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(including affiliated agencies and the leading international NGOs like Oxfam, Care, Save the Children,etc.) in the above areas are all the more important since they represent one of the very rare successfulexamples of globalization of world politics based on consensus while their reach as well their results aretruly global. Aims of such programs are basically easy to comprehend, transparent and specific. Theyare politically neutral and generally hardly loaded with conditionality as <strong>for</strong> instance the WB or the IMFprograms. They are usually perceived by the targeted population as humanitarian.Of course, taking into account the scale and complexity of problems facing such programmes itcomes as no surprise that their majority have never been implemented in full, although their influenceon the well being of population of developing countries is truly impressive.Development of poverty and the other associated negative processes in the modern world follows aquite primitive scheme – at the initial stage – demographic pressure + lagging behind the developedcountries economically + adoption of defective economic policies = current stage – mass poverty +starvation + illiteracy + cultural underdevelopment + economic underdevelopment trans<strong>for</strong>ms intodevelopment gap + [often especially in Africa, domestic and external conflicts, total dysfunction ofgovernment]. Such process is factually cyclic, since all factors mentioned above “feed” and exacerbateeach other. For countries which find themselves inside such circle is extremely difficult to break it and inthe end this is possible only by mobilization of domestic resources and their own ef<strong>for</strong>ts. Foreignassistance in this case may play only support role.4.2. Global Environmental Problem. At the beginning of 21-th century global human-naturerelations have manifestly reached a stage when group of leading scientists, politicians andbusinessmen felt confident to say that some time by 2015 the mankind would reach the point of noreturn as regards global warming. 33 Obviously these relations have never been pretty harmonious andtheir disruptions had led to perishing of many ancient civilisations and even today are putting to thebrink of collapse a number of sub-Saharan countries. On the other hand this is the first time when theyare perceived as directly endangering well-being and the very existence of the human civilisation.Factually one may come to conclusion that distorted human-nature relations has led to theemergence of global environmental problem, which as many think may potentially affect our civilisationas threat of global nuclear war affected and continues to affect it. I.e. we witness emergence of onemore factor that may unite the mankind based on fear.On the other hand, nuclear threat, despite being quite real, did not lead to appropriate corrections inglobal political relations. Today it’s as actual (may be even more so) as it was during the cold war, evenis not generally regarded as such. Still the emergence and solution of this problem depends on humansociety and can be controlled by it. As to the global environmental problem, the human society is ableto control only that part of human-nature interaction processes, which take place within the societyproper. As soon as these processes emerge into the natural environment they factually evade anydirect control. This means that global environmental problem may in the end prove to be even moredifficult to tackle than any other properly societal problems.Still from the practical standpoint, human-nature relations do not create new problems, they justmake evident (although in a pretty distorted <strong>for</strong>m) problems already existing in human society. In thevast majority of cases, the chain of events starts within human society, triggered by problems of societaldevelopment (economic, social, etc.). These problems may then be imposed on nature, eitheraccidentally or deliberately, causing changes there. Afterwards, this chain of events causes feedbackeffects on society, presenting what resembles an absolutely new set of problems that are perceived asenvironmental ones. Any such problem may fade from sight <strong>for</strong> a time being, to emerge later rathershape shifted, exaggerated, far from the place of inception, to fall on heads of people who did notcreate it in the first place. Only results of relatively small scale local processes usually offset well-beingof people who initiated them (<strong>for</strong> instance, farmer felling trees on the steep slope directly above hishouse), while initiators of large-scale processes (<strong>for</strong> instance shareholders of companies loggingtropical <strong>for</strong>ests) usually turn-up with nice profits.Even in case of unavoidable disastrous natural phenomena, perceived as acts of God, like earthquakesor hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. part of the chain of events still begins within the human society.These are social-economic factors that determine why people are located in harm’s way in the firstplace, what they know about a potential hazard and how well they are prepared to deal with it. Althoughthe actual share of societal factors in problems caused by the adverse natural phenomena naturallyvaries to a great degree. It was <strong>for</strong> instance almost overwhelming in case of hurricane Katrina in 2005,while much less in case of catastrophic tsunami in Southern Asia in 2004.33 MEETING THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE, RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CLIMATECHANGE TASKFORCE, JANUARY 2005 by The Institute <strong>for</strong> Public Policy Research (UK), The <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong> AmericanProgress, The Australia Institute. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=306503143

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