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The development dream

  • 14/10/2002

The development dream

UN’s goals for economic and social development read:  the UN wants detailed information on the status of countries’ waterbodies. If only a developing country could secure resources to maintain such meticulous records on the hundreds of rivers, estuaries, lakes and ponds...

The UN provides a ‘Manual of Environment Statistics’ to guide developing countries embarking on the development of environmental statistics.

The manual teaches goals, provides targets and gives indicators to measure success
read: success means following the path laid down. Development is
pre-defined for the developing world

by whom?

to measure success that world gives this world a set of indicators. sample some...

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Develop a global partnership for development Targets
>> Develop further an open…trading and financial system. Includes a commitment to good governance
>> To make debt sustainable in the long term
Indicator
>> Debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services
  read: opening markets to free trade of goods and free flow of investment is the way ahead for countries that desire social development
read: being indebted is essential
8. Ensure environmental sustainability Target
>> Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
Indicators
>> Ratio of area protected to maintain biological diversity to surface area
>> Proportion of population using solid fuels
  read: natural resources are for export, for conversion into currency. people should be kept off them. they are commodities to be sold for others’ consumption. not resources to be utilised sustainably by people
Who tells the UN what matters, what does not for development?
The London group: an informal groups created to address selected problems in statistical methods. it provide a forum for leading countries and international organisations to decide They do what? Measure depletion of natural resources in...monetary terms
read: what is economics, what is not?

what is measurable, what is not?

Note: All original text is quoted from the United Nations statistics department website: www.unstats.un.org

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