The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Framework for Intersectoral Development

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Framework for Intersectoral Development

By John Stansfield

 

Abstract

After several years of negotiation and collaboration, the United Nations Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) came into effect in January 2016. The 17 goals, which include issues such as ending poverty and hunger, reducing inequality, and a call for climate action, gender equity, quality education for all as well as health, housing, clean water and sanitation, provide a potential framework for participation and partnership. In force for the next 15 years, the goals are unlike any previous UN policy tool in that they are applicable to all member states and include public and private sectors as well as civil society. States will report against progress towards the goals, and the development of collaborations and partnerships to achieve them.

This paper examines the development of the goals and the implications and opportunities for practice in the social work profession, and draws on the author’s experience in India and Aotearoa New Zealand. In this paper the author argues that social workers’ experience with poverty and inequality can add a rich context and potential for leadership in an international effort for peace and social justice.

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Introduction

The 17 United Nations goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) are the latest expression of the evolving paradigm of sustainable development. The term has its contemporary roots in the late-twentieth-century understanding of impending environmental crisis and emerging theories of development, which sought to address a rapidly growing wealth gap between the least developed and most developed countries (Du Pisani, 2006). Rachel Carson’s (1962) seminal work Silent Spring was a clarion call to environmental concern. But the separation of people from planet as a locus of concern has not served either well. The bringing together of these two themes is evident from the time of the Bruntland Commission (1987) and thereafter through the major international governance conferences and resolutions such as Agenda 21 in 1992, and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

As a discipline, social work has come relatively late to the importance of sustainability, which is perhaps surprising given the strong influence of systems theory, interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science, and on the ecological systems model (Siporin, 1980). However, in the sustainability discourses and social work literature there is now much evidence of a rapid catching-up.

In this paper I will introduce the importance of the SDGs for social work, concentrating for brevity’s sake on the first seven goals. Further, I will describe how Agenda 2030 is a unique opportunity to utilise the SDGs and reposition social work as an essential partner in the progress towards the achievement of the goals.

SDG Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Whilst I would argue that all 17 of the goals for sustainable development need a voice in social work practice, that voice is strongest in Sustainable Development Goal 1. This goal has very deep roots in social work and many would argue that social work developed as a response to the iniquities of poverty.

The United Nations, in its assessment, reports that 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty. The UN defines poverty, from an income perspective, as a per person per day income of less than US$1.25. There are two problems with this measure. Firstly, most researchers acknowledge that poverty needs to be understood within a distinct social, political and historical context and an international average is therefore problematic, and secondly there are very large numbers of people (the World Bank estimated 2.7 billion people in 2008) who live in moderate poverty on less than US$2 a day (UN, 2016).

As a result of its long history in examining and engaging with poverty, the profession of social work has a much more sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of poverty. Absolute poverty – a measure of, in the case of income poverty, a dollar amount of income per day regardless of country – has been superseded in social work with ‘relative poverty’, a measure which is context-specific, such as a percentage of the national average wage. Nevertheless, this very stark and simple UN measure is of great value when identifying the communities who are most affected by extreme poverty. Moreover, the sheer simplicity of the analysis enables rapid identification of the associates of poverty. For instance, almost three-quarters of the poorest people on the planet live in rural areas and are food producers. Two thirds are from an ethnic minority and perhaps more surprisingly, 960 million of the poorest live in countries that have been identified as middle-income countries (MICs). Nearly one half of the poorest households are headed by a person who has no education, and in one third where the household head is not in work (Bailey, 2011).

The US National Association for Social Work (NASW), cites poverty as a significant problem to be addressed by one of its six ethical principles, ‘working for social justice’, and notes that in its understanding of poverty we are dealing with both a dynamic problem and one exacerbated by inequalities:

A close examination of poverty reveals that it is about much more than money alone. Poverty results from a number of factors that include political, social, and economic dynamics. For instance, as the country shifts from a manufacturing to a service economy, wages have been dramatically lowered for the average “nonprofessional” worker. In addition, the feminization of poverty has been exacerbated by persistent disparities in salaries for men and women, as well as the disproportionate economic burden that single mothers face in raising children alone. (NASW, n.d., para 3)

The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), in its paper on a social work response to extreme poverty, notes:

Extreme poverty is the result of permanent or long lasting forms of precariousness that undermine the capacity of individuals, families, communities and population groups to assume fundamental rights enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights. Extreme poverty cannot be overcome by material aid and capacity building alone, nor can poverty reduction initiatives be successful unless they are based on the recognition of the inherent dignity and on the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights preamble. (IFSW, 2012, para 1.2)

The expression of poverty as an issue for human rights resonates well with the sustainable development goals which seek to ensure human rights for everyone, equality and an end to discrimination. The goals are built around a full set of human rights from civil and political rights, cultural rights to social and economic rights, including the right to development. This is expressed in the slogan which accompanies the SDGs of “no one left behind”.

Social work, then, understands that poverty is a multilevel problem which requires a systemic approach to change, which recognises and addresses structural inequalities. The SDGs may be a powerful tool in creating a platform to unite stakeholders around the goals, and have recently been adopted by the IACD as its primary policy in its new strategy (IACD, 2016).

Poverty is gendered. Rates of poverty are consistently higher amongst women than men across all ethnic groups (Cawthorne, 2008); moreover, this is not only because women care for children. In 2008 over half the women living below the poverty line in the US were single women without children. The declining value of universal pensions places a growing number of women at risk of poverty. In addition to being paid less than men, while doing identical work, women’s incomes are lower because they are less employed, more often part-time; female dominated occupations and industries pay less and they are more likely to be out of the workforce caring for others. They are also more likely to bear the costs of care. In the US, eight out of ten custodial parents are women (UN Women, n.d.).

Increasingly, the social work literature identifies not just the existence of poverty but growing inequality which sees wealth and power concentrated in the hands of the few. Whilst extreme poverty has decreased significantly in the developing world, (most pronouncedly in China, down to 13% from 60%) the proportion of the world’s population in relative poverty has been on the rise in the developed world (UN, 2016).

Alongside this often dramatic rise in poverty has been what is emerging as a growing empathy gap (Chattanooga, 2015). The empathy gap is a real concern to the social work profession because a decline in empathy is an outright attack on core social work values and principles. Researchers have proven that empathetic social workers are more effective, i.e., empathy works (Gerdes & Segal, 2009). The decline in empathy is encouraged by a return to the Dickensian values of blaming the poor, and this has the effect of limiting solidarity across society and thus protects the unjustly wealthy.

Blaming the poor is functional to the creation and continuance of inequality because it excuses the beneficiaries of an unequal society from any responsibility for the consequences to marginalised communities. In “a poverty of imagination” Dorey (2010) observes:

…many people tacitly accept that ‘the poor will always be with us’. Moreover, much of the British public believes that there are sufficient opportunities to succeed for those who try hard enough, and also that it is the middle class which actually struggles the most, economically or financially. (p. 1)

One of the most interesting responses to the increasing tolerance of inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand has been the rising prominence of discourse around child poverty. Because it simply isn’t credible to blame children for their own poverty, it is much more difficult to target this group of victims as deserving of a diminished status and opportunities. A multidisciplinary clamour, which has included teachers, identifying children from overcrowded households, and now increasingly children living in cars, as likely to have learning problems and unlikely to succeed in education, has been joined by nurses identifying the same group as likely to suffer lifelong health consequences from the childhood deprivation. Criminologists and sociologists have joined the discussion, drawing attention to the societally-self-defeating nature of the paradigms, whilst economists have been recruited to prove that the problem is completely preventable and its solution utterly affordable.

One of the traditional social work responses to poverty has been to help secure access to paid work. At an individual level, the social worker’s role might include ensuring a client has access to the appropriate training and support services to enhance employability. At a community development level, it might include working with communities to help them identify their assets and aspirations, and brokering the support of central and local government as well as civil society (Mantle & Backwith, 2010). However, in recent times, it has become apparent that employment is not in itself a pathway out of poverty. Recent studies in the United States have shown that whilst overall labour market participation is trending down, an increased proportion of lower income households are in in work. Forty-four percent of lower income households in the US are now in work, but the stagnation of real wages, falling wages, reduced working conditions, de-unionised workplaces, and a precarious uncertainty of hours as a result of casualisation have created the contemporary phenomenon of the working poor (Povich, Roberts, & Mather, 2013).

The IFSW has a comprehensive policy on poverty and the role of social work. The policy, which like the UN SDGs utilises a rights-based framework, commences:

6.1 IFSW recognizes that human rights are fundamental to all persons, as individuals and collectives and these rights cannot be guaranteed when almost a billion people around the world live in extreme poverty. (2012, p. 6.1)

The Goal includes some very challenging targets, including by 2030 eradicating extreme poverty. The challenge for social workers will be asserting their influence and unique understandings in the achievement of this and other targets, including those applicable in their own countries.

SDG Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Hunger is an assault on human dignity and in a world where there is enough food for everyone to be well fed, hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition are evidence of a failure of world governance.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that one in nine of the world’s population suffers from chronic under-nourishment. 780 million of the 795 million hungry people in the world live in developing countries. Food and trade policies of wealthy countries have often contributed to food insecurity. Most recently, a switch from agrarian crops for food to biofuel has been identified as creating price pressures which have exacerbated hunger (Whalberg, 2008). Hunger activist Eric Holt-Giminez (2008) dismisses the notion that hunger is a result of natural causes and contests:

Though hunger is coming in waves, not everyone will “drown” in famine. In fact, the world’s recurrent food crises are making a handful of investors and multinational corporations very rich – even as they devastate the poor and put the rest of the planet at severe environmental and economic risk. (para 2.)

A broken food system produces not just hunger but malnutrition. Fifty-two million children are too thin and require special treatment, yet 43 million children are overweight, some as the result of poverty (UN, 2016).

Malnutrition and food security are relatively complex problems, which have in the past been reduced to simple formulas of calories. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for instance, addressed hunger but not malnutrition, whereas a more sophisticated approach looks at both, as well as under- and over-nutrition including micro-nutrient deficiencies.

There are structural problems which impact on our food security; these include climate change, nutrient transition, the shift from plant-based foods to meat, food price volatility, and an economic system which treats food as an opportunity for profit and not a fundamental right.

Social workers are engaged in a variety of programmatic responses to the issue of hunger. At the most basic of casework levels this encompasses work in administering food to the hungry, whether in disaster-relief aid or in the urban soup kitchen. At the community social work or community development end of the spectrum there is a great deal of work being done to help communities take greater control of their food systems. This includes helping communities organise community gardens and food forests, as well is advocating for sustainable food policies in urban design.

The Council on Social Work Education (2014.), in its policy paper Understanding Food Insecurity: Human Rights and Social Work Implications identifies four roles for social work:

1. Provide education to groups about the importance of the food they eat and empower them to protect their rights to food.
2. Advocate on behalf of the vulnerable communities that experience discrimination against their right to adequate food supply.
3. Provide meaningful interventions to vulnerable populations’ food security, such as community garden programs.
4. Build coalitions of multiple stakeholders to address issues of food security globally and locally. (para 4)

Because food fulfils human cultural as well as nutritional purposes, social workers are involved in communities’ cultural rights concerning food. New Zealand social worker Tiffany Apaitia-Vague (2011) observes “Social work’s core value of social justice directly responds to the need for those within our community to not just have food, but to have fulfilling, nutritious, culturally appropriate food” (p. 69). Increasingly there is contest to protect access to traditional and indigenous foods. The understanding of cultural rights, embodied in the social work values, provides a new opportunity for social workers to show solidarity to marginalised communities.

SDG 2 has some ambitious targets. These include:

• By 2030 end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
• By 2030 end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving by 2025 the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under five. (UN, 2016, para 3)

SDG Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

The confluence of inequality and discrimination serve to visit the least favourable health outcomes on the poorest nations, and even within these on the least powerful citizens. In 2015, 5.9 million children under the age of five died. This statistic is worse in the WHO African region, with 81 deaths per thousand live births, more than seven times higher than in the WHO European region where the rate is 11 deaths per thousand live births (WHO, 2015).

Advancing policies and actions to achieve the goals is not without its challenges. The health MDGs have not been fully met, and remain priorities in a world where there is a rising tide of a more recent threat in non-communicable diseases (obesity, diabetes and heart disease). While progress has been made against some Millennium Development Goals, such as maternal mortality, which fell by 45% against a target of 75%, unconscionable inequalities still apply and the maternal mortality rate is still 14 times higher in developing regions than in the developed world (UN, 2016).

Poor health is both a cause and consequence of poverty. Vulnerable individuals and marginalised groups are often the worst affected, deprived of money or information or access to health services, causing health conditions to deteriorate and people to become more vulnerable to disease. The NGO Health Poverty Action describes the health poverty cycle:

Poor health increases poverty by reducing family’s work productivity and leading families to sell assets to cover the costs of treatment. This increases current poverty and vulnerability to shocks in the future. Poverty increases the incidence of poor health through poor nutrition, overcrowding and lack of clean water. (HPA, n.d., para 3)

In its health policy the IFSW (2012) asserts that:

Health is an issue of fundamental human rights and social justice and binds social work to apply these principles in policy, education, research and practice. (para 1)

This gives a clear direction to social workers that it is their responsibility to work for the realisation of these universal health rights through speaking out and striving for socially just health policies and the social policies that support these. This guides our work with individuals, families and communities and steers interventions in casework as well as social policy.

Policies for the achievement of the goals include a renewed effort on the remaining health MDGs, promoting equity and access to services, addressing the needs of people with disabilities and strengthening health systems through the adoption of universal health coverage. Non-communicable diseases will see an increased emphasis on prevention as well as treatment and a policy approach which looks beyond the sometimes hostile health sector to address the social determinants of health. This latter point is a particularly useful role for social workers because it involves the social and economic determinants of education and the physical environment, as well as individual lifestyles, and the social and economic forces which shape them.

