Government Education Services, in partnership weakest students,’ she adds. A survey at Harvard University. with the National Youth Employment was conducted in December 2011 and P (- Program (NYEP) and the Ghana another in August 2012 will take place and governments and explain to them National Association of Teachers in to measure if the program has indeed what a rigorous evaluation is and how collaboration with IPA. improved learning levels. using evidence when designing their By sharing the results of the impact If the results of the study are programs can increase their impact; $ 5 ] $ 5 ] ) and to help implement new studies,” government adapt the program from the Government of Ghana to help scale 5 ] $ 8 % \ ( # P% up the remedial program, taking it ' %8 $ 5 ] 2009, we approached the Government nationally in the future. www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 47
A Refreshing Development In remote, impoverished places where clean water and medicine are hard to find, people can still buy an ice-cold Coke BY Andrew Marshall
n 1988, when Simon Berry was a British aid worker in Africa, he made a connection between two facts that would change his life. IFact 1: In remote parts of Zambia, where families scratched out a subsistence living by farming, many young children died of preventable diseases, such as dehydration from diarrhea. Fact 2: In these same rural areas, you could almost always buy Coca-Cola. That’s when Berry, then a technical cooperation officer for the British aid program, made the connection: Could Coca-Cola’s unrivaled local distribution networks be harnessed to deliver simple but potentially life- saving medicines to hard-to-reach places? Twenty years later, in a concerted attempt to answer that question, Berry and his wife Jane launched an independent nonprofit organization called ColaLife. The idea is to
PICTURE CREDIT: TIM DENCH/COURTESY OF SIMON BERRY leverage Coca-Cola’s distribution channels to carry so-called social products—oral rehydration solution (ORS), zinc supplements, water purification tablets—that last mile to save children’s lives in developing
BENEFICIARIES Two boys in Africa receive an AirPod. ColaLife wants to improve child mortality in remote communities by distributing anti-diarrhea kits through Coca-Cola’s extensive distribution network.
48 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, one don’t you make use of the unused in seven children died before their fifth space instead?” she told him. birthday in 2008, estimates the United So was born the AidPod: a crush- “The unique thing Nations. resistant, wedge-shaped canister about the Coca- Initially, Berry thought, one bottle of that fits snugly between the necks of Cola distribution Coke could be removed from a crate the Coca-Cola bottles. Ten AidPods and replaced with a tube carrying the fit into a standard crate. “All we’re system isn’t the bit products. But Jane, who says she spent doing is using that unused space to from the bottler to her long evenings in Zambia “reading get vital products to the same places the wholesaler, but books on international development as Coca-Cola,” says Berry. “We’re just from the wholesalers to find out why so much good-willed piggybacking—making use of a section but apparently misguided effort wasn’t of the human race who are particularly onwards. That’s where working,” had another idea. “Why good at getting stuff to remote places.” all these independent It’s a neat idea—so neat, in fact, that microenterprises— ColaLife has generated thousands of followers on social networks, such as guys on bicycles, Facebook, as well as an invitation for women putting crates Berry to speak at a TEDx community- on buses, and so on— run event in Berlin in 2010. But will it work? “We didn’t want to be take over. That’s the bit remembered as the guys who came we want to get into” up with this cool idea and did nothing about it,” he says. “So we gave up our jobs last June [2010] to focus full- time on getting a trial going.” The “The unique thing about the Coca- results of that trial, which is planned Cola distribution system isn’t the bit to take place in Zambia, could have from the bottler to the wholesaler, implications for Asia, another vast but from the wholesalers onwards,” and often hard-to-access region where says Berry. “That’s where all these reducing child mortality is proving an independent microenterprises—guys uphill struggle. on bicycles, women putting crates on Persuading the world’s largest buses, and so on—take over. That’s the beverage company to even bit we want to get into.” contemplate putting somebody else’s The first ColaLife trial will take the stuff in its crates is “a big step,” says Berrys back to Zambia, the landlocked Berry. What the company calls the African country which first inspired Coca-Cola System is a mammoth them. First, however, together with and well-oiled machine, perfected two other ColaLife supporters, Berry over a century. While it operates in cycled across another country, France, more than 200 countries, Coca-Cola to raise £6,000 to pay for three trips to only makes the concentrates and Zambia. It was critical to first engage beverage bases for its soft drinks, and Coca-Cola’s local bottler, Zambian owns and licenses the brands. Nearly Breweries, a subsidiary of SABMiller, a 300 local bottling partners produce global brewing and bottling company and distribute the actual products, with a strong public commitment which are sold through millions of to sustainable development. The outlets: supermarkets, movie theaters, involvement of SABMiller in Zambia restaurants, street vendors—pretty means “we might get crossover of much everywhere humanity gathers. the [ColaLife] idea into another huge Coca-Cola says the world consumes multinational,” says Berry. 1.7 billion servings of its products ColaLife’s other partners in Zambia every day. are the United Nations Children’s www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 49
