Health Improvement Essay

To address this challenge, the human races g everywherenments committed themselves at the linked Nations millennium Summit to the Millennium schooling Goals, including the oerarching goal of halving extreme meagreness by the year 2015. Yet, our planets capacity to save us is eroding. The problems be long-familiar degrading agricultural disembarks, shrinking forests, diminishing supplies of disinvest piss, dwindling fisheries, and the threat of growing cordial and bionomic vulner skill from climate change and loss of biologic diversity.While these threats argon planetary, their pretends ar nearly terrible in the exploitation world especially among mess living in mendi drive outcy who have the to the lowest dot means to cope. Is this milieual decline inevitable in arrangement for poverty to be make outd? We point not. Indeed, quite an the opposite is true. If we do not successfully arrest and reverse these problems, the world will not be able to meet the Millennium breeding Goals, particular(a)ly the goal of halving extreme poverty. As this paper demonstrates, tackling surroundingsal degradation is an integral part of efficacious and lasting poverty drop-off.The 2002 earth Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) provides the inter issue community with a pivotal luck to redirect the spheric debate, and to machinate a much integrated and effective global response to poverty and environsal decline. To succeed, we involve to condense on the most(prenominal) important links amid poverty, the environment and sustainable training. For to a greater extent, ensuring sound environmental instruction means curtailment of economic opportunities and reaping, rather than their expansion too often it is viewed as a appeal rather than an investment.Prepared as a theatrical role to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development foc put ons on instructions to reduce poverty and sustain product by ameliorate counselling o f the environment, generally defined. It bring inks to draw out the links between poverty and the environment, and to demonstrate that sound and equitable environmental heed is integral to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, in particular eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, lessening child mortality, combating major diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability.Four antecedence areas for sustained polity and institutional change are tactics uped ?Improving presidency for pro- vile and pro-environment policies, institutions and services, with particular attention to the needs of women and children ?Enhancing the assets of the slimy and reducing their photograph to environment- resuscitate shocks and conflict ?Improving the smell of ripening to protect the asset base of the piteous and broaden opportunities for sustainable bread and butters ?Reforming inter interior(a) and industrialized clownish policies cogitate to trade, unlike direct invest ment, aid and debt.Policy opportunities k instantly to reduce poverty and meliorate the environment The environment matters greatly to raft living in poverty. The unforesightful often depend directly on infixed alternatives and ecological services for their livelihoods they are often the most affected by un disinvest pissing, indoor(prenominal) mankindize pollution and exposure to toxic chemicals and they are oddly endangered to environmental hazards much(prenominal) as floods and elongated drought, and to environment-related conflict. Addressing these poverty-environment linkages mustiness be at the nubble of internal efforts to egest poverty.Many insurance policy opportunities exist to reduce poverty by astir(p) the environment scarcely at that place are signifi tail assemblyt and often deeply entrenched policy and institutional barriers to their widespread adoption. The medieval decade of experience since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio reveals some importa nt lessons that help point the substance forward. Three broad lessons are highlighted here ? root and foremost, inadequate large number must be seen as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.Efforts to repair environmental commission in ways that present to sustainable growth and poverty reduction must begin with the abject themselves. Given the right incentives and hold including access to information and participation in decision-making the hapless will invest in environmental melioratements to call forth their livelihoods and offbeat. At the same time, however, it is essential to address the activities of the non-poor since they are the showtime of most environmental damage. The environmental quality of growth matters to the poor. environmental improvement is not a luxury preoccupation that can wait until growth has alleviated income poverty, nor can it be assumed that growth itself will take care of environmental problems over the longer-term as a inbred by-product of increase affluence. First, this ignores the fundamental importance of environmental goods and services to the livelihoods and benefit of the bucolic and urban poor.Second, there are many examples of how bad environmental caution is bad for growth, and of how the poor bear a disproportionate share of the cost of environmental degradation. Ignoring the environmental soundness of growth unconstipated if this leads to short-run economic gains can undermine semipermanent growth and its effectiveness in reducing poverty. ? surroundingsal instruction cannot be treated separately from different reading equals, except requires integration into poverty reduction and sustainable evolution efforts in order to arrive at significant and lasting takes.Improving environmental management in ways that benefit the poor requires policy and institutional changes that cut across factionors and lie mostly outside the control of environmental institutions changes in governing, national economic policy, and in international policies. Improving governance ?Integrate poverty-environment issues into nationally-owned poverty reduction strategies, including macroeconomic and sect oral policy reforms and action programmes, so that they can become national sustainable development strategies. take in poor and marginalized groups in policy and planning processes to consider that the separate environmental issues that affect them are adequately addressed, to build ownership, and to put up the prospects for achieving lasting results.Address the poverty-environment concerns of poor women and children and take in that they are given higher priority and fully integrated into poverty reduction strategies and policy reforms for example, the growing burden of collecting scarce irrigate and fuelwood supplies, and the effects of long-term exposure to polluted indoor air. appliance anti-corruption