Development/Policy
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The TDPS region is characterized by overlapping cultural and
economic systems in which a vast agrarian subsistence economy exists side by
side with agricultural sectors directed at regional and national markets and
with a mining industry looking abroad. The impact on natural resources has
varied, but in every case their consumption and depletion are not included in
the costs of production. The ancestral values based on respect for
"Mother Earth" have largely died out, and nature is perceived as an
inexhaustible fount of resources and a waste dump. The widespread poverty and
low levels of education prevent the population from developing an awareness of
the limits on their resources, and only in the wake of major natural
catastrophes such as droughts and floods have some sectors of the society
begun to think about the cause-and-effect relationship between the use and
management of natural resources and those catastrophes.
A change in behavior toward the natural environment, especially on
the part of those sectors causing it the most harm (mining, mining-based
industry, urban concentration) requires a change in attitude based on an
understanding of, and respect for, the region's physical and biological
processes, its natural and cultural-anthropological values, and the right of
its indigenous peoples to emerge from poverty by receiving a growing share of
the return on the development of its resources. This change in outlook
requires more effective action by the state, with a comprehensive policy
including the creation and enforcement of legal, institutional and fiscal
mechanisms and economic incentives and resources designed to further
sustainable development in the region. Real participation by the local
communities in administering the areas within their jurisdiction is also
needed.
The present environmental assessment is an important step toward
those ends.
 851Kb - 42 pages
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The document summarizes the objectives, methodological approach, and principal
conclusions and recommendations of the binational plans, programs, and projects being
executed by the Amazonian countries with the cooperation of the General Secretariat of the
OAS.
The general purpose of the border plans and programs is to create conditions for
sustainable development. The plans also seek to explore the development potential of the
border areas in terms of population, ecosystems, and natural resources, with a view to
incorporating these areas into the countries' economies. They are intended not only to
deal with the specific problems of each border area, but also to serve as models for
extending environmentally sound development planning to other parts of the Amazon region.
851Kb - 42 pages
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In April of 1988, the Presidents of Colombia and Peru met in the
town of San Antonio, on the Amazon River, and signed a Joint Declaration
agreeing to a Bilateral Action Plan to carry out the Plan for the Integral
Development of the Putumayo River Basin, to be executed within the framework
of the Joint Committee for the Colombian-Peruvian Amazon Cooperation Treaty.
Their ministries of foreign affairs were asked to jointly negotiate financial
support from international organizations, especially the Organization of
American States. The first meeting of the Joint Committee took place in
August 1988 in Leticia, Colombia, capital of Amazonas Department. In this
meeting, the terms of reference for the drafting of the Plan for the Integral
Development of the Putumayo River Basin (PPCP) were approved.
563Kb - 12 pages
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This book is a next step in the ongoing characterization of sustainable
development. It is a set of conclusions drawn from case descriptions and methods that look
at the "why" and "how" of the new regional planning. Chapters 1, 2, 3
and 4 make the case for the importance of both wild and cultured biodiversity; Chapters 5,
6 and 7 give instructions on how attention can be given to special parts of the overall
effort; Chapter 8 links the topic to the recently ratified Convention on Biological
Diversity; and Chapters 9, 10 and 11 discuss experiences from the well-known cases of
La Amistad International Park in Costa Rica and Panama, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition
in the United States, and CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe as they fit into the parameters of the new
regional planning.
744Kb - 117 pages
After seven years of field work it is now possible to prepare this synthesis of
OAS experience with natural hazards. The material comes with a broad set of objectives, a
reflection of the breadth of the issues involved in hazard mitigation. At the policy
level, it is hoped that national planning ministries, development agencies, and
international financing institutions will be encouraged to systematically include analyses
of natural hazards in their economic development programs.
2,054Kb - 141 pages
In October of 1994, UNEP and GS/OAS signed an Agreement in
which both organizations agreed to support Costa Rica and Nicaragua the two
countries in carrying out this Project. The project's main objectives
were defined as those relating to human development and the preservation of
natural resources and ecosystems. The following aspects were given priority: (a)Management and preservation of shared basins and water
resources; (b)Management of protected areas and preservation of biodiversity; (c) Incentives for the development of sustainable economic activities; (d) Overcoming the population's conditions of poverty, and attention to
indigenous groups; and (e) Institutional strengthening and legislation which would reconcile key
issues at the border and Central American level.
6.710Kb -
334 pages
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This document is the result of nearly two years of work by the staff of the
Program of Regional Development, Argentine coworkers, and several international
consultants (Appendix A). Every effort has been made to make the content and prose
applicable to the needs of project directors and field staff working in the planning of
river basin development. Consequently, scientific and specialized terminology have
been kept to a minimum and the recommendations have been made in full consideration of the
realities of developing countries. The document has been purposefully kept short to
give it the character of a guidebook rather than that of an exhaustive treatise on the
subject of environment and development.
Although the methodology has been designed to guide the early planning stages of
river basin development in semiarid regions of the developing world, much of it is
applicable to regional and sectoral planning efforts in the more humid regions. Similarly,
it should find use as a text and reference material in those training centers and
institutions that relate to development planning.
1,100Kb - 95 pages
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Evaluation of the Potential
Industrial Environmental Impacts of the FTAA Brazil Case Study
This
assessment focused on the industrial sector and
indicated that the main environmental changes with the
possible implementation of FTAA could include water
contamination and detriment in air quality due to
outdoor air pollution. However, the assessment
highlights that those industries that could affect air
quality in Brazil use environmentally friendly
technologies in order to meet sustainability and market
access requirements of the export markets. Additionally,
this assessment examines the Brazilian
legal-institutional frameworks and the internalization
of environmental cost by industry, concluding that these
costs do not affect competitiveness. Finally, this
assessment includes some recommendations for regulating
entities in terms of promoting efficiency and
competitiveness of the Brazilian industrial sector.
314.16KB - 49 pages
The paper proposes specific institutional measures to foster a more
active partnership between the World Bank Socially and Environmentally
Sustainable Development Sector Management Unit (IBRD/LCSES) and the Unit for
Sustainable Development and Environment of the OAS (OAS/DSD), key
international NGOs, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It explores the
constraints to collaboration, analyzes trends in development assistance, and
sketches a general framework for strengthening levels of collaboration among
technical assistance and donor organizations active in natural resource
management issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Biodiversity,
water resources, and disaster reduction proposals and projects are suggested
as examples of how an improved collaborative framework between the Bank, the
OAS, and cooperating institutions can be implemented. Improving the climate
for donor coordination is in the best interest of both client nations and the
assistance community.
111Kb - 37 pages
A critical problem facing agricultural development in the Eastern Caribbean is
the acute scarcity of arable land. Concentrated ownership of best lands compounds this
scarcity. The majority of the rural population is left to farm small holdings on
unsuitable hillsides. In turn, this intensive cultivation of hillsides triggers a complex
process of soil erosion and environmental degradation of entire watersheds. Isolated
soil-conservation efforts have at best been palliative. The roots of the problem remain in
land scarcity.
This volume, designed as a follow-up to the original report, addresses the Morne
Panache Pilot Project, the LRTP, and the Mabouya Valley Development Project. Together, the
results of these projects illustrate the importance of an integrated approach to land
issues, an approach that deals not only with the consequences of problems, but also with
causes. The Department of Regional Development and Environment at the OAS is pleased to
have cooperated with the Government of St. Lucia in this effort and believes that the
following account may be helpful to other governments faced with similar development
challenges.