Fund (UNICEF) and the state-run pharmaceutical distributor Medical Stores Limited. A local nongovernment organization called Keepers Zambia Foundation will handle the social marketing in the communities, says Berry, “to create buzz and awareness and value around this kit we’re going to distribute.” ColaLife plans to distribute at least 20,000 AidPods to mothers and caregivers in 30 communities, where most people survive on one or two dollars a day. “These are sparsely populated areas where the provision of health facilities is very, very low,” explains Berry. “There are only 70 registered year. ColaLife’s partners pharmacies in the whole of Zambia, in Zambia want to test the and these are in the larger towns.” idea by delivering a single However, kiosks selling basic goods— product: an anti-diarrhea kit washing powder, cooking oil, biscuits, (ADK). “We want to get statistically cigarettes and, of course, Coca-Cola— significant data,” explains Berry. “Our are common, even in remote areas and main objective at the trial stage is they could be tapped to deliver public not primarily to save children’s lives, health products. but to test whether we can use Coca- AidPods can be adapted to carry Cola’s distribution chain to create a READY FOR DELIVERY3 2 \ a range of products. One of them commodity that people will have in or into a standard crate. could be zinc. Given to children with very close to their households when diarrhea, zinc supplements reduce the diarrhea strikes.” Trust, which carries out corporate severity and duration of the illness, Open innovation has also helped social responsibility activities of the and could potentially save up to the AidPod evolve. If they are made Johnson & Johnson group in Europe, 400,000 deaths of under-5 globally per of transparent PET (polyethylene Middle East, and Africa. terephthalate) plastic, AidPods The trial’s results won’t be kept might also be used for solar water under wraps, but will be published disinfection—a process known by on ColaLife’s website so that others “Much of the world’s the abbreviation SODIS. Fill a PET might adopt and adapt the idea for mortality can be container with contaminated water their own countries, including in Asia. prevented with and leave it in the sun for 6 hours, and “We want people to look at what the ultraviolet radiation should kill we’re doing [in Africa] and to apply existing solutions.... off the pathogens that cause diarrhea. it to local circumstances in Asia,” So the problem is not For cost reasons, Berry shelved the says Berry. “There is a lot of interest so much about what’s idea of producing AidPods from PET in ColaLife from India, but we don’t plastic. But the Swiss Federal Institute have the capacity to develop things PICTURE CREDIT: COURTESY OF SIMON BERRY needed. It’s more about of Aquatic Science and Technology there. So our strategy is to make all the how to effectively recently sent him samples of a information available. All the learning deliver what is needed prototype SODIS bag that would fit we generate goes up on the website.” into a standard AidPod. Knowledge-sharing is part of to those who need it ColaLife has raised $1.35 million an open innovation process that most” to date, which will enable it to run has helped the Berrys refine their the trial with local partners by early embryonic idea and attract new 2012. Among the first donors was the expertise. Rohit Ramchandani was a Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizen senior health advisor at the Canadian
50 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia International Development Agency sector played a key role in the Scaling as adults from obesity or diabetes?” when he first contacted Berry through Up Zinc for Young Children (SUZY) Berry is unfazed. “All we’re doing ColaLife’s Facebook group. Now Project, initiated in 2003 by the is using that unused space in a crate studying public health at Johns International Centre for Diarrhoeal to get this vital product to the same Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Disease Research, Bangladesh places that Coca-Cola gets to,” he says. Health, Ramchandani is helping (ICDDR,B) in partnership with For Berry, building unlikely alliances construct ColaLife’s trial in Zambia the Bangladesh Ministry of Health between businesses and public health and will use its results as the basis of and Family Welfare. A Bangladesh is the whole point. “Together, we his doctoral thesis. conglomerate called ACME believe, we can do it. There is no point “We’ve reached something of a Laboratories Ltd made the zinc tablets sitting in our silos, throwing bricks at crossroads in public health,” says in its pharmaceuticals division and one another, when there is so much at Ramchandani. “Much of the world’s distributed them through its food and stake.” mortality can be prevented with beverage division. And so much left to do. One existing solutions. Research has shown “For the big health problems now of the UN’s eight Millennium that over 60% of child deaths could and in the future, we cannot rely only Development Goals is to reduce be prevented each year if the world’s on what the public health sector can the under-5 mortality rate by two- children received full access to already