by
Andrew Wiechert

As global economic integration continues to dissolve classic Westphalian state barriers, countries will become increasingly dependent on each other for stability. This trend places ever expanding responsibilities upon the United Nations, its affiliated agencies, and member states to develop viable solutions capable of solving 21st century problems associated with achieving sustainable development. While the twentieth century was perhaps the most dynamic one hundred years in human history in terms of population growth, economic expansion, and technological advances, it also experienced unprecedented accounts of conflict, death, disease, famine, and resource scarcity. 

As we begin to open the doors to the next millennium, the international community must cooperate in an endeavor to improve the quality of life of the world’s growing populations while limiting the negative impact upon the environment that sustains us. By 2025, 8.5 billion people are expected to inhabit our planet with major growth projected to occur within the developing nations, mainly in urban areas. 

Population pressures place huge strains upon available resources and will continue to threaten the quality of life for present and future generations if nothing is done to develop more efficient and sustainable development patterns. Improved standards of living worldwide are possible through the cooperation of all countries to strengthen natural capacities to provide for the basic human needs.

In hopes of achieving sustainable development, the international community, through the auspices of the United Nations and its organs, organized the meeting of 178 sovereign states at Rio to discuss the negative impact of human civilization upon the environment. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in June of 1992 was successful in the adoption of Agenda 21 that focused the world’s attention on the importance of environmental protection through manageable and sustainable development. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Sustainable Development proclaimed its principle objectives as poverty eradication, environmental protection and restoration, improving quality of life, reduction and/or elimination of unsustainable practices of economic activity, and capacity building through technology, education, and social services. 

The Declaration acknowledged the responsibility of each country towards the implementation of Agenda 21 goals while reserving the sovereign rights of states within their borders. However, even though the adoption of the Rio Declaration would likely have been compromised by restricting sovereignty, the implementation of Agenda 21 goals since has been severely hindered because of the insistence on national prerogatives. Therefore, a means of monitoring the progress of such goals was needed, resulting in the establishment of the Commission on Sustainable Development in December of 1992. 

The CSD is responsible for reviewing the "progress at the international, regional, and national levels in the implementation" of Agenda 21 objectives, making recommendations to the General Assembly, as well as fostering dialogue and cooperative partnerships towards achieving sustainable development.

Quality of Life:  

The primary theme of Agenda 21 was to achieve higher standards of living by ending inefficient consumption patterns that threaten future generations’ ability to survive. Over-consumption of environmental resources today will dramatically hinder supply with respect to the growing estimates of future demand. Measuring quality of life, however, is not limited simply to efficient consumption patterns. While important, there are other areas of concern that Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration hope to work on such as poverty reduction, access to healthcare and education, and capacity building. 

Since the adoption of Agenda 21 at the 1992 Rio Conference, the number of people living in sheer poverty has dramatically increased. The United Nations 1997 Program for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 hence acknowledged the immediate importance of poverty reduction as crucial to the success of achieving sustainable development. It was determined that to realize this objective, cooperation of each nation towards improving social services in areas of education, health care, clean water, and sanitation shall be a priority for the next few years. Access to quality healthcare and educational institutions as well as access to affordable sources of energy is vital. Achieving economic efficiency through technology advances is nearly impossible to attain without a healthy and highly educated labor force. Capacity building, therefore, is essential to any country, developed or developing. 

The Nineteenth Special Session of the General Assembly in June of 1997 resolved that education is a requirement to successful development and must be accessible to women and the poor to promote productivity and reduce poverty. Chapter Six of Agenda 21 deals with the importance of health in improving development. In the next quarter century, nearly 6 billion people are expected to reside in urban areas with resulting waste generation to swell by five hundred percent. These projections place huge burdens upon developing nations to develop means to prevent potential health risks associated with urbanization. As more and more citizens migrate towards urban areas it is expected that a rise in the spread of disease will result. 

The Program for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 calls upon each country to expand its health care facilities, improve sanitation, provide safe drinking water, and "reduce indigenous cases of vaccine-preventable diseases through the promotion of widespread immunization programmes".

Efficient Use of Resources and the Environment:  

As countries become more and more economically interdependent, it becomes increasingly necessary to develop sustainable growth capabilities through resource management and environmental protection. Improving quality of life requires the adoption of programs to increase the efficiency of use of our available resources. 

