Poor need manufacturing, says UN

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

The world's poorest countries should move away from selling their natural resources and concentrate instead on manufacturing, a UN report says.

The document said selling raw materials leads to insecurity and does little to ease poverty for the "bottom billion" - those living on less than $1 a day.

The report praises Asian countries such as Malaysia for opening up its markets and developing manufacturing industry.

But the authors said much of Africa was still dependent on short-term aid.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7905174.stm

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Strange headline:shrug: There are enough poor people on this planet without manufacturing any more.

[ixion]

1. good advice to any country, really... rich, poor... or broke

selling your resources on the cheap to other countries who make stuff and sell it back to you at a profit is a bad plan, as we're seeing now.

[izquierdista]

2. Maybe they have trouble with English

It is a hard language for some people, you know.

[dipsydoodle]

4. lol

Shouldn't be so for the BBC ! :rofl:

[cobalt1999]

3. ...and how exactly does that reconcile with the UN global warming concerns?

Like we need hundreds of new factories, using tons more power, allowing more people to get cars, bigger cities, * larger homes. Is this the vision they are selling?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. So... we should keep people poor then, on purpose? Is that what you're saying?

[cobalt1999]

10. I'm saying bringing factories to Africa isn't the solution.

Visit any 3rd world factory and tell me those people are living well.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. Then what is the solution?

What kind of jobs do you bring to an area that has no real infrastructure to speak of other than manufacturing jobs? They're not exactly going to be starting off with IT jobs.

[cobalt1999]

12. The solution is much more complicated than a simple "bring factories"

It's a combination of population control, sustainable farming practices, better education, less religion, and a slow move to a better standard of living with low environmental impact.

Just dumping factories all over Africa without addressing the other factors would be a disaster.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

15. You aren't going to dump factories all over the place without better education.

They wouldn't be able to do anything in a factory without at least a basic education.

And since education bears with it better population control, farming practices, and less religion, I don't think you have much to fear.

[cobalt1999]

20. OMG, where to start?

Have you ever seen a 3rd world factory!?! People there not only don't get any more education than those outside of the cities, but in many cases far less. Better education when you are out of school by age 8 to work?

As for farming practices, the U.S. has some of the most environmentally damaging practices and we are pretty darn educated compared to Africa. The issue is too many people, which brings up your next assertion...

As for better population control, it's true once a country gets a mature manufacturing base, the population rate decreases, but initially it goes WAY up and even once stabilized it's HIGHER than it was before. There are already TOO MANY people for sustainable and environmentally friendly food production now.

Less religion? Religion and education are not mutually exclusive (though I wish they were). The literacy rate for men in Saudi Arabia is almost 91% and 82% when counting women. Religion does not go down with literacy, if it did, the U.S. would look a lot different.

Try again.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

22. Try again, my ass.

No company is going to build a brand new factory with whatever it is you're conceiving a 3rd world factory to be. There's no point in doing that whatsoever. Productivity in those places are so friggin poor that you're far better off building it elsewhere and paying more for the labor. The point of the statement was to build new factories - not revive the shitty old ones.

[cobalt1999]

23. You need to travel more.

I don't need to "conceive" what a 3rd world factory is, I've been in them. I've been in the cities. I've seen the level of education. I've seen the schools. I've been in country where the factories aren't.

All these factories were "new" once. Why were they built in the first place is no company would do it?

You apparently don't know what you are talking about and your "build the factories and the Africa will be a wonderful place" is just wishful thinking or the desire not to have to do some hard thinking.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

27. Manufacturing has changed a lot since the early 90's.

Perhaps it is *you* that needs to travel and see some of these newer facilities. There are few jobs in them for people with HS Diplomas, much less uneducated entirely.

[cobalt1999]

31. Pollution & Environmental damage from factories is still going strong.

Some examples of your solution...

