Furqan Asif

A greater focus on governance is needed to facilitate effective and substantive progress toward sustainability transformations in the aquaculture sector. Concerted governance efforts can help move the sector beyond fragmented technical questions associated with intensification and expansion, social and environmental impacts, and toward system-based approaches that address interconnected sustainability issues. Through a review and expert-elicitation process, we identify five engagement arenas to advance a governance agenda for aquaculture sustainability transformation: (1) setting sustainability transformation goals, (2) cross-sectoral linkages, (3) land–water–sea connectivity, (4) knowledge and innovation, and (5) value chains. We then outline the roles different actors and modes of governance can play in fostering sustainability transformations, and discuss action items for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to operationalize activities within their engagement arenas.

The rapid growth Cambodia has experienced over the past two decades has resulted in a dramatic transformation of its built environment, in particular, its largest city, Phnom Penh. The shape this urban development has taken echoes that of many developing countries whose urban landscape features gleaming skyscrapers, apartment buildings, and edge-city projects spread across a rapidly expanding urban area. Such a pattern of urbanization is occurring in Phnom Penh while the city faces increased flooding, lack of adequate urban infrastructure, and vulnerability to impacts of climate change. At the same time, embedded within national policy discourses of climate change and social/economic planning, and backed by international donors, are calls for strengthening or developing resilience. Yet, in the city there are signs of land dispossession, marginalization, inequality, and exacerbated poverty. In parallel to high-level discourses of urban resilience, on the ground there have been “every...

Pakistan has received billions of dollars in international aid and loans to support development in the country. Much of these funds have not achieved the stated social and economic goals set out by the projects, a conclusion reached by independent evaluation units within the very international financial institutions (IFIs) giving the funding. The reason for this is largely because projects fail to consider local realities and contexts and lack input from local communities. Amidst the squandering of millions of dollars and ineffectual urban development, local organizations have emerged as a strong voice for pro-poor development. This chapter highlights two such organizations in Karachi, the Urban Resource Centre (URC) and the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), to showcase how local communities can use their own resources combined with technical assistance and lobbying/advocacy via the media to question IFI-backed government projects while proposing alternatives. Through a case study involving the Karachi Wastewater Management Project, I show how the URC and the OPP worked together by collecting documentation, mapping out existing local development, commissioning expert analysis, and mobilizing advocacy efforts targeting all levels of government to support an alternative plan, which ultimately led to the cancellation of a US$70 million loan from the Asian Development Bank. Examples like this empower local communities, paving the way for redefining development that is “by the people and for the people.

Small-scale fishing communities along Cambodia’s coast have relied on marine resources as a mainstay of their livelihood for many decades. However, in the past 10 to 15 years, environmental change, increased fishing pressure, illegal, underreported, and unregulated fishing, and sand mining have contributed to a progressive decline in their catch. At the same time, economic opportunities outside the coastal village have acted as a draw and catalyzed migration to secondary cities and to the capital. This study examines out-migration of people from coastal communities to the city of Koh Kong. Using qualitative data collected from three fishing villages, I explore why people leave and why others stay in the village. In the context of city provisioning systems, the study also reveals a shift in climate-related vulnerability for coastal village migrants when they become urban residents. The study highlights the importance of looking not only at city planning, infrastructure challenges, an...

In most places around the world, people are an integral, sometimes dominant, part of the environment. This has two implications. First, a key requirement for sustainability success lies in finding ways to meet the dual goals of conserving nature and providing for the well-being and quality of life of people. Second, while conservation and stewardship certainly require considering the problems created by human impacts, they can also draw on the considerable potential of humans to solve a range of environmental challenges. Global sustainability requires corresponding responses at a global level. Equally, there is a need for bottom-up change. This book explores how local communities around the world are successfully responding to threats to the environment and local livelihoods. As communities continue to make a difference at the forefront of conservation, it is an auspicious moment to explore the links of community environmental stewardship, sustainable livelihoods and government engagement, and to appreciate the ‘power of community’.

This book explores the causes and consequences of market failure in bridging societal differences to create a shared economy. It questions the current world order and evaluates socioeconomic gains in reference to the social origins of the economic agents. With a need to counterbalance economic growth with social equality and environmental sustainability, the book proposes innovative approaches to address key questions on the contemporary global economy such as, "Is the Global socioeconomic order supportive of the pursuit of rational and enlightened self-interest?", "Is it a unipolar power centre and neoliberal economic policy regime?", "Can the system reinvent itself?", etc. One approach encourages going back to the golden past and making things "great again", insisting that history has ended, and the failures of old global institutions be blamed on the "Clash of Civilizations". Another approach advocates giving up the intellectual comfort zone of elegant but irrelevant neo-liberal explanations of global challenges and asking new questions that take academic debate to the public square. The book examines the internal challenges and contradictions that cause disintegration and proposes alternative ideas and practices in moving the global community beyond the free market regime. The book will appeal to students and academics of development studies, political economy, political science, sociology, as well as policymakers and public opinion makers interested in creating a new egalitarian global society. Fayyaz Baqir is a visiting scholar at the University of Ottawa. He served as senior advisor on civil society at the United Nations, and CEO of Trust for Voluntary Organizations. He received top contributors' awards from UNDP's global poverty reduction network.

Pakistan has received billions of dollars in international aid and loans to support development in the country. Much of these funds have not achieved the stated social and economic goals set out by the projects, a conclusion reached by independent evaluation units within the very international financial institutions (IFIs) giving the funding. The reason for this is largely because projects fail to consider local realities and contexts and lack input from local communities. Amidst the squandering of millions of dollars and ineffectual urban development, local organizations have emerged as a strong voice for pro-poor development. This chapter highlights two such organizations in Karachi, the Urban Resource Centre (URC) and the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), to showcase how local communities can use their own resources combined with technical assistance and lobbying/advocacy via the media to question IFI-backed government projects while proposing alternatives. Through a case study involving the Karachi Wastewater Management Project, I show how the URC and the OPP worked together by collecting documentation, mapping out existing local development, commissioning expert analysis, and mobilizing advocacy efforts targeting all levels of government to support an alternative plan, which ultimately led to the cancellation of a US$70 million loan from the Asian Development Bank. Examples like this empower local communities, paving the way for redefining development that is “by the people and for the people.

Small-scale fishing communities along Cambodia’s coast have relied on marine resources as a mainstay of their livelihood for many decades. However, in the past 10 to 15 years, environmental change, increased fishing pressure, illegal, underreported, and unregulated fishing, and sand mining have contributed to a progressive decline in their catch. At the same time, economic opportunities outside the coastal village have acted as a draw and catalyzed migration to secondary cities and to the capital. This study examines out-migration of people from coastal communities to the city of Koh Kong. Using qualitative data collected from three fishing villages, I explore why people leave and why others stay in the village. In the context of city provisioning systems, the study also reveals a shift in climate-related vulnerability for coastal village migrants when they become urban residents. The study highlights the importance of looking not only at city planning, infrastructure challenges, and climate risks but also at the attendant social effects that phenomena such as migration have on people who are increasingly on the move. Such a perspective offers a more people-centred understanding of urban climate resilience in Cambodia, and potentially for other countries across Southeast Asia.