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Box 4-2. Future investment in human resources in Asia-Pacific region.
     The IFPRI vision 2020 highlights the need for investment in human resources in the Asia-Pacific region. Accordingly the countries will need to:
• Introduce new programs and strengthen existing ones to target the poor and disadvantaged at household and intra-household levels based on effective policy research.
• Emphasize   maternal   and   child   health   and   nutrition programs.
• Improve access to clean water and sanitation.
• Provide safety nets for the poor and landless rural house­holds affected by the new economic policy reforms.
• Invest more in schooling, especially for girls.

Source: IFPRI, 1995.

made to validate or incorporate indigenous knowledge into knowledge systems useful for locally adapted agricultural and food systems, there is increasing interest among formal scientists to understand indigenous knowledge and use it for agricultural/rural development (Rajashekharan, 1993; Joshi, 1997; Talawar and Rhoades, 1998; Rhoades, 2000). Given rapid urbanization and the corporatization of agri­culture, this is a trend that will prevail in the region for at least 10-15 years.
     Indigenous knowledge and agroecological approaches to understanding and scientifically validating indigenous knowledge have been much analyzed and discussed for over twenty years now (See Chapter 2). In the ESAP region many donor agencies and national governments will continue to support research to better understand and integrate indig­enous knowledge with modern scientific knowledge or ways of cultivation (e.g., KIT, the Netherlands; DFID, UK; GTZ, Germany; Aga Khan Foundation,  India; USAID, USA). Given the projections that the majority (48%) of the world's poor will live in South Asia by 2020 (ADB, 2005) and a majority of these will be people living in mountainous or remote rural areas relying entirely on indigenous knowledge systems, markets and other local institutions (IFAD, 2001; ADB, 2005), the demand for devoting greater investment and R&D attention to these people, their crops and liveli­hoods is increasing.
     Several traditional knowledge systems have been re­vived in recent years in agriculture and allied knowledge, for example herbal medicine and ayurveda. These traditional knowledge systems have important economic implications (bioprospecting, IPM, health care, fisheries, etc.) and thereby pose challenges to IPR and knowledge piracy often indulged in by Western pharmaceuticals (Pushpangadan, 2000). The demand for investments in nonformal education, traditional health care, organic agriculture, IPM, etc., will continue to grow, bringing opportunities to acknowledge, revive and provide entrepreneurial growth opportunities to reposito­ries/practitioners of traditional knowledge.

 

     The ESAP region is acknowledging the role of indig­enous knowledge, women and their traditional knowledge of agricultural and natural resource management practices, and rural community histories in enabling environment friendly, location specific agricultural development. The role of CSOs/NGOs in ensuring green development and a sus­tainable growth pattern in Asia is increasingly being pushed into the policy arena (Barkenbus, 2001). CSOs will also play an increasingly strategic role in the campaign for the right to food and human rights for marginalized and tribal peoples for whom the pressures for survival will increase with increasing globalization. Consequently, the demands to "de-globalize" and invest in building local capacities for sustainable agricultural and food systems that can feed the resource poor people of Asia will increase (see Foodjustice. net, 2003—statement by NGOs in 14 Asian countries, five years after the World Food Summit; Tyler, 2006).

4.2.5.4  Human and ecosystem health By 2020, the ESAP region will be home to large numbers of the poorest and under- and malnourished people in the world. There will be more malnourished children in South Asia than in sub-Saharan Africa (Rosegrant et al., 2001). The region will also see unprecedented growth in industrial­ization and urbanization, with the urban population expect­ed to increase by 352 million people between 2005-2015 (UNESCAP, 2005). Municipalities in 2025 will face a ten­fold increase in their solid waste burden (Bass and Steele, 2006). Consumer demand in China alone is expected to rise in the next decade (ending 2015) to the equivalent of four USAs—this includes demand for cement, timber, coal and steel (Bass and Steele, 2006). The health of both human be­ings and ecosystems will depend on how this urban popula­tion is fed and provided the goods and services it needs.
     The ESAP region will need to invest heavily in environ­ment friendly and socially and ethically just development. The environmental technology business in Asia will reach over $212 billion by 2015 (ADB, 2006a). Japan with the launch of the 3R initiative in March 2005 and China with its commitment of resources to renewable energy (the high­est in the world) have already given due policy attention to developing a "Resource Saving Society" (UNESCAP, 2005). China has pledged to generate 15% of its energy from re­newable energy sources by 2020 (up from the current level of 7%) (Bass and Steele, 2006). In addition to national strat­egies, one of the key elements of regional cooperation will be focusing on engaging the public and private sectors in Asian economies to build capacity for generating and uti­lizing environmental technologies. Generation and sale of power to public and private players has already begun in Bhutan to the benefit of neighboring states, especially In­dia. The ESAP region, especially Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India and some of the bigger and faster grow­ing economies now propose to collaborate and help develop action plans for sustainable development in the Pacific coun­tries. These Pacific countries (Melanesian, Polynesian and Micronesian regions) are some of the smallest countries in the world, contain unique biogeographical features and are inhabited by some of the oldest ethnic populations (UNES­CAP, 2006).