burden of deforestation, desertification, erosion of ... - Social Watch

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them. Initially this was a wide-based expression of discontent with the high cost of living, the power cuts and a range of other issues including the erosion of democratic values and the general deterioration of the people’s conditions of life. The movement subsequently diversified into different groups and there were anti-Government marches headed by imams and priests in 2009, protests by the youth movement “Y’ en a marre” (We are fed up) led by hip hop musicians, and action by workers associations and other social groups that held mass meetings and staged hunger strikes outside the railings of the Presidential palace. The environmental challenge Senegal has structural problems that go hand in hand with the unsustainable development of the cities. Sewage services are still inadequate even though a lot of money has been spent on public cleanliness (which has led to a common joke “there is gold in this waste”). But there are other problems besides public hygiene such as deforestation, and erosion on the coast that is threatening whole communities. The problem of flooding has got worse and it is aggravated by a lack of precautionary planning and the fact that assistance initiatives are weak or non-existent. All parts of the country are under threat, a total of 521,968 5 people have been affected in different ways by floods and lives have been lost in various places like Kolda in the south and Kaffrine in the east. Just in the northern region of Saint Louis some 5,661 families were driven from their homes and 4,354 latrines were destroyed, which caused a serious health hazard for the local population. Agricultural production was also hit as thousands of hectares of farmland that had already been sown were inundated. This distressing situation is further complicated by the fact that there is a chronic lack of infrastructure in rural areas, which is why civil society organizations are pressing for investment in highways in country areas, stimulus packages to bolster the rural economy in peripheral regions and measures to accelerate Senegal’s connections with neighbouring countries. A discouraging panorama There has been a certain amount of progress towards goals like restoring natural resources and land, helping biodiversity to recover in some areas, managing transboundary resources in a better way and the fight against pollution, so the country seems to be on the right track at least as regards reversing 5 Data from the Senegalese Red Cross. INTENSE DEFORESTATION: AN ECOLOGICAL TIME BOMB The forests in the south of the country are disappearing very fast and this is going on completely unchecked. In a report by the Commission of the Kandion Mangana Rural Council entitled “The environmental time bomb”, the destruction of vegetation in the area is described as “actual extermination”. This attack on the flora throughout the northern strip of the Casamance region has been going on for decades, it is particularly severe in the department (province) of Bignona, and it has intensified since 2005. The main reason for this devastation is the disruption caused by an ongoing conflict with the Casamance Democratic Forces Movement (MFDC), a guerrilla group that for more than thirty years has been demanding independence for this part of southern Senegal. The deforestation process in this area involves vegetation being burned off indiscriminately, and one of the consequences of this is increased emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming and climate change. There are other factors involved in the degradation of these forests: land is being cleared so it can be planted with crops, vegetal coal is being extracted to meet the population’s fuel requirements and wood is being taken for the construction industry, which is a direct threat to noble species that are mostly slow-growth ligneous hardwoods. To put a brake on this ongoing deforestation a whole series of measures will have to be taken. The Government will have to restore forests that have been degraded, evaluate forestation programmes and implement the appropriate strategies, research and adopt sustainable resource management practices, protect existing forests (mainly by stopping people from burning off vegetation), promote the use of alternative sources of energy, protect the soils, and impose stricter controls on forest exploitation as part of a policy to regenerate and protect certain species of flora. the degradation of the environment. Another good point is that it has a national strategy for adapting to climate change. However, one area where there are serious problems is health. For example, investment in this sector is distributed in a most unequal way with a far greater proportion of the funds available going to the cities than to rural areas, particularly when it comes to setting up and maintaining health centres and maternity units. Far more finance goes to regional and national hospitals and specialized health organizations than to basic services that cater to the poorer sectors of the population. The Government’s official line is that its main priority is to provide basic health care services, but this is not borne out by the facts. Another problem is that there are not enough trained health care workers, particularly in country areas. This means some sectors find it far more difficult to access health case, and it is no surprise that the rural population is most disadvantaged in this respect. More than half of all trained health personnel are concentrated in just two regions, Dakar and Thies, which have 52% of Senegal’s doctors, 69% of the midwives and 31% of the nurses. Social Watch 165 Senegal The fight against HIV/AIDS is going well among the people as a whole but there are certain regions and population groups (sexual workers, long distance truck drivers) that still have rates above 7%. The proportion of births attended by trained health care personnel is low, and even though a great effort has been made to improve the situation, in 2009 coverage was only 66.9%. It is no surprise that maternal and infant mortality rates are still relatively high in the context of the goals that have been set for 2015. In contrast to health, education is one of the sectors that has benefited from a rather generous allocation in the budget. But in spite of this, academic results are still poor compared to the average for Africa. This is mainly due to low school enrolment rates. At the pre-school level, for example, coverage is only 3 to 4% in some parts of the country and the national average is only 9.8%. There are other problems too: the drop-out rate in secondary education is high, there are too few science teachers, and technical education and vocational training are very underdeveloped. n
serBia Laws and strategies await implementation Association Technology and Society Mirjana Dokmanovic, PhD Danica Drakulic, PhD Due to economic collapse during the 1990s, most needed environmental investments to prevent pollution in Serbia and build infrastructure for sanitation and water were not undertaken. 1 In recent years the country has made progress in developing formal policies and laying the legal groundwork for environmental management, mainly by harmonizing legislation with the acquis communitaire (the accumulated legislation, legal acts and court decisions that constitute the body of EU law). 2 The National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) for the period 2009–2017 was developed with the participation of civil society organizations and adopted in May 2008. 3 The NSDS is based on three key factors of sustainable development: sustainable economic development, sustainable social development and environmental protection with rational utilization of natural resources. This strategic document has identified the following key environmental problems in Serbia: 1. Water pollution: this is the main environmental issue in the country. Only 63% of the population has access to public water supplies, while only 35% is connected to a public sewage system. The quality of drinking water is generally unsatisfactory. Only half the population is supplied with drinking water from controlled water supply systems. Water controls show that in central Serbia more than 40% of samples were contaminated with bacteria, while in Vojvodina, an autonomous province, the main problem is chemical pollution. 4 The majority of industrial sites and major towns do not have wastewater treatment plants. Due to this fact, 44,000 tons of toxic agents are deposited into lakes and rivers an- 1 D. Slunge, A.Ekbom and E. Dahlberg, Serbia Environmental and Climate Impact Analysis, (Goterborg: School of Economics and Commercial Law, 2008). 2 Government of Serbia, National Sustainable Development Strategy, (Belgrade: 2008). 3 Official Gazette of RS, No. 57/08. 4 Slunge et al., op. cit., p. 2. Vojvodina is an autonomous province in Serbia. The country’s severe environmental problems constitute key challenges for sustainable development and poverty reduction. In recent years a new legal and policy framework for environmental management has been put in place. However its effective implementation remains a serious concern. A National Sustainable Development Strategy, developed with the participation of civil society organizations, has been adopted but achieving the goals means that Serbia must invest more of its GNP into protecting the environment. Success in addressing the key challenges in this area depends on building capacity for implementation, monitoring and enforcement, raising awareness and securing political support for environmental management. Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) BCI = 98 100 95 Births attended 0 National reports 166 Social Watch Children reaching 5th grade 100 100 Surviving under-5 nually. 5 Serbia is the main polluter of the Danube, while the Danube-Tisa-Danube channel is the most polluted area in Europe. 6 2. Air pollution: the main producers of air pollution are facilities for energy generation and industrial plants with deficient air-cleaning technology. Public electricity and heat production emit around 345,000 tons of SO 2 per year, which corresponds to 98% of total SO 2 emissions. 7 Air is polluted in all the major cities, mainly due to transport as leaded petrol is still in use. 3. Inadequate waste management: while energy efficiency in manufacturing is one third of the world average, waste production is extremely high and waste recycling and safe handling is poor. Only 60% of municipal waste is collected (2.2 million tons per year). Waste disposal sites generally do not meet technical requirements. There are 3,251 illegal dumpsites, mostly in rural areas. 8 There are no reliable data on the unsafe waste produced by manufacturing, and there are no treatment plans or disposal sites for this type of waste. 4. Soil degradation: agricultural land covers 60% of central Serbia and 82% of Vojvodina. Soil quality is affected by the use of polluted water for 5 Ministry of Environmental Protection website, (2011), . 6 Government of Serbia, Sustainable Development Strategy Is One of the Preconditions for Serbia Entering the EU, (Belgrade: 5 December 2007), . 7 Slunge et al., op. cit., p. 2. 8 Government of Serbia, “Chapter 27: Environment” in Responses to the European Commission Questionnaire, (Belgrade: 2011), p. 150, . Gender Equity Index (GEI) IEG = 75 99 99 98 Education Empowerment Economic activity irrigation, by chemical pollution from industrial plants, by dumping of waste and by erosion. 5. Unsustainable forest management: forests cover 27% of the country’s territory. However woodland growth and quality are threatened by overharvesting, illegal logging and poor management. The links between the environment and public health A study by the World Health Organization (WHO), which looked at people’s exposure to environmental factors and the national statistic data published in 2007, estimates that 27% of the population of the country is affected by illnesses caused by environmental factors. 9 Taking this into account, as well as the fact that children are the population group most sensitive to negative environmental influences on health, the Government adopted the Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan on 1 October 2009. Its main priorities are increasing access to safe drinking water in rural areas, increasing access to adequate sanitation, reducing traffic injuries, reducing air pollution, reducing the exposure of children to tobacco smoke and stopping and subsequently prohibiting the use of leaded petrol. The Roma and the internally displaced are particularly exposed to environmental risks due to lack of adequate housing and access to safe drinking water. In addition, land degradation contributes to rural poverty. The first and second Progress Reports on the implementation of the poverty reduction strategy concluded that: “investments in water supply facilities, wastewater treatment plants 9 Ibid., p. 92. 100 0 51 100 75 100
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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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diversified manner and underscored
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was re-opened shortly afterwards wi
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waste water is often polluted by hu
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“Europe is alone with its unilate
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into the atmosphere, with emissions
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The Kyoto Protocol includes an anti
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However, the Government has not tak
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One egregious example is the offici
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The grim face of militarized develo
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Cooperation Agency study stated dur
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Unemployment According to a 2009 st
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and experience their status in the
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vere reduction in productivity in t
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However, discussions about reform d
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harmful impact on the environment.
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FIGURE 1 Unemployment in Croatia me
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the Ministry of Education and Cultu
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have been more women in the judicia
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liable to arbitrary detention and c
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companies acquired State concession
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Taking a broad view, even though in
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a government which does not hesitat
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Indigenous peoples’ rights A conf
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WORLD LEVEL COMMITMENTS The world h
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Page 144 and 145: In terms of development cooperation
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Page 152 and 153: ment protection agency. There have
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Page 174 and 175: is almost twice that of Latin Ameri
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Page 182 and 183: and environmental hotspot clean-up
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Page 186 and 187: try. Research has shown that this m
Page 188 and 189: eflected in Parliament by the progr
Page 190 and 191: ASIA’S LONGEST CIVIL WAR The Sri
Page 192 and 193: TABLE 1 Summary of general educatio
Page 194 and 195: Agriculture and food security Chall
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