SDG 3 has some very specific targets including:

3.1 By 2030 reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per hundred thousand live births.

3.2 By 2030 ending preventable deaths of new-borns and under-five-year-old children as well as the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases.

3.4 By 2030 reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and the promotion of mental health and well-being. (UN, 2016, para 3.4)

Another sub-goal in which social workers have traditionally played an important role is ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health services. An important feature of the SDGs is that they harness the expertise and energy of the state, the private sector and civil society. Sexual and reproductive health is an area where such collaborations have previously been very successful.

SDG Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

One in 10 children of primary-school age was still out of school in 2012, and around 120 million children either never make it to school or drop out within three years. The problem is more pronounced in rural areas, and even where education is accessible it is not always effective. At least 250 million children are not able to read, count well or write, even amongst those who have spent at least four years in school (UN, 2016).

Literacy rates are rising, but women and girls continue to lag behind. Youth literacy has risen steadily to 91% globally, as a result of increased access to education. However, these gains have not been equally shared:

In sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, youth literacy rates are still just 71% and 84% respectively. For young women in sub-Saharan Africa, the rate remains dismally low at 65%. (UNESCO, 2016, para 2)

Internationally, we understand that education is a fundamental human right which is essential for the exercise of all other human rights. Yet in all societies there are individuals and groups whose access to education is significantly compromised. Using a rights-based framework is useful in understanding the ethical position of the social worker in advocating for access to effective education. As with other compromised rights, the burden falls unequally on the poor, particularly people in rural areas and in developing countries. A stagnation, and in some cases decline, in international aid means there is now a need for an extra US$26 billion annually to achieve basic education for all in poor countries (UN, 2016).

In social work we act to ensure common human needs, and to prevent or alleviate individual and community problems. We stand to improve, for all people, the quality of life, and in doing so seek to uphold the rights of individuals or groups with whom we are working. Human rights are most at risk and most compromised where populations have been denied the right to the most basic education, including literacy and numeracy.

The IFSW (2012) is clear and forthright in its policy statement on the role for social workers in securing and protecting human rights for all people:

The social work profession, through historical and empirical evidence, is convinced that the achievement of human rights for all people is a fundamental prerequisite for a caring world and the survival of the human race. It is only through the recognition and implementation of the basic concept of the inherent dignity and worth of each person that a secure and stable world can be achieved. Consequently, social workers believe that the attainment of basic human rights requires positive action by individuals, communities, nations and international groups, as well as a clear duty not to inhibit those rights. (para 23)

In addressing Goal 4, we incorporate the completion of the MDG on primary education, particularly in the rural areas of the less developed countries. In the new goal, while it is still important to ensure access and completion, greater emphasis is placed on learning outcomes and quality to ensure that children achieve basic skills.

A major challenge in achieving the goal is conquering the inequalities which see so many excluded from education. Social workers must advocate for both the individuals and the groups who are suffering this discrimination, because without education they will suffer a lifetime dependency and be unable to realise their true human potential or exercise their human rights.

Education is inextricably linked with all of the goals. A lack of education ensures poverty and poverty often results in limited education. Similarly, in countries where meals are not provided in schools, hunger prevents children from learning. Decades of growing inequality have visited this problem on relatively wealthy countries such as New Zealand, and as a response the advent of child poverty charities (Feed the Need, n.d.).

UN policies to achieve the goal include ensuring equity and reaching out to disadvantaged children and youth using innovations, including school feeding programmes, and partnering with non-formal education providers (UN, 2016). Again we see a reference to Goal 17, Partnering for the Goals, and there is a role for social workers in brokering the collaborations which will make achieving the goal possible. Social workers might particularly identify and address the inequalities in education, particularly gender inequality.

The goal has specific targets to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, including:

• By 2030 ensuring that all children complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education, leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.
• By 2030 ensuring that all children have access to quality early childhood development care and pre-primary education so that they might be ready for their primary schooling. (UN, 2016, para 4.2)

SDG Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 

The pervasive and systematic discrimination against women is both a gross injustice and a waste, which a world struggling to be sustainable just cannot afford. The failure to achieve gender rights goes beyond unfairness – it is deadly. Of all women killed by homicide in 2012 almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members. The WHO (2013) estimates that worldwide, 35% of women have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate-partner violence, or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point of their lives.

At an economic level, women on average earn just 77% of what men earn, and in many countries the gender pay gap is growing. Moreover, almost one fourth of women globally are defined as unpaid contributing family workers. Not only are women paid less than men for the same work, but occupations with high numbers of women attract lower salaries than occupations dominated by men. Social work is an occupation, like many of the caring professions and occupations, which is dominated by women. As a profession, social workers have an ethical duty to stand against all discrimination.

The challenges associated with meeting Goal 5 include the utter global pervasiveness of the problem, the sheer scale of the issue which impacts on every aspect of daily life, and the very strong resistance of the men who are privileged by the discrimination. This problem is structural, and will require a concerted and strategic effort at every level of society and in all social institutions, public policies, laws and social norms. Improving the economic plight of women through access to education, decent work and social protection is seen as one part of the solution. However, the persistent gender pay gap, even in developed societies, suggests that this solution alone is not enough to eliminate discrimination and that a more structural, legally-based universal intervention will need to be made. Economic solutions are unlikely to be sustained in a context of violence, trafficking and exploitation, so access to justice, as well as a profound shift in the societal norms which allow this discrimination, will be required.

To achieve such a significant shift in societal norms will require a new kind of governance, where women equally participate at all levels of society, particularly in the corridors of power. In 2016, just 22.8% of parliamentarians worldwide were women, and in more than a handful of states less than 10% (IPU, 2016).

Targets for the goals are very high, including to end all forms of discrimination against all woman and girls everywhere.

SDG Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Contaminated water and no access to sanitation is a leading cause of infant mortality in the developing world. More than 800 children die each day from diseases which are caused by unsafe water, and no access to sanitation and hygiene. 2.4 billion of our poorest citizens have no access to a toilet, and over 650 million have no access to clean water. Children in conflict zones are most at risk. Climate change is rapidly increasing the risk of unsustainable management of water, and the UN estimates that by 2025 two thirds of the world’s population could be living in water-stressed countries (UN, 2016).

While the UN Millennium Development Goal target on ensuring safe access to drinking water was met five years ahead of schedule, there is still a very significant community health problem to be solved. Again we find that poverty is both a cause and a result of the problem faced by communities without secure access to clean water and sanitation.

Much has been learnt about the effective approaches to reducing poor sanitation risks and improving health. In recent years the paradigm change has begun to emphasise sanitation as the most important part of the equation, and interventions have moved from providing communal infrastructure to more social psychology interventions through water, sanitation and hygiene (W.A.S.H.) programmes. These highly successful community-development initiatives use very carefully scripted motivational exercises to forge community commitment for improvement (Wolfer, 2014).

The targets for the goal are bold, and include achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, as well as adequate and equitable sanitation for all, by 2030. This will require political commitment and will be challenging in an era when water has become commodified and is increasingly in the hands of private corporations.

SDG Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all

While the summer barbecue might be a novelty and a treat in some parts of the world, almost 3 billion people use solid biofuel for everyday heating and cooking, and as a result nearly 3.5 million people each year are killed by indoor air pollution: most are women and children (WHO, 2016).

In 2012 fossil fuels accounted for 87% of all global primary energy consumption and it is predicted that if energy policies do not change, the world’s energy demand will increase by almost 50% by 2035 (González & Lucky, 2013).

As with the other Sustainable Development Goals, access to energy is another inequality. Ninety-five percent of people without access to modern energy services live in sub-Saharan Africa, and in Asia 78% of people without access to modern energy services live in rural areas (UN, 2016). As well as inequality, climate justice is engaging social workers in this goal. Gamble and Hoff (2005) note the social worker imagination is now actively exploring how social work, especially community development, can contribute to the goal.

In mid-2016, community development leader Kalyan Paul noted in his address at the IACD side-event to the UN high-level political forum on sustainable development that we cannot protect the forest if the people have no fuel. And in the explanation of the work of the pan-Himalayan grassroots development foundation, he warned that failure to address the sustainable energy needs of populations would result in further environmental degradation and increase atmospheric carbon, contributing to climate change.

Our unsustainable energy use, and its impact on a fragile climate, will visit on our world catastrophic climate change. Thus, Polack, Wood and Smith (2010) argue that the reduction of fossil fuel use is an act which addresses social justice, and that the values of social work have progressively expanded to include ecological and sustainability values.

Challenges in addressing the goal include the poor policy linkages between associated topics such as energy and food, energy and water, energy and health, and energy and women’s empowerment. The increasing privatisation of energy, which is understood in a commodity paradigm as opposed to an essential service, means that clean energy is often priced at an inaccessible rate for poor communities. The result is these communities rely on wood as fuel, contributing to a depleted environment.

It’s not all bad news, however. Huge technological gains in energy efficiency are yet to be fully exploited, and moving away from carbon-based energy as well as improving efficiency could lead to a reduction of 70% of the projected global energy demands in 2035 (UN, 2016).

The goal seeks to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030, substantially increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030, and ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy services for all.

SDG Goals 8-16:

Within the limitations of this paper it is not possible to map each of the goals against their potential for social work, and some, such as Reducing Inequality (Goal 10), or Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (Goal 16), will have a more obvious link to contemporary and future social work practice. For the sake of completeness, the goals are:

• SDG Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full employment and decent work for all.
• SDG Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
• SDG Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries.
• SDG Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
• SDG Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
• SDG Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
• SDG Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
• SDG Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
• SDG Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
• SDG Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

 

Conclusion

The practice of social work is the exercise of the values, knowledge and skills which are essential for the achievement of the SDGs. As Jayasooria (2016) notes, “Social work theory can both inform and draw upon the SDGs” (p. 27).

However, the task will not be without its challenges. The pervading neoliberal economic agenda, with its emphasis on privatisation, commodification, individualisation, and the reduction of regulation and government, stands in stark contrast to the peaceful and collaborative exercise of rights which are required to achieve the SDGs.

The collaborations between state and private sectors and civil society, acting together to achieve the goals, represent a unique opportunity for social work to re-assert its relevance. Social workers’ knowledge and understanding of the interrelatedness between poverty and other inequalities, and our experience in standing with poor communities as they identify and address the root causes of these inequalities, means we are well positioned to participate in the effort and influence its direction. Social workers’ relevance and capacity to engage with the SDGs will be enhanced by embracing the environmental and ecological concerns, which have too often been annexed as the responsibility of other professions. A renewed and holistic, green social work will emerge if we have the courage to pursue it.

 

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Gonzalez, M. & Lucky, M. (2013). Fossil fuels dominate primary energy consumption. Retrieved from http://www.worldwatch.org/fossil-fuels-dominate-primary-energy-consumption-1

Health Poverty Action. (n.d.). The cycle of poverty and poor health. Retrieved from

https://www.healthpovertyaction.org/info-and-resources/the-cycle-of-poverty-and-poor-health/

Holt-Giménez, E. (2008). The world food crisis: What is behind it and what we can do? Retrieved from http://www.worldhunger.org/holt-gimenez/

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Mantle, G., & Backwith, D. Poverty and social work. The British Journal of Social Work, 40(8), 2380-2397. DOI:10.1093/bjsw/bcq068

National Association of Social workers. (n.d). Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/feaTures/issue/poverty.asp

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Roberts, B., Povich, D., & Mather, M. (2012) Low income working families: The growing economic gap. Retrieved from http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Winter-2012_2013-WPFP-Data-Brief.pdf

Siporin, M. (1980). Ecological systems theory in social work. The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. (7)4. Retrieved from: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol7/iss4/4

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https://www.globalpolicy.org/world-hunger/46156-causes-and-strategies-on-world-hunger.html

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John Stansfield (b.1958) is a Senior Lecturer in Community Development at Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand. John has worked extensively in the NGO sector in advocacy and leadership positions and has campaigned on sustainable development issues for several decades. He is currently Chair of the International Association for Community Development, IACD, Education Subcommittee, and is the President of the Aotearoa Community Development Association. He is Deputy Editor of Whanake, The Pacific Journal of Community Development. John holds a Master in International and Intercultural Management (MIIM, 1999) from SIT Vermont, USA, with a major in sustainable development; a Postgraduate Diploma in NGO Management and Leadership (NLM, 1997) from SIT, BRAC Bangladesh, and a Bachelor of Social Work and Social Policy (BSW, 1983) from Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Global Warming and Climate Change in India: A Social Work Perspective

Global Warming and Climate Change in India: A Social Work Perspective

By Manju Mohan Mukherjee

 

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed. (Mahatma Gandhi)

 

India has ratified the Paris agreement in terms of its scope and impact, and it is probably the most far-reaching international agreement for the protection of the environment. India needs to make every effort in terms of economic sustainability for climate change and its objectives in future. This shift is already underway. Bringing in greater efficiency in the way energy is produced and consumed is crucial to fulfilling one of India’s main commitments. The country seeks solutions to interrelated problems and research has to play a central role in the implementation of the 2030 agenda for social change (RIS 2016).

 

Global warming and climate change

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the term climate change is often used interchangeably with the term global warming, but according to the National Academy of Sciences, the phrase ‘climate change’ is growing in preferred use to ‘global warming’ because it helps convey that there are other changes in addition to rising temperatures. Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period.

 

Global warming and its effect

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen from around 320 parts per million in the 1950 to 400 parts per million in 2015. This gas absorbs energy that would otherwise escape into space, thereby warming the climate. Since the 1950 the global average temperature has increased by nearly 0.7 degrees Celsius.

The 10 warmest years since the 1880 nine have occurred since 2000. The 20 warmest years have all occurred after 1981.

Sea level rise is another result of this warming trend. In the 20th century, the average sea level rose around 17 centimeters. In 2010 alone the rate of sea level rise has increased to approximately 2.6 millimeters per year.

