 |
The Peace Diaries Radio Program was broadcast during the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 26 through September 4, 2002. It was broadcast to Africa, Middle East and Europe. |
 TUNE INTO |
SHOW 4: RURAL POOR |
|||
|
|
||||
SCRIPT, SHOW 4 00:01 - 00:55 SHOW OPEN, KIT ID, KIDS’ QUOTES, QUOTE FROM DONNY 00:50 – 00:54 (Quote, Donny, Western Cape, South Africa school teacher) We've got to change, what we can change 00:56 - 01:31 (Narrated introduction, TvS) Poverty's ever tightening grip on the world and its inhabitants is pressuring governments to work together, to seek solutions. The digital age has rapidly integrated our planet's societies and has promoted globalization, but it has also led to increasing inequality. Every year more than 11 million children die of preventable causes, often for want of simple improvements in nutrition, sanitation, maternal health and education. The Food Policy Research Institute’s Per Andersen, says families should be helped first… 01:32 - 02:00 (Per Andersen, Agricultural Economist, Food Policy Research Institute) The most important thing that needs to be done is to help farmers increase productivity - the amount they produce per unit of land, in a sustainable manner. Because if we don't do that we will continue to see degradation of land and water resources, the continued reduction in tropical forests that we have been seeing in Africa in the last 30 years. 02:00 – 02:21 (Andersen continued) Primarily because yields have not increased on the land that is suitable for agriculture, small farmers have taken up more land; they have climbed up hillsides, they have cut down forests...and clearly that behavior is not sustainable. 02:22 - 02:31 (Narr, TvS) The most cited author for the past decade on the subject of biodiversity is Dr. David Tilman, who is also Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota 02:32 - 03:04 (Dr. David Tilman, University of Minnesota Biodiversity Professor We have a course of action that society has undertaken that is increasing levels and potency in the last 50 or so years. If you look at where those actions are leading us, if we continue to living in those same ways with 3 billion more people, and people being richer, as we project, we are going to have a huge impact on the global environment, and how it can support humans and the quality of human life for the future. 03:05 - 03:44 (Tilman continued) So, I think there is a crisis but it is a crisis that we can react to with reasoned judgment, but with enough time we afford to form consensus around the world as to how we can achieve solution based problems… it’s not a crisis, but it’s a situation where we have several years which we can formulate actions and as we make steps to address the issues that face us we need to learn to do this. 03:56 – 04:13 (Tilman continued) The ways that we have been doing it in the past, we know are having impacts - both from energy use; global warming and so on. But, more importantly, from modern high intensity agriculture are having impacts that are not sustainable we can not keep living this way, and lead a world for future generations. 04:14 – 04:20 (Narr, TvS) Andersen stresses that farmers seldom harm the environment on purpose; they often have no choice... 04:20 - 04:44 (Andersen) * The driver of that is not ignorance on the part of the farmers: they know in many cases - in most cases - that what they do is not sustainable but they don't have other options. The driving force in this degradation this behavior degradation is the lack of productivity increasing measures for farmers. 04:45 – 04:48 (Narr, TvS) Governments need to invest locally, says Andersen… 04:48 - 05:12 (Andersen continued) So, infrastructure, markets, productivity- increasing means seem to be the three key three things governments have to invest in and deal with. But, also, for this to work primary health care and primary education are critical importance to the rural poor. 05:13 – 05:38 (Narr, TvS) But in the developing world national governments are often unable to invest much-needed capital. This does not mean that communities have to settle for dire straits. Mzamayethu is the name of a recently-established settlement in Hout Bay. The name means, ‘through collective struggle we achieve’. Kenny, a local leader and facilitator, says residents took matters (including fundraising) into their own hands… 05:39 - 06:55 (Kenny) So, when we came here one of the many problems face us… One of the major problems was unemployment; unemployment was very much too high. How to deal with unemployment, so church leaders, together with community leaders sat together to find ways to addressing poverty. So skill training was the option in peoples’ mind: let’s arm our people with skills so that have an opportunity of having jobs to fight poverty. Automatically, we approached many companies, like Safmarine, BP, PPC Cement, Lombardi Trust and all those big companies - and individuals. They became positive to support our community… we now have a skill training center where we are arming our people with skills, like sewing skills, cooking courses, pottery making. In order for our people to have some kind of income at the end of the day. 06:56 – 07:09 (Narr, TvS) Betty Reardon, Director and Founder of the International Institute for Peace and Education says developed nations of the world need to acknowledge and assist their poorer counterparts if poverty to be addressed on a global scale. 07:10 - 08:11 (Betty) Many peace educators now say that poverty is the major problem; that much of the violence that we see now is actually the consequence of poverty. I would say now that the responsibility of the more powerful and resource-rich nations is to use their privilege and power, in order to create a situation in the world in which those currently without privilege, and those who are deprived, would have equal access to the world's resources - and to their own resources. One of the problems is that the poor nations in an essence are poor because they have not got equal access to their own resources. 08:10 - 08:33 (Narr, TvS) That was Betty Reardon, director and founder of the Intl Institute for Peace and Education. Per Andersen’s work as an agricultural economist has taken him to rural regions of South America and Africa. He emphasizes that rural farmers should be taught new skills, without disregarding their indigenous knowledge of the region and climate 08:33 - 09:23 (Andersen) Ja, I think primary education combined with a balanced educational poverty-alleviation program. In other words, if better technology or better productivity-increasing measures can be made available for farmers, in order for farmers to know how to behave in a changing situation education they need education. What I don't think works is to go in with education, without promoting the opportunities for change. Farmers have been business for a long time, they have a tremendous amount of indigenous knowledge about how to do things in the environment they know. 09:23 – 10:15 SHOW CLOSE, DEDICATION, WEB MENTION  |
||||
|
|
||||