National Geographic News

Plans for a 50,000-acre (20,000-hectare) sugar production plant in Kenya's Tana River Delta have ignited a bitter dispute between conservation groups and economic-minded officials.
Such output would give Kenya's sugar industry a huge boost when it needs it most, proponents say, and would provide up to 20,000 new jobs in an impoverished region of the country.
But opponents argue that development could irreversibly ruin the delta, which is home to several indigenous groups, a vast array of bird and fish species, and two species of highly endangered primates.
On a single day in January of this year, the Mwamba Bird Observatory and Field Study Centre counted 15,000 water birds belonging to 69 species, including herons, terns, African skimmers, and stork.


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MPvswO6lxOY/SNo4ObsbY-I/AAAAAAAAE98/Ecoj3_e6vpU/s400/Durban+pollution.JPG

From the same UN that says increase the African factories...

A panel of experts roundtable held at the ongoing UNEP Governing Council meeting in Nairobi noted rapid industrialization and population growth in African cities has constrained the ability to cope with high levels of air and water pollution, hence the slow pace in greening these cities.

Angela Cropper, UNEP Deputy Executive Director noted that Cities presents huge potential in realization of green goals among African Countries” if only authorities move urgently to tackle basic challenges revolving around poor infrastructure, high levels of pollution and overstretched capacity of basic amenities such as water and sanitation to meet growing population.”


Have you seen the skies in Beijing lately with all their modern manufacturing facilities?

This is your solution?

[pampango]

17. Visit people in the 3rd world who don't work in factories and tell me those people

are living well. The factories there are not 1st world factories, by and large, but nothing there is. If your option is a life finding recyclables at a garbage dump and a factory job, the latter looks pretty good.

If a company did build a 1st world factory in s 3rd world country, you'd probably get some people complaining that the company didn't build that factory in the US or elsewhere in the West. The claim would be that that poor country just stole our jobs.

[cobalt1999]

25. The cities are pieces of shit.

You are either working in the factories, working to supply the factories, working to support the folks in the factories, or rummaging through the above folks garbage.

The question is, was life there better BEFORE the factories arrived? In many cases it was better.

[pampango]

28. That's a good question. "(W)as life there better BEFORE the factories arrived?"

The other question is "Who gets to answer the first question?" If the people in a 3rd world country decided that life was better before factories, we in the West should support their effort to live without them.

What if those same people decide that they prefer life with factories, perhaps believing that it is a proven long term path to prosperity? Do we step in a say, "Trust us. You're better off without factories. And besides, the global environment can't take any more factories. For both reason, you can't have any."

"You are either working in the factories, working to supply the factories, working to support the folks in the factories, or rummaging through the above folks garbage."

Many 3rd world countries still have a large percentage of the population working in agriculture, sometimes in subsistence farming and sometimes in raising cash crops that have a hard time competing with American and European crops that are subsidized by their governments. If we took measures to improve the profitability of agriculture in the Third World there would not be the pressure to leave the farms and migrate to the cities looking for factory or other work, often without success.

[Lost in CT]

32. Yes but should we send them surplus food that encourages overpopulation

and environmental degradation.

Sustainable populations for third world nations should be our first goal.

[pampango]

34. I agree that sending surplus food does damage to the local agricultural economy.

It's hard to compete with free food. It would be better if short term food help could be tied to long term changes in a country's ability to feed itself. Providing funding for the purchase of locally produced food (except for disasters and droughts when there might not be much locally produced food) would improve domestic crop prices, help local farmers make a living, improve the farm economy and slow the flow of people from rural to urban areas. The damage to Mexico's farm economy has produced large numbers of people who were productively employed before but now are on the move to find a job.

Sustainable population, in all countries not just the Third World, is a laudable goal. Remember that each American uses many times the natural resources and causes many times the damage to the global environment than a poor Third World person does. Let's not just target population control at the poor.

[Lost in CT]

33. DUPE

[Lost in CT]

13. To help save the environment we need to make sacrifices.

Bringing the third world out of poverty is not environmentally responsible.

We should allow the third would to exist in a way that is sustainable to their native habitat.

Sending additional food and resources to places like Haiti and the Sudan may make us feel good but it isn't sustainable for the planet in the long term.

We would be better of allowing these countries to naturally find their sustainable population base.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

16. You do realize the political impossibility of your statement, right?

No one in their right mind with any kind of authority would ever say that we should be keeping the 3rd world poor, and certainly not anyone from the U.N.

[Lost in CT]

18. I agree but there is a disconnect between environmental aims and poverty aims.

And it isn't helpful till both sides come together in discussion.

[pampango]

19. "We" need to make sacrifices of people in the Third World need to make sacrifices?

The idea that the Third World should stay poor and hungry forever ("exist in a way that is sustainable to their native habitat" and "naturally find their sustainable population base"), because the earth cannot environmentally sustain them is not progressive. It's like saying that the poor of the US have to stay poor and hungry, so that the rich can continue to live the life style to which they have become accustomed.

Indeed the earth cannot support everyone living a "first world" lifestyle given current consumption and pollution patterns. Achieving more equity in the life prospects for everyone will be painful and require sacrifices. The question is "Whose sacrifices?"

[harmonicon]

7. it's far more complicated and nuanced than that

In parts of Africa, for instance, charcoal production is destroying the rainforests in ways that industry could only dream of. If those same people had a higher standard of living, electric or gas stoves, etc. this, often illegal, charcoal production could come to an end. It does the poor of one country no good to have their natural resources taken from them, turned into manufactured goods in other countries, and then shipped back to them, IF they could afford to buy the products. Why not produce what's being made with the natural resources where the resources exist? It would cut down on the environmental damage from shipping, decrease costs of the end product, and provide a higher standard of living for those who are now being exploited by industry.

I'm all for clean energy - in fact, I'm a bit of an nutso environmentalist at times, but I wouldn't forgo indoor plumbing, electricity, education, and safety from crippling diseases in the name of "the environment". We are a part of this environment and have a great responsibility for it - a responsibility to be caretakers for all life on this planet. To me, that also means treating every human being with the same level of respect, care, and dignity as we would want for ourselves.

[cobalt1999]

8. Environmental destruction is a function of population not standard of living.

You think turning Africa to pink isn't going to damage the planet?


Instead of bringing more factories to Africa, why shouldn't the U.N. work on reducing the population there? That would improve the standard of living AND reduce the impact on the environment.

Once the population is down, even a larger footprint per person would be less of an impact than the current situation.

[harmonicon]

21. it's the chicken and the egg, don't you think?

[cobalt1999]

24. I think it is more "incompatable goals"

You can radically save the environment but at the cost of keeping people from consuming the planet at 1st world rates, or you can raise them to our levels of consumption and destroy the planet faster.

The trick is to find a middle ground that probably won't satisfy either side.

[pampango]

29. My guess is that finding a "middle ground" is more acceptable to the Third World

than to most people in Western countries.

The problem with meeting in the middle as far as lifestyle is concerned is that most Africans, Asian, Central and South Americans would be reasonably happy to accept a lifestyle and a level of resource consumption midway between how they live today and how the average Westerner lives. Most Westerners, on the other hand, will not be happy with the prospect of a decline in their lifestyle and their level of resource consumption which would be necessary to meet the Third World "in the middle".

Of course, it's possible that environmental progress could, in an ideal world, make it possible for all people to live in a First World lifestyle without killing the earth in the process. That seems very unlikely at present, but is at least a consideration in discussing whether the Third World should stay poor to protect the global environment or whether we should seek to to promote Third World prosperity, protect First World expectations, and somehow save the earth's from these efforts.

[The2ndWheel]

14. "a responsibility to be caretakers for all life on this planet"

Even the crippling diseases?

I'd say this is why our impact is so large. We took it upon ourselves to be caretakers of life. If we really want to decrease our impact on the planet, maybe we need to let life live.

[Ezana]

26. What the UN said is that it is time to move the factories to the locations where most of the raw

materials for the factories are located, to developing countries.

[pampango]

30. Perhaps a good idea. Factories near the sources of raw materials in developing countries.

A reaction you can reasonably expect though from First World countries is that the factories should be located in the markets in which the finished products are sold. We hear that very often even now even though most Third World countries (with a few large exceptions) export relatively little to the US.

[madrchsod]

6. when people improve their lives they have less children

africa has the resources not to be exploited by the rest of the world.

[Odin2005]

9. Ambiguous headlines are funny.