Arctic sea ice has also decreased significantly in recent years, from nearly 8 million square kilometers in 1980 to a record low of 3.6 million square kilometers in 2012. (Jones, N., 2017)

Global warming refers to the overall warming that the atmosphere experiences with the introduction of high volumes of gases. Warming air rising from the Earth’s surface should dissipate before reaching the atmosphere. With the greenhouse effect, however, these gases rise in high volume into the atmosphere, which then traps them. The trapped gases retain heat, which in turn causes higher temperatures and helps the atmosphere hold more moisture, mostly in the form of water vapor.

The increased volume of water vapor translates to more frequent and severe precipitation, as well as a larger cloud cover. In addition to water vapor and CFCs, methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide play large roles in fueling global warming. These gases and compounds derive from different sources, including fertilizer runoff, automobiles, agricultural waste and burning fossil fuels.

 

Climate change and reduction HFC gases

The second major international agreement to fight climate change to eliminate planet-warming HFC (hydrofluorocarbon) gases after the Montreal protocol in 1989, the Paris Agreement will allow the use of ozone-saving Montreal Protocol to phase-out HFCs, a set of 19 gases in the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) family that are used extensively in the air-conditioning and refrigeration industry. HFCs are not ozone-depleting but are thousands of times more dangerous than carbon dioxide in causing global warming.

It is estimated that we need to avert 70 billion ton of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions between 2020 and 2050 (MEFCC). This is considered equivalent to shutting down more than 750 coal power plants, each of 500 MW capacity.

The complete elimination of HFCs by the year 2050 is required to prevent a 0.5 – degree Celsius rise in global temperatures. The Paris Agreement target being to keep global temperature rise to below 2-degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial times.

A group of developing countries, including China, Brazil and South Africa, are mandated to reduce their HFC use by 85 per cent of their average value in 2020-22 by the year 2045. India and some other developing countries – Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and oil economies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – will cut down their HFCs by 85 per cent of their values in 2024-26 by the year 2047.

 

Challenges before the world

The main challenges before humankind are three – to preserve peace, to eradicate poverty and to conserve the environment. The path that the world has until now traversed in the pursuit of technological mastery has imperiled peace and the environment and failed to provide prosperity and equality for all the peoples of the world. A major change is required in our outlook and our methods.

 

Sustainable development

The earth is one but the world is not. We all depend on one biosphere for sustaining our lives. Yet each community, each country, strives for survival and prosperity with little regard for its impact on others. Some consume the Earth’s resources at a rate that would leave little for future generations. Others, many more in number, consume far too little and live with the prospect of hunger, squalor, disease and early death.

 

Ecological Degradation

In the name of growing more food and providing more comforts, we have denuded our forests. In the name of industrial growth, we have polluted the rivers and seas, heated up the globe through the accumulation of carbon dioxide, and even depleted the ozone layers that shield the planet from harmful cosmic radiation. Ecological degradation affects developing countries more fundamentally than it does the developed ones. We, in India know this only too well.

 

Environmental Insecurity

Among the dangers facing the environment, the possibility of nuclear war is undoubtedly the gravest. Certain aspects of the issues of peace and security bear directly upon the concept of sustainable development. The whole notion of security as traditionally understood – in terms of political and military threats to national sovereignty – must be expanded to include the growing impacts of environmental stress – locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. There are no military solutions to ‘environmental insecurity’ and ‘poverty’.

The failures that we need to correct arise both from poverty and from the short-sighted way in which we have often pursued prosperity. Poor people are forced to over use environmental resources to survive from day to day. This causes their survival even more difficult and uncertain.

Environmental stress has often been seen as the result of the growing demand on scarce resources and the pollution generated by the rising living standards of the relatively affluent. But poverty itself pollutes the environment, creating environmental stress in a different way. Those who are poor and hungry will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive: They will cut down forests; their livestock will overgraze grasslands; they will over use available land; and in growing numbers they will crowd into congested cities. Economic development that destroys the environment will create more poverty, unemployment and diseases – as the poor depend on the nature much more for their day to day needs – and thus cannot even be called economic development. Productivity of the poor going down but their expenses on medical care is shooting up, resulting in their further misery. (Paul, K., 2017)

I believe that people can build a future that is more prosperous, more just, and more secure, increasing environmental decay, poverty, and hardship in an ever more polluted world among ever decreasing resources.

 

Safer Earth for a New Generation

Those looking for success and signs of hope can find many: Infant mortality is falling; human life expectancy is increasing; the proportion of the world’s adults who can read and write is climbing; the proportion of children starting school is rising; and food production increases faster than the population grows. Children born today can expect to live longer and be better educated than their parents. In many parts, the new-born can also expect to attain a higher standard of living in a wider sense.

Such progress provides hope. Earth a safer and sounder home for us and for those who are to come.

 

Development and Inequalities

While the number of people living in absolute income poverty as defined by the World Bank (US $1.25 per day) has fallen relative poverty persists and marginalized groups are excluded from access to clean water and sanitation, healthcare and education. (Paul, K., 2017) Such inequalities represent great difference not merely in the quality of life today, but also in the capacity of societies to improve their quality of life in the future.

Some development initiatives leave increasing numbers of people poor and vulnerable, while at the same time degrading the environment. This realization broadened the author’s view of development. We came to see it not in its restricted context of economic growth in developing countries.

Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable, to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. But technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of sustainable economic growth. Sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs.

The poor are largely excluded from the institutions and partnerships that can enable them to share and control the decisions that affect their lives. This is because institutions tend to be controlled by the powerful non-poor. Channeling appropriate assets such as land and education, technology to raise the productivity of assets, and markets to improve sales and purchases, improve the poor’s ‘exit options’ that over time may also help them alter institutions for their sustained benefit.

Poverty reduction is a complex task requiring sustained commitment to consistent, yet flexible, joint action. There are no quick fixes and no easy solutions. In the light of our growing understanding of this complexity it is time to invite the poor to participate in the analysis and solution.

Participation allows the poor a voice, and through a transfer of responsibility gives them the power to discover and determine ways to improve their lives. Empowering the poor is the foundation of rural poverty alleviation. The poor’s chance to influence rules and to help control organization depends on their power and influence.

 

Solar and wind energy

Solar photovoltaic panels and, to a lesser extent, large windmills will become one of the most familiar sights representing the fight against climate change. India plans to install as much as 100 GW of electricity generation capacity through solar energy by 2022, of which 40 GW would be through individual rooftop systems. India had initially announced plans for setting up 60 GW of wind energy by 2022. A number of villages are already powered solely through solar or wind energy. But decentralized production and consumption of electricity, through solar, wind, biogas or small hydro initiatives, is likely to become more prevalent as efforts are made to take electricity to 200 million people still in the dark. (Ebinger, K. 2016).

 

Home Appliances

Under the Paris Agreement, India has promised to reduce emissions intensity, or the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP, by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 as compared to 2005 levels. So far, more than 30 million households have switched over to energy efficient LED bulbs, according to government figures. More than 165 million LED bulbs are in use in these houses and this will increase under the Government subsidy program introduced in 2016 by Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

 

Private and Public Transport

Electric cars slowly marking their presence and battery operated rickshaws have become popular in many cities. Now, stricter fuel efficiency norms will be put in place, with India advancing the implementation of Bharat VI (India VI) pollution norms to 2020 instead of 2022. Besides, Metro tracks coming up in various cities across the country that will resolve, to a large extent, not just the problem of mass urban transport but also pollution caused by older forms of transport.

 

Green India with Trees

India has promised to create an additional carbon sink – system capable of absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere – of 2.5 to 3 billion ton of CO2 – equivalent through forest and tree cover by 2030. That is an ambitious target. Just over 24 per cent of India’s geographical area is currently under forest and tree cover, and the stated objective is to take it to 33 per cent. (Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, 2016) However, it will be difficult to rapidly expand the forest cover, especially because more forest area will be cut for developmental or industrial requirements.

As a result, planting of trees would be seen as an alternative. Besides, with close to half of India’s forests of very low quality, transforming them would lead to an increase in carbon sink. In the previous Parliamentary session, the government managed to get the landmark CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Found Management and Planning Authority) bill passed to make up for every piece of forest destroyed for any reason. Thousands of millions of rupees are available for afforestation drives through CAMPA, or Green Indian Mission. The government is planning to plant trees along the entire stretch of highways and railways. (MoEFCC, 2016).

 

Buildings and Water

Projections show that 70 per cent of the infrastructure that India will have in 2030 is still to be built, including new cities and buildings. “Smart” and “Net Zero” buildings are becoming the new buzzwords, though a vast majority of new constructions are still of poor quality.

Climate change induces a lot of uncertainties in water availability. A country that is already water-stressed, climate change is an additional urgent reason to reform the way in which water is managed and utilized. Some movements in this direction have already started happening. Free water is likely to be rationed in future and water for all uses is likely to be priced.

 

Better Governance

The numerous development programmes where studies suggest that the ‘leakage’ is estimated to be between 20 and 70 per cent. Close monitoring can be organized in selected areas such as implementation of schemes relating to primary health, primary education, watershed development, empowerment of the local people to discharge their responsibilities effectively at the local level, as evidenced by the implementation of poverty alleviation programmes etc.

Corruption has become common in every public work draining a major proportion of government expenditure, showing little improvement in the conditions of poorer sections of people. (Transparency International, 2016).

Accountability, transparency and the rule of law, are integral constituents of good governance. Transparency in government functioning will in itself reduce the possibilities of leakage and malpractice. The issue of accountability is crucial for effective financial management and a responsive civil service.

The better governance and implementation of programmes within a pro-poor policy framework is needed for effective results on the ground. Successful implementation of development programmes requires adequate funds, appropriate policy framework, and effective delivery machinery. Past experiences suggest that availability of funds alone may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for tackling the problems of poverty and backwardness.

 

Role of Civil Society

It is tempting to ignore these problems, partly because we feel that one person cannot make a difference. But we are not alone on this world, and individual action forms part of a greater whole. As Xunzi, the famous Confucian philosopher, once said, “No river or sea can be formed without the streams. (Li Bingbing, UNEP, 2016)

We should, therefore, accept personal responsibility for the success of the environmental protection programmes of our respective communities by cooperating and actively participating in making the atmosphere pollution free.

People’s participation and individual action will achieve the desired goal. Carbon dioxide is the climate’s worst enemy. It’s released when oil, coal, and other fossil fuels are burned for energy—the energy we use to power our homes, cars, and smart phones. By using less of it, we can curb our own contribution to climate change while also saving money. Here are some effective ways:

1. Insulate our home, clean our air conditioning filters and install energy efficient showerheads.
2. Replace our current home appliances (refrigerator, washing machine, dish washer) with high-efficiency models.
3. Recycle our home’s waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal.
4. Install a solar heated system for hot water.
5. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.
6. Buy food and other products with reusable or recyclable packaging instead of those in non-recyclable packaging.
7. Patronise local foods and goods. In this manner, transporting goods and foods prepared with GMOs which use fuel from conventional energy sources will be minimised.
8. Stop smoking or at least follow the “No Smoking” sign.
9. Keep car properly maintained to keep it in good running condition to avoid smoke emissions. Share a ride or engage in car-pooling. Instead of choose to walk or ride a bicycle whenever possible.
10. Live green by using green power supplied abundantly and freely by wind and the sun. Enjoy fresh air from open windows to lessen the use of air conditioning system.
11. Hang our laundry to dry to minimize use of gas or electricity from dryers.
12. Use eco-friendly or biodegradable materials instead of plastic which are made up of highly toxic substances injurious to our health.
13. Create our green space. Plant more trees and put indoor plants in our homes.
14. A proper waste disposal system especially for toxic wastes.
15. Never throw, run or drain or dispose into the water, air, or land any substance in solid, liquid or gaseous form that shall cause pollution.
16. Do not cause loud noises and unwanted sounds to avoid noise pollution.
17. Do not litter in public places. Anti-litter campaigns can educate the populace.
18. Industries should monitor their air emissions regularly and take measures to ensure compliance with the prescribed emission standards.
19. Industries should strictly follow applicable government regulations on pollution control.
20. Organic waste should be dumped in places far from residential areas.
21. Adopt the 3Rs of solid waste management: reduce, reuse and recycle. Inorganic materials such as metals, glass and plastic; also organic materials like paper, can be reclaimed and recycled.
22. Celebrate birthday and rituals by planting tree not lighting the candle.

 

Conclusion

Breathing is life. We know that we will survive without food for several weeks and without water for few days, but without oxygen, we will die in a matter of minutes. The oxygen, the air we breathe sustains us. So, let us make today and everyday a good day for everyone. Allow the earth to have more clean air. Help control pollution. Otherwise, Earth will eventually have an atmosphere incompatible with life.

 

References

Barbier, E. 2007. Natural resources and economic development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Li Bingbing, United Nations Environment Assembly, 2016. Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/stories/story/put-world-order-we-must-first-cultivate-our-personal-life-and-set-our-hearts-right

Brundtland, Gro Harlem. 1987. Our common future, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chakravorty Krishna and Bhattacharya Swapan Kumar. 1993. Leadership factions and Panchayat Raj, Jaipur: Rawat.

Daly, H. E. 1973. Towards a steady state economy. San Francisco: Freeman.

Daly, H. E. 1991. Steady-state economics (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

DeSimone, L. and Popoff, F. 1997. Eco-efficiency: The business link to sustainable development. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Dobson, Andrew. 1996. ESRC Global Environmental Change programme, Keele University. Retrieved from www.gecko.ac.uk.

Ebinger, K. 2016. India’s energy and climate policy: Can India meet the challenges of industrialization and climate change? Washington: Brookings.

Field, C.B.; et al., eds. 2014. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Geneva, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fukuoka, Majanobu. 1987. The road back to nature, Japan Publications, Tokyo and New York.