1,102Kb - 66 pages
Reviewing 20 years of experience with integrated regional development planning
is a humbling exercise. Mistakes and failed plans stand out clearly with the perspective
of time, but so do the occasional successfully implemented projects that flowed from the
plans. Less obvious but perhaps equally satisfying are the mistakes avoided because of the
plans. DRD draws here exclusively on its own field experience in Latin America, leaving it
to other technical assistance agencies to catalog theirs. Accordingly, the emphasis in
this book is on the development of natural resources, energy, infrastructure, agriculture,
industry, human settlements, and social services. In these accounts, we believe, are
information and ideas of use to developing-country governments from the local to the
national levels, sectoral agencies, river basin authorities, regional development
corporations, other technical assistance groups, and - most of all - field study managers.
6,637Kb - 313 pages
The formulation of this innovative strategy is a prompt response to
a mandate entrusted to the OAS by the 1996 Bolivia Summit Conference on
Sustainable Development. For almost three years, the DSD led an open
and participatory process to give shape to the ISP, working with public sector
and civil society organizations in the 34 member states in conducting
technical studies, seminars, and extensive consultations. This broad
consultation process gave governments, civil society organizations, and other
stakeholders in the Americas the opportunity to exchange ideas and opinions
regarding the recommendations and principles to be taken into account in the
design, implementation, and evaluation of participatory projects, policies, or
programs. As a result, the ISP contains principles and policy
recommendations aimed at achieving greater involvement of all sectors of
society in the making of decisions on sustainable development and environment.
This document represents the Phase I report of the OAS/UNEP/Government of Peru
sponsored project: "Case Study of Environmental Management: Integrated Development of
An Area in the Humid Tropics - The Selva Central of Peru." To a large degree this
effort is a follow-up of the OAS/UNEP/Government of Argentina study of the Upper Bermejo
River Basin of Argentina in 1975-1977 which sought to develop a planning methodology for
river basins in semiarid areas. The results of this early study were published in 1978 as
a small book, Environmental Quality and River Basin Development: A Model for Integrated
Analysis and Planning. Both of these studies have their basis in Resolution 61 of the
1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Action Plan, which requests that
research be undertaken to design practical planning methodologies for distinct categories
of development activity in specific individual biomes and which would include
"concern for the environment" as an integral part of development planning.
3,375Kb - 283 pages
In recent years, a fundamental change has taken place in the way national
governments and the international community measure and think about countries' economic
performance. Leading economists now agree that national income accounting should treat
natural resources as it does other tangible economic assets. Standard-setting agencies,
such as the United Nations Statistical Office, have formulated new methodological
guidelines. More and more industrialized and developing countries are constructing revised
resource and environmental accounts in order to make them more relevant to sound
environmental management and sustainable development. In our own hemisphere, while Canada
and the United States have taken the lead in this initiative, other countries are also
taking steps to initiate the process of revision.
In serving as host of the seminar reported on in this document, the OAS is
pleased to have provided, through a joint effort with the World Resources Institute, a
pioneering hemispheric forum for discussion of the issues arising from its member
countries' new and incipient accounting experiences.
383Kb - 56 pages
2,802Kb -
148 pages
Under the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, the governments of
Colombia and Ecuador signed a cooperation agreement in 1979 to promote and
oversee the two countries' bilateral activities in the Amazonian region. In
1985, both governments reaffirmed the need to encourage sectoral activities in
the border region and decided to begin to draw up a binational action plan to
steer regional development towards sustainable development objectives that
were compatible with their fragile ecological systems. Thus, in 1986, the
Physical Planning and Management Plan for the San Miguel and Putumayo River
Basins (PSP) was approved and initiated.
1.867Kb -
150 pages
Grenada is in the process of better defining its land use policy. The national
parks and protected areas program is an important step towards viewing the finite resource
of land in a multiple use context. Grenada's actions in the protection of the upper
watersheds and important ecosystems, promotion of cultural and natural attractions, and
the development of educational and tourism programs are noteworthy in this respect.
The methodology for the establishment and management of a system of national
parks and protected areas was developed by a team of national and international
specialists working together under the direction of the Ministry of Agriculture. The
inventory of the natural and cultural resource base relied on an interdisciplinary team
made up of fisheries, forestry, land use, extension, and physical planning personnel as
well as first-hand information of local hikers, naturalists and historians.
