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TABLE 1 Trends in Forest Cover in Ghana 1990-2005 year Forest Cover (Hectares) Rate of Deforestation 1990 7,448,000 - 2000 6,094,000 -18.2% 2005 5,517,000 -9.5% Annual Average -1.8% Source : Rainforest Alliance, 2006/FAO respectively” in all agro-ecological zones except for the rainforest zone where rainfall may increase. Available data also shows a sea-level rise of 2.1mm per year over the last 30 years, indicating a rise of 5.8cm, 16.5cm and 34.5cm by 2020, 2050 and 2080 respectively. 5 While 23% of the urban population and 51.6% of the rural population still live below the poverty line, 6 it should be noted that data from the 2008 Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) shows that the number of extremely poor declined by 8.6 percentage points from 26.8% in 1998-99 to 18.2% in 2005- 06. 7 However, given the country’s high dependence on agriculture and forestry, changing climate conditions have serious implications for the standard of living of women and men in those communities and could reverse that trend. There is already evidence that vital economic resources – the coastal zone, agriculture, and water – have been affected by climate change with adverse implications for women’s rights, poverty, health and livelihoods. Those who live in communities with high poverty levels will be most negatively affected. In the northern parts of the country, flooding in 2007 showed that the impact of climate change on development efforts is overwhelming. An estimated 317,000 persons were affected; 1,000 kilometres of roads were destroyed; 210 schools and health facilities were damaged; and 630 drinking water facilities were damaged or contaminated. Since then, weather variability has continued to affect different societal groups and geographical locations, inhibiting efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were incorporated into Ghana’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS 1-2003-2005 and GPRS 11-2006-2009), but the impact of climate change already makes clear that Millennium Development Goal 7 (MDG-7) – en- 5 LWF Youth Blog, Youth challenge leaders on climate change at UN, (September 2007), . 10 The rural areas in the three northern regions in Ghana are far behind the target for access to basic sanitation. See: National Development Planning Commission, Ghana Millennium Development Goals 2007, (UNDP, 2007).
guatemala Knocking on environmental death’s doors Coordinación de ONG y Cooperativas de Guatemala CONGCOOP Norayda Ponce Sosa Helmer Velásquez Since the early 16 th century, when it was conquered by Spain, Guatemala’s economy has been based in agriculture and the intensive exploitation of the land by large estates through mono-cultivation for export and by small farms where peasants engage in subsistence and infra-subsistence production. In the last decade a new threat to the country’s resources and biodiversity has emerged with the granting of licenses by the State to enterprises that prospect for minerals in most of the country. The exploitation of iron and gold deposits has spread chemicals such as cyanide, used in the gold industry, that cause irreparable damage to the country’s water sources. These industries also consume large quantities of water, putting local communities’ access to this resource in peril. The power that these large enterprises have acquired stands in sharp contrast to shaky public institutions unable to control the industry’s activities and promote an alternative model of sustainability. Present development models in Guatemala involve no long- term planning, have put the environment at risk and have plunged approximately half the country’s population into poverty. In rural areas, 72% of the people live in poverty and 40%, in extreme poverty, while in indigenous communities 55% suffer extreme poverty. 1 The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food, responsible for regulating and managing the environment, natural resources and agriculture, lack adequate financing and have little political weight in State decisions. In fact, the Government has almost no capacity to plan or control the agricultural or environmental sectors though these are the sectors on which Guatemala’s economic, social and environmental sustainability largely depends. According to a Government report, Guatemala is “damaged socially and environmentally, and the main evidence of this is an increasingly serious breakdown of social 1 Plataforma Agraria, Propuestas políticas, (Guatemala: July 2008), . Historically, the Guatemalan economy has been structured around an extraction-led growth model. The result has been the impoverishment of the rural population and the degradation of the environment. The sugar cane industry, for example, has deepened deforestation which has led to the displacement of entire communities whose rights have been simply brushed aside by businesses in pursuit of profit and a State to timid to regulate them. Successive governments have evaded their responsibility to create institutions that protect the environment and meet people’s needs. Civil society organizations must demand a greater share in decision-making and must urge the Government to abandon this exploitative and destructive economic model in favour of sustainable development. Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) BCI = 80 Births attended 100 GEI = 49 100 Children reaching 70 5th grade National reports 118 Social Watch 96 89 Surviving under-5 Education structures caused by the marginalization of large sectors of the population. This grim panorama makes the direct connection between the environment and poverty all too clear. The rural population is poorer now than in the past, when it had access to the fruits of nature.” 2 Unsustainability and the environment The sugar cane industry, which devastates and flattens forests so the land can be planted with sugar cane, is just one example of how unsustainable the current model is. Based on the economic and political power of the big landowners, this industry has even managed to change the course of rivers so the water will be diverted to nourish their crops. The environmental result has been more frequent flooding in the winter and more droughts in the summer. Extensive sugar cane cultivation also causes higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions. “As part of the industrial process around 90-95% of the cane grown on more than 200,000 hectares is burned. Each hectare put to the torch releases 50 kilos of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds up to around 9,000 tonnes of this gas per year.” 3 Agriculture and the more recent extractive industries have exploited the forests without any serious effort at re-forestation, using the wood not only for construction but also as a fuel resource. As a result, the country’s native forests have been all but annihilated. The deforestation rate is around 82,000 ha per year. If exploitation continues at this level, all 2 Informe Ambiental Gobierno MARN. 3 Ibid. 0 51 100 100 Gender Equity Index (GEI) 6 0 Empowerment 50 100 100 Economic activity the country’s native forests will have been wiped out by 2040. 