• Thursday, 28 March 2024
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Kurdistan: Total Solutions for Sustainability

Kurdistan: Total Solutions for Sustainability
After persisting provocations and exhaustion of our living earth, mankind seems now as divided as ever: once over the mis-management of wealth of nations and now but to decide upon a legally binding agreement for tackling the main challenge of 21st century on how to repair the fabric of fragile environment of living earth. In short, the on-going global financial and environmental crisis has brought modern economists face to face with the conceptual definition of sustainability according to Lester Brown in 1980 all towards “achievement of a balance between human impacts and the capacity of natural world that can be sustained indefinitely, taking into account three interdependent elements: the environment, the economy and the society”. Verly, we mankind is not alone on this blue planet, and if not flora or fauna, Nature herself is fighting back rather in a devastated chain reactions. Henceforth, we moderns need sound policymaking towards promotion and adoption of sustainable culture and performance. The shift to sustainability policy will pave the way for total solutions in food security, water secutiy, and energy security that have increasingly outlined the new rather pragmatic concept of national security based on green economy. And sustainability issues whilst being globally addressed, these are incorporated broadly into different organizational functions, all with the common goal of creating a sustainable economy, society and environment. Here, a range of sectors have a growing demand for sustainability professionals and many lawyers, engineers, marketers, communications professionals, policymakers and scientists have some form of sustainability responsibility in their position. At large, efforts in Kurdistan have to be directed towards building its hard-power via rational planning for economic development that ensures political stability. This would imply a policy for maximizing efficient usage of resources and minimizing their negative impacts. As part of sustainable management for a community is communicating the ideals and plans for an area to the people that will be carrying out the plan, our top-down planning & communication approaches have to be augmented with bottom-up dialogue that would initiate the democratization of development (Gulan 582, 866, 877). Here, our growing private sector has to show social responsibility through a real contribution in its share of employment as well as funding Research & Development (RD) that can afford total solutions for its own economic development. However, this new trend towards sustainability concept has to be mastered with a promotion of relevant culture and education via an advanced faculty of sustainable management & development in Kurdistan. The main aim is to address the need to formally prepare these sustainability practitioners for Kurdistan as part of rich Upper Mesopotamian region. This is at the core of sustainability management and environmental protection, as the new graduates of problem-solvers do need to be able to appreciate and tackle complex systems of water, environmental services, climate changes, ecological design, waste management and energy management. And thus the new trend of sustainability and relevant empowerment of working forces will open the door wide enough for more employment in the private sector. According to recent report by Yale & Columbia Unversities, the challenges of poverty and under-investment in basic environmental amenities have made access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation among problems primarly affect developing countries. Let alone that the fate of fresh-water has become the main concern in most of African & Middle Eastern countries. Bear in mind that this region has hardly the slight share of 2.0% of the 2.5% of global fresh water. Worse, with mass a global rain-full of 110,000 km3 annually, both droughts and floods have become the symptoms of extreme shift in precipitation trend. By the end of this century, Tigris-Euphrates Basin will be severely affected by this new trend pushing eventually a quarter billion people in Turkey, Iraq, Iran & Syria as to suffer all the panic & peril of the coming water crisis. As such, the socio-economic problems in the region will be complicated and deteriorated due to decline both in the quantity and quality of fresh water (Gulan 807, 817, 877). By 2050 world’s population will rise by a third, and while demands for food-production will rise by 70%, global agricultural production will be most affected by the detrioration of global environment. And big food producers in the world will be gradually prococcupied by their own food security than exporting their surpluses. Little wonder! Presidnet B. Obama has recently declared that food issue will be the most challenging threat of 21st Century. And if the revenues of crude oil are no longer capable as to offset the rising food-prices, then the economy of most of oil producers will be rather runing in vicious circle, as the rising consumptive trend will devour any chance for economic development. Added to that, as these countries are not investing on a proper and relaible plans for human capacity building, they are becoming more and more buyers of technical solutions from the rich-zone of developed countries than to be the creators of sustainable soultions for most needed green economy in the future. How to feed Kurdistan? The answer is that business as usual will not do it. Here, oil is the means not the end, and its revenues have to be well invested in the productivity capacity of agriculture, sustainable management of Tigris Basin, and improve the operation of food markets. Otherwise, the danger exists that current trend of consumption will become a de facto reality in our region. Ultimately, our decision makers have to take political initiatives for articualtion of a reliable strategic plan in this respect (Gulan 560, 799, 813, 820, 829, 838, 866, 877). According to a white paper by the Aliance for Natural Health International (2010), ”sustainability is a roboust concept that has proven its worth across a range of diferent industries, including energy, agriculture, forestry and even construction and tourism”. And according to a recent definition by Wikipedia, ”sustainable architecture seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and development space”. The idea of sustainability, or Ecological Design, is to ensure that our actions and decisions today do not inhibit the opportunities of future generations. On the same line, while adoption of sustainabile health-care will greatly encorage preventive approaches healthcare, the key concept is not control but cooperation with nature. This was at the core of cultural identity of people of Kurdistan over times, and which calls now for a healthcare reform on this endeavour. We have to admit in pain that the current clash in Kurdistan between the rising consumptive-trend of urbanization and the declining traditonal agrarian economics of rural communities has to be properly tackled and in the way that the ongoing socio-economic & demographic imbalance have to be restored. Otherwise, the negative impacts upon the ”white-lands” of urban areas will exceed the ecological and socio-economic ruins already inflected upon the ”green-lands” of rural areas in KurdistanKurdistan is considered as one of man-made high gardens in human history, with fertile land, ample water and rich farming heritage stretching back millennia its potentional for diversity of productions along with an agro-based economic growth is immense. It was the cradle for agro-forestry practices since deep time, and ecologically it is very suitable for organic farming. To that end, modern farming and agro industries could help to generate an alternative economy and reliable future source of revenues to the gas and oil sector (Gulan 813, 834, 835, 862). However, the key factors for such green economic prospects and total solutions are ”productivity & sustainability”. While education and adult training on sustainable development and management could create the good ground for such ”sustainability” in performance, the arts of biotechnology have globally been considered as the means for achieving the required ”productivity” in 21st century. And it is the time now that both conceptual keys have to be initaited as strategic projections and be accomodated in a market-oriented university in Kurdistan. Only then we might attract real attentions from our neighboring countries towards a complementary economy... and which is the logic of ongoing globalization. Dr. Anwar A. Abdullah BarzanjiEx. Senior advisor on sustainable developmentPrime Minister Office2004-2011KRG
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