In conjunction with this report, and as part of the Government of Grenada/OAS
Integrated Development Project, land policy and infrastructure development guidelines have
also been defined. A zoning map has been generated to identify productive agricultural and
grazing lands, especially in the southeast section of the island of Grenada where
development pressures are most intense. The goal of these efforts is to protect and
develop the natural resources of Grenada and Carriacou.
2,807Kb - 144 pages
In concurrence with the objectives, policies and strategies
specified in each country's Amazonian Development Plan, the overall PPCP goals
can be summarized as follows: (a) To promote the harmonious and sustained
development of the area; (b) To integrate the area with the rest of the
territory by constructing roads and other transportation facilities and
establishing communication links, as well as through political, cultural,
social and economic inter-action; (c) To improve the population's standard of
living; (d) To concentrate, in the native communities, on substantially
improving the handling of territorial issues, and the provision of basic
social and health services, including the conservation of areas traditionally
inhabited by such communities while protecting the fundamental rights of those
communities, and, in particular, their social and cultural integrity; (e) To
promote research and the compilation of information on the area.
4.930Kb - 172
pages
Following the El Niño occurrence of 1982-83, the member states of the
Organization of American States (OAS) expressed the need for technical cooperation in
natural hazard management. In response, the Department of Regional Development and
Environment (DRDE) initiated the Natural Hazard Project with support from the Office of
Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID).
The need for this book became clear through field work and discussions with
planning agency counterparts and representatives of other development assistance agencies.
Great strides were made in the past two decades in emergency preparedness and response,
but up to now insufficient attention has been paid to reducing the vulnerability of
existing and planned development. After seven years of field work, it is now possible to
prepare this synthesis of OAS experience with this neglected subject.
7,700Kb - 520 pages
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In accordance with the objectives, policies, and
strategies contained in the development plans for the Amazon region in both
countries, the general objectives for the development of the border
communities are as follows: a) improvement of the living standards of the
population; b) determination of the appropriate use of the areas natural
resources, with a view toward sustainable development; c) binational
integration of the area into the remainder of the territory of the two
countries, through the efficient use of their natural resources and the
fostering of effective occupation of the border areas.
3.060Kb - 157
pages
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In the context of the institutional arrangements set up in Santa Cruz de la
Sierra, Bolivia, the Secretary General of the Organization American States was given the
mandate to submit a report on progress attained in the implementation of the initiatives
of the Plan of Action on Sustainable Development. The report, to be made available prior
to the 1998 Summit of the Americas, was intended as a follow-up on the commitments entered
into in Bolivia. This paper is in compliance with the coordinating and follow-up roles
entrusted to the OAS.
224Kb - 50 pages
The unique land tenure problems inherited by Saint Lucia have represented a
major constraint for the development of the agricultural sector. They are one of the most
important factors preventing the farming community from diversifying production and
increasing productivity. Conscious of the complexity of the problem, and cognizant of the
far-reaching social and economic impact that possible solutions could have, the Government
of Saint Lucia requested technical cooperation from the Organization of American States.
This cooperation had two objectives: to undertake the studies required to design feasible
technical alternatives and to identify complementary actions capable of taking full
advantage of the solution of land tenure problems.
The present report synthesizes the technical studies undertaken during 1981 by a
team of national and international specialists working with the Ministry of Agriculture.
2,840 Kb - 235 pages
230 Kb- 14 pages
On May 4, 1989, the Government of Uruguay and the Inter-American Development
Bank signed a technical cooperation agreement to finance a national study that would help
incorporate the environmental dimension into the development process of Uruguay.
This document synthesizes the findings of the study and provides an action plan
to implement the strategy, projects and programs that are based on these findings. In
summary, the study established that a formal environmental policy was needed to meet the
national objectives of improved quality of life for the people of Uruguay.
433Kb - 39 pages
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