Ginsburg, N. 1992. Division of welfare. London: Sage.

Huq, Saleemul. 1999. Minimising the impact of climate change, Daily Star, Bangladesh, 25 June 1999. www.bcas.net.

Jones, N. 2016. How the world passed a carbon threshold and why it matters. Yale 360. Retrieved from http://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-world-passed-a-carbon-threshold-400ppm-and-why-it-matters

Lafferty, W.M. and Langhalle, O., eds. 1999. Towards sustainable development, New York: St. Martins Press.

Mishra S.N., Singh S.S. 1993. “Roads to model Panchayati Raj”, Mittal Publication, New Delhi.

Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change, India. Retrieved from http://envfor.nic.in/.

Mukherjee, Amitava. 1994. Decentralisation Panchayats in the nineties, New Delhi: Vikas.

Mukherjee, Manju Mohan. 1997. Community Empowerment through Panchayati Raj in Rajnagar block of West Bengal (A case study of three villages), Ambala City: Associated Publishers.

Mukherjee, Manju Mohan. 1998. Environmental conservation and Panchayati Raj: Sustainable rural development from below, Calcutta: All India Council For Mass Education and Development and Vision Publications.

Mukherjee, Manju Mohan. 1998. A civil society perspective on social development. Rober Doyle, Makha Khittasangka, Sam-ang Seubsman, Frank Vanclay eds. Building Partnerships for Better Development. Bangkok: Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University.

Mukherjee, Manju Mohan. 2011. Sustainable development and global warming”, Social Work Journal. B.S. Gunjal, ed. Silchar: Assam University.

Mukherjee, N. 1995. Participatory rural appraisal. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.

Ott, K. and P. Thapa, eds.. 2003. The Case for Strong Sustainability. Greifswald’s Environmental Ethics. Greifswald: Steinbecker Verlag Ulrich Rose.

Pachauri, R.K. and Reisinger, A., eds. 2007. Climate change. Washington: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Paul, K., paper presented at IACD South Asian Regional Conference on Sustainable Community Development and UN Agenda 2030. Delhi, 2016.

Pezzey, J. 1989. Economic analysis of sustainable growth and sustainable development. Washington: World Bank.

Reid, W.V. and Goldemberg, J. 1997. Are developing countries already doing as much as industrialised countries to slow climate change? Washington: World Resources.

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Rudig, Wolfgang. 1994. Global Warming and the Political Process. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde.

Smith, Charles; Rees, Gareth. 1998. Economic development, 2nd edition. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Solomon, S.; Qin, D.; Manning, M.; Chen, Z.; Marquis, M.; Averyt, K.B.; Tignor, M.; Miller, H.L., eds. 2007. Climate change. Washington: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stivers, R. 1976. The sustainable society: Ethics and economic growth. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.

Stocker, T.F. et al., eds. 2013. Climate change. The Physical Science Basis. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Transparency International Perceptions of Corruption report. 2016. Retrieved from https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016.

 

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Dr Manju Mohan Mukherjee is a recently retired community development professional – writer, educator and academic – living in Jubila, West Bengal, India. He is the Former President of the Indian Society of Professional Social Work. He is a member of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (UK); the Indian Association of Schools of Social Work; the non-official Commission on Scavenging, Sulabh International, New Delhi; and the Expert Committee, Bakreswar Thermal Power Project, Birbhum, India. He has written a number of books including An overview of social work practice, Problems of disabled people, Hippies in India, Problems and prospects: A study of Indian civil society, and co-edited Human trafficking: Rights of migrant workers and their education.

 

 

 

 

Carbon Trading, Oil Extraction and ‘Different’ Forms of Community Development in Uganda

Carbon Trading, Oil Extraction and ‘Different’ Forms of Community Development in Uganda

by Peter Westoby

 

 Originally presented at the ACDA–IACD Conference, February 2017.

 

In reflecting upon the work my colleague Dr Kristen Lyons and I have been doing in Uganda for a number of years, there are two case studies that, when considered with a social science, community development and political ecology lens, have relevance beyond the Ugandan context. This paper also draws substantially from a series of co-authored pieces Dr Lyons and I have written together, accessible from various sources.

I approach these case studies as a social scientist, using them to question what the particular role is of social science in the world of community development theory and practice. Some of my thoughts are that, firstly, social science should play a role in understanding how the ‘powerful’ work materially and discursively to undermine or marginalise the poor – and this role should enable practitioners or advocates to theorise and strategise more carefully. The first case study unpacks this social science role in relation to Green Resources, the largest industrial forestry multinational working in Africa. Secondly, social science should enable scholars and practitioners to observe and learn from the poor as to how they organise themselves. This learning should enable practitioners–professionals to know more about how to accompany citizens in social change work, and is the learning that is unpacked in the second case study, on the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE). Thirdly, social science, as per Mills’ The Sociological Imagination (1959), should enable practitioners to regain their imaginative potentials (the equivalent of Freire’s ‘imaginative literacy’) to change the world, and to not be limited by what is easily observed and sold to us.

I come to this work through the lens of community development (CD) theory and practice. While arguing for critical scholarship, it is important to situate my own views on community development. Some authors argue for ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ community development with a clear definition (Bhattacharyya, 2004). This is also the current position of the International Association of Community Development (IACD), which defines CD as “a practice-based profession and an academic discipline concerned with the organisation, education and empowerment of people within their communities” (IACD, 2017, para. 1). However, within these case studies, I instead prefer to focus on how community development is discursively and materially deployed in practice. At no point do I argue that any actor, in this case Green Resources or the National Association of Professional Environmentalists, is not doing ‘authentic community development’, even though I subject them to critical analysis. Instead, I approach analysis of how community development is deployed through the analytical lens of traditions or models.

By traditions or models I refer, firstly, to the literature on divergent traditions of community development, such as social guidance, social mobilisation and social learning; or Freirean, Gandhian, and Alinskian approaches (see Campfens, 1997; Westoby & Simpson-Hope, 2011), each reflecting particular intellectual roots and practice norms; and, secondly, diverse models, commonly known within the community development literature as consensus, liberal/pluralist and radical models (Gilchrist, 2004). Recognising such traditions and models then ensures that the practices of an official corporate community development approach can be ‘evaluated’ alongside some established orthodoxies of normative community development theory and practice. For example, the social learning tradition has established norms around popular education and Freire’s contribution to critical learning.

Finally, I frame my work conceptually through political ecology. Political ecology as a framework aims “to understand the complex relations between nature and society through a careful analysis of what one might call the forms of access and control over resources and their implications for environmental health and sustainable livelihoods” (Watts, 2000, p. 257). This definition emphasises the application of the political ecology framework to explain conflicts around common resources (Robbins, 2012). This power struggle over resources at the local level often results in both political and economic marginalisation of the vulnerable, namely peasants. My work in Uganda is understood via this political ecology theoretical orientation.

With these three settings in mind let us turn to the two key case studies, which shape the findings and arguments of my paper: the first, Green Resources; and the second, National Association of Professional Environmentalists.

 

Case study 1: Green Resources and research methodology

The first two sites are linked to Green Resources, the first case study. Green Resources is a private Norwegian company engaged in forestry plantations, carbon offset, forest products and renewable energy on the African continent. Green Resources has a stated objective to “contribute to mitigating climate change while meeting the growing demand for quality wood products from well managed plantation forests and contributing to sustainable environmental management, community development and poverty alleviation in Uganda” (Green Resources, n.d.). It has invested over NOK600 million (US$99.5 million) in tree planting in Africa (Garberg, 2012).

In Uganda, Green Resources has obtained 50-year licenses to engage in plantation forestry in two Central Forest Reserves. This includes the Bukaleba Forest Reserve in Mayuge District on the shores of Lake Victoria in eastern Uganda, and the Kachung Forest Reserve in Dokolo District, northern Uganda. Green Resources was awarded the license in Mayuge District in 1996 for 4500 hectares. This plantation is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and was validated and verified as an Afforestation and Reforestation project under the Verified Carbon Standard in 2012 (Green Resources, n.d.). This is Green Resources’ first Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project, and carbon credits were sold to the Swedish Energy Agency with a contract that spans 2012 to 2032, estimated to be worth over US$4 million. According to its Environmental Impact Assessment Report (Mugambe, 2007), 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be sequestered by this project over a 25-year period, or an average of 60,000 tonnes each year.

 Research methods included both primary and secondary data collection. The primary data collection included focus-group discussions in nine villages affected by Green Resources’ forestry plantation activities. Three of these villages are located within the boundary of the license area at Bukaleba, while six villages are located on the edges of the plantations at both Bukaleba and Kachung. In total, my colleague, our local co-worker and myself talked to at least 150 community members living alongside the forestry plantation sites. We visited a number of villages twice, and sometimes three times, undertaking follow-up focus-group discussions between 2012 and 2013, thereby enabling feedback on our research findings.

 

Case study 2: NAPE Sustainability Schools and research methodology

In relation to the third site, our research focused on the work of NAPE’s Sustainability School Program that was supporting communities to understand the impact of petroleum extraction on their lives. More details about the programme are discussed later in the paper, but for now I will focus on the research methodology.

The case-study research was guided by two key elements. These included: firstly, a sense of solidarity with NAPE; secondly, a commitment to ‘bearing witness’ to those communities who are suffering from development-induced displacement. These elements informed our research design: an in-depth case study, informed by elements of an action research agenda.

Solidarity with NAPE: As researchers we have developed a sense of solidarity with NAPE over many years. One of the researchers (Dr Kristen Lyons) has known NAPE staff and interns for more than 10 years, and myself for three years. On the basis of this collaborative relationship that has grown organically over the long term, a more formal NGO-academic partnership was established, and between 2012 and 2014 focused on research and advocacy related to the multinational company Green Resources (above). Starting in 2014, this partnership extended into jointly reflecting on the Sustainability Schools (SS) Program. This solidarity represents, for us, a form of engaged and rigorous research that is value-oriented towards social justice and transformative work.

Bearing witness: As researchers in solidarity with NAPE, we attempted to come to our work with what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as ‘objectivity without objectivism’ (1999 p. 276) in the sense that we were clear about our ideological stance, and yet ‘bracketed’ our stance so we could do rigorous and honest orthodox research. We also felt that our role was not only to conduct research, but to engage with empathy and in solidarity with villages affected by oil exploration in the Hoima District (and to those who have lost their land to make way for the first Ugandan-based oil refinery). This led us to engage in small supporting efforts to make their voices heard through social media, and also fundraising to support provision of food, basic household items and clothing to those in need. In this sense we see our work as ‘bearing witness’ to those who experience development-induced displacement, but who are invisible to the world’s media, and therefore lack a voice.

Informed by our understanding of solidarity and bearing witness, we selected an in-depth case study with NAPE to explore elements of a transformative education agenda. The case study – NAPE’s Sustainability School initiative in the Hoima District – was selected on the basis of two factors: NAPE’s longevity working in this region, and the high levels of conflict and community concerns associated with oil extraction in the district. The fieldwork drawn on in this paper occurred in late November 2015.

Reflecting the collaborative action research agenda, the fieldwork started with discussions with key NAPE staff in Kampala. Subsequent to this, we travelled to the case study site, Hoima, where we met the NAPE field staff, including their key field worker, and the Community Green Radio team – an offshoot of the SS launched in 2014 – to amplify the voices of those affected by the oil industry. For the next nine days we visited several places that have become what NAPE calls ‘Sustainability Villages’, including Community Green Radio listeners clubs. Listeners’ clubs have been established to enable local communities to have a platform to provide direct input into the development of content for radio programming. When a community has a number of community educators and community projects, local communities also often refer to this as a Sustainability Village. In order to contextualise our understanding of the work of NAPE in the broader local context, we also visited communities that wanted Sustainability Villages to start ‘camps’ of displaced people who ‘wish they’d had a Sustainability Village’ to help avert their displacement, as well as an annual monitoring and evaluation workshop with many people involved, including a key funding partner, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

During those two weeks we listened, questioned, took notes, were questioned ourselves (including some very hard ones such as, “What are you doing with those notes?”), went on radio, laughed with many people and even cried occasionally.

Overall we interviewed 15 people and conducted four focus groups (attended by between five and 15 people). These participants included community educators that volunteer with ‘Sustainability Schools’, participants in the programme at village level, key staff from NAPE, as well as representatives from the funders.

Ethical approval for both case studies in this research was provided by The University of Queensland Ethical Review Committee.

 

The context for case study 1 – Green Resources

Firstly, Uganda, like many poorer countries, has experienced about 40 years of structural adjustment policies combined with neoliberalism. In those 40 years the government has been ‘emptied’ of much capacity – it’s quite literally been ‘sold off’ through forms of privatisation, or budgets have been cut, and the government has moved toward ‘regulating’ rather than ‘acting’. In common governance language we could say, ‘the state now steers rather than rows’. The rowing is now meant to occur via the private sector. The correlate to ‘emptying the state’, is the ‘privatisation of development’ – the big actors in development are no longer the state or even NGOs, but private actors, primarily corporations.

Second, like many places in Africa (and elsewhere), deforestation is a big problem – mainly due to the need for more land for agriculture and ‘development’ (roads, dams, etc.), as well as the need for poor people to cut down trees for fuel. So the Ugandan state has a big challenge. On the one hand it needs to deal with deforestation, and on the other hand, it has less capacity – officers, staff, money – to regulate, enforce and so forth.

Third, the world is trying to deal with carbon emissions, and one ‘big solution’ is a market form of carbon trading, part of the new Green Economy (an example being the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme [REDD]) enabling people in countries like ours to keep consuming and emitting as always, but offsetting those patterns of consumption/emission through trading carbon credits elsewhere.

