Sharing Nature’s Wealth Can Help End Poverty: Expert

Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 27 Apr 11;

Better management of natural resources could be the key to poverty alleviation, but will require government support to develop, experts and officials said on Wednesday.

Pavan Sukhdev, former special adviser and head of the United Nations Green Economy Initiative, said the current poverty alleviation paradigm was not hitting its target.

“Most developing countries are actually thinking in terms of improving the lives of the poor, but all they’re doing is improving the lives of the rich,” he said at Business for the Environment (B4E) summit in Jakarta.

“So they’re improving opportunities for making profit. And most developing countries’ governments think that by improving the lives of the rich, somehow a trickle-down [effect] will happen. But I can tell you in my country of India, I don’t see any trickle-down, so I wonder why governments in Asia still believe in trickle-down and still make it easy for the rich.”

Sukhdev said one of the real keys to poverty alleviation was to ensure that the poor benefited just as much as the rich from a country’s natural resources.

“We should make sure that what the poor get from the nature, which is free, doesn’t stop, which means they’re able to have access to the forests or to harvest timber or to get fuel for their cooking or to get the benefits of water and soil from the forests,” he said.

“These benefits should not stop even if they’re free and even if they add to GDP, because these parts of nature are part of the daily sustenance of the poor.”

Managing these resources better would also help create much-needed jobs, Sukhdev said.

“That’s why I think the green economy will be good for poverty [alleviation] and should be tried here,” he said.

“The whole idea is to improve the lives of the poor, not to improve the profits of the rich.”

He also said the government needed to be more involved in the stewardship of natural resources, rather than delegate the task to the private sector.

“Private companies will only invest in making a profit, that’s their job,” Sukhdev said.

“We’re talking about public benefits that are the wealth of the nation. These are not privately owned things. You don’t own the air or the ocean.”

Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta, speaking at the same event, agreed that better management of natural resources, or the green economy, was necessary for the full attainment of sustainable development.

“The green economy should be managed in the context of development that is pro-poor, pro-jobs, pro-growth and pro-environment,” he said.

“Hence the green economy needs to be translated as an inclusive policy that aims for resource efficiency, poverty eradication, job creation and ensured sustainable economic growth.

“In this regard, Indonesia has adopted the green economy concept into its long-term national development plan for 2005-2025, which includes the goal of a ‘green and everlasting Indonesia.’ ”