In the mