Tag: economic development

Best Practices on How to achieve SDGs from a developing world: PAEPI International Conference Experience 2016

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With the onset of #Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Philippines adheres the four dimensions of sustainable development to achieve the basic needs of the present without destroying the future. These are the economic, social, environment and good governance. By 2030, all participating countries should have ended poverty in all its forms.

In connection to this, the Philippine Association of Extension Program Implementers, Inc. (PAEPI- Global) recently hosted 3rd International convention and annual convention themed:

“Literacy Programs: Approaches, Strategies and Practices toward Holistic and Sustainable Community Engagements”

This was held at Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman, Quezon City with participants from different schools across the Philippines shared there best practices in implementing extension programs through different approaches. The convention was also attended by its partner agency Tennessee Renewable Energy #Economic Development Council (TREEDC).

PAEPI International Convention
3rd International PAEPI participants with guest and visitors from TREEDC.

Some of the participants includes University of Rizal System, Northwest Samar State University, San Beda College, Philippine Normal University, Central Mindanao University, and Romblon State University. (Sorry if I forgot to mention other SUCs).

The conference had two plenary speakers who both successfully  shared insights on literacy and how it affects sustainable development and people empowerment.

Nowadays, its is very important that people should be literate not just through reading and writing but also on how to comprehend and deal with other people.

Prof. Brent Jones shared that teachers should encourage students to internalize the lessons in the class. What I learned from his presentation was, “to be an effective teacher: we should know the level of understanding or comprehension of the students, and provide the necessary intervention to it.”

From a Flow Theory, if a teachers fails to know the level of understanding (IQ level) the student will either be bored with the topic because they are fast learners or students may have a problem on digesting the topic because they are below average.

Please follow the presentation below to know more about the flow theory he was referring to.

 

The international conference continues with parallel sessions with four categories: Livelihood and Business, Education, Technology and Health and Environment.

Papers presented were scrutinized to have a best paper in each category based on the following criteria:

  • How the project considered the relevant context of its target beneficiaries? (needs assessments, community resources and social milieu)
  • How the project empower its beneficiaries be it transfer of skills and valuable knowledge,  capacity building and long-term personal and social development? (project interventions, strategies and methods)
  • How innovative, effective and relevant the concepts, models and paradigms applied in the project?          
  • How the project improved the quality of life to its target beneficiaries?       (Impact and indicators of success)
  • How sustainable is the program and how it contributes to the attainment of self-reliance for its beneficiaries  (How sustainable is the project and are there Sustainability plans)

According to the PAEPI- Global, Vice President “Everybody wins,” through sharing their best practices in reaching out the communities. As an academician and educators; it was noted that its not about competition, its about extension – extending our help to the communities. But to  have a more fruitful intellectual discourse, still best paper presenters were chosen.

Some of the best practices includes

PAEPI best paper presenter awardee
NwSSU extension coordinators receives certificate for best paper presenter.

Sustainable community development through Participatory Rural Appraisal

Digital Literacy for Barangay Secretaries

Kapit Bisig Tayo : Mess to Riches

Business Management Training-Seminar for Basey Tikog Workers Federation Leaders in Basey, Samar

Community Based Eco-tourism

Strengthening Resiliency of Romblon Rainfed and Upland Rice Farming Communities to #Climate Change

Restoration of Mt. Asog through rainforestation and agrosilvipasture approach in Iriga City

School Based and Holistic approach in fighting against malnutrition in Odiongan Southcentral School

Empowering Calamity Stricken Communities Through I.T. Training programs

 

The conference ended with big hopes that through sharing of the best practices, planning for publication in journals and linkage, the organization will reach more and achieve more of its goals in the near future.

Well, now that we have 17 Sustainable Development Goals, let us continue to support and extend our best efforts to achieve it through research and extension.

God bless PAEPI- Global!!!

God bless extension implementers!!!

How Environmental Awareness Affect Economic Development

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#Environmental awareness is important to educate and implant the thought of environment to be a partner and not being a limit to economic activities.

Today, an increasing number of companies and entrepreneurs are seeking towards green economy to ensure environmental sustainability will likely be achieve.

