A feature of the People-Centered Development Forum, Release Date September 19, 1993
ANGOC, IRED Asia and the PCDForum
A growing gap between rich and poor and accelerating environmental and social disintegration offer powerful testimony to the failure of conventional development practice in countries of both South and North. This failure has given birth to a global effort […]
PCDForum Column #48, Release Date April 15, 1993
by Jorge G. Castañeda and Carlos Heredia
Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians have all been
told by their governments that the recently negotiated
North American free-trade agreement will benefit all.
But what these governments have claimed is wrong.
The negotiated agreement ignores the profound
implications that flows of trade, capital, and investment bring with them. […]
PCDForum Column #63, Release Date October 8, 1993
by A.V. Krebs
The production, preparation, availability, distribution, and quality of food
the sustainer of life have shaped human cultures in fundamental ways throughout
history. We have good reason to be concerned when our food production,
distribution, and preparation system commonly known as the agribusiness system
becomes dominated by powerful and increasingly […]
PCDForum Column #60, Release Date Septemer 1, 1993
by Mike Nickerson
Economics has become a state religion based on the faith that growth,
efficiency and competition will for ever improve the human condition. This faith
was appropriate in days gone by when industrial humanity was young and had lots
of room for growing. Now that room has been filled. […]
PCDForum Column #45, Release date April 5, 1993
by James Stanford
Many labor representatives in the United States and Canada fear that a North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will lead to a redirection of investment
toward low-wage regions of the continent, consequently reducing wages and
employment opportunities in higher-wage areas. Yet free trade advocates
regularly cite projections claiming that […]
Adapted by the PCDForum from Bishan Singh’s Column in The
Sun, Tuesday, August 17, 1993.
by Bishan Singh
In Malaysia we speak of budaya
lepak,which refers to the phenomenon of teenagers hanging
out at shopping complexes,
malls, supermarkets and transportation terminals. The loitering
culture has become a national
concern, in particular of the
Ministry of Youth and Sports
which has said it wants to […]
PCDForum Column #50, Release Date June 25, 1993
by Vandana Shiva
While gender subordination and patriarchy are the oldest of oppressions,
they have taken on new and more violent forms through the project of
development. Through its appropriation and destruction of the natural resource
base this project has systematically removed from women’s management and control
the land, water and forest […]
PCDForum Column #54, Release Date June 25, 1993
by William E. Rees and Mark Roseland
Developing sustainable communities will require an unprecedented emphasis on
reducing urban sprawl and its unsustainable consequences. Such an effort must
simultaneously create more efficient use of urban space, reduced consumption of
material and energy resources, improved community livability, and improved
administrative and planning processes capable […]
Adapted by the PCDForum from Bishan Singh’s Column in:
Tuesday, August 10, 1993, The Sun
by Bishan Singh
We know that territorial colonialism has almost ended. But a
new colonialism of a more insidious and pervasive kind–economic colonization through
global market integration–is
flourishing. The new colonizing
powers are not nation states, but
rather gigantic corporations with
no national allegiance. The collapse of the […]
PCDForum Column #46, Release Date April 10, 1993
by Vandana Shiva
Often it is the voice of the people that calls attention to the
environmental costs of mal-development long before official agencies acknowledge
a problem. Peasant women were the first to voice concern over Himalayan
deforestation. Housewives at Love Canal first protested against the health
effects of dumping toxic waste. […]