Introduction
Singapore has given importance to people-centred development and to strengthening the social fabric of our society. By investing in people and the well-being of society, Singapore has transformed itself from a colonial Third World entrepĂ´t to a prosperous First World City State. It is an honour therefore to deliver this keynote address at the ICSD2015 conference held in Singapore.
This chapter emphasises the social progress that has been made since the World Summit for Social Development, as well as the changes since the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted in 2000. Five challenges that have arisen in transforming societies: increasing wealth inequality; precarious jobs and lives; changing demographic; managing our eco-systems; and weak governance in an interdependent world, need to be addressed in transforming society.
Why is sustainable development needed?
The year 2015 was a milestone for Member States and the Peoples of the United Nations â a year of global action for inclusive, equitable and sustainable development. It invites us to look at what we have achieved and what remains to be done in promoting social progress, social inclusion and social justice. Hence, this symposium gives us an opportunity for reflection on the social progress of our countries, the contemporary challenges of social development in the changing landscape of the twenty-first century and contributes to the road ahead as 193 Member States of the United Nations are shaping a transformative sustainable development agenda post-2015 to end poverty, provide human dignity to all and to protect our planet.
In 1995, over twenty years ago, the World Summit for Social Development was held in Copenhagen. The largest ever gathering of world leaders at the time reached an important consensus. It was agreed that we must place human beings at the centre of our development efforts in the spirit of the first three words of the UN Charter 1945, âWe the Peoplesâ. The Member States pledged to make the conquest of poverty, the goal of full employment and the fostering of social integration the overriding objectives of development. This consensus has helped shape our development pathway to the present day.
The objectives of Copenhagen 1995 (United Nations 1995) set deep roots in decades of development thinking and practice, driving policies and actions at the national and international levels, including with regards to the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (Millennium Development Goals 2000). Also, already in 1995, Member States were clear that sustainability should be an integral part of development efforts, recognising that to secure social progress we must also give due attention to the nature of economic development and environmental protection.
Where are we on our development journey?
Progress has been made. A smaller proportion of the worldâs population now lives in extreme poverty compared to fifteen to twenty years ago. More people live longer and healthier lives. We have seen important advances in health and education. The Asian region has already achieved the MDG on the reduction of extreme poverty. It is also an early achiever on other MDGs, including: access to safe drinking water; gender parity based on school enrolment; and reducing the prevalence of HIV and TB (MDG Report 2015). In addition, Asia has made achievements beyond the MDGs, due largely to the Asian miracle which generated shared prosperity through the developmental role of the state and the market investing in people-centred development, creating middle-class societies by reducing poverty and addressing inequalities through job-led growth; through quality health and education; and building the productive sectors of the real economy, including through technological and social innovations.
However, despite our achievements, Asia-Pacific countries still account for the bulk of worldâs deprived people, including: more than 60 per cent (or 763 million people) of those living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 a day); nearly 70 per cent of underweight children under the age of five; and more than 70 per cent (1.74 billion people) of those without proper sanitation (MDG Report 2015). There are wide variations between our sub-regions and between and within countries in terms of MDG achievement (MDG Report 2015).1 There are also variations across goals, with many countries and sub-regions of Asia making slow progress on the reduction of child and maternal mortality. It is clear that despite the MDGs, we still have a great deal of deprivation and insecurity. Hence, the MDGs are unfinished business in Asia and the Pacific and we are in a race against time to achieve this basic human development agenda. I believe that much can still be accomplished with a last big push to accelerate progress by the end of 2015.
Challenges in a changing world
Our world has changed since the MDGs were adopted in 2000 and will continue to change by 2030. We are becoming more urban, more middle class, older, more connected and mobile, more interdependent, more vulnerable and more constrained in our resources and planetary boundaries. The path ahead is neither easy nor does it require simply doing more of the same. In my view, there are five challenges we must urgently address if we hope to sustain social progress in a changing development landscape.
1 Increasing wealth inequality
Experts have been observing that there is relative wage stagnation for âthe bottom billionâ. Inequality is rising rapidly due to wealth and asset concentration as increasingly profits are made through the financial channels rather than in the real economy. There are glaring social inequalities, including access to basic social services and inequality of opportunities. The form of inequality generated today can threaten the âunfinished agendaâ as the current inequality makes it more difficult to reduce poverty and increase social upward mobility. The rising inequalities and disparities within and between countries could alter the political and social fabric of our region. It could intensify existing inequities and tensions along the fault lines of ethnicity, religion, geography and gender, and exacerbate discrimination against women and girls.
2 Precarious jobs and lives
While many parts of Asia are upbeat and modernising, many countries and communities fall short of their potential because of the precariousness of jobs and the inability to generate secure and meaningful lives for too many people. With âFactory Asiaâ producing cheap goods for the world market, âthe right to workâ often sacrifices ârights at workâ. This has led to the precariousness of work, as we saw with the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in 2013, killing 1,138 garment workers, mainly women.
The informal economy is also expanding as employment growth in the formal sector has been less than the economic growth rate. Formal sector work is becoming increasingly casual, flexible, outsourced, unregulated and contract based. In Thailand, in 2010, informal employment accounted for 63 per cent of total employment, in Indonesia 66 per cent, in Philippines 75 per cent and in Vietnam 85 per cent (Rigg 2014). This has real implications for workers, most of whom are women, migrants from rural or low-income countries in terms of security of employment, conditions at work, and health and safety concerns.