This is vital because population and income are rising. However, this lopsided distribution of revenue and population has aggravated the environmental crisis in several ways  (World Economic Survey, 2011). The understanding of a green economy is invoked so as to stress environmental sustainability and protection while pursuing #sustainable development (World Economic Survey, 2011).

Thus, environmental issues might be of interest one with the most important challenges that face the business enterprise in this first decade from the millennium.

Industrial companies and a lot of other international companies should look into this issue with higher importance, acting promptly as well as a proactive stance rather than abandoning a reactive posture.

It is achievable to merge economic interests with environmental interests, even so the economic thinking dominates and guides many governments is always that everything must submit to it and this ecology is external for the economy.

Well, humans are simply part from the nature of business, therefore the economy ought to be seen as component of ecology.

The hunt for an environmental success in the eco-efficiency, leads us time for a condition proven to sustainability: the awareness.

Speaking about sustainability, there is already an agreement to set new global Sustainable Development Goals as one of the main outcomes from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012.

The new goals will serve as a guide of sustainable development in the world after 2015 in lieu of MDGs which will terminate this year.

In the report, the goals were presented based on the scoring assigned per indicator with a maximum score of 8. The higher the score, the higher will be the transformational change that will be undertaken for developed countries.

It was presented that Goal 13 of the SDGs ranked one in developed countries with an average score of 7.1 This goal is to “Take urgent action to combat #climate change and its impacts.”

For developed countries, this is very relevant since they are the ones that producing and emitting more CO2 compared to less developed countries.

Considering that they are already developed, #economic development will be hampered if these environmental risk and hazard will occur. (Of course, risk are always present).

Based on United Concern of Scientist, China is the highest carbon dioxide emitting country followed by US. These countries contribute different amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. Energy Information Agency (Department of Energy).

Photo: UCSUSA
Photo: UCSUSA

Its always ethical and wonderful for a person, organization to give more emphasis on sustainable economic development through environmental awareness.

It is understood which the process of globalization or glocalization (global and local), the idea of citizenship has developed into universal value and ecological ethics a point of love, care, and involved on this vision of consolidating the engine are ethical individuals.

With the increasing numbers of industrial companies, awareness of companies in relation with environmental problems and issues, although limited and inadequate, is of fundamental importance.

Indeed, companies and developed countries started to cooperate to attenuate negative effects of pollution and should aim for environmental sustainability.

In 2014, countries with the highest share of renewable energy consumption in 2014 were also the ones who are in the highest carbon emissions worldwide. (As you can see above)

Photo: www. statista.com
Photo: www. statista.com

This awareness was the perception that it is important to increase the profit, these days with the vision of welfare, without harming the surroundings, educating the client in some way to increase the environmental situation.

After all, we are all the steward of this world.

Reference:

Statista – http://www.statista.com/statistics/274147/countries-with-the-highest-share-of-renewable-energy-consumption/

United Concern of Scientist – http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html#.VcyJsHGqqko

Featured Photo:Designed by Freepik

Socioeconomic Indicators of Development in Philippines

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What are socioeconomic #indicators?

Okay, I know you are eager to know indicators of development i Philippines.

First, let us define what is an indicator.

Indicators are sets of data, or any mixed and gathered and analyzed for policy making, monitoring and evaluation. It is helpful in making assessments in local and national level.

While socioeconomics (also known as socio-economics or social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity directly or indirectly determines and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their localor regional economy, or the global economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomics

There are different sets of socioeconomic indicators. Every country has different indicators depending on their social condition and to the needs and purpose of use. For example in fishery sector, estimation of socio-economic indicators are different compared to non-fishery sector.

On the other hand, some socioeconomic indicators on development are based in Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which is formulated and signed in 2000  by UN and its 189 member countries for the upliftment of the country’s economic and social well being and to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations.

Photo: UNDP http://www.ph.undp.org/
Photo: UNDP
http://www.ph.undp.org/

You can download the UN declaration and the MDGs here.

Indicators can help us classify countries according to their development whether they are Most Economically Developed Country or Less Economically Developed Country.

In the Philippines, there is a socioeconomic tool called Community-Based Monitoring System (#CBMS) which is being utilized by LGUs for monitoring poverty. This monitoring tool is updated every three years in the local level and is also in congruent to the MDGs.

The Community–Based Monitoring System (CBMS) Network is part of the Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Network supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada through its Globalization, Growth and Poverty (GGP) Initiative, and by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Please read the full article of CBMS here.

Some of the helpful data that we can extract from this tool are the following.

1. Poverty maps (provinces, cities, municipalities, barangays and sitios/puroks)
2. Tables and graphs of Core Local Poverty Indicators (CLPIs) such as below poverty and food threshold, no access on sanitary toilet facilities, no access to safe water, not attending school, maternal health, who are squatters and others which are disaggregated by gender, household, purok and Barangay.

Based on the CBMS monitory tool, we have the following indicators

  1. Demography

  2. Health and Nutrition

  3. Housing

  4. Water and Sanitation

  5. Basic Education

  6. Income and Livelihood

  7. Peace and Order

Socioeconomic Indicators of Development in the Philippines

Generally, socioeconomic indicators for #economic development includes the following.

GDP per capita

GDP per capita is the total value of (final i.e. not intermediate) goods and services produced within a country divided by the total population. 5.2% gdp growth for the 1st quarter

GDP estimates from WB $284.6 billion as 2014. (http://data.worldbank.org/country/philippines)

GNP per capita

Life Expectancy

The life expectancy at birth for females born in the Philippines from the year 2005 to 2010 is 71.64 years. Derived from the 2000 Census-based projections, this projected life expectancy at birth for females is longer by 5.53 than the life expectancy at birth for males which is estimated at 66.11 years.

According to UNICEF, life expectancy at birth (years) 2012 is 68.5 years.

Literacy Rates

Philippine Statistics Authority classified literacy into two:

Basic Literacy refer to the ability of a person 10 years old and over to read and write with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect.

Functional literacy refers to the ability of a person 10 to 64 years old who can read, write, compute and comprehend.

Other socioeconomic indicators of development.

Infant mortality
People per doctor
Income
Capital Investments
Real Wage #Index
Disease Indicators
Stress Levels

Meanwhile, the Philippine Minimum National Social Data Set (PMNSDS) also has a set of indicators based MNSDS endorsed by UN Statistical Commission to all member countries and is updated quarterly by National Statistical Coordination Board.

1. Population estimates, by five year age group and sex
2. Life expectancy at birth by sex
3. Infant mortality per 1000 live births
4. Child mortality per 1000 live births
5. Maternal mortality per 100000 live births
6. Contraceptive prevalence rate
7. Average number of years of schooling completed by sex
8. Persons per sleeping room
9. Access to safe water
10. Access to sanitation
11. Monetary value of the basket of food needed for minimum nutritional requirement
12. GDP per capita in pesos
13. Average income per capita of families by decile group
14. Unemployment rate by sex
15. Employment- population ratio by sex

Below is a presentation of indicators of development.

Reliability of Indicators

Like many of data gathered from national and local level, realibility of such data depends heavily on the enumerators skills and the implementers of survey. While data may speak of what is going in the community level, it is useless if data gathering is carried on haphazardly and with a vested interest of the data user.

State of Economic Development in the Philippines

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Do you want to know the state of #economic development in the Philippines?

We all know that we are a part of Economic Development.

Our traditional economic activities are part of economic development and as such development is not just an increase in national income, but a successive stage of economic growth.

How do we know that a country is economically developed?

At a macro level, we have some indicators of economic development like Gross National Product and GDP.

According to Philippine National Statistical Coordination Board the Philippines Gross National Product increased to 2218895 PHP Million in the first quarter of 2015 from 2214850 PHP Million in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Historically,

the Gross National Product in Philippines averaged 1450438.30 PHP Million from 1998 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 2218895 PHP Million in the first quarter of 2015 and a record low of 944320 PHP Million in the second quarter of 1998.

Read the full report here.

From the classical economic theory of development based on Rostow’s stages of growth, I saw that the Philippines is not yet ready to take-off. Visit this site for detailed explanation of Rostow’s stages of growth.

Although that in recent years there is a positive growth rate in some sectors, but systems of production has not yet replaced the traditional methods and norms.

To take off to happen, traditional society must be replaced with modern technology production of goods. While based on the Harrod and Domar theory, a savings of 15% to 20% are important factors for a country to develop faster. Of course, assuming that capital accumulation is high or else Philippines must seek help from foreign aid .

I tried to search the web for some quick facts about the current status of the Philippine economy and this is what I found.

Based on some data gathered Gross National Savings (% of GDP) as of 2014 is 22.303% (Economic Indicators), a little bit closer to 23.27% of the IMF data (IMF World Economic Outlook, 2014).

Source: IMF Data
Source: IMF Data

View it live from this site IMF World Economic Outlook

 

From the website of the IMF, national savings of the Philippines is 22.6% in 2014. While based on “The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring #Sustainable Development in the New Millennium” (2011), World Bank staff estimates based on sources and methods in World Bank’s, adjusted savings: net national savings (% of GNI) in the Philippines were 27.37 as of 2013. Meanwhile, its highest value over the past 36 years was 37.36 in 2010, while its lowest value was 3.66 in 1985.

indexmundi
Source: The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium” (2011).

 Not bad.

Now what does this data imply?

Of course, this means that our economy is growing piecemeal.

Amazingly, the Philippines were able to lend money to the IMF last 2006. It means that we were able to pay up our loan to them.

Read this report in GMA about the loan to IMF here

So, in this report I surmised that Philippines has enough money.

But although our economy is good at this point and in theory, there is not much tangible effect to most of us, and even the common Filipino doesn’t feel this economic growth.

There are still many poor and disadvantage sectors are hapless in their plight and vulnerable to economic stress. Now, my question is should the government fast track our economic development by investing in technology and infrastructure or strengthen agriculture?

It is undeniable that Philippines is an agricultural country. However, as our technology is relatively increasing every day, some areas in the Philippines remain to be purely agriculture-based.

With regards to industrialization, any country who would like to cope up with the fast changing world economy should be industrialized. Hence, industrialization is really a must for economic development because the history of advanced countries shows.

For development, the share of the industrial sector should rise and that with the agricultural sector decline. This is only possible by having a policy of deliberate industrialization.

Industrialization is the method of manufacturing consumer goods and capital goods in addition to creating social overhead capital to be able to provide services and goods to both individuals and businesses.

As such industrialization plays an essential role in the economic growth of LDCs (Less Developed Country) like the Philippines.

As a result, the key benefits of industrialization will “trickle down” on the other sectors in the economy in the form of the development of agricultural and service sectors leading towards the rise in employment, output and income.

In overpopulated LDCs, there is certainly overcrowding around the land, holdings are subdivided and fragmented, and farmers practice traditional agriculture. This attribute characterizing the traditional society in Rostow’s stage of growth.

What about the current educational system?

Does a college degree contribute to economic development?

Let take a look at South Korea. With minimal natural resources to take advantage of, South Korea surely could become a developed country which has a high-income economy.

It is ranked 15th on earth in terms of nominal GDP. It is now your fifth largest economy in Asia. In the past fifty years, South Korea was an input-driven economy, however, this can be a knowledge-based economy.

For rapid development, LDC’s can’t afford to wait for adjustments to farm practices to happen. There must be something to be done.

While many NGOs are pursuing traditional ways of producing agricultural products and going green to help mitigate #climate change, still there is a gap in our economy.

Although,

extreme poverty has declined significantly over the last two decades. In 1990, nearly half of the population in the developing world lived on less than $1.25 a day; that proportion dropped to 14 per cent in 2015 based on MDG report, still many are living below poverty threshold.

Well, economic development is not just development in monetary terms but also in the welfare of the people. Its development of the people and for the people.

References:

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ENVIRONMENT/Resources/ChangingWealthNations.pdf

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/philippines/indicators

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/philippines/net-national-savings

http://www.economywatch.com/economic-statistics/economic-indicators/Gross_National_Savings_Percentage_of_GDP/

http://knoema.com/IMFWEO2014Apr/imf-world-economic-outlook-april-2014?tsId=1040350