Enter Green Resources (GR) – the focus of this first case study – the largest forestry company operating within Africa, Norwegian owned, and working in two significant sites within Uganda. Basically the Ugandan state (that lacks capacity itself) leases forests that have been gradually degraded by local people (who have been cutting trees so they can grow crops, or cutting for fuel) to GR. GR then ‘locks up’ these forests for 35 years so that it can trade the carbon captured by that lock-up on the international carbon trading market. GR has done this in Uganda, selling its first carbon credits to the Swedish Energy Agency so that Swedish energy consumers can buy premium ‘green energy’ (and feel good that they’ve saved the forests of Uganda). Green Resources has obtained the relevant permits (permits include recognition as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project on one of its sites, as well as validation under the Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS)) and the first carbon credits have been sold to the Swedish Energy Agency, with carbon contracts valued at $US4 million (Green Resources, 2014a).

However, it should be said that due to the report published by the Oakland Institute in 2014 (Lyons, Westoby, & Richards, 2014) a Swedish documentary team went into the communities and did their own research. When broadcast in Sweden in October 2015, the Swedish Minister of Climate Change cancelled those carbon credit payments until the company could prove it has ‘cleaned up its act’.

In terms of ‘cleaning up its act’, the issue at hand is that in the process of forests being locked up for carbon trading many local people have lost access to what was ‘their commons’ – the forest, where they used to intercrop, find fuel, or visit traditional cultural sites. My research, with Kristen Lyons, has been documenting this development-induced forced migration in recent years, as people are dislocated from their land, or denied access to land that they could live on.

Furthermore, the company uses ‘community development’ (explicitly) as a way of working with communities, offering scholarships to children, building some health clinics, fixing roads and so on. They also employ local people as security guards to ensure people are not accessing the forests. So I have been very interested in this new feld of corporate deployment of community development.

 

How Green Resources conceptualises community development

Green Resources commits ten per cent of their carbon trading profits towards community projects through a community development strategy, which is a quota requirement to ensure compliance with the international carbon trading certification.

As part of its community development plan, Green Resources has implemented a wide range of projects. Specifically, and over the almost two decades, it has operated in Uganda. At different times the company has rehabilitated a health centre, provided some medical supplies, drilled bore holes and rehabilitated spring wells, provided scholarships for young girls through a ‘Girls’ Education’ programme to attend school up to university-entry point, distributed free tree seedlings and promoted tree planting, undertaken an efficient cook-stove project, established community woodlots, enabled community access to fuel-wood from thinning and pruning, and with financial support from the Foundation for Integrated Rural Development, has implemented HIV/AIDS awareness activities (Green Resources, 2014a).

The community development focus of Green Resources is officially predetermined to focus on “improving education, healthcare, infrastructure and food/income security” (Green Resources, nd). Each plantation area employs a community development officer who is tasked to work consultatively and collaboratively with stakeholders (mainly local government officials) in identifying needs and supporting communities in the establishment of particular projects, but within the frame of the predetermined foci.

 

Brief account of findings

While the community development projects described above have delivered some tangible benefits for people from affected villages, the findings I discuss below indicate how these investments fall short of Green Resources’ stated objective to deliver community development and poverty alleviation, as well as being disconnected from many local needs and aspirations.

 

A narrative

Now consider a focus group meeting a colleague and I are running – attended by the chairman of one of the affected villages, members of the village governing committee and around 15 other villagers, including a woman self-described as a widow. We are discussing the impacts of Green Resources. While concerned with the villagers’ loss of land to grow subsistence crops, the village committee and chairman have been somewhat positive about the company. They describe the benefits of the company’s community development initiatives, such as quarterly provision of medicines to the local government-run health centre (the state is not supplying medicine as it says this is the responsibility of GR), and provision of a scholarship for one of the best-performing girls of the village. However the woman, along with several others, is quick to argue:

What is the use of medicine if we have no land to grow food and no schools to ensure there is a future for our children?

She goes on to explain that because she does not have land she is “forced to try and use some of the company land to grow food,” but says:

We are chased away from our garden after one season. I was growing crops and the security personnel allowed me to prepare my garden and then when it was mature, and because there were no trees growing, they slashed it down… I am living off the handouts from other neighbours in the village. 

While poor, the village chairman is certainly not among the poorest of the poor. He seems to have enough income to purchase food and other basic necessities, and therefore sees a functioning health clinic as an additional development benefit. Yet he, along with most official leaders interviewed, is cognisant of the plight of his people. He explains the history of forced displacement due to government action and foreign investment, and advocates for more land so villagers in his parish can grow food. The voice of the woman, however, represents a disjuncture between both official corporate-led community development discourse and practices of the company (Maconachie & Hilson, 2013), and the lived experience of many people. It also signifies a schism between the beneficial claims of new forms of green economy and their impacts at the grassroots level.

 

Finding #1 – Contested ‘community analyses’ of community development project benefits

As per this story of the widow, findings indicate that there are diverse and, at times, contested analyses by community members of the benefits of the Green Resources community development work. While some community leaders tended to affirm the benefit of the projects started under the auspices of the company, often initiated by the company community development team, most community members and some community leaders interviewed did not identify any of the community development projects as a benefit.

This is not to say that they were not a benefit – it is simply to say that they were not the issues people wanted to talk about within the fieldwork. People instead wanted to talk about the loss of land; albeit occasionally people did talk about sanitation, health and education. To almost all people the crucial issue was food – to avoid hunger – and their analyses of the only two ways of dealing with hunger were to appropriate some land – either their own or through accessing land of the company (to intercrop among plantation trees, known locally as the taunga system); or find work within the company enabling them to purchase food.

Community members mostly discussed the benefits of the company in terms of the limited employment created within the company – overall between 200 and 800 depending on the time of the year. The 2008 EIS report documents 199 people (mostly men) employed by Green Resources, including in the activities of slashing, planting and tree maintenance (Mugambe, 2007). Meanwhile, a 2012 United Nations report documented 264 casual employees at one site, and 600 employed people at the second.

Local villagers also described poor working conditions, including delayed salary payments, as well as being forced to cover the costs of purchasing safety equipment (such as safety boots, raincoats and gloves) and uniforms. Only one person interviewed described the overall strategy of the company as good, which in his perspective was that the company was “‘dragging’ people into the market cash economy.”

What is crucial for the findings is that community members rarely identified the company’s community development activities as a priority. The experience of community members and protestors is that land is avoided within the considerations of the company’s community development purview at all costs.

 

Finding #2 – Community consultation or deaf ears?

Secondly, in relation to the company CD strategy, the overwhelming findings were that, as one participant put it, “We attend meetings, but our requests fall on deaf ears.”

Again, the requests refer to on-going concerns related to land loss – that is, access to food-growing opportunities to avoid hunger. The establishment of consultation mechanisms appears to be a way of ‘managing’ communities, a particular technology of governmentality that deploys community development with the primary purpose of averting people’s anger, frustration and claims to do with land.

 

Finding #3 – The centrality of land to people – but not to GR’s community development

While there is a long history of dispossession from land now licensed to Green Resources, there are also recent accounts of forced relocation of homes and livelihood activities linked to expansion of the company’s plantation activities.

The eviction of people from land now licensed to Green Resources began prior to the arrival of the company, and was driven by broader national policies to clear the land to enable privatisation and commodification of natural resources. There are various accounts of eviction at both sites now licensed to the company that span at least four decades. At both sites, community members and local leaders recounted stories of people being ‘chased away’ and ‘thrown out’, thereby making way for private investors.

Some villagers described the forced relocation of livelihood activities – including agriculture and grazing – as the company expanded its tree planting areas. Community members from one village described how company staff arrived, without notice, and “just starting to plant trees on top of our crops… we were evicted without discussion.” This expansion has intensified what local villagers describe as acute shortages of land for food growing in each region.

In the context of these land issues, local villagers expressed a range of emotions and responses. These included frustration and despair – particularly in relation to the company’s perceived insensitivity to their livelihood needs – through to deep concern that community members were soon going to ‘take matters into their own hands’ as they lost trust in agreements made, but not adhered to, by the company. People described a potentially explosive future, with people saying such things as, “We would rather die in jail fighting for land, than die of hunger.”

 

Discussion – so, what to make of this?

The findings indicate that the practices of Green Resources’ community development work are being primarily shaped by the aspirations and constraints of the company’s agendas, not those of the villages. In a sense the kind of community development deployed by the company reflects (referring to my earlier comments) what has historically been understood as a social guidance tradition or consensus model whereby the company leads the analyses of what interventions are prioritised.

Within this frame, community development can be seen as becoming a social technology to validate preconceived policy, or in the case of Green Resources, preconceived programme activities. The market context, which ultimately shapes Green Resources’ work, and the complexities of power differentials and diverse community needs are ignored as the community development approach engages in its strategy.

What I am describing here is a paradox in climate governance. On the one hand the climate governance mechanisms seek to ‘protect’ forestry plantations from activities that might disrupt carbon capture. At the same time, however, this often comes at a profound cost to local communities. And yet the governance mechanisms themselves are ill equipped to detect and respond to, so as to remedy these impacts. Indeed, the enclosure of landscapes away from livelihood activities is an intended outcome of carbon governance; yet it is this very trend that is driving social, economic and ecological disruption.

Reiterating my introductory comments that there is no such thing as ‘authentic’ or ‘real’ community development, and recognising that there is a discursive space within the community development literature for contested traditions and models, I argue two main points from this first story:

Firstly, that the claims of the company fall short of community-felt needs. Some community members access employment from the company, and others enjoy the benefits of particular projects, however, most people want access to land to grow food. Despite this, the technologies of governance underpinning the green economy described here require a company such as Green Resources to ‘lock up the land’ for the purposes of marketised forms of carbon trading. Certifications require a guarantee of ‘permanence’ (referring to the capacity to store carbon over the long term – 35 years, actually), which in turn requires the locking up of land. The form and content of community development I describe is therefore shaped or constrained by the broader green economy in which it is deployed, which, as per the literature, is shaped by the neoliberal context. A neoliberal model of community development becomes part of the social technology of governance, legitimising people’s loss of land usage. There is, then, a certain inevitability about the failure of CD deployed within these given frames.

Secondly, despite a community development strategy by Green Resources, there is still a willingness to marginalise, or manage any dissident voices via police and security mechanisms. Violence is embedded in this process of enclosure and neoliberal community development – in some of our publications we have called this ‘carbon violence’.

Importantly, on the basis of our analysis we identified that what could most help the dissident voices is the insertion of other actors into the situation to ensure more accountability of the company. At this stage the accountability mechanisms are being enacted without direct involvement of the communities affected (e.g., our Oakland Institute report, Swedish documentary, etc.), which raises many dilemmas.

This could entail NGOs that draw upon other community development traditions, such as the social learning and social mobilising traditions; or different models – such as the radical one. Such NGOs would, through forms of popular education and/or community organising ‘from below’, support different population groups within communities to make visible the connections between their lived experience and the forms of green economic activity being enacted by entities such as Green Resources and other development agents. Which brings us to story two and the December 2015 research.

 

Case study 2: NAPE and the Sustainability School Program

My colleague and I have been driving for some hours with our driver Emma, along with Precious, who is one of the journalists of Community Green Radio, and Vincent, the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) Sustainability School field worker for the Hoima District of Uganda. It is a long day, visiting two Sustainability Villages (SVs) – one that is six years old, and another that is only eighteen months old. We are learning about the issues affecting the communities of these SVs – in this region related mainly to oil exploration, and soon-to-be-drilled and -piped oil – and about the Sustainability School Program of NAPE, also known as Friends of the Earth Uganda, the NGO we are in partnership with for this research.

For the purposes of this paper the focus is on the theory-in-practice of the pedagogy and community organising approach of the Sustainability School Program, a school only in name – ‘a school of ideas’, and of critical thinking, as local people let us know. This theory-in-practice line of inquiry is concerned with understanding how the ideas of the Sustainability School ‘translate’ into practical life in the initiating of Sustainability Villages in communities affected by oil exploration in this district, but also palm oil plantations and dam constructions in others.

I also discuss this because, since the field work in late 2015, we are working with NAPE to take the SS programme into the communities affected by Green Resources, aware that despite the international advocacy work we have started, with some results, local communities are very much ‘out of the loop’ so to speak – which creates many dilemmas.

Behind this 2015 research, two questions had been plaguing me for some time: How can the displacement associated with ‘development’ be stopped, and, how might affected communities build capacity to respond (at least getting fair compensation) and/or resist inappropriate development interventions? What philosophy, praxis, and strategy might be enacted to ensure local people’s rights when ‘big private-led development projects’ are so popular with the Ugandan government?

NAPE launched its Sustainability Schools (SS) initiative in 2010 – funded predominantly by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation – and since then has established at least 24 Sustainability Villages (SV) across Uganda, acting as hubs for community educating, organising and advocacy. The SS is a programme run by NAPE, but when a community has a number of community educators and community projects it is talked about as a Sustainability Village. According to their latest report:

Advocates and educators seek to give the communities capacity to effectively participate in social, economic and political change processes. The Sustainability School is ideological, issue-based and emphasizes community empowerment. It is not
a physical school with structured classrooms and learning sessions but is based on non-formal and informal learning. One basic principle of the Sustainability School is “think global, act local”. (NAPE, 2015, p. 11)

In this context the Sustainability School programme is initiated either pro-actively by NAPE (that is, they send a field worker into an area that they know is affected by development-related conflicts) or responsively (as communities learn about NAPE’s work and request them to come and help start a school). The main ‘interventions’ of the SS programme are the ‘training’ of several community educators – in the early years this included two community educators per village, but in more recent years it has grown to four per village (two men and two women) – and the equipping of these educators with resources such as bicycles (to get around to local communities and do the education work) and mobile phones. These community educators are volunteers. Generally the community, through a process of public deliberation, chooses these community educators. These educators are the heartbeat of the initiative, bringing people together in villages, literally to ‘sit under the mango tree’ to share issues of concern and ideas related to, in the Hoima District, oil exploration. These educators also work with NAPE field workers to organise ‘horizontal learning’ exchanges between villages affected by development (both within districts and also across the nation and also internationally, such as in Kenya and Nigeria, where communities are also being affected by such displacing industries).

