The Transition to Sustainability

The Shift Towards Services, New York and Geneva, 2004.

World Investment Report 2004 The Shift towards Services.

Success in drawing up the new constitution will be the definitive turning point for Iraq's stability and the entire process of democratic change.

World Investment Report The Shift towards Services (UNCTAD WIR 2004).

First, and most obviously, the supposed turn to the left is running out of steam, fast.

But it could happen a lot faster this time.

Likewise, the Middle East remains in the early phase of a revolutionary transition.

The government also could start aggressively pushing a shift to electric vehicles.

These aspirations can be used to encourage Kiev to turn toward the West and democracy.

Architecture Before the 13th century almost all buildings were made of timber, but a shift began towards stone.

Suppose, further, that by 2030 the transition to a low carbon economy is halfway completed.

Global and domestic markets, rather than China s government, will increasingly drive this transition.

So a shift to greater domestic consumption was inevitable anyway.

But coercive regime change was never the key to democratic transition.

This shift toward multiple policy objectives inevitably reduces central bank independence.

A shift to services led growth and an innovations based development strategy were highlighted.

China now stands ready to absorb some of that surplus saving to promote a shift toward internal demand.

The shift to renewables has been particularly pronounced in the world s major advanced economies.

Signs that Fatah is moving towards becoming a normal political party were ample.

For now, investment in a shift to a sustainable growth and employment pattern has been crowded out.

This shift to heroic leadership can be seen in ballooning CEO compensation.

In many ways Syria is going through the Egypt model of transformation from socialist economy to a free market economy.

It draws in part on the analysis in the World Investment Report 2004 The Shift Towards Services (WIR04).

While that is not showing up in the composition of final demand (at least not yet), the shift from manufacturing and construction toward services is a far more meaningful indicator at this stage in the transformation.

Capital spending and exports, which together account for about 24 of GDP, hold the key to this shift. At just over 10 of GDP, the share of capital spending is well below the peak of nearly 13 in 2000.

From coming perilously close to being a failed state, Georgia has turned towards the West.

The shift toward finance that Thatcher promoted heightened inequality and made the economy more volatile.

Over the past few months, MINUSTAH has made progress towards creating an environment in which the political transition can unfold.

Nonetheless, Santos is determined to shift from Uribe s emphasis on democratic security to one of democratic prosperity a shift for which Uribe deserves credit.

For example, Pepsi bolsters its bottom line by shifting to more nutritious, healthier food.

As a result, Turkey, not Iran, is on track to become this century s key Middle Eastern power.

This is what is happening today in Vietnam, and it is the path that China and India took on their way to becoming engines of economic growth.

Conversely, when democratic transition was attempted in a fragile and closed economic environment, the outcome was much worse.

What all this means is that Latin America is not shifting left, but settling in the center.

The first is to shift massively from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, especially wind power and solar power.

Let s hope that the late conversion to tough deficit rhetoric gets a lot of play.

In order to enhance Brazilian industry s export competitiveness, industrial policy must support a transition to high value products and services.

But one should not presume that a shift to greater private sector provision of services is a panacea.

Indeed, most countries entering middle income transitions see their growth slow, even stall.

In fact, the shift to Republicans since 2001 was largely confined to Southern white women.

He is part of the proud generation that defeated apartheid and then peacefully engineered a transition to durable black majority rule.

New projects are more market driven, with donors focus gradually shifting to building the capacity of domestic regulatory and technical institutions, and to strengthening the position of existing private sector firms to serve the market.

polymorph

These four drivers are fusing together and creating the big shift away from the 20th century, defined by hyper consumption, towards the 21st century, defined by collaborative consumption.