Civil Society in the 21st Century and Expectations of NGOs
by Peter F. Geithner
Introduction
Although our brief today is global, I will limit my comments to Asia. I do so with humility. Having spent most of my professional career working in and on Asia, I am constantly reminded of how little I know about this huge and diverse region.
Consistent with the subject assigned with Session 2, I will focus my comments on the following thesis: Asia confronts major challenges at the outset of the twenty-first century. Coping with these challenges will require active involvement of all sectors of Asian societies. For civil society to play a role commensurate with the need, the sector will have to meet four key needs.
Major Challenges
As the twenty-first century begins, the countries of Asia face four economic, political and social challenges of transcendent importance. How the region copes with these challenges will affect not only the lives and livelihoods of the billions of people who now live in Asia, but all our children and grandchildren. The enormity and complexity of the challenges guarantees that we are bound to live, as the Chinese would say, "in interesting times."
People, Resources and the Environment
One major challenge confronting the countries of Asia is to find a sustainable balance among people, resources and the environment. The control. of communicable diseases was one of the great accomplishments of the twentieth century. However, the resulting decline in death rates produced a "population explosion," to which the region is still struggling to adjust. Birth rates, like death rates, have also declined―dramatically so in some cases, as in Thailand and China, more slowly in others, such as the Philippines and Pakistan. In virtually all countries, the absolute numbers of people are staggeringly large. Where the birth rate declined earlier, as here in Japan, aging of the population looms as a major issue. Elsewhere, attention will center on the implications of having half the country's population under the age of 25.
The region's dynamic economic growth is another major accomplishment of the twentieth century. Hundreds of million of people have been lifted above the poverty line and now enjoy standards of living almost inconceivable only a few years ago. At the same time, the combination of more people, higher incomes and rising expectations is placing severe pressures on governments in the region to provide jobs, housing, education, and health services. Political leaders will have no choice but to try to continue to develop their economics as fast as possible consistent with social stability.
They will have to do so knowing that rapid development brings in its train the same problems of affluence―air pollution, water pollution and hazardous waste disposal―which plague cities in the United States and Western Europe. With rapid economic growth will also come, as conditions in the poorer, more remote and mountainous areas of the region attest, mounting pressures on land, water, and forest resources. Denuded hillsides, increased soil erosion, siltation, waterlogging and salinity will undermine the incomes and welfare of rural peoples throughout the region.
