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The explosive population growth of recent years has brought with it numerous challenges to the existence of the humankind. Ranging from diseases, scarce resources, to the effect that globalization has had on individuals; it is now more necessary than ever that community development workers do their best to help improve the living conditions of the communities in which they live in. There have been problems associated with population growth, environmental degradation, and the depletion of natural resources.
One of the most outstanding challenges facing societies in this century has been food security due to the increasing populations, and the reliance on traditional farming methods. As well, inequitable distribution of wealth and resources, corruption, and bad politics in many countries has pushed many residents into living in deplorable conditions (Kenny 2011, p.4). This paper discusses the challenges facing society in the 21st century and offers ways in which community development workers can address these challenges.
There has been disturbing pictures on the media of children stricken by hunger all over the world. Droughts have been the order of the day in many areas of the world and especially in Africa, because of climate change, heightened water scarcity, and inadequate farming methods. Other factors causing food insecurity are the degradation of agricultural land, urbanization, and the high growth in populations (Korten 1996, p11).
The US government estimates that, as at 2012, almost one billion people were “food insecure” spread over 77 developing countries. According to the UN, the world population will hit a 9 billion mark by 2050, majority of the people living in developing countries. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that some countries in Africa might face a 50% drop in yields due to changes in climate. While still on the topic of food security, it is important to discuss the issue of food safety particularly in the developing nations; where there are, many diseases caused by food contamination and lack of clean food production techniques.
Community development workers must educate communities on measures that boost food production and promote hygienic handling of food. Among other measures, the community development workers should solicit for aid to enable them offer direct nutritional intervention and food relief services to the already malnourished (Ife 2013).
Because of wars, social strife and political instability in many countries, there has been mass migrations of people from one region to the other. As well, events related to environmental changes such as hurricanes, storms and river flooding are permanently driving people from their settlements. In addition, there has been stiff competition for resources such as land and water resources causing conflicts among communities.
For these reasons, the number of illegal immigrants into America and Europe is on the rise. Many people are escaping harsh living conditions in their mother countries to try out luck elsewhere. The immigrant communities strain the resources in places where they settle.
There is, therefore, great need to solve this problem by empowering communities facing these kinds of hardships all over the world. The best way in which community development workers could do this is by establishing the root causes of the problems and developing possible intervention measures. A case in hand is the World Vision, a community empowerment organization that has been sinking boreholes in arid areas of Africa thereby reducing conflicts arising from the competition for resources.
The demand for fossil fuels has outgrown supply causing an energy crisis all over the world. As well, the burning of these fuels emits green house gases such as carbon dioxide, which have a negative effect on the environment. Currently scientists are struggling to find a solution to the problem of global warming. Global warming is the depletion of ozone layer due to the accumulation of the green houses in the ozone layer.
Remember that it is the ozone layer, which protects the earth from direct sunrays, and, therefore, if the current trend of environmental pollution continues, the earth will degrade fast due to exposure to harmful sun rays.As a direct result, both the sea levels and the world temperatures will increase. As well, weather patterns will change causing severe famines all over the world.
According to Hirst (1994), as much as globalization has had positive effects on the communities in the 21st century, it has also brought with it a number of shortcomings. To start with, the highly developed transport and communication networks make the world look like a global village. People can now travel from Europe to America and Africa in a short time and with a lot of ease than they used to do in the past century.
This has led to the globalisation of human activities with the effect that nobody is living in isolation. As a result, diseases are spreading quickly from one area of the world to the other. Remember such diseases like bird flu, H1N1 virus, and AIDS. Whereas the more developed countries are able to handle such problems, the developing nations are increasingly facing problems that they are ill prepared for. The other major challenge with regard to globalization is the erosion of cultures. It is important to observe that the increased contact between people of different cultures has led to a crash of cultures that threatens the cultural heritages, indigenous languages, and religions that make the world rich in diversity.
Still, people have not yet learnt to respect other people’s cultural diversities. As well, generations born into these mixtures of cultures end up being confused on which culture to adopt. Community development workers have a great role to play in educating people on the richness of diversity whereas raising awareness in the developing countries on emerging issues such as new diseases and pandemics (Shuman 1995, p.13).