According to the World Resources 2000-01 report, current patterns of inefficient resource exploitation will result in serious declines in the ability of our ecosystem to produce the necessary quantities of fresh water, timber, fuel, and food crops to sustain our habits. While industrialized countries consume the vast majority of the world’s energy and natural resources, developing nations will soon reverse this trend, for developing nations account for nearly 80 percent of the planet’s total population. In the last 150 years alone, Earth’s energy production across the globe has increased nearly 20 times while humanity has more than doubled in size. While energy is considered key to contemporary conceptions of quality of life, current growth trends of energy consumption will surpass sustainable levels if more efficient means of production and usage are not developed. 

New demands for cheap energy sources are likely to increase from less-developed countries as their populations increase placing greater strain on available resources. Oil, the most widely used source of energy, is considered at great risk for depletion. According to geologists, our consumption of oil has depleted nearly half the available supply worldwide. Future sources of energy must be environmentally sound. 

As global warming continues to threaten air quality and increase health hazards, methods must be implemented to ensure compliance of both national pollution policies and international pollution reduction treaties. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol aspired to reduce greenhouse gases of developed nations, yet even while the European Union has agreed to a 15% cut by 2012 the United States failed to sign on (possibly because it emits more than a fifth of the world’s pollution), claiming the Protocol "doesn’t commit developing nations to the same levels of reduction of global warming pollutants." 

Agenda 21 calls on each nation to develop "improved energy-efficient technologies" as well as to modernize current systems. Perhaps most vital to the health of the world’s population is the availability and protection of our freshwater sources. Freshwater is essential to limiting the spread of disease and attaining sustainable societies. The Secretary-General, in his report to the Eighth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, declared that over 1 billion people still lack access to safe water supplies. As urbanization continues to populate cities beyond their capacities, the supply of safe water will continue to dwindle. Pressure is mounting on nations to develop better water management programs to account for the new demand.

Solutions:  

While capacity building is key to improving the standard of living and achieving sustainable development, this task is nearly impossible for developing nations burdened with heavy debt payments from loans incurred while attempting to industrialize and develop. In recent years the World Bank has provided developing nations with loans for capital to fund capacity building projects in areas of education, healthcare, and poverty reduction. While economic growth has increased dramatically across the globe over the last half century raising per capita incomes and achieving price stability, the acquired debt over this time period has limited the ability of developing nations to continue to build sustainable societies, and has increased the frustrations and tensions between the North and South. 

Many leaders of the developing South are requesting forgiveness of their debt claiming that they cannot afford to build sustainable societies while burdened with huge debt payments. If the developing world is to build up its capacities efficiently while minimizing the effect upon the environment, it will become the responsibility of the international community, with emphasis on the richer industrialized countries, to assist them in this quest. Otherwise, those developing nations will rely upon unsustainable methods of development that are sure to limit their ability to establish efficient and prosperous economies that contribute to the well being of its people. 

While the goals of the Earth Summit in 1992 remain unfulfilled largely due to developing nations inability to fund Agenda 21 projects, it is doubtful that any new progress will be achieved at future conferences if debt-relief is postponed or ignored. Plans for the Rio +10 Conference in 2002 might fall apart if "new commitments for developing countries are not matched with compatible commitments on the part of developed countries". Since more than 80 percent of the world’s population live in developing countries, the developed countries will be hard pressed to ignore their concerns. If Rio +10 is to be successful, it will require substantial cooperation among the UN member states. Unfortunately, any future success of Agenda 21 goals will require a significant relinquishment of sovereignty by each country as well as a measure of international cooperation that is at best improbable.

Questions for Consideration:

1. Is debt-cancellation a viable solution to assist developing countries in their efforts to fund capacity building projects?
2. What actions might the United Nations implement to better encourage international cooperation towards achieving sustainable development?
3. Since the industrialized countries consume the vast majority of the world’s natural resources, yet compose only 20 percent of the world’s population, should the developing countries be given greater control and influence in the Commission on Sustainable Development? General Assembly?
4. Though the world has become more environmentally mutually dependent, (meaning the effects of environmental degradation within the borders of one country eventually and adversely affect the international community) individual countries still maintain absolute sovereignty in regards to compliance with international environmental treaties. Should the UN propose punishment for non-compliance?
5. Should the United Nations be responsible for overseeing compliance with General Assembly resolutions calling for sanctions against countries that fail to cooperate?