Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
resources is also associated with lower GDP per capita levels. Similarly, Stijns (2006)
fi
nds
that arable land per capita is signi
cantly associated with total years of education, the net
secondary enrollment rate, and the share of aggregate expenditure devoted to public edu-
cation when examining all economies - developed and underdeveloped. However, when
he restricts his analysis to just developing countries he
fi
nds a result similar to that of
Birdsall et al. (2001): the relationship between arable land per capita and human capital
indicators is negative.
In fact, a closer look at the four 'stylized facts' suggests that most low- and middle-
income economies fall into a persistent pattern of resource use that is very relevant to the
problem of resource degradation, poverty and chronic underdevelopment. Table 5.1
reveals this pattern by grouping low- and middle-income economies by three types of indi-
cators: the
fi
rst indicator is the degree of resource dependence of an economy, as mea-
sured by the share of primary commodities in total exports. For instance, an economy
with a primary product export share of 50% or more would be considered highly resource
dependent. As stylized facts 1 and 2 imply, if a developing country is highly resource
dependent, then its 'take-o
fi
' into sustained and structurally balanced economic growth
and development is still some time away, and thus the dependence of the overall economy
on natural resources will persist over the medium and long term. The second and third
indicators depicted in Table 5.1 illustrate the extent to which both a high degree of rural
poverty and a high concentration of the rural poor in marginal land areas occur in low-
and middle-income economies. The former indicator is the share of the rural population
living under conditions of absolute poverty, whereas the latter is the share of the total
population concentrated on fragile lands, as de
ff
ned by the World Bank (2003, p. 59) and
discussed above in connection with stylized fact 4. Combining these two indicators gives
us an approximate benchmark, or '20-20 rule', for the degree of rural poverty-resource
degradation linkage within a developing economy: a country with 20% or more of its pop-
ulation concentrated on fragile land and 20% or more of its rural population living in
poverty shows evidence that poverty, frontier land expansion and resource degradation
are persistent problems in rural areas.
Table 5.1 combines the above two sets of indicators for 72 low- and middle-income
economies. The countries are grouped in terms of their degree of resource dependence, as
measured by the share of primary products in total exports, and the extent to which their
populations are concentrated on fragile land. The
fi
gure in parentheses by each country
also indicates the percentage of the rural population below the national poverty line.
According to the table, 56 out of the 72 economies have a primary product export share
of 50% or more, and therefore display evidence of high resource dependence. All 72
economies have 20% or more of their population on fragile land, and all but seven also
have 20% or more of the rural population living in absolute poverty. Thus by the '20-20
rule', virtually all the economies listed in Table 5.1 show signs of a high incidence of rural
poverty-resource degradation linkage within the economy. What is more striking is that,
with the exception of the Yemen Arab Republic and Indonesia, all 56 highly resource-
dependent countries also satisfy the '20-20 rule'. 7 That is, three-quarters of the countries
listed in Table 5.1 show considerable evidence of a high degree of resource dependence as
well as a high incidence rural poverty-resource degradation linkage. Of the 16 countries
that are not highly resource dependent, i.e. they have a primary product export share of
less than 50%, many of the countries nevertheless display evidence that poverty, frontier
fi
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