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FAO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIMENSIONS (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 14:53:00 +0002
From: "Tschirley, Jeff (SDRN)" <Jeff.Tschirley@fao.org>
To: 'SARD Forum - News' <sard-news@nygate.undp.org>
Cc: "Thomas, Graeme (SDAR)" <Graeme.Thomas@fao.org>
Subject: FAO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIMENSIONS


FAO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIMENSIONS

We are pleased to announce the latest update to 'Sustainable Development 
Dimensions', the Internet information service of the Sustainable Development 
Department (SD) of the Food and Agricultuyre Organization of the United 
Nations (FAO).

Our URL is http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/welcome_.htm.

The following is taken from our 'What's new' page 
(http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/whatsnew.htm), which contains 
active hyperlinks to the new material.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
THREE BIG SPECIALS
* Five years after the 1992 Earth Summit, how far have we come in achieving 
sustainable development? World heads of state will meet for a UN General 
Assembly special session late in June to answer that question and negotiate 
proposals for future action. For the occasion, we publish 'Earth Summit+5: 
progress on the road from Rio', presenting FAO reports on progress in key 
areas of Agenda 21, the Summit's programme of action.

* Our second big Special is 'Gender - the key to sustainability and food 
security', describing the new 'gender approach' embodied in FAO's Plan of 
Action for Women in Development. It outlines the conceptual framework for 
analysing gender implications for sustainable development, and shows how 
 FAO is transforming these ideas into strategies and action in the areas of 
natural resources, agricultural support systems, food and nutrition, and 
improved policy-making and planning. Also available in French and Spanish.

* Since 1991, SD's Agricultural Education Group has carried out an 
exhaustive review of the state of agricultural education and training in 
developing countries. The results of two expert consultations, a survey of 
educational institutions worldwide, and eight regional round tables are 
presented in our third Special, 'Agricultural education and training: issues 
and opportunities'.  It makes extensive recommendations for adjusting 
curricula and training methods to the new realities of rural society. The 
report is also in published in French.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIMENSION: PEOPLE
In our 'People's Participation' section, we publish 'Participatory action 
research and people's participation', an important study produced for FAO in 
the early 1990s by Gerrit Huizer, from the Third World Centre at the 
Netherlands' Catholic University of Nijmegen. From a review of FAO People's 
Participation Programme projects in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Thailand and 
Zambia, Huizer concludes that 'participatory action research is a delicate 
and in many countries very controversial affair - persons getting involved 
should be highly familiar with the local intricacies of economic and 
political power'. Users with fast lines can access the Full document (170K!) 
 - the less well connected should start with the Contents and preface.  In 
Analysis, there's an article by the University of Wisconsin's John Gastil 
onProblems in small group decision making.

The 'Women and Population' section last month carried News about the 
 introduction of the FAO/ILO Socioeconomic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) 
Programme in francophone West Africa. This month's update includes a 
briefing on SEAGA in French and English. In Resources, there's also a short 
report on a Small animals project with women in Gambia. SD's Population 
Service reports on a series of recent international meetings: the Arab 
Regional Population Conference in Cairo, a Thematic workshop on adolescent 
reproductive health, a UNFPA thematic workshop on indicators and a workshop 
on Population characteristics in fishing communities that brought together 
23 fisheries scientists, socio-economists and population experts from 
Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Senegal.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIMENSION: INSTITUTIONS
In the 'Land Tenure' Analysis section, there's a two-part article by Gabrio 
Marinozzi on 'Agriculture periurbaine au Nicaragua' - after a brief review 
of Nicaraguan politics from Somoza to neo-liberalism, it looks at the role 
of peri-urban farming in meeting the needs of poor city dwellers in the 
region of Ticauntepe. In another article, SD's Paolo Groppo reviews the 
results of 'La reforma agraria en America Latina' and offers 'un marco de 
referencia metodologico pragmatico, adaptado a las exigencias actuales'. We 
post two new contributions to our Land Tenure Forum on 'Private and public 
sector cooperation in national land tenure development in Eastern and 
Central Europe' - Graham Lanphier and John Parker, of the Overseas Projects 
Corporation of Victoria, Australia report on Outsourcing to the private 
sector as a tool for effective land data administration, while Jerzy 
Kozlowski describes Polish experience in creation of real property 
registration system.

In our 'Rural Administration and Cooperatives' section there is News of a 
recently completed FAO study on rural employment - or unemployment - in 
Albania. The study found that 'subsistence production is now the major 
socio-economic characteristic of the farm sector' and that off-farm 
employment does exist - but mainly in the form of emigration to other 
countries. We will  publish extracts from the study in a future update.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIMENSION: ENVIRONMENT
China features strongly in this month's Environment update. In 
'Environmental Policy, Planning and Management'  News, we report on a new 
study, by SD's Environment and Natural Resources Service and Chinese 
experts, on the uncontrolled pollution and land degradation that have 
accompanied the country's programme of intensive agriculture and rural job 
creation (in Analysis, we publish the study's recommendations for 
'Sustainable agriculture and rural development in China'). Also in the News: 
the UN Sustainable Development Commission meeting in April, the upcoming 
Conference of the Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification, and a 
new report onland quality indicators.

In 'Energy for Development', SD's Senior Energy Coordinator, Gustavo Best - 
just back from Beijing - reviews China's future energy scenario in his 
report on April's Asia Pacific forum on new energy technology. China is by 
far the fastest growing energy market in the world, writes Best, and - while 
coal will remain the prime energy source - Chinese scientists have made 
great progress in renewable energy technologies. He saw some of those 
technologies in development during his visit to the Energy demonstration 
base at Shenyang Agricultural University. Moving the focus to Europe, we 
publish two documents from a recent FAO workshop in Belgium on anaerobic 
conversion for environmental protection, sanitation and re-use of residues: 
the Conclusions and recommendations and the abstract of a paper on Anaerobic 
digestion of agroindustrial byproducts and wastes (did you know that 
agriculture in the European Union produces an estimated 1,100,000,000 tonnes 
of organic wastes a year?)

Next update: 15 June 1997
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