Another great challenge in the 21st century is the increase in insecurity due to the proliferation of arms. Because of growth in technology and globalization, guns and other lethal weapons are now more available than they were centuries ago. Many countries are fighting over power and political supremacy all over the world causing a lot of suffering to people (Marx and Engels 1970, p.7). This results in human rights abuses in countries where this is happening.
A case in point is that of Syria where thousands of people are dying every day. The UN reports that about 50 US billion dollars worth of arms are sold mainly to the developing countries and to regimes where human right violations occur. The super powers fan these human right violations since they are the ones who control the trade. Since trading in arms fuels conflict and poverty all over the world, nations ought to adhere to a code of conduct governing the sale of arms especially to warring countries. Developed countries should also desist from taking sides during wars or financing these wars. By lobbying the appropriate agencies, community development workers can play a great role in preventing this problem (Campfrens 1997, p.45).
As observed earlier, immigration to the developed countries such as America and Europe have brought with it a number of challenges. One of these challenges is racism. The world has suffered dark stages of racial and religious persecutions. This has become so profound in certain societies that it seems to be the normal way of life (Saul 1997, p.34). Amnesty International reported an increase in racist attacks against people of minority cultures throughout Europe.
In Italy, over seventy people were killed following hostilities against African farm workers in 2010. Police had to evacuate over three hundred people working in farms in the region to prevent them from further possible attacks. Most European countries are now taking stringent measures against immigrants into their respective countries whereas reducing the ease with which people could seek asylum. As well, there have been confrontations between Spanish authorities and immigrants from Morocco, all as an indication on how widely spread racism has grown.
Since racism is widely spread, spanning from Europe to America, it is a high time that community development workers find ways of reducing this pandemic. The best way would to be to hold public education forums where both the aggressed and the aggressors come together and exchange ideas. As well through promoting sports, culture, and empowering the aggressed communities, community development workers would be able to tackle this problem (Saul 1997, p.67).
At the bottom of the list of challenges facing societies in the 21st century, is the problem of poverty and social inequalities. The World Bank estimates that about one billion people are living below poverty line. These people survive on less than a dollar a day. In most countries all over the world, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Although national economies are growing, a handful of individuals may accumulate wealth leaving at the expense of the others.
In the poorest nations, bad politics have made matters worse, with corrupt leaders misusing their powers to amass wealth for themselves and a number of their friends or relatives. To make matters worse, these leaders hide their loot in foreign countries depriving their local economies of the much-needed cash. This has led to masses of people living in dire conditions deprived of access to clean water, sanitation, shelter, health, education and food (Giddens 1994, p.16).
With regard to the developed countries, the poor may not be in living in absolute poverty but may lack an equitable standing in the society in which they live in. Community development workers tackling this problem should focus on advocating policies and social intervention measures that reduce inequalities and those that encourage reduction in income disparities in order to reduce poverty (Centre for Urban and Social Research 1997, p.22).
Eade and Williams (1995, p.9) state that the basis of development is strengthening people’s capacity to determine their own values and priorities. For this reason, all community development initiatives towards tackling such problems as poverty, diseases, and discrimination should focus on empowering the individuals to bring out the best in them. Kenny (2011) argues that communities can be self-determining even in the face of the powers of the state, large corporations and global political and economic forces, and that local action can affect the decisions made at local and international levels. As well, individuals have the capacity to do things and act independently, and can in many ways effectively construct and control the structures that control their well-being.
Bibliography
Campfrens, H 1997, Community development around the world: Practice, theory, research, training, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Centre for Urban and Social Research 1997, Benchmarking citizenship, Centre for Urban and Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, pp. 65–102.
Eade, D & Williams, S 1995, The Oxfam handbook of development and relief, vol. 1, Oxfam, Oxford, UK.
Giddens, A 1994, Beyond left and right: the future of radical politics, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Hirst, P 1994, Associative democracy: new forms of economic and social governance, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Ife, J 2013, Community development in an age of uncertainty: vision, analysis and practice, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.
Kenny, S 2011, Developing communities for the future, 4th edn, Cengage Learning, South Melbourne, Australia.
Korten, DC 1996, When corporations rule the world, Kumarian Press, West Hartford, Connecticut.
Marx, K & Engels, F 1970, The German ideology, C Arthur (ed.), Lawrence and Wishart, London.
Saul, JR 1997, The unconscious civilization, Penguin, Ringwood.
Shuman, M 1994, Towards a global village international community development initiatives, Pluto Press, London.
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