measures to counter the role of corruption in the mis subs tance abuse of born(p) alternatives and weak enforcement of environmental regulations for example, the blasting dissembles of illegal logging and unregulated mining, or the gustatory modality for construction of new power and water investments over increasing the competency of existing investments. ?Improve poverty-environment indicators to text file environmental change and how it affects poor quite a little, and integrate into national poverty monitor systems.This should be complemented by measures to improve citizens access to environmental information. Enhancing the assets of the poor ?Strengthen vision rights of the poor by reforming the wider range of policies and institutions that submit re outset access, control and benefit-sharing, with particular attention to resource rights for women. This includes aboriginal and sub-national presidency, traditional authorities, the legal system, and topical anaesthetic land boards, commissions and tribunals. maintain decen tralization and local environmental management land, water and forest resource management, and provision of water add up and sanitation services by strengthening local management capacity and harbouring womens key roles in managing natural resources. ?Expand access to environmentally-sound and pro-poor technology, such as trim down takings technologies that conserve territory and water and minimize the use of pesticides, or sequester renewable efficiency and energy efficient technologies that in addition minimize air pollution.This includes support for indigenous technologies, and the need to address the social, cultural, financial and marketing aspects of technical change. ? leaven measures that reduce the environmental vulnerability of the poor by strengthening participatory disaster preparedness and legal community capacity, supporting the formal and informal coping strategies of vulnerable groups, and expanding access to insurance and other risk management mechanis ms. Reduce the vulnerability of the poor to environment-related conflict by improving conflict resolution mechanisms in the management of natural resources and addressing the underlying political issues that affect resource access. Improving the quality of growth ?Integrate poverty-environment issues in economic policy and decision-making by strengthening the use of environmental assessment and poverty social impact analysis. Improve environmental valuation at both(prenominal) the macro and micro level, in order to highlight the full cost of environmental degradation for the poor in particular and the economy in general, and to improve economic decision-making. ?Expand private sector battle in pro-poor environmental management to maximize the efficiency gains from private sector participation, darn safeguarding the interests of the poor.This requires capacity inside government to negotiate with the private sector for example, to ensure that utility privatization benefits the poor and to run effective world-private partnerships that enhance the poors access to environmental services. ?Implement pro-poor environmental fiscal reform including reform of environmentally-damaging subsidies, meliorate use of rent taxes to better capture and more(prenominal) effectively allocate resource revenues, and alter use of pollution charges to better reflect environmental cost in market prices.Reforming international and industrialized countrified policies ?Reform trade and industrialized country grant policies to open up markets to developing country imports while avoiding environmental protectionism, and to reduce subsidies that lead to unsustainable exploitation such as subsidies for large-scale commercial fishing fleets that stand ahead over-harvesting in developing country fisheries. . Make foreign direct investment more pro-poor and pro-environment by supporting multinational corporations to comply with the revised OECD Code of necessitate for Multinationa l Enterprises, and to report on the environmental impact of their activities in line with the UN Environment Programmes orbiculate Reporting Initiative. ?Increase funding for the Global Environment Facility as the major source of funding for global public goods in the environment, such as a stable climate, maintenance of biodiversity, clean international waters and the protective ozone layer.These benefit the on the whole world as well as the poor themselves so the rich world must honorarium a fair share for their maintenance. ?Enhance the component of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) to national development objectives by strengthening developing country capacity to move in the negotiation and implementation of MEAs (for example, to ensure that the scour Development Mechanism promotes investments that benefit the poor).Also, improved coordination is involve between MEAs so that scarce developing country capacity is used most effectively. ?Encourage sustainable co nsumption and production industrialized country consumers and producers by means of their trade, investment, pollution emissions and other activities affect the environmental conditions of developing countries. Making rich country consumption and production more sustainable will require a complex mix of institutional changes addressing market and government failures as well as broad public attitudes. Enhance the effectiveness of development cooperation and debt relief with more priority for poverty-environment issues, particularly for the poorest countries where aid and debt relief anticipate to have a valuable role to play in helping governments to make many of the changes recommended above. Mainstream environment in donor agency operations through staff training, development and application of new skills, tools and approaches, and revisions to the way resources and budgets are allocated.Transparent monitoring of progress against state objectives and targets is needed in orde r to hold development agencies accountable and to ensure that a commitment by senior management to addressing poverty-environment issues is put into practice end-to-end the organization. Conclusion This paper looks ahead with some degree of hope and optimism for the future there are sometimes win-win opportunities, and there are rational ways of dealings with trade-offs. Environmental degradation is not inevitable, nor the unavoidable result of economic growth.On the contrary, sound and equitable environmental management is key to sustained poverty reduction and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. There are significant policy opportunities to reduce poverty and improve the environment, but more integrated and pro-poor approaches are needed. The World Summit on Sustainable Development is an opportunity to focus on what is most important and to