united nations - ReviseSociology

The Equator Prize – A good Source for Examples ‘People Centred’ Development Projects

The United Nations Development Programme has run the ‘Equator prize‘ initiative every year since 2009.

The idea is to recognise indigenous communities from around the globe who are adopting innovative, nature-based solutions to achieve sustainable development and combat poverty and climate change.

The 2020 award ceremony showcased 10 such diverse initiatives from around the globe, as shown on the map below.

To my mind this initiative seems to be an excellent example of ‘People Centred Development‘, as each of these development projects are small scale, led by the indigenous people themselves and sustainable. All the United Nations seems to be doing is connecting them and giving them more visibility and recognition on a global stage, but besides this, each one of these projects seems to be a genuine example of people centred development from the ground up.

Each of the initiatives seems to be linked to a famous advocate, some of whom you will be very familiar with. For example, one of the winners of 202o was a community run Maasai conservation project in Kenya, supported by Margaret Atwood (who wrote the Handmaid’s Tale).

It’s very difficult to generalise about what each of these projects are doing specifically, because they are diverse, and that’s sort of the point of People Centred Development – because it’s ‘people centred’ each of the paths to development looks different, so I will blog more about each of these projects in forthcoming posts.

However, for now I just wanted to highlight the United Nation’s Equator Prize as a good source for links to small projects that seem to be excellent examples of ‘People Centred Development’.

NB – don’t forget that PCD isn’t postmodern – it’s not ‘anything goes’ development, there is a kind of moral imperative that binds these projects together under the auspices of the United Nations – they are all sustainable, for example, and they are all ‘community run’ and presumably have a degree of democratic governance, all of which are aspects of PCD.

Globalisation and Global Development: Good Resources

Some useful links to good teaching resources for Globalisation and Global Development.

Good resources providing an overview of global trends and global inequalities:

Firstly, this 2016 video imagines the world as 100 people, and so illustrates what percentage of people live on less than $2 a day and so on (once you get through the ‘basic’ stuff on ethnicity/ religion etc…

A few stand-out facts are:

1% of the population own 50% of the world’s wealth
15% don’t have access to clean water

less than 50% have access to the internet

Secondly, Worldometers provides real time world statistics on population, the environment, food, health and media and society.

Global Statistics

A few stand-out facts are…..

The total number of malnourished people in the world is decreasing!
The total number of people with no access to clean drinking water is also decreasing!

HOWEVER, we’re losing approximately 20 HA a minute to desertification and 10 HA a minute to deforestation, which could undermine both of the above in the future.

Good resources for researching individual countries

The United Nation’s Country Profiles are probably the most accessible place to start – each country’s page gives you basic development indicators which you can then click on to expand.
The World Bank’s Open Data is also useful – follow the link and you can either search or browse by country.

The CIA World Fact Book is a useful source for more qualitative information on a country by country by country basis, organised into various categories such as geography, population, economics, politics and so on…

Good Resources for tracking ‘Indicators of Development’

The United Nations Human Development Report – Data – click on the links to the left to access tables which rank countries according to the basic Human Development Index, the Gender Equality Index and more.
World Health Organisation – very useful for tracking trends in health and development.

Good Resources for other aspects of global development

PISA homepage – monitors educational achievement in over 40, mainly developed, countries.
PISA 2015 Results – scroll down to find the ‘league tables’ which rank all participating countries in order.

Stockholm Peace Institute – tracks trends in global military expenditure and other issues related to peacefulness.
Perceived Corruption Index – Transparency International
The World Happiness Report – An attempt to measure and track trends in feelings of happiness and well-being.

More to follow shortly!

What is Political Globalisation?

‘Until the end of the Second World War, national governments were traditionally responsible for ensuring the welfare of their citizens, however since 1945, more and more governments have become members of International Institutions, such as the United Nations and the European Union, through which they agree to stick to International guidelines on issues such as citizenship and human rights. In this way, global political ideals restrict the freedom of governments to shape domestic social policy. ‘

Anthony Giddens (2009) notes the following features of Political Globalisation

The collapse of Communism in the 1990s meant the end of the divided ‘cold war’ world, and now these ex-communist countries are themselves democracies and integrated into the global economy.

The growth of international and regional mechanisms of government such as the United Nations and European Union – governments of Nation States are increasingly restricted by international directives and laws stemming from these international bodies.

International Non-Governmental organisations such as OXFAM or Greenpeace operate in dozens of countries, and members tend to have an international outlook.

The Human Development Index

The United Nations uses The Human Development Index (HDI) as a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. It provides a useful ‘snap-shot’ of a country’s economic and social development.

HDI Scores in 2020

Dark Green is high ranging through to dark red which is low….

The Human Development Index

The Human Development Index measures Human Development using four indicators

To measure health – Life expectancy at birth
To measure education – the average (mean) number years of adult education adults over 25 have received and the number of expected years of education children attending school can expect

To measure standard of living – Gross National Income per capita (PPP)

Each country is then given a rank from between 0 and 1 based on how well it scores in relation to ‘constructed minimum’ and ‘observed maximum scores for each of these criteria. The minimum and maximum scores for each criteria are as below

	Minimum scores*	Perceived maximums
Life expectancy at birth	20	83.2
Mean years of adult education adults over 25 have received	0	13.2
number of years of education children attending school can expect	0	20.6
Gross National Income per capita (PPP)	163	108, 211

(*This is the level below which the UN believes there is no prospect for human development!)

How does the HDI work out a country’s score? – it’s quite easy – if a country has a life expectancy of 83.2, and all the other maximums, it would score one, if it had a life expectancy of 20, and all the other minimums it would score zero. If it was half way between the minimum and maximum – it would score 0.5 – NB by the UK’s standards, this would be a pretty low level of human development!

The Human Development Index – Best and Worst Performers

Top

1	Norway	0.954
2	Switzerland	0.946
3	Ireland	0.942
4	Germany	0.939
4	Hong Kong	0.939
6	Australia	0.938
6	Iceland	0.938
8	Sweden	0.937
9	Singapore	0.935
10	Netherlands	0.933

Towards the Bottom

179	Congo, Democratic Republic e	0.459
180	Mozambique	0.446
181	Sierra Leone	0.438
182	Burkina Faso	0.434
182	Eritrea	0.434
184	Mali	0.427
185	Burundi	0.423
186	South Sudan	0.413
187	Chad	0.401
188	Central African Republic	0.381
189	Niger	0.377

What do the scores above mean?

If a country scores 1-0.788 it is classified as a ‘developed country’ with ‘high human development’ – as are 42 countries – most European countries come into this category. These are typically the countries with GNIs of $40K per capita or more, 13 full years of education and 80+ life expectancies.
If a country scores 0.48 or lower it is classified as having Low human development – e.g. Sierra Leonne – here you will see a GNI per capita of below $1000, 10 years or less of school and life expectancies in the 60s.

Advantages of the Human Development Index

It provides us with a much fuller picture of how well developed a country is, allowing for fuller comparisons to be made.
It shows us that while there is a general correlation between economic and social development, two countries with the same level of economic development may have different levels of social development. See below for examples.
Some argue that this is a more human centred approach, concerned more with actual human welfare than just mere economics. It gets more to ‘the point’ of economic development.

Two Limitations of the Human Development Index

Relying on the HDI score alone may disguise a lack of social development in a country – for example a very high GNI can compensate for poor life-expectancy, as is the case in the United States.
It is still only provides a fairly limited indication of social development – only health and education are covered – there are many other ways of measuring health and education.