Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English)

30 | IAASTD Global Report
ture droughts but also the degree of inequality in the region
(Basu, 1986).
These sometimes desperate tradeoffs between different
components of the resource endowment illustrate why simple
or short-term definitions of poverty, hunger and food security
provide an incomplete understanding of household’s
livelihood strategies. They have important implications for
economic sustainability, which we will explore in the next
subchapter. They also have important implications for environmental
sustainability and social equity.
Economic dimensions of sustainability
Sustainability, like food security, has been defined in many
ways. The Brundtland Commission (WCED, 1987) defined
sustainable development as “development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.” But even such
an intuitively appealing definition raises difficult operational
questions regarding both needs and ability (Serageldin,
1996). Abilities depend on the resources that individuals and
households have at their disposal, and the ways in which
they can be combined and exchanged to produce goods and
services that they desire.
Sustainability can, in turn, be understood in terms of
maintaining or increasing a household’s ability to produce
desired goods and services—which may or may not involve
maintaining or increasing the level of each particular component
of the household’s resource endowment. A very narrow
interpretation of sustainability involves maintaining
each component of the resource endowment at its current
level or higher. In its strictest sense this would mean that
non-renewable resources could not be used at all, and that
renewable resources could be used only at rates less than or
equal to their growth rates. Such a requirement would preclude
extraction of oil to improve human capital, for example
by investing in education for girls (Serageldin, 1996). A
broader interpretation of sustainability by contrast, involves
maintaining the total stock of capital at its present level or
higher, regardless of the mix of different types of capital.
This would require the unrealistic assumption that different
types of capital can be substituted completely for one
another, and that complete depletion of one type is acceptable
as long as it is offset by a sufficient increase in another.
An intermediate alternative involves maintaining the total
stock of capital, but recognizing that there may be critical
levels of different types of capital, below which society’s (or
an individual’s, or a household’s) ability to produce desired
goods and services is threatened.
Measuring the different forms of capital poses considerable
challenges, and these in turn complicate assessments
of sustainability. In an effort to improve such assessments,
the World Bank (1997) sought to adjust national accounts
and savings rates for investment in and depletion of natural
and other forms of capital not traditionally included in
those accounts. Accounting for changes in natural capital
and human resources, they found that high-income OECD
countries have had “genuine savings rates” of around 10%
per year over the past several decades—less than traditional
measures of investment, but still positive (and thus sustainable,
at least in the broad sense). Asia and Latin America
have also had positive genuine savings rates, most notably
in East Asia (with rates approaching 20% per year). Sub-
Saharan Africa and the Middle East/North Africa, on the
other hand, have consistently had negative genuine savings
rates of -5 to -10% per year (World Bank, 1997). Such patterns
and concerns continue today.
The World Bank’s measure of adjusted net savings currently
begins with gross savings, adds expenditures on education,
and subtracts measures of consumption or depletion
of fixed (i.e., produced) capital, energy, minerals, forest
products and damages from carbon dioxide and particulate
emissions. In contrast to gross savings of 27.5% of GNI in
developing countries and 19.4% in high-income countries
in 2004, adjusted net savings after accounting for selected
changes in human, physical, and natural capital were 9.4 and
8.7% in the two regions, respectively. Adjusted net savings
were highest in East Asia and the Pacific (23.9% of GNI)
and lowest in sub-Saharan Africa (-2.0%) and the Middle
East and North Africa (-6.2%) (World Bank, 2006c). These
findings reinforce concerns about sustainability by any of
the measures described above. Similarly, the recent growth
in crops, livestock, and aquaculture production has come
at the expense of declines in the status of most other provisioning,
regulating and cultural services of ecosystems (MA,
2005a).
1.3.2 Hunger, nutrition and human health
Some key characteristics of hunger, nutrition and human
health are related to working conditions in agriculture and
the effects of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods. Health is fundamental
to live a productive life, to meet basic needs and to
contribute to community life. Good health offers individuals
wider choices in how to live their lives. It is an enabling
condition for the development of human potential. Societies
at different stages of development exhibit distinct epidemiological
profiles. Poverty, malnutrition and infectious disease
take a terrible toll among the most vulnerable members of
society. Good nutrition, as a major component of health,
has much to contribute to poverty reduction and improved
livelihoods.
Health
Health has been defined as “a state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1946). It is an enabling condition
for the development of human potential. The components
of health are multiple and their interactions complex.
The health of an individual is strongly influenced by genetic
makeup, nutritional status, access to health care, socioeconomic
status, relationships with family members, participation
in community life, personal habits and lifestyle choices.
The environment—whether natural, climatic, physical, social
or at the workplace—can also play a major role in determining
the health of individuals.
The health profile of a society can be framed in terms
of both measurable aspects—for example, access to clean
water, safe and nutritious food, improved sanitation, basic
health care, and education; mortality and morbidity rates
for various segments of the population; the incidence of
disease and disability; the distribution of wealth across the
population—as well as factors that are less easily quantifiable.
Among these are issues of equity or discrimination as