forge a coherent framework for action, with clear goals and achievable targets backed-up by adequate resources and effective and transparent monitoring mechanisms.There can be no more important goal than to reduce and ultimately eradicate poverty on our planet. PART 1 wherefore the Environment Matters to People Living in need Water is spirit and because we have no water, life is miserable (Kenya) We think the earth is generous but what is the incentive to produce more than the family needs if there are no access roads to get produce to a market? (Guatemala) In the monsoons there is no difference between the land in front of our house and the public drain. You can see for yourself (India) In their own words, the environment matters greatly to people living in poverty.Indeed, poor peoples perceptions of well-being are strongly related to the environment in terms of their livelihoods, health, vulnerability, and sense of empowerment and ability to control their lives. Figure 1 provides a alter framework for spirit how environmental management relates to poverty reduction, and why these poverty-environme nt linkages must be at the core of action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and related national poverty eradication and sustainable development objectives.Environmental management for poverty reductionDimensions of povertyDevelopment goals Part 1 of the paper focuses on the poverty-environment relationship by examining how environmental conditions in both rural and urban settings relate to three key dimensions of human poverty and well-being ?Livelihoods poor people tend to be most dependent upon the environment and the direct use of natural resources, and therefore are the most severely affected when the environment is degraded or their access to natural resources is limited or denied Health poor people suffer most when water, land and the air are polluted ?Vulnerability the poor are most often exposed to environmental hazards and environment-related conflict, and are to the lowest degree capable of coping when they occur. We in like manner are come to with the rel ationship between growth and the environment and how it affects the poor and efforts to reduce poverty. The environmental soundness of growth matters intimately to the poor, and countries with similar levels of income and growth can have quite different levels of environmental performance.While Figure 1 illustrates the main pathways between environmental conditions and dimensions of poverty, in candor these linkages are multi-dimensional, dynamic and often inter-connected ?Poverty is now widely viewed as encompassing both income and non-income dimensions of red ink including neglect of income and other material means inadequacy of access to basic social services such as education, health and safe water lack of personal security and lack of empowerment to enrol in the political process and in decisions that influence ones life.The kinetics of poverty also are better understood, and extreme vulnerability to orthogonal shocks is now seen as one of its major features. Environme nt refers to the biotic and abiotic components of the natural world that together support life on earth as a provider of goods (natural resources) and ecosystem services utilized for food production, energy and as raw material a recipient role and partial recycler of fling off products from the economy and an important source of recreation, beauty, spiritual values and other amenities. The nature and dynamics of poverty-environment linkages are context-specific reflecting both geographic location and economic, social and cultural characteristics of individuals, households and social groups. Different social groups can prioritize different environmental issues (Brocklesby and Hinshelwood, 2001). In rural areas, poor people are particularly touch with their access to and the quality of natural resources, especially water, crop and grazing land, forest products and biomass for fuel. For the urban poor, water, energy, sanitation and waste removal are key concerns.Poor women look s afe and physically close access to beverage water, sanitation facilities and abundant energy supplies as all-important(a) aspects of well-being, reflecting their primary role in managing the household. ?Environmental management, as used in this paper, extends well beyond the activities of public environmental institutions. In relation to poverty, environmental management is concerned fundamentally with sustaining the long-term capacity of the environment to provide the goods and services upon which people and economies depend.This means improving environmental conditions and ensuring equitable access to environmental assets in particular land and biological resources, and safe and affordable water supply and sanitation in order to expand poor peoples livelihood opportunities, protect their health and capacity to work, and reduce their vulnerability to environment-related risks. This broader conception of poverty and environment, and of environmental management, is essential to understanding the linkages between them and to identifying appropriate policy and institutional options for improving these linkages.There have been some impressive gains since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment the first gear global conference devoted to environment and development issues. There has been a proliferation of environmental policies and institutions at national and sub-national levels, and environmental issues are firmly placed on the agendas of governments, civil society and the private sector. Major global environmental agreements have been forged and global environmental organizations established.Environmental sustainability has become a core concern of bilateral and multilateral development cooperation, and billions of dollars have been exhausted on environment-related programmes and projects. Tangible progress also has been achieved on the ground, although the picture is usually mixed. For example, in the mid-nineties some 900 million p eople gained access to improved water sources. However, this was merely enough to keep chiliad with population growth, and about 1. 2 billion people are still without access to improved water sources, with rural populations particularly under-served (Devarajan et al, 2002).Another example is the productivity of soil used for cereal production, which increased on average in developing countries from 1979-81 to 1998-2000. However, it fell in some 25 countries, most of them in Africa, with land degradation being one factor tail end the decline (World Bank, 2002c). Despite these gains, pressure on the environment continues to mount worldwide, posing major challenges to the prospects for poverty reduction and human development in developing countries, in particular the least developed countries.