4 A very vulnerable land The country is prone to earthquakes and violent storms owing to seismic activity along the Pacific Rim and its location on the Atlantic Ocean hurricane route. Moreover, a dry corridor runs across the central part of the country which is subject to drought and desertification. Climate change has intensified and worsened the effects of storms and drought. 5 In 2010, Tropical Storm Agatha and the eruption of the Pacaya Volcano caused hundreds of deaths and approximately USD 950 million in material damage. Rural populations proved to be particularly vulnerable. The Government’s lack of planning and long term vision and the unregulated exploitation of the environment creates a vicious circle in which each disaster leaves the country with serious problems which the next disaster only aggravates. Sustainable development and rural development The Guatemalan peasantry - often victims of government repression during the country’s 36-year-long armed inner conflict and its aftermath – have more recently been negatively affected by structural adjustment measures and a newly implemented free trade regime. On 30 April 2008 after a consultation process, the Alliance for Integrated Rural Development, made up of indigenous, peasant, environmentalist, trade 4 G. Palma, A. Taracena, E. Baumaister, Cambios en la tenencia de la tierra: tendencias históricas, (Guatemala: UNDP, 2004). 5 Informe Ambiental Gobierno MARN, op cit.
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SOCIAL WATCH R E P O R T 2 0 1 2 SU
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SOCIAL WATCH REPORT 2012 The right
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Social Watch in the world SW Nation
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• GUATEMALA: CONGCOOP - Coordinac
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Española de la Educación; Movimie
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Social Watch: promoting accountabil
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Global Assembly The Global Assembly
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Table of contents The right to a fu
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The right to a future An overview o
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has similarly led to population dis
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In the current international trade
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Rio+20 and beyond: no future withou
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ated into many other international
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• Emphasizing progressive taxatio
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A compensation scheme to pay off cl
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Rio+20: implementation is the key A
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Sustainable development and a renew
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policies that have only exacerbated
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neoliberal model, it gained even mo
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Thus, the advances of the sustainab
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Networking cities that use new indi
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Green and equal: financing for sust
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fROM AID EffECTIvENESS TO TAx jUSTI
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casions, often reaching agreement.
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The indignados are asking the right
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Green jobs but no justice From the
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Human right to adequate housing and
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have its most negative impacts and
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BASIC CAPABILITIES INDEx 2011 The b
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TeChnICal noTes 1 The following are
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surviving under-5 Birth atended Chi
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education malawi 89 57 32 59 malays
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Achievement Possibility Frontiers (
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promoTIng eConomIC and soCIal rIghT
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Core Country serf Index Country Cor
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From the grassroots: NATIONAL REPOR
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Education and gender equality Accor
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- have gradually put sustainable de
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FIGURE 1 GDP - Real growth rate (%)
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Page 144 and 145: In terms of development cooperation
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and environmental hotspot clean-up
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the employer is not obliged to pay
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try. Research has shown that this m
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eflected in Parliament by the progr
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ASIA’S LONGEST CIVIL WAR The Sri
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TABLE 1 Summary of general educatio
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Agriculture and food security Chall
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damage and destruction to the fishi
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FIGURE 1 Increase in after-tax inco
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which unemployment decreased, since
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emissions. It is important that emi
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3%, is due not only to its small si
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The national biomass (above and bel
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