1HlG51J

Chapter 5. Economic Growth, Inclusive and SustainableIndustrial Development and Sustainable Consumption andProduction5.1. Introduction5.1.1. Overview of goals and development challengesin the post-2015 agendaAs the international community debates the post-2015development agenda, it is timely to reflect on whatconstitutes inclusive and sustained economic growth andsustainable development, and what are the policy toolsthat could support societies’ aspirations for sustainable andshared prosperity.The 17 SDGs and 169 targets, as submitted to the UNGeneral Assembly by the Open Working Group on SDGs 384 ,will serve as the world’s roadmap for completing the workof MDGs and implementing a transformative and universaldevelopment agenda. The SDGs are highly interdependentand offer a "three-dimensional” view of the challengesfaced by different countries on the road to sustainabledevelopment.The universality of the agenda implies that there is work tobe done by all countries, including developed countries, inputting the world economy on a sustainable developmentpath and ensuring that the outcome benefits all countriesand people. The globalization process of the past severaldecades has made countries’ economies ever moreinterdependent through channels of world trade,technology and investment and globally distributed supplychains. Thus, consumption patterns are closely linked toproduction patterns across the globe, and a shift towardssustainable patterns of consumption must proceed inparallel with a shift towards sustainable production,including sustainable industrialization. Closer internationalcooperation will be needed to make this possible.A key feature of the new goals and new agenda isrecognition of the need for countries to secure strongeconomic foundations for shared and sustainableprosperity, including productive production systems andstrong technological capabilities 385 . Another importantfeature is the treatment of sustainable consumption andproduction (SCP), both as a stand-alone goal and as a crosscutting contributor to the attainment of other goals. A shifttowards SCP will result in reduced environmental impactsdue to more efficient energy and resource consumption,reduced waste and increased materials recycling and reuse.China stands out as the clearest example in recent decades– but not the only one – of how industrial transformation ofan economy can help raise people out of poverty andsustain improvements in living standards over time.Following in the footsteps of an earlier generation of rapidindustrializers like the Republic of Korea, China has becomethe “archetypal test case for understanding the effects ofcontemporary industrialization on socialtransformation”. 386Rapid industrialization also often entails sizeableenvironmental health costs with which countries have hadto cope.Today’s would-be industrialising economies face a numberof challenges. Studies of economic growth and productivityadvance point to the unique contribution of themanufacturing sector to productivity catch-up in theprocess of development 387 . Yet, some research 388389suggests that in the recent past developing countries havebeen reaching lower peak shares of manufacturing in totalemployment and GDP and at lower levels of per capitaincome than historically experienced by earlyindustrializers. Given manufacturing’s role as driver ofproductivity growth and productive employer of surpluslabour from agriculture, this finding raises concerns fortoday’s would-be late industrializers, including Africancountries that have put this high in their developmentagenda. Coupled with this, manufacturing growth is nolonger automatically synonymous with decent job growth.A better understanding is needed of what explains theseresults: whether they reflect structural shifts in the globaleconomy and/or fundamental technological shifts that areunlikely to be reversed. For example, how far is informationtechnology-enabled automation dimming the futureprospects for strong manufacturing employment growth,especially of relatively low-skilled labor?Perhaps the most important new challenge facing today’sindustrializers is the growing global urgency of climatechange and the need to devise less energy-intensive andlow-carbon industrial development paths, which fewcountries have managed to do historically. Thus there arefew good models to follow and more innovative solutionsare needed.87