The Brundtland Commission in its report titled Our Common Future in 1987 defined the concept of sustainable development as development addressed towards the needs of the future as well as towards the needs of the present policy architecture.
The Brundtland Commission was shortly dissolved at the end of the same year. However, how can we have sustainable development given the rapid rate at which we are consuming the Earth’s resources?
How is Development Sustainable?
This definition in what is known as the Brundtland Report has remained somewhat vague in comprehensively encapsulating the concept of sustainable development. Indeed the concept of sustainable development without uniform international realization has remained an amorphous concept. The question in the concept of sustainable development is of how can development pursue production processes but at the same time return inputs or allocate practices into resource collection such that future generations might reap the benefits of abundant resources, without which production cannot occur. The concept of sustainable development thus ensues including development policies and innovations that sustain Earth’s resources for use by future generations.
Thus steadily, the concept of sustainable development has come to primarily mean in terms of an actionable framework the integration of economic and environmental policies in terms of developmental strategies such that a balance is achieved between economic development and the environment. This means that economic policies are designed and implemented such that the end of environmental protection is achieved to the highest possible degree so that future generations might benefit from environmental conservation to the greatest possible degree. To understand this more closely, we must look at the theory of ecological succession, most notably known for the contributions of Eugene Odum.
Ecological succession looks into ecosystem development as in how energy and materials follow cyclical paths within ecosystems. This aspect is what Odum (1969) explored in his paper ‘The Strategy of Ecosystem Development’. A key part of Odum’s analysis is that the strategies of man and nature are diametrically opposed. While the focus for man has primarily been high production out of nature, for example in terms of harvesting certain agricultural crops, reducing the total productive biomass, nature in its succession process goes for the reverse efficiency, thus favouring biomass production rather than production that largely wastes biomass, as in man’s approach.
Nature thus manages to maintain a balance in its production process in sustainably producing biomass for procedural use while man’s production processes are not as all-roundly efficient or sustainable. A major environmental aspect of our time is indeed in moving towards an environmentally sustainable future. The discipline that is most entwined into the management of environmental resources is economics, closely followed by technology, which is a part of the economic superstructure.
While nature can participate in production and at the same time generate an output that feeds cyclically into the production process, human technology has not as yet evolved a cumulative production process that generates a cyclical output like nature. In human economies, what circulates cyclically into the production process is currency while capital investments such as natural resources and even human labour are extinguished in the production process.
Rather than a total cyclic system as in nature, in human economies the only economic good that circulates cyclically is currency. Currency in human economies moves from consumer to producer and then to consumers again as wages, following a cyclical path in the production process. When people consume goods produced during the production process, the producer is credited with currency received. However, when these same consumers participate in the production process as labour, they receive currency from the producers as wages, thus completing the cyclical process through which currency circulates in human economies.
However, the same is not true for other inputs into the production process. Natural resources extracted or even labour exchanged for currency is exhausted in the production process. Labour does not circulate in human economies as an end in itself thereby returning labour with more labour in return. Labour is compensated for and replaced by currency. Similarly natural resources occurring as capital are also exchanged for currency ultimately, and are exhausted in the production process such that the use of natural resources does not produce more natural resources. The aim in human economies is to use natural resources to produce currency.
The question that then arises in this scenario is as to how economies meant primarily to circulate currency can be environmentally sustainable? The question is one of how can natural resources be used in such a manner such that they can be replenished and also circulate cyclically in production processes to the greatest degree? If this end is realized whereby natural resources used in the production process by humanity are replenished and circulate cyclically, the possibility arises that natural resources could be used perpetually or at least for long periods of time into the future.
Thus the concept of sustainable development could work if humanity was able to circulate natural resources cyclically into production processes or use natural resources that are not expected to finish in the near future. This indeed is the engine behind the concept of sustainable development. This represents one massive method through which we can make development sustainable and is the focus for many policy-makers and scholars in rooting for environmentally sustainable development.
Sustainable Systems
Although the concept of sustainable development is one of the great ideas of our contemporary time, its fruition leaves much to be desired. Of central importance in evaluating the concept of sustainable development is over how human societies can be geared to respond and adapt to the concept of sustainable development and its working. The concept of sustainable development would imbibe not just correct resource utilization in human economies, which still is an uphill task, but also societal changes in the form of a stronger regime of economic equity, or fairness, which needs to be intergenerational.
In nature, inputs into the production process are not under any form of conscious individual or collective ownership. These circulate freely into being transformed into one form of energy to the next, thus forming a co-dependent web of energy transfers. Nature forms a total system, and very little if any is wasted, which usually occurs once in a long period of time for an ecosystem, causing an evolutionary event. Analyzing the economic system, Pigou (1920) pointed out in his ‘The Economics of Welfare’ that the difference between marginal private costs and marginal social costs or benefits creates externalities such as transaction spillovers, costs or benefits unaccounted for, or wastages such as in the form of pollution. There is thus a private, a social and an environmental cost to economic transactions. The economy does not function as a harmonized system of transactions.
Economists Michael Porter and Claas van der Linde (1999) for example have cited pollution, saying that it is an example of the industrial system using resources inefficiently. In an economic system based on competitive advantage, it is inevitable that economic actions will generate costs not just within the economy, but also for society and the environment. However, competition also occurs in nature, in which energy transfers are balanced out and equilibrium is eventually achieved. The key difference here between the economy and nature is that nature returns its components back to its original categorical form whereas the economy converts natural resources into products that do not necessarily return to their original natural form. The case of plastic is a case in point.
There is thus necessary wastage by the economic system which generates costs and inequity. For example, the paper used to produce currency cannot be returned directly by the economic system to produce the trees that are used to produce paper such as the pine, fir, larch, eucalyptus, aspen and birch trees. The costs incurred in processing and procuring paper from the natural resources thus represent sunk costs and thus cannot be recovered. What are recovered are the investments made in procuring and producing paper products that are recovered after consumption as currency. It is therefore these sunk costs in procuring natural resources that present the greatest challenge to the economic system in going for environmental sustainability and towards thinking of the concept of sustainable development. These sunk costs are representative of one particular form of wastage – one for the economic system itself.
The economic system generates costs for society and for the environment as well as there are wastages. In looking from an economic point of view, these wastages can account for the sunk costs incurred by society and the environment. For example, the burning of fossil fuels is causing more and more greenhouse gases to accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere. If Climate Change is allowed a free reign as a result of these wastages, life on Earth shall bear sunk costs that are both societal and environmental as changes that are not recoverable. On the other hand however, if renewable sources of energy are adequately utilized, where there is much less wastage, there can be a much greater lack of sunk costs borne by society and environment on Earth.
The idea thus in the concept of sustainable development and in sustainable systems in terms of the economy is thus to reduce the wastage not just in procuring natural resources but also in reducing wastages for society and the environment. In such a scenario, there shall be less sunk costs borne in the economy as well as in the society and environment. This is a win-win for all, wherein the reduction in sunk costs and wastage can act to bring down overall costs in both aspects thus increasing equity overall, which can only be a boon to a healthy economy, to society and to the environment.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.