Signposting the practice (and I could say so much more about gender, popular theatre, and community radio), I simply mention that what we learned and reflected on about the pedagogy and practice included:

• The real work of adult education, de-schooling, and popular education (as per Kolb, Illich and Freire);
• Community organising – which I started to see as really Fanonian –local people in dialogue with ‘organic intellectuals’ (the community educators), which makes it also Gramscian;
• The importance of building local CBOs and even NGOs (issue of federating CBOs or NGOs was a point of tension and discussion).

But what is interesting for the sake of this paper are some key tensions.

 

Dialogue and tensions in advocacy approaches and theories of change

One tension was awareness that sometimes international and national framing of issues and advocacy approaches were not the same as local positions, including the articulation of what can be understood as both radical and reform theories of change. Most obvious here was the tension between Friends of the Earth (FoE) International’s/ NAPE’s (as FoE affiliate) ‘keep oil in the soil’ campaign approach (a radical change agenda reflecting a ‘post-development’ vision of society), and some local community members, for whom there was acceptance of oil extraction (“Oil can be a curse, but we want it to be a blessing,” as several local people put it to us), as long as the benefits associated with the industry are distributed fairly, accountably and transparently (indicative of a reform agenda, reflecting a perspective of humanising conventional development).

These two positions live in tension, and require an understanding of dialogue, and compromise between the international and local NGO perspective and that held by the Sustainability Villages and CBOs. As part of effectively managing this tension, NAPE describes their role as facilitating horizontal learning – a process whereby local communities co-learn with other communities in Uganda (and elsewhere) affected by extractive industries.

In adopting this approach, rather than ‘imposing’ a radical theory of change (‘keep oil in the soil’) on local communities the Sustainability School model enables local communities to come to their own position, through an informed and detailed dialogic and embodied experience.

In the main, it appears, the outcome of this is that local communities take a position that is commensurate with NAPE’s radical agenda. In taking this approach, NAPE is able to avoid being seen as taking a heavy-handed approach in imposing a theory of change, and can be seen as facilitating local communities’ rich learning on the impacts of extractive industries, and the diversity of approaches and theories of change, including the option of saying no to certain forms of development.

In terms of future research it would be very interesting to see what NAPE would do if local community-based organisations within the SS programme officially adopted a reform position, contrary to NAPE’s position. The tensions around both dialogue practices, and also between education and organising become very clear within such work, a rich tension for future research.

 

Popular education and a reactionary state

Another tension within this ‘pedagogy-in-practice’ is that the education and community organising approach is part of a broader strategy of building a social movement and critical mass. Part of the rationale for this is that the NGO NAPE knows that at any time the Ugandan state can deregister them. This threat became very real to Oxfam Uganda in 2013 when they campaigned against the New Forest Company, work similar to our earlier work with NAPE highlighting human rights abuses by Green Resources. The Ugandan state very nearly de-registered Oxfam Uganda. Our meetings with Oxfam Uganda had to be completely ‘off the record’.

This constant threat by the state highlights the important role of an NGO in building a critical mass, a people’s movement via popular education, and community organising that can sustain itself – in case the catalysing NGO itself is deregistered. The political context also highlights the importance of a nuanced strategy. NAPE’s work highlights the importance of popular education, organising the poor and developing strategies that cross assemblages of scale and size, being situated alongside significant investment in dialoguing with security forces and government officials. Dialogue became front and centre in the practice, not as a way of appeasing the state, but as a way of ensuring the NGO could keep working in the sensitive space it finds itself.

A key point here is that the literature on community or transformative education often lacks analysis of the linkages between education, organising and movement building, across scale within particularly volatile political contexts (see Westoby & Lyons, 2017).

 

Conclusion

With these key points in mind I will conclude by sharing some brief reflections on both researchers’ and authors’ dilemmas, and then some linkages with my introduction.

Some key dilemmas unfolded for us as researchers and authors. Firstly, when the initial Oakland Institute/NAPE report was published – ‘Carbon Violence: The Darker Side of Green’ (Lyons, Westoby, & Richards, 2014) – we were overwhelmed with media attention, threats of court action, and activism engagement. Time was seriously diverted from research work and we were not equipped to lead a campaign – we are not campaigners. I really started to question what the role of academics or engaged scholarship is in campaign work; I still live with that question. It is a tough balancing act. Secondly, when we asked NAPE if we could learn about their Sustainability School (SS) programme (case study 2) they asked, “Couldn’t we use the money you’ll use for the research to fund SS programmes in communities affected by Green Resources?” A reasonable question, but we could not oblige, as our funding resources came from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for research. Our response was legitimate, but it raised dilemmas about how to hold both an NGO perspective, and ours as researchers, and I still wonder a lot about the meaning of this request from NAPE staff and our inadequate response. Thirdly, when we ‘see’ such violence as experienced in these case studies, what do we do? Yes, writing and publishing is an act of activism; but is it enough? As partners to the NGO NAPE, along with other organisations such as The Oakland Institute (my colleague is a research fellow there), we are linked to other forms of activism that are beyond writing. This seems to be a crucial way forward, ensuring our writing work is linked closely to action–learning, action–research, and activist practices of the NGOs we work with, and the social movements they support. Finally, it is dangerous for us to go to these communities – we only could go with the NGO – but local people live with on-going potential fallout from our work. This creates many continuing ethical dilemmas.

With these dilemmas in mind, I return to some of the aspirations articulated in the introduction. As a social scientist and community development scholar–practitioner I see research as playing a crucial role in illuminating the way community development is deployed – in these two case studies, as corporate, and NGO, with the different traditions and models, particularly in an era of a scaled-back state. Intriguingly, most community development practitioners would assume their work to be ‘doing good’. Certainly the community workers deployed by Green Resources in the first case study assumed so. Social science contributes to community development scholarship and practice, putting such assumptions to scrutiny. Of course, this is not to assume that corporate-led CD is doing harm, and NGO-led CD (as per NAPE) is doing good. All deployment of CD needs to be scrutinised.

Beyond community development, social science drawing on conceptual frameworks such as political ecology also helps people ‘see’ new forces of change; in this case the green economy, or a particular form of it – carbon trading. In this case such research helps scholars and practitioners understand how the ‘powerful’ work materially and discursively to undermine, or marginalise, the poor. As stated in the introduction, this should also enable activists, practitioners and advocates to theorise and strategise more carefully. In understanding how new forms of commodification and the creation of new markets render invisible violence and dispossession, practitioners can consider strategies and tactics for social movement building and community organising, as per the ideas that emerge from the second case study (the work of the Sustainability Schools).

Again referring to the introduction, social science should also enable scholars and practitioners to observe and learn from the poor as to how they organise themselves. The second case study certainly helps in this regard, exploring how a programme works out in practice combining adult, transformative and popular education, integrated with forms of community organising that enable communities to create a social movement – thereby offering alternatives to orthodox ‘development’ (in this case, oil drilling equals jobs). Such social science work supports pluralist and radical models of community development that resource scholars and practitioners in the spirit of my other introductory comment – namely, as per Mills’ The Sociological Imagination, enabling us to regain our imaginative potentials to change the world.

 

Acknowledgements

The research for the two case studies was funded by the Australian Research Council (Project No. DP 110102299).

 

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Mugambe, R. (2007). The Kachung Plantation Project (KPP) – Norwegian Afforestation Group. Environmental Impact Assessment Report.

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Watts, M. J. (2000). Political ecology. In E. Sheppard & T. Barnes (eds.), A companion to economic geography (p. 257). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Westoby, P., & Lyons, K. (2017). The place of social learning and social movement in transformative learning: A case study of Sustainability Schools in Uganda. Journal of Transformative Education, 15(3) DOI: 10.1177/1541344617696970

Westoby, P., & Simpson-Hope, G. (2011). Re-thinking “tradition” and community development practice. European Journal of Social Work, 14(2).

 

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Dr. Peter Westoby (b.1976) is a Senior Lecturer in Community Development, School of Social Sciences, at The University of Queensland; a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Development Support, University of Free State, South Africa; and a director/consultant with Community Praxis Cooperative. His areas of research interest include community development theory and practice, dialogue studies and forced migration studies. He has worked in youth, community and organisation development for 28 years in South Africa, Uganda, Vanuatu, PNG, the Philippines and Australia. Peter loves spending time walking outdoors, drinking good quality whisky with friends, and exploring independent bookshops.

 

 

Stood Loyal Right Through

by David Haigh

 

Taken from Johnny Mitchell’s recorded reflections (1974) – 179 pages of transcripts. A friend of Johnny’s, Rev. Dr Bruce Hucker interviewed him. A group of deregistered waterside workers met the costs of tapes and transcriptions. Johnny gave the transcripts to me (the writer) and said I could use them in any way I thought might be useful. Bruce Hucker introduced me to Johnny in the 1980s, when unemployment had risen again. We formed the Auckland Unemployment Committee, and disseminated information and advocated policies in order to improve the situation for those who were jobless. Johnny was in his element delivering newspaper-style publicity material in the inner city.

 

Abstract

Johnny Mitchell was raised in the East End of London and went to work on the docks and as a seaman. Sailing conditions were poor until he worked for a New Zealand shipping company, and he eventually jumped ship in Wellington to be with the woman he was to marry. They settled in Freemans Bay, but this was the 1930s, a period of deep depression. Johnny found employment as a relief worker for Auckland City Council. Wages were low and working conditions poor. Even though he was communist, he actively supported the election of the first Labour Government in 1935. Eventually Johnny became a wharfie and an active member of the Waterside Workers Union (WWU). The waterfront dispute of 1951 became a significant period in Johnny’s life. He held an important position in the union and was involved in illegally writing and disseminating publicity about the dispute. Life became risky as he evaded the police, who were trying to stop this activity. He also was involved in bloody demonstrations during this period. He received recognition from the union for his work during the dispute. Johnny, throughout this period, was also a community worker and community activist (before such terms were invented) in Freemans Bay, opposing those who sought to oppress the poor, seeking better amenities for the neighbourhood and providing opportunities for people to engage in their community.

 

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Johnny Mitchell (1907-1990) was born in the docks area of the East End of London and lived his early years in this poor district. He was one of nine children, and was a Christmas Eve baby. His father was originally a merchant seaman who gravitated to dock work. He was an active member of the Seamen’s Union and the Labour Party. As a schoolboy, Johnny remembered visits by royalty to the school, with the lined-up children mostly barefooted because their parents were so poor. He also remembered the outbreak of the First World War and his father being ordered to the Royal Navy barracks. A vivid memory was seeing the shooting down of a German zeppelin by Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson, who received the Victoria Cross for the most conspicuous bravery. The Times of London reported that, “He attacked an enemy airship under circumstances of great difficulty and danger, and sent it crashing to the ground as a flaming wreck” (“VC for airman’s exploit,” 1916).

Another incident during the war he remembered involved the smashing and looting of German shops. Much to his shame, Johnny participated in the destruction of a butcher’s shop, owned by a German called Stollenberger. His mother refused to accept the stolen meat from him. Both his mother and local neighbours were deeply disturbed by this sort of violence against the Germans who lived locally.

At 17, Johnny joined the merchant navy as a trimmer, someone who stoked the ship’s boilers. He travelled widely around the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina. Back in London, he and his father became involved in the Seamen’s Strike in 1925 and joined protest marches against wage cuts of £1 per month. They were also involved in demonstrations relating to the General Strike of 1926. It was these experiences that influenced Johnny and radicalised his views about government and political parties. His views were reinforced by his and his brother’s arrest for offences under the Defence of the Realm Act. Johnny received a month’s imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs, sleeping on a wooden bed with no mattress. Memory of his harsh experience in prison lasted the rest of his life. Another experience that lasted was his introduction and welcome to a Black South African family in South Africa. When visiting the country he would go out of his way to mix with Black Africans “…because we knew that the attitudes of most Whites to the Blacks was obnoxious…” (p. 25). In the early 1920s, he also travelled to Hamburg and met with German dockers. They had similar views to Johnny: “…a hatred for war, and a hatred for oppression” (p. 26). In 1929, Johnny sailed on the maiden voyage of the passenger ship Rangitiki to New Zealand.

Johnny recorded the harshness of a sailor’s life in the 1920s, which he described as medieval. He had to supply his own straw mattress as well as eating utensils for each voyage. Food was poor in quality and quantity. After he came off watch stoking the boilers with coal, there was only one bucket of water to wash the grime off his body. It was their poor working and living conditions that “…brought out the militancy of seamen and was one of the reasons that gave rise to the 1925 strike…” (p. 29). It was not until he joined the New Zealand ships that conditions improved, including showers and better food.

In 1930 he jumped ship to be with the woman who was to become his wife. However, in Wellington, he was arrested by the police and given two weeks’ sentence to Mt Crawford Prison. Eventually Johnny ended up married, in Freemans Bay, Auckland. After joining the Seamen’s Union he sought employment. He explained the process:

If there were vacancies aboard a ship, you lined up like a group of animals on the dockside, and, depending on what you were, whether you were a sailor or a down below man, if the engineer liked the look of your face, or some other qualification, you were lucky enough to get the job. … The method was open to vast corruption. (p. 32)

Johnny recalls the lack of support for the unemployed in the 1930s: “…people were living, in some cases, under starvation conditions, maintained almost entirely by charitable aid. I can remember that the Auckland Hospital Board in Kitchener Street were inundated by people applying for some kind of relief” (p. 33). To prevent rioting, government passed the Public Safety Conservation Act (1932) that attempted to stifle discontent.

