Failure to meet the needs of the world's poorest citizens threatens long-term global stability, reports Vital Signs 2003, the latest publication from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. The report points to the more than 13 million children who have lost a parent due to AIDS, the 14.4 million people who die each year from infectious disease, and the 12 million international refugees in the beginning of 2002 as clear indicators of a world where human suffering is rampant. While the global economy has grown sevenfold since 1950, the disparity in per capita income between the 20 richest and 20 poorest nations more than doubled between 1960 and 1995. "The world's failure to reduce poverty levels is now contributing to global instability in the form of terrorism, war, and contagious disease," says Vital Signs Project Director Michael Renner. "An unstable world not only perpetuates poverty, but will ultimately threaten the prosperity that the rich minority has come to enjoy." Vital Signs 2003- produced in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)- also warns that environmental degradation is exacerbating poverty and further contributing to global instability. Weather-related disasters brought on by land clearing, deforestation, and climate change are most catastrophic for the world's poorest citizens. In 2002, rains in Kenya displaced more than 150,000 people, while more than 800,000 Chinese were affected by the most severe drought in over a century. Over the past two decades, floods and other weather-related disasters were among factors prompting some 10 million people to migrate from Bangladesh to India. At least seven small island nations face the prospect of a sizable share of their populations being displaced by sea level rise due to global warming in the coming decades. "It is almost impossible to ensure lasting peace and stability when massive inequalities exist and the natural systems that support us remain under threat," says UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer. "Little will ever be achieved in terms of conservation of the environment and natural resources if billions of people have no hope, no chance to care. "For the past 12 years, Vital Signs has tracked a wide array of economic, environmental, and social trends, using thousands of different data sources, in order to gauge the health of human societies and the natural world. Among the indicators of growing pressures on the world's poor cited in this years report: Infectious diseases kill twice as many people worldwide as cancer each year. Those dying of infectious illnesses are often either in the early or prime years of life, unravelling the economic and social fabric of societies. (The dramatic emergence of SARS in recent months now threatens the health not only of Asian economies but also of the global airline industry). Roughly one-quarter of the world's 50 wars and armed conflicts of recent years have involved a struggle for control of natural resources. Virtually all of these conflicts have occurred in poor countries where a particular ethnic group or economic elite has gained control of resources at the expense of the poor majority. Harvesting of illegal drug crops-principally cannabis, coca, and opium poppies- has increased dramatically since the 1980s, leading to rising addiction rates in industrial nations, and a growing black market that undermines development in many poor nations. In addition to the 12 million "official" refugees worldwide, there are another 50 million environmental refugees-driven from their homes by dam building, drought, flooding, etc.- and other internally displaced persons not included in official UN statistics. Corruption - the misuse of public power for private benefit - is costing some of the world's poorest countries billions of dollars each year and undermining efforts to promote economic development. Vital Signs 2003 provides further evidence of the importance of the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by 191 nations in 2000. Among other targets, these goals call for halving the share of the world's people living in extreme poverty by 2015, as well as the share suffering from hunger and lacking access to clean drinking water; reducing infant mortality rates by two-thirds; and ensuring that all children are enrolled in primary school. Governments reaffirmed the Millennium Development Goals at last year's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and agreed to several other important targets, including restoring fisheries, stabilizing biological diversity, and meeting the sanitation needs of half a billion people. In this year's edition, the following trends stand out as holding promise for progress: HIV/AIDS TREATMENT: While only four percent of people living with HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries are receiving treatment, some progress has been made in making access to treatment more equitable. In 2002, Botswana became the first African nation to adopt a policy of universal access to treatment, while other nations like Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Panama are providing free or subsidized treatment. COMMUNICATIONS: The gap between the information haves and have-nots is still huge but shrinking, thanks largely to new mobile phones, whose towers are cheaper to build than conventional, fixed-line systems. In Africa, mobile phones now outnumber fixed lines by a higher ratio than on any other continent. CLEAN ENERGY: New industries are beginning to provide pollution-free electricity and good jobs. Global wind power use has tripled since 1998 and is the now the world's fastest-growing power source. As new policies are adopted, rapid growth is projected in China and India over the next few years. In light of the many findings in Vital Signs 2003, Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin expressed deep concern that a faltering global economy and the vast effort now required to restore peace in the Middle East will divert the resources needed to address the causes and consequences of poverty in scores of developing nations. "The human tragedies behind the statistics in Vital Signs 2003 are compelling reminders that social and environmental progress are not luxuries that can be set aside when the world is experiencing economic and political problems," says Flavin. "Suffering that is allowed to fester today will lead to adverse and unpredictable consequences for many tomorrows to come."

World Watch Magazine
May/June 2003

FACTORY FARMING GOES GLOBAL

Washington, D.C. - Large-scale expansion of factory farming into developing countries such as Mexico, India. China, and the Philippines is bringing unanticipated dangers to environmental and human health, according to the May/June 2003 edition of the Worldwatch Institute's magazine, World Watch. While increasing the production of meat, the mass- producing facilities threaten the survival of indigenous livestock and are contributing to groundwater pollution, the spread of food-borne illnesses, and antibiotic resistance, writes researcher Danielle Nierenberg in "Factory Farming in the Developing World."

"Factory farming methods are creating a web of food safety, animal welfare, and environmental problems around the world, as large agribusinesses attempt to escape tighter environmental restrictions in the European Union and the U.S. by moving their animal production operations to less developed countries," says Nierenberg.

Nierenberg's investigation focuses particularly on the Philippines, one of the emerging centers of large-scale livestock production and processing in the developing world. In that country alone, annual production of poultry has increased five-fold since 1980. This industrialization of livestock production nearly wiped out the stock of native Filipino chickens and forced most family farmers out of business or into adopting factory farming methods themselves.
International regulations on factory farming and an improved process of zoning farms in economically viable places with the least environmental impact are only part of the solution, asserts Nierenberg. She also argues that the lessons of factory farming should prevent its continued expansion and should translate into the preservation of prosperous family farms where raising healthy, humanely treated animals is viewed as a form of affluence.

LOCAL COMMUNITIES RISE UP AGAINST "FOOD IMPERIALISM" AROUND THE WORLD

Local communities are increasingly resisting the multinational food conglomerates that control and shape global food production and distribution, writes Brian Halweil in the May/June 2003 edition of World Watch. From the owner of a diner in Vermont to the Nine Seeds Movement in India, local activists are taking matters in their own hands in attempts to guide food systems back to their local roots.

"We are beginning to see declarations of independence from the existing system in which the Krafts, Monsantos, and Archer Daniels Midlands play the roles of the Tudors, Tzars, and Louis XIVs in our modern food systems," says Halweil in "The Argument for Local Food." The article documents how these activists, propelled by more than concern over food safety risks, are working toward a more democratic system of producing food.

Money spent locally on food generates nearly twice as much income for the local economy, according to Halweil. In addition, local food systems promote greater crop diversity and reduce costly dependence on fossil fuels. Greater food self-sufficiency could also prove particularly important for developing countries that want to achieve a certain measure of independence from the fluctuations of international markets and the constraints of international trade agreements.

WAR IN IRAQ: FREE FLOW OF OIL OR FREE WORLD?

Oil has been at the root of wars from Angola to Indonesia. Nevertheless, supporters of the Bush administration's war in Iraq insist that oil is not a major reason for the invasion. World Watch editor Ed Ayres cites numerous other wars in which oil has played a role, and questions whether the spoils of this war may not figure more prominently than the administration's "free world" argument after all.