Women of South Asia and the Green Economy

by Uchita de Zoysa
During the past twenty years, Sustainable Development has come to the forefront of global issues. In many ways, the challenge of convincing the different sectors and groups that sustainable development is the best potential model for prosperity has become easier. Even the business and industry sector now talks about sustainable development and it appears that sustainable development is a concept already sold. Yet, sustainability and sustainable development continue to be far away from reality. Rio+20 Summit in 2012 Twenty years ago, in 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also called the Rio Earth Summit, created a central, global focus on sustainable development. At that time, civil society was anxious about the outcome of the conference. Many us who were there were frustrated by the lack of sensitivity displayed by the developed nations and the ignorance of the rich towards making commitment towards a better world. Twenty years later, the same United Nations Organization is convening the Rio+20 Summit, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Now civil society is not just anxious or frustrated. We are simply petrified from our fear the Conference will make a complete mockery of the concept of sustainable development. A concept that has well evolved during the past four decades and smartly designed with a plethora of global policy tools is now under the threat of being diverted towards serving and saving a fallen greed-based economic model and its champions. Replacing the Greed Economy The current greed-based world economic system that has kept half of the global people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe needs to be replaced. The alternative, then, needs to replace the flaws of the prevailing economic model; it needs to block those corporations that take away breast milk of poor mothers and feed the children infant formulas of diary; it needs to suppress those irresponsible companies who carelessly damage ecosystems through oil spills; it needs to reject those business tycoons who mindlessly construct thirty five storied homes for their extreme consumption lifestyles while millions of people in the surrounding vicinity are living in slums under trying conditions; it needs to refuse celebrating those few women who enjoy highest leadership in corporations while billions of women across the developing and developed countries suffer every day from meeting the basic needs of their families. South Asian Women and the Economy South Asia is a region that will be hard hit by both climate change and poverty, and women will be most affected with the success or failures of an emerging Green Economy. Women account for 70 percent of the worlds population living in povertyeven though they make up 45 percent of the worlds workforce. South Asia is home to over 40% of the world's poorest people, most of whom are women and girls.60% or more of women workers in the developing world are in informal employment outside agriculture. Therefore, any economic alternative benefiting South Asian women should focus on the aspects such as opportunity, inclusivity, sensitivity and diversity; fair and equitable opportunities to engage in Green Economy activities of a Sustainable Economy; integrated and embedded in the system and not simply

engaging; respecting the sensitivities and designing the system to include those sensitivities; flourishing in diversity and not exclusivity or monopoly. Greening the Brown Economy? Can the proposed Green Economy provide us that alternative? Can it replace the greed-based economic order and help us face the challenge of climate change and poverty? Some environmental and social activists and thinkers suspect that this is an attempt to green the brown economy; an attempt to green wash the wasteful, pollutive and exploitative economic model. A green technology-based marketmonopoly is feared. In the emerging climate regulatory era, a brown economic model based on dirty technology will be redundant. Therefore, the same corporate elements would be targeting a monopoly on the green technology to dominate a green growth-based economy. The rich would continue to grow and the poor would continue to suffer in such a transfer from brown to green economy. Green Economy or Sustainable Economy? Defining a Green Economy is still a process in progress. The UNEP Green Economy Report 2011states; a green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. A green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in income and employment should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. While the definition is attractive and strategically includes some key words echoed by the different interests of the world, its also noticeable that they continue to forge growth and efficiency as the way forward. This makes us pause and wonder: Are the same people and institutions responsible for the suffering of the worlds poor behind defining the green economy? A Green Economy should be to replace the current economic order of inequity, destruction and greed! Sustainable Economy (or a true Green Economy) should be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects the ecological balance and creates economic sufficiency. The core idea of a Green Economy should be to enforce Sustainability, specifically the wellbeing of all people and the biodiversity of Earths ecosystems. Foundations of a Sustainable Economy So, what are the foundations for a Sustainable Economy? At the centre of any emerging economic model should be the vision of an equity based world order. Equality for all should be the aspiration, and not the luxury of the twenty percent of the worlds people who enjoy the exploitation of eighty percent of the resources. Such a system should rejects unsustainable consumption and production habits and promotes sustainable lifestyles and livelihoods. Efficiency paradigms continue to justify the current consumption levels that are unsustainable and proposes less waste as a solution. That is no longer acceptable. We need to move from a mere efficiency focus to sufficiency-based sustainable development paradigms. Just because the resources are harder to acquire for those rich-country consumers, efficiency will not be an adequate exercise. They need to cut down on their unsustainable consumption patterns and start looking for futures based on sufficiency. Sufficiency should be noted as an approach towards selfreliance and contentment. The growth-based economic model has long served the greedy needs of the rich. This growth- and greed-based economic development model should be replaced with the sharing-caring-flourishing 2

economic mindset. If growth had been a viable model to eradicate poverty on Earth, poverty would have ceased to exist long ago. For example, no Indian should go hungry at any given moment as they as a nation produce a surplus of grain. Prominent ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva says, The gain in yields of industrially produced crops is based on a theft of food from other species and the rural poor in the Third World. That is why, as more grain is produced and traded globally, more people go hungry in the Third World. . Conclusions Our commitment in an emerging green economy should be towards creating wellbeing & happiness for all, not for a few. Capital growth without distribution will not serve humanity, face climate change and eradicate poverty, or achieve sustainable development. For this to happen, we need to cultivate mindfulness not greed. Women in South Asia in general provide the ingredients of leading such a green economy in driving sustainable development; they are sensitive towards the needs of others; they care about the wellbeing of others; they strive for peace; they are content with staying within the resources of their surroundings. The diversity, simplicity, sensitivity of South Asian women need to be integrated in an emerging green economy. Such a green economy that is inclusive of the active engagement of women of South Asia can lead us towards sustainable development.

(The above is adapted from a speech made at the Third Annual Conference of SWAN - South Asia Womens rd Network - from 2-3 July 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Uchita de Zoysa is author of It has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY and Executive Director of the Centre for Environment Development. He can be reached at uchita@sltnet.lk)