In addition to precarious jobs, the world faces a humanitarian emergency. Wars, conflicts and persecution have forced more people than at any other time since records began to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere. According to the UNHCR report (2015), the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of 2014 had risen to a staggering 59.4 million compared to 51.2 million a year ago and 37.5 million a decade ago. The increase represents the biggest leap ever seen in a single year. This situation is likely to worsen still further as more people are forced into precarious lives linked to the inability of the international community to work together to stop conflicts, and to build and preserve peace.
3 Changing demography
Rapidly changing demographic trends are also affecting employment and human well-being. The challenge is how our economic systems can accommodate the emerging youth bulges appearing in many countries. Between 2012 and 2020 almost 1 billion young jobseekers are expected to enter the job market making job generation urgent. Currently, global unemployment remains high after the 2008 global financial crisis that has hurt the real economy. Our youth are bearing the brunt. Seventy-three million young people are looking for jobs (International Labour Organization 2015). Young people are three times more likely than adults to be unemployed. Many more are trapped in jobs where they are objects of exploitation. When young people become frustrated and angry at the glaring lack of opportunity, they are more likely to lose faith in governments and in institutions. In many parts of the world, this leaves young people marginalised, increasing their vulnerability and exposure to the criminal economy, including that of trafficking and people smuggling as we have seen recently in the fishing industry, and in the crisis at sea in Europe and in Asia.
Related to this lack of opportunity today is an alarming growth in extremism and receptivity to radicalisation by people, especially the young, who feel discarded and that they do not belong. The principle and practice of social integration â acceptance and inclusion, respect for diversity, the peaceful coexistence of cultures and communities â are increasingly under threat in todayâs world. Delegates at the World Summit for Social Development twenty years ago affirmed that poverty eradication, full employment and social integration were closely interlinked. This rings even more relevant and true in todayâs world.
Another critical issue related to changing demography is who will support the care economy in ageing societies. In countries with a rapidly ageing population, the challenge is how care will be provided and organised for this ageing population which is expected to reach 2 billion by 2050 (United Nations 2013). It is also about our social protection systems, our care services and opportunities for the elderly in the labour market. Unless both the state and the private sector invest in the care infrastructure, women will be expected to carry the burden of care, at great personal cost, as extended family support systems are under stress because of migration and urbanisation, and the increasing need of two-income households to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.
4 Managing our eco-systems
We have one planet to share. Therefore climate change and threats to our eco-systems are perhaps the most important long-term challenges facing humanity this century and beyond, affecting every person, irrespective of country or income. Our challenge is clear: reduce poverty, increase shared prosperity but leave a smaller carbon footprint. This requires a paradigm shift in the ways goods are made, food is grown and energy is generated. Worldwide, industrialisation and urbanisation account for over half the worldâs intensive use of natural resources. Cities are responsible for about 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions (UN Habitat 2011). Managing our eco-systems must therefore mean designing more compact, energy efficient, eco-friendly liveable cities besides changing our systems of production and consumption. It means that our industrialisation and urbanisation needs to be less reliant on fossil fuels to keep global temperature increasing to less than 2 degrees centigrade. Asiaâs long-term growth and future prosperity will depend on how efficiently we use natural resources as Asiaâs urban population is expected to double to 3 billion by 2050. A shift to a more people centred, planet sensitive development will depend on how we respect the planetâs eco-systems and progress to a low carbon growth future but one that is high on poverty reduction, decent jobs and income security. This is the defining challenge of the twenty-first century.
Asia has a large stake in the well-being of the planet as it has many of the worldâs most climate-exposed territories and is the most disaster-prone region of the world. A person living in Asia Pacific is four times more likely to be affected by natural disasters than someone living in Africa, and twenty-five times more likely than someone living in Europe or North America (UNESCAP 2009). In fact, 75 per cent of global disaster fatalities occur in Asia. In 2011, economic damages and losses from disasters in the region totalled more than US$293 billion (UNESCAP and UNISDR 2012). Coupled with economic shocks, disasters can wipe away years of development gains, increasing economic, social and political vulnerabilities. In this ânew normalâ, a major shock such as the recent financial crisis or natural disasters quickly becomes a cascade of crises. In such a world, we need more than economic growth to seriously address new risks and vulnerabilities. We need to build resilience into the fabric of how society functions.
5 Weak governance in an interdependent world
We have become more mobile with linked destinies. We are linked in the globalising world by much more than our economies and trading systems. We breathe the same air; we pollute the same air. Contagious diseases like MERs or Ebola do not need a passport â they are problems that do not stop at borders. Terror, transnational crimes, human trafficking and peopleâs smuggling, the trade in arms and drugs do not heed borders, nor recognise nationalities. Our global and regional institutions and governance systems are not designed to respond to these emerging transnational risks.
At the same time, the current international financial sector is not seen by many to serve the needs of the real economy nor to help manage and mitigate risks. This has resulted in the 2008 financial crisis that is still affecting people regarded as âtoo small to matterâ. Yet, this state of affairs is not inevitable. The financial sector when better regulated has played an important role in supporting the real economy, including financing of SMEs, physical and social infrastructure, gre...
