SDG – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Earth year 4,492,056,017
Mother Earth/ Gaia‘s  Blog

Mankind, My children

In my first blog post I asked that you commit to following my blog posts  for a few weeks to give me a chance to explain the most important issues affecting our joint survival. Subsequent Blogs have started to give you some facts about the big and important Global issues that need to be addressed and what sorts of actions you personally could take. In today’s Blog post I want to talk about Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. 

The Problem

Basic infrastructure (roads, electrical networks, sanitation, water supply, etc.) remains very scarce in many developing countries. Around 2.6 billion people cannot access electricity full time, 2.5 billion people do not have access basic sanitation, 800 million do not have access to clean water and over 1.1 billion do not have access to a reliable telephone service. Inadequate infrastructure limits access to healthcare, education, markets, jobs, information and training. This perpetuates poverty, limits job opportunities and is a barrier to doing business. Infrastructure helps countries to industrialise their processes and create better paid jobs. Every one job created in manufacturing creates 22 jobs in other sectors.

Do you feel guilty and helpless about the continued suffering of the poor in developing countries and the inequality that denies opportunities to hundreds of millions in much of the world? Do you think more should be done to change this? Now is your chance to do something to change the world!

The facts

1. Small and medium manufacturing and industrial processing companies make up 90% of businesses worldwide and provide over 50% of employment
2. Renewable energy now with 2.3 million jobs could provide 20 million jobs by 2030
3. In developing countries only 30% of agricultural production is processed so there is huge scope for agro business in developing world
4. 6 billion people do not have reliable electricity full time

WCYDo (wich-ee-do – What Can You Do?)

 Buy fair trade fruit and products to help poor suppliers to grow and develop

1. Encourage/promote more use of renewable energy
2. Write to your politicians to increase aid and trade with developing world
3. Donate to charities such as www.constructionforchange.org
4. Share the facts about Innovation and Infrastructure with family and friends.

Encourage others to join us and to visit us on Facebook to sign up for our newsletter and information about our proposed WCYDo APP. See you next week on blog post.