deliver in nations that have fragile thirds between 1990 and 2015. “Child existing, often low-cost interventions, health systems,” says Tracey Pérez deaths are falling, but not quickly such as ORS and zinc. So the problem Koehlmoos, head of the Health & enough to reach the target,” reports is not so much about what’s needed. Family Planning Systems Programme the UN. “Revitalizing efforts against It’s more about how to effectively at ICDDR,B and principal investigator pneumonia and diarrhea, while deliver what is needed to those who of the SUZY Project. “It’s not enough. bolstering nutrition, could save need it most.” So any engagement [with the private millions of children.” Leveraging the private sector to sector] would be beneficial, so long as Berry sees ColaLife as part of that distribute public health products it’s done with government approval revitalization. “It will be decades isn’t new. In Bangladesh, the private and partnership.” before we get child mortality rates With ColaLife, the Coca-Cola in developing countries that we Company—which has a raft of would think acceptable in the United philanthropic projects—is engaged, Kingdom,” he says. “It could be more if not quite effusive. “We have been than 175 years. We need to carry on in contact with ColaLife and have with incremental improvements, but supported them to identify a suitable we also need innovation.” bottling partner, SAB Miller, willing Is there the possibility that ColaLife to conduct a pilot project with them,” might not work? “Yup,” admits says Sebastian van der Vegt, group Berry happily, exuding his trademark communications manager, in a optimism. “But we’re going to get statement. “We understand that the caught trying.” Ramchandani, the pilot will take place in Zambia and will public health expert, puts it more focus on distributing [anti-]diarrhea cautiously. “The reality is that there kits to hard-to-reach areas. We look is a lot of great [health] interventions forward to learning from the results of that don’t demonstrate statistically the pilot project once it’s completed.” strong results, and are therefore never ColaLife supporters who hail shared. That’s why it is so important from health or humanitarian fields to incorporate evaluation into the might not be natural supporters of a research design early on, and share LIFESAVER The AidPod was designed to corporate behemoth that makes fizzy lessons learned along the way— contain “social products,” such as zinc drinks. “In the age of chronic disease, something that ColaLife is doing supplements, oral rehydration solution, big food and big beverage sort of extremely well.” ! \ # 0 come off as being the bad guys,” says “Where will happiness strike next?” crush-resistant, wedge-shaped canister Koehlmoos. “Do you want your life- asks a Coca-Cola slogan. The question \ "#! ' saving solution being packaged with now is: Where will ColaLife strike Coca-Cola bottles. what might make these children suffer next? www.development.asia January–March 2012 Development Asia 51
“I would like to reiterate that we face daunting challenges. Asia’s growth has brought significant benefits to the region. But it is an unfinished agenda, with the majority of the world’s poor still in Asia. The region is at a critical crossroads. We must continue to be proactive.”
—Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda, speaking at the Eminent Persons’ Forum in New Delhi, India in October 2011
“The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and “We must connect the dots between the best lifestyles, but there is one thing climate change, water scarcity, that money doesn’t seem to have bought: energy shortages, global health, food an understanding that their fate is bound security and women’s empowerment. up with how the other 99 percent live. Solutions to one problem must be Throughout history, this is something that solutions for all.” the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.” —United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing the United Nations —Economist and Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, General Assembly in September 2011 writing for in May 2011
“In 10 years, you’re not going to have 700 million cars driven every day on the planet; you’re going to have 2 billion. If you already have an emissions problem with 700 million cars, what problems are you going to
have with 2 billion?” PICTURE CREDIT: UN PHOTO/MARCO CASTRO (BAN KI-MOON), AFP
—Nissan Chief Executive Officer “Social issues are far more complex Carlos Ghosn in an interview with to deal with than business problems, in 2011, where he and it’s very hard to change things. It talks about why the market is ready for an all-electric car needs tenacity and humility. And while individually it may be hard to see what difference we can make, if we stick to the task with tenacity for a sustained action, it will surely work.” “Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate.” —Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, who donated $2 billion to his education —Richard Muller, a prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming, writes in foundation, the largest charitable the contribution in India’s modern history the Earth’s surface temperatures
52 Development Asia January–March 2012 www.development.asia
Work for Asia and the Pacific.
The only development bank dedicated to Asia and the Pacific is hiring individuals dedicated to development.
ADB seeks highly qualified individuals for the following vacancies:
Women are encouraged to apply. For more details, visit www.adb.org/Employment/International