During the depression of the 1930s, Johnny did relief work and received 14 shillings a day, which was subsequently reduced to nine shillings a day. Workers could only afford to feed their families, hence they were unable to pay the rent. This resulted in attempted evictions by landlords, but they met strong resistance from the Unemployed Workers Union. When the bailiff came around to put new locks on the doors, Johnny explained, “We just pulled them off. Pulled the locks off and put the people back in… and that was a common occurrence” (pp. 37-38). During this period, Johnny was closely associated with such strong personalities as Jim Edwards, Alex Drennan and Mrs Cassie. He explained how the relief workers tried to feed themselves during the lunch break: “Slasher Murray would go into town, and borrow, beg or steal meat, vegetables, and all the bits and pieces that would go into a big Irish stew, what seamen used to call a hoodle.”

Food was always in short supply, but one day Johnny struck gold. He was working at Old Mill Road and, “…a duck flew up from the zoo – a beautiful coloured duck… I picked up a lump of rock, aimed at it and I hit it, brought it down, wrung its neck and took it home” (p. 40). Back at work the next morning, zookeepers were seen looking for a prize South African female duck.

In 1932 there was a riot in Queen Street, Auckland. Johnny explained what he saw and knew about the riot. The unemployed workers proposed to have a peaceful demonstration at the Auckland Town Hall with a petition to government. Johnny and his wife had been to the cinema and they came out right in the middle of the riot. “…some people were looting shops” (p.42) and there were assaults on both sides, police and demonstrators. Johnny explained, “On the second night of the riots, which took place in Karangahape Road, my wife and I were both in the thick of it” (p.42). Many people were arrested and some received two years’ prison sentence. Jim Edwards was one of the key figures, and was struck with a baton by the police. Johnny reported, “Of course it’s history now that Rev. Scrimgeour (Uncle Scrim) hid Edwards away for a while” (p. 43). About this riot, Scrimgeour wrote:

The riot started at the main entrance. I don’t think any member of the unemployed carried anything that could be used as a weapon. They weren’t prepared for violence but they despaired of food for their families and selves, and their desperation was such that violence could easily erupt. (Scrimgeour, 1932, p. 161) [Scrimgeour noted that the head wound inflicted on Edwards required thirty stitches.]

During the 1930s, the unemployed were victimised. Freedom of speech was illegal and some were arrested, including Henry Mornington-Smith, Gordon Dale, Alec Drennan and Chris Thompson. Two of them were jailed for six months for bringing in left-wing literature from the ship Niagara. The workers, in response, set up the Free Speech Campaign and the Legal Defence Fund. Johnny admitted to smuggling tobacco into Mt Eden Prison for his friend Gordon Dale.

In the 1930s, Johnny’s wife fell ill and was hospitalised while Johnny was on council relief work. He was not allowed time off to look after their baby girl.

The hospital bill was £148, which they paid off in instalments.

Although a committed communist, Johnny actively supported the NZ Labour Party. He became a waterside worker and joined the Waterside Workers Union (WWU). The union had forced an end to the ‘auction block’ system, whereby an employer could choose who worked and who didn’t from the workers who turned up that day; a regime which led to favouritism and victimisation. Later the union established the ‘30 hour’ system, whereby if a person had worked 30 hours that week they stood down to allow an unemployed worker to take over.

During this time, Johnny became close to Jock Barnes (union leader during the 1951 waterfront dispute). He described him:

Jock Barnes was a very able and capable individual. Obviously he was born for leadership. He was a very forceful and influential speaker. I would say that later as he developed this ability as a speaker both publicly and inside organisations, he would be without peer in New Zealand. He was a very dominating personality, very temperamental and easily upset. Some people found him extremely hard to get on with. (p. 54)

Johnny also commented on the death of Michael Joseph Savage in 1940. “…Michael Joseph Savage was a very much loved Labour leader, and… represented the labour movement. … The Waterside Workers… lined the route all the way up to Bastion Point” (p. 68).

During the Second World War period, the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, and this resulted in hostility towards the NZ Communist Party. Johnny experienced an anti-communist event when the police smashed up the printing machine used to print the People’s Voice. Johnny described another incident:

Around this time, the Communist Party had convened a public meeting in the Druids Hall in Newton. The hall was packed, it was on a Sunday night. There were a lot of women there, and some children, and after the meeting had commenced, a warning was given to the Chairman of the meeting that soldiers were coming in an organised fashion from Papakura Camp to smash up the meeting, and to assault the speakers and those who were attending the meeting. … And sure enough, around 8.30pm, the soldiers came charging to the hall. They had been lit up with rum at Papakura Camp before they left. They were brought to the hall in lorries. When they arrived they unbuckled their belts, and attempted to invade the hall. However, we were forewarned, and had locked the front doors. They continued to clamour at the doors, and even tried to get in through the windows. It was a very ugly situation. The police, I might mention, did very little to protect the people in the hall. It was quite a legitimate meeting. We were not violating any laws, but the soldiers were in that frame of mind where they were prepared to do anything.

The Superintendent of the police asked that he be allowed into the hall so he could speak and explain the situation. He was admitted and told women and children at the meeting to leave the hall, but the male members at the meeting would have to take their chances. This was not acceptable, and none of the women were prepared to leave without their husbands…so we took steps to get the women and children out. We got them out through the window, and some of the elderly people, while the younger people at the meeting held the fort at the door. This went on until about midnight, and finally when we had thinned the attendance of the meeting down, those of us who were left threw open the doors, and ran. Some of these inflamed soldiers pursued us. Three of them pursued me up Newton Road. I never ran so fast in all my life. (pp. 71-72)

At the end of the war, the WWU was determined to improve working conditions. Johnny explained that:

They had experienced the new methods of cargo working which were introduced by the Americans, such as fork-lifts, trailers, jitneys and all the modern methods being used on American waterfronts had been introduced into New Zealand, and we were no longer going to accept such things as the old hand-truck which we had to pull and push over antiquated wharves… (p. 86)

To effect this change, Johnny argued that “It was necessary… to build the union into a fighting unit” (p. 87). However, the reaction from the ship owners and others was negative. Disputes arose over safety issues. For example, there was an unsafe gangway to board the ship Kaikorau. The defect could have been fixed in a few minutes but the owner refused, resulting in a hold up for many days (p. 89).

Johnny argued (p. 97) that the media (in particular Minhinnick’s cartoons) played a key role in depicting watersiders as villains. To break down this hostility, the WWU organised union meetings at the Town Hall. He said, “We supplied [members] with a special card which was punched at every stop-work meeting they attended, and if they didn’t attend, they were disciplined by the union” (p. 97).

As a background to the waterfront dispute of 1951, Johnny described Jock Barnes again. Barnes had a strong link with the Labour Party. He had worked in the Department of Lands and Survey but was dismissed because of his Labour Party activities. In 1935, Barnes joined the WWU.

Jock Barnes was a peculiar kind of fellow in lots of ways. He associated with people like Jack Lewin, the lately retired secretary of Trade & Commerce, who was then president of the Public Service Association, blokes like Uncle Scrim and… John A Lee. (p. 105)

“[In 1950] Barnes was taking examinations in company law. He was in the middle of a serious dispute, but would leave… and go up to University…” (p. 105). Johnny described one incident where Barnes provoked a trade unionist, Noel Donaldson, at an executive meeting. “He [Donaldson] picked up a rather heavy gong, which was used for conducting meetings and hit Barnes across the neck with it” (p.106).

Attacks on Barnes continued. Barnes went for an important meeting to Wellington. Johnny explained, “Arrangements had been made apparently for a woman worker from the Clerical Workers Union office to be planted in Jock Barnes’ room at the Empire hotel in Willis Street… and the photographer was going to be there to take the shots” (p.108). Fortunately, Barnes received a tip-off and the plot was foiled.

In 1951, Johnny held important positions in the WWU: member of the Auckland Branch Executive and member of the National Council. He reflected on the reasons for the waterside dispute. At one level, the dispute was about watersiders seeking an increase in wages; this was opposed by the ship owners and the National Government. At another level, the dispute was used by Government to destroy the WWU under its militant leadership.

It was apparent very early that the Government had now made this the time to dispose finally if they could, with the leadership of the WWU. They [the government] had now manoeuvred themselves into the position, knowing that they had some very staunch allies in the leadership of the Federation of Labour [and] some elements of the Labour Party in Parliament. (p. 117)

Barnes agreed with Johnny but went further. He said, “We had clearly been targeted as Public Enemy No. 1 in the Government’s Cold War drive. The US government wanted to ensure unfettered access to Australian and New Zealand ports in the event of a war in Asia, and to do that they had to destroy the power of the waterside unions in the two countries” (Bramble, p. 120). Although he did not specifically mention any link between Washington and Wellington, Bassett (1972, p. 90) makes reference to the fact that 1950-51 was the peak year for McCarthyism. He also shows a photograph (1972, p. 66) of a meeting between Prime Minister Holland and the US President’s special envoy, J. F. Dulles, in February 1951. A recent article in the Sunday Star Times (Gates, 2017), based on new declassified CIA files, shows that the CIA assisted the government by using its airline, Civil Air Transport, to move people and cargo around New Zealand. This was an attempt to break the deadlocked dispute. It was clear that government was determined to destroy the WWU. Holland made a powerful speech that was used by the media. He said:

There is the enemy within, which is just as unscrupulous, poisonous, treacherous and unyielding as the enemy without. … The Government is alive to the danger that besets us and is determined to ensure that he does not succeed. (quoted in Bassett, 1972, p. 87)

On the question as to whether the dispute was a lock-out or a strike, Johnny responded, “…there can be no question of the character of the dispute. The waterside workers were locked out by the employers” (p. 118). With the employers’ rejection of a pay rise, the WWU adopted the policy of a 40-hour working week. The employers responded by introducing heavy penalties for refusing to work overtime. This impasse resulted in a lockout in Auckland (p. 119).

Though the WWU sought arbitration and negotiation, the response from Holland was ‘the seven point plan for settlement’. Johnny thought that eventually the WWU would accept all seven points, but by then the government had “…slapped another three points on” (p. 120). Government also used regulations under the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932, which caused a great deal of hostility among trade unionists. He described the details of the regulations:

…the main purpose of the Regulations was to declare illegal, any kind of support whatsoever to the waterside workers during the dispute. It meant that no finance was to be provided and no food. In effect it meant that a sympathiser providing food for a locked-out waterside worker’s child was committing an illegal act under the Regulations. Publicity on the dispute was completely banned. … Public meetings by waterside workers or any supporters of them were illegal (p.121). [However, the regulations] were flouted by the locked-out waterside workers and those who were supporting them, miners, freezing workers, seamen and yes, members of the general public flouted the regulations in many ways. … For instance, a lot of money was subscribed daily, weekly, monthly, from all sources, from members of the New Zealand public, from organisations within New Zealand, and from overseas a vast sum of money, estimated in the vicinity of £40,000 was collected in Australia and transmitted, illegally of course, because the regulations barred any financial contributions. (p. 122)

Bill Sewell, in a poem called The Regulations (2003), put it this way:

Every person who

discontinues their employment

makes any payment or contribution:

prints or publishes any statement;

for the purpose of counselling or procuring;

uses, either orally or in writing, any words;

carries or displays, or drives or causes to be driven

any vehicle carrying or displaying,

any banner, placard or sign or other thing;

fails to comply in any respect

with the requirements of a direction given to him;

or whose presence is likely to influence any other person;

commits an offence.

Johnny noted that donations also came from dockers in England and longshoremen in America. He particularly mentioned the generosity of the Yugoslav community. Amongst other things, they provided firewood, and three acres of potatoes that were dug, bagged and supplied to families. Freezing workers provided meat and the Huntly miners were also helpful. He also mentioned that hotel publicans were active in making financial donations.

The WWU set up a publicity committee of three, chaired by Johnny. One of their tasks was to print The Bulletin, a newsletter to keep members informed. Copies of The Bulletin are lodged in the Auckland Public Library. Other committees (transport, finance and relief) were set up by the lock-out committee. Also a boot maker and boot repair shop was set up using donated leather.

The aim of The Bulletin of April 13, 1951 was to inspire union members. Under the heading ‘Solidarity the only Answer’, it reads:

The wonderful and inspiring meeting that marked our return to the Trades Hall following our enforced but short evacuation, must serve as a salutory warning to the Government that they are fighting a losing battle against the greatest and most determined body of trade unionists that any NZ Government has yet faced. It is useless for Holland or Sullivan to attempt to bluster their way through the tide of public opinion that is rising against them.

They will obviously resort to more subterfuge and skullduggery but this will not overcome the supreme confidence of the workers who are striking such a mighty blow for Peace, Freedom and Decent Living Standards.

Another responsibility for the publicity committee was to form a panel of speakers and send them to speak at public meetings and also surreptitiously to explain the dispute. One of the outstanding speakers was Jim Knox who later became leader of the Federation of Labour. However, publishing The Bulletin was complicated. A young woman from the Carpenters Union office typed the text supplied by Johnny onto stencils. He explained how this worked:

…our headquarters were out in the New Lynn area, and the young lady lived in Avondale, and when she knew the time we were at headquarters, she came over on her bike, and cut the stencil. I placed it in my satchel, we got into Ron Harrington’s car, put the girl’s bike on the back of the car, took her home, and then went wherever we were producing the Bulletin, and we did it in some very strange places… One time, we produced a Bulletin in a van in Queen Street. We had the duplicating machine inside the van. Ron Harrington drove the van. Red McGrath and myself turned the duplicating machine, and we produced the Bulletin going up and down Queen Street under the noses of the police, and we weren’t discovered. Another occasion we produced the Bulletin in a cowshed on a Yugoslav farm. (p. 126)

The committee had two printers (probably the Gestetner-type) whereby a typewriter was used to cut into a thin stencil allowing ink from a drum to print on standard paper. One night, the police, based on a tip-off, raided a house being used for printing. The expensive electric machine was confiscated by the police (p. 127). Johnny’s house was also raided by the police but they found nothing. He was warned by a police officer that if he was caught with publicity material he faced a jail sentence of two years. Johnny was also stopped by the police from speaking at Mangakino and at Whangarei. In fact, he was escorted out of Whangarei by the police with the message of ‘do not return’.

Through a series of events, Johnny was almost caught out by the police. He explained that during a women’s meeting, at which he was the speaker, he noticed in the audience a Canadian woman who was a secretary with the Canadian High Commission office. She was suspected, without any proof, of being a CIA agent. Johnny drew the chair’s attention to the woman’s presence by slipping her a note with the words: “Fuzz [Fuzz Barnes – wife of Jock], that woman on the fourth row is a police agent” (p. 130). Fuzz read it and passed it back to Johnny who put it in his satchel. Johnny explained the consequences of that note in his satchel:

The next day… was our preparation for the Bulletin, and we followed the usual procedures. … I put the stencil in my bag… put the satchel on top of the car, and we took off, and I stupidly left the satchel on top of the car. … Some public-spirited person had picked it up and immediately, of course, handed it to the police. (p. 130)

Three weeks later, Detective Inspector Campin, with four other police officers, arrived at Johnny’s home. During this period the police did not need a search warrant. Campin “…threw the satchel on the table and said, ‘Bad luck. You lost the satchel, John.’ Of course I denied all knowledge of it.” (pp. 131-132). The police search revealed nothing. Coincidentally, three of Johnny’s friends arrived with some beer from the Rising Sun in Newton. One of Johnny’s mates, Des Doyle, noticed a policeman named Goldfield and said, ‘Hello, Goldy, what are you doing here? The last time I met you, you were getting some sly grog up at Jumbo Pillinger’s in Parnell” (p.131). The police were greatly embarrassed and took off. Johnny heard nothing more of the note in the satchel.

On another occasion, Johnny was involved in an illegal march. He was in the front row but had two very strong men on either side of him. The police grabbed Johnny and tried to pass him back to the police at the rear. But his mates beat the police back and Johnny (who was a small man) was passed by his two bodyguards to the middle of the crowd of demonstrators, out of harm’s way.

Johnny explained another incident involving the police and the deregistered workers (p. 133) that had consequences for Jock Barnes. An old man who had nothing to do with the demonstration was knocked to the ground by the police. In a public meeting at the Town Hall, Barnes denounced the action of the police in assaulting the old man. “As a result, Barnes was charged with criminal defamation. He was later convicted… and sentenced to two months’ imprisonment” (p.133). The union supported Barnes as best they could. They engaged a lawyer to appeal the sentence but the appeal was dismissed. Barnes completed his two months in Mt Eden prison.

Johnny described the worst incident of police violence against the workers:

The waterside workers had decided to march from Trades Hall up to the Domain through Queen Street, but when they got opposite Myers Park, a cordon of police lined across the road, under the supervision of one Superintendent Southworth, who was well known to watersiders. … He led the attack on the watersiders at Myers Park on 1 June, and it was a very bloody occasion. Women were assaulted too. There were a number of women in the front of the demonstration – Fuzz Barnes was one. She was assaulted. … I was able to escort the injured watersiders back to the Trades Hall, and I can tell you it was like a casualty station” (p.135).

Many were taken to hospital for treatment.

The Bulletin of June 4, 1951 explained the attitude of the public to police actions. A meeting was held in the Auckland Domain and 20,000 people attended:

The very fact that more than 20,000 people after 16 weeks [of dispute] are prepared to stand in bitter cold weather for two hours to hear our side of the dispute is indicative of the public feeling. … Finally the astonishing collection of £340 is sure enough evidence to clinch our claim that our cause is right and that Holland Can’t Win.

There was also violence coming from the so-called ‘scab’ union people who “hunted in packs” (p. 136). Deregistered watersiders were attacked on the streets and in pubs. “Watersiders weren’t even allowed to have a peaceful glass of beer in a hotel. Another instance was in the Prince of Wales Hotel in Hobson Street opposite the Trades Hall. They came in there and started a brawl. Two watersiders were arrested, but fortunately the publican knew who was responsible” (p.136). The charges were dropped.

On a more positive note, Johnny mentioned particular local people who supported the deregistered WWU: George Sparry was a ship-builder and had constructed landing barges used by the Americans in the war; George Armstrong was secretary of the Hotel & Restaurant Workers Union who supplied food for the families; George Stuckey was an illegal bookmaker and gave most of his earnings to the union.

With end of the dispute in sight, the deregistered workers tried unsuccessfully to get employment back on the wharf. Eventually, with the resignation of Jock Barnes from his position in the union, Johnny was asked to try to re-establish the national WWU. Barnes had established a business in the Waikato. Johnny travelled around the country with expenses being met from a small grant from an Australian union. His extensive work failed to gain traction. He noted, “It concluded any official attempts to carry out the policy of the old WWU to reorganize it” (p.151). Meetings of the WWU also ceased in April 1952.

A consequence of the destruction of the WWU was that some prominent members eventually moved into other influential positions. These included Jim Knox (leader of the NZ Federation of Labour), Tom Spiller (National President of the NZ Tramways Union), Ron Black (Assistant Secretary of the NZ Seamen’s Union), Jim Ellis (organiser for the Auckland Hotel Workers’ Union), Frank McNulty (General Secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union), Frank Barnard (Auckland President of the Freezing Workers’ Union), Ken Fabris (President and organiser for the Northern Drivers’ Union), Jackie Wilson (Secretary of the Timber Workers’ Union) and Bill Andersen (Secretary of the Northern Drivers’ Union) (p.152).

The Auckland Star reported:

At the end of the waterfront dispute, the deregistered watersiders held a  meeting in the old trades hall. It was on a sunny Sunday morning. The president of the Auckland union, Alec Drennan, presented a card to   national wharfies’ president Jock Barnes. It was a loyalty card. In black lettering were the words: Waterfront Lockout ’51. In red letters the phrase STOOD LOYAL RIGHT THROUGH leaped from the card.

After getting his card – appropriately numbered one – Barnes handed out others to hundreds of wharfies crammed into the dusty hall, among them John Mitchell. (The Auckland Star, 18 July, 1986)

When asked what he had learned from the dispute, Johnny made the following points:

Well, the first lesson to be learned, was to ensure that the maximum trade union entity exists before going into action, not only within the particular trade union involved in the dispute, but in the broad sectors of the trade union movement before entering a dispute of such dimensions as the 1951 Waterfront Dispute. The second lesson, I feel is to beware of those individuals inside the movement who would betray bona fide trade unionists. The third lesson I feel is to avoid even under extreme provocation, the splitting of the trade union movement such as occurred in 1950 prior to the dispute when the watersiders and some of their allies left the Federation of Labour. … The fourth point is the ability of trade union officials to be able to assess the situation at an appropriate time when it may be possible and advisable to withdraw from the dispute, reorganise, fight again. (pp. 152-153)

Like many other ex-watersiders Johnny found it difficult obtaining a job. Below is his recollection of one incident when he was interviewed for a job at a motorcar firm in Auckland:

The manager asked, “Where have you been working?” I said, “I’m a deregistered watersider, so I suppose that’s the end of the interview.” He said, “Oh no, I don’t think so, as a matter of fact I’ve got a couple of your   fellows around the plant somewhere. I’m not holding that against you. I don’t agree with what you did, but I’m not going to be a party to persecuting you for doing it.” (pp.154-155)

After some talk he offered Johnny the job. However, the manager’s telephone rang and after a short time he said, “Do you belong to some kind of organisation – some social or political organisation?’’ He went on to ask, “You might as well tell me the story – are you a member of the communist party?’ Johnny replied, “Yes, of course I am – that’s not much of a secret in Auckland.’’ The manager said, “Well, I’ll tell you something – when that phone rang just now, it was my foreman from the workshop who told me that his staff knew you were having an interview for this job, and they will walk out of the shop. I can’t afford to have that – but don’t blame me, it’s not my fault you didn’t get the job. I can’t afford to have that kind of strife here’’ (p.155).

Eventually Johnny obtained a permanent job at Lion Brewery and stayed for five years and then on to the Tepid Baths in Auckland for 12 years as a boiler man. He also continued his work with the trade union movement.

Johnny also reflected on the similarities in 1974 to the trade union situation in 1951. He said:

At present, the trade union movement is under a particular heavy attack. Such attacks are not new. They are old as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. They merely intensify when capitalism is faced with a new crisis. The most      bitter attacks are… coming from the traditional enemies of trade unionism, but they are also being joined by ‘Labour leaders’ who are again talking openly of deregistration to protect “responsible trade unionism and the Nation”. (p. 159)

Johnny described life in working class Freemans Bay from the 1930s. “In my early days in the Bay the struggle was the same as it was for many workers in other parts of New Zealand, to survive, to get enough food for our families. Large numbers were unemployed, some on relief work, some in what we called slave camps, some on sustenance, picking up a day’s work here and there.” (pp. 165-166). It had a strong Catholic presence but had no religious barriers. Even though he was a communist that never affected his local relationships. It was also a strong Labour Party area and open to radical ideas.

Robbie, the present mayor of Auckland… was a well-known figure in Freemans Bay. I can remember him riding around the area on his old motorbike, wearing his belted-up raincoat. … I think he learned a lot of his later campaigning in the area of Freemans Bay. (p. 167)

…older residents in the main lived in rented houses owned by pitiless individuals like old Hannah, Fatty Eccles and the like, who never spent a penny piece on the properties they owned. … It was not unknown for old Hannah, who collected his own rent, to be chased out of Baker Street by irate women who were demanding some improvements to their homes before they paid any further rent. Old Fatty Eccles could be characterised by the fact that he was so fat he travelled around in tramcars in his rent-collecting adventures, and the trammies compelled him to pay two tickets, because he took up a complete seat that was made for two. (pp. 167-168)

The conditions that existed in some houses were almost indescribable, as bad as any I had seen in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff or Newcastle. … There were large numbers of houses that had no baths. Some streets like Killowen Place had not even running water. Most streets had no lighting. (p.168) [Johnny worked hard in the community to improve conditions.] After persistent efforts, we were able to get Auckland City Council to erect hot water showers in the old destructor at the bottom of Union Street, for the free use of residents… and then we succeeded in getting a health clinic established in an old building in Union Street, just below the Robbie Burns Hotel. (p.171)

In the 1950s there was a major Freemans Bay slum clearance programme by council. People were being evicted through powers under various statutes. Johnny and others opposed the evictions and said that “…as houses were being locked after having forcibly removed the tenants, we knocked the locks off the doors and put the people back in again” (p. 172).

Johnny helped to set up the Freemans Bay Welfare Association in the early 1950s. Johnny was elected secretary and meetings and events were held at St Thomas’s Church hall. The association arranged enormous Christmas parties, presents for older citizens, socials and public meetings. The association advocated to politicians about the condition of houses in the area. The association eventually became the Freemans Bay Community Committee. Sadly, many people were evicted from Freemans Bay and moved into state houses in other parts of Auckland. Today, through a process of gentrification, Freemans Bay and nearby communities have changed radically.

 

Conclusions

Johnny was a community worker, community activist and community advocate before such terms were invented. His passion for social justice came from his early background in the East End of London where he stood alongside his father at demonstrations supporting striking workers. His values matured through his collegiality with others at sea and on the wharf, and through his extensive reading and study. At the local level in Freemans Bay, he was a natural community leader who led by example: opposing those who oppressed the poor, advocating for improved services and facilities, and by providing opportunities for people to engage in an active community life. Johnny was a radical community activist before the ideas of Paulo Freire and Saul Alinsky became popular, and a communitarian-thinker before Amitai Etzioni.

His community activities were closely linked to his left-wing political views. Even though he was a committed communist, he worked tirelessly supporting a Labour victory in 1935. He saw the new Labour Government as an important step towards a better life for people in terms of equality of access to education, health services and housing. Although he was a member of the Communist Party, this never affected his relationships with local Freemans Bay people.

Johnny was always affiliated with the trade union movement and it was these experiences that filled the pages of his memoir. He was deeply affected by the injustices of the 1930s period of depression, which he saw as a crisis of capitalism caused by economic orthodoxy that drove down wages and employment. Johnny’s own personal experiences on relief work capture the injustices of that system. He was a key WWU member of the Auckland executive during the 1951 dispute, organising illegal publicity through The Bulletin. He experienced high personal risks from the police pressure to close down such publicity, and the bloody demonstrations in which he participated. Above all, he was solid in his support of the WWU. He rightly earned his title, ‘Stood Loyal Right Through’.

 

References

Direct quotes are from the transcript, unless otherwise attributed.

Bassett, M. (1972). Confrontation ’51: The 1951 waterfront dispute. Wellington, New Zealand: A. H. & A. W. Reed.

Bramble, T. (Ed.). (1998). Never a white flag: The memories of Jock Barnes. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press.

Gates, C. (2017, March 19). Secret CIA flights helped break 1951 New Zealand waterfront strike, files reveal. Sunday Star Times.

Scrimgeour, C. G. (1932). The unemployed riots in Queen Street. In B. Brockie (Ed.) (2002), The Penguin eyewitness history of New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books.

Sewell, B. (2002). The ballad of fifty-one. Wellington, New Zealand: Headworx.

Waterside Workers’ Union. (1951, April 13). The Bulletin. Auckland, New Zealand.

Waterside Workers’ Union. (1951, June 4). The Bulletin. Auckland, New Zealand.

VC for airman’s exploit. (1916, September 6). The Times. Retrieved from http://www.thetimes.co.uk

 

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David Haigh (b.1938) is a lecturer in the department of social practice at Unitec. He has taught sociology, not-for-profit management, social policy and community development. He has been active in community development for many years and has written extensively on not-for-profit management and community development.  He edited Community Development and Social Change (2015) and is presently writing and editing a history of Kelmarna Gardens, a community garden that started in 1981.