Summary: High tech, high consumption countries (e.g., N America, Japan, Eurodollar countries via the UN) fund the Global Virtual University (aka 'closing the barn door after the horse got out').

At first glance: Wow! an educational program for third world, impoverished. 'developing' countries--using online instructional technologies. Great!.

On second thought, isn't it way late? University-trained harvest [natural resources --metals, minerals, lumber, shrimp, etc.] managers bringing planning and management concepts to control the removal of [whoops, oh yeah!] the last small fractions of what's left.

Some details below! (See the last paragraph for a hint or two about the ecological sequence motivating this action.)

In the meantime only the government leaders and a few rich have been benefiting from misappropriated resource payments. In the unlikely event that there had been an even-handed distribution of payments, the compensation would have been insignificant given the chain of loss ( ecology--> livelihood --> life) that has resulted from the ecology-be-damned harvest procedures that were applied.

GVU - Global Virtual University. Quote: "The Global Virtual University (GVU) is an online university for sustainable development, and has a particular objective to meet the educational needs of the developing world. The agreement to start the university was officially signed in September 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, where the Norwegian Government, the United Nations University (UNU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) pledged their support and partnership." [Serious Instructional Technology]

The programme suggests a two-year study, covering 120 credit units according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) (corresponding to 40 "Norwegian credit units). It includes: 1) preparatory courses in (a) e-learning technologies, and (b) GIS - geographical information systems, common to all areas of specialisation (0 ECTS credit units), 2) core courses (common to all areas of specialisation) in environmental, developmental and managerial issues (30 ECTS credit units), 3) specialisation courses (30 ECTS credit units), (4) courses covering special interests (reading and conference electives) (7,5 ECTS credit units), 5) research methodology (15 ECTS credit units) and thesis seminar (7,5 credit units); and 6) masters thesis (30 credit units). It is proposed that the common, core courses will be attended by students from all areas of specialisation within the GEDS programme, whereas the other courses will be attended by students selecting one of the areas of specialisation.

True Rationale for GVU: Compensatory Window Dressing?

The GEDS programme recognises that many developing countries are poor despite an affluence of potential utilisable, natural resources. For different reasons, these countries have not managed to utilise their natural resources for a substantial development process. Instead, they experience increased poverty, social problems and environmental degradation.Also, on a global level, several interacting factors have combined to increase the pressure on the environment, such as population growth; over-exploitation and mismanagement of natural resources; environmental pollution; and warming of the global climate. There are also reasons to believe that these factors have contributed to many of the natural disasters witnessed during the last decades. This is especially unfortunate for many of the poorest countries, as they have shown to be most strongly exposed to these natural hazards.

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If you really want to dig in, read David Korten's commentary,"Development, Heresy, And The Ecological Revolution An open letter to the industrialized world". A large snippet follows:

Copernicus spoke a humbling truth regarding the insignificance of humanity's physical position among the stars - considered a heresy in its day and a threat to many cherished institutions. His act and the resulting change in perspective regarding man's place in the cosmos, deflating as it was of a long-standing human arrogance, liberated Western society from a number of debilitating intellectual and institutional constraints, ushered in the age of science, and led to human accomplishments that have exceeded even the most fanciful imaginings of the greatest thinkers of his day.

This was not, unfortunately, the end of our society's propensity toward a debilitating - and, in our present case, potentially fatal - arrogance. The highly evolved intelligence that produced the scientific revolution and made possible the industrial age has given our species a decided competitive advantage over other forms of life in the competition for ecological space on this planet. This success has been of such magnitude as to lead us once again into a trap of blinding arrogance - a belief that our technology makes us the masters of nature and places us beyond the reach of natural law.

We now face the need for a new revolution in our self-perception and institutions, an ecological revolution, with implications for human behavior and institutions that may be more profound than those that followed from the insights of Copernicus. While such a revolution will be certain to bring its own trauma, there is substantial prospect that it may also release a new era of progress as far beyond the current human imagination as the accomplishments of the modern era would be to those who lived in the Middle Ages. In the absence of such a revolution we will almost certainly remain locked onto our present course of social and ecological disintegration - the outcome of which may well make life in the Middle Ages look advanced.

Yet the countries likely to play the most influential roles in making the choices we currently face - the industrialized countries of the North - have committed the full weight of their political and economic resources to policies that seriously threaten the future of our planet and its people. These policies are built on three assumptions:

* Sustained economic growth is the key to human progress.

* Integration and globalization of the world economy is a key to growth and beneficial to all but a few narrow "special interests."

* International assistance and investment work to build strong economies in less fortunate nations and are important to the progress of their people, especially the poor.

Unfortunately, these assumptions turn reality on its head; they are the economic equivalent of maintaining that the sun revolves around the Earth, when all the contemporary evidence points to the contrary. Policies based on these assumptions are actively exacerbating poverty, environmental destruction, and the disintegration of the social fabric in nearly every country of the world. They are the antithesis of the policies required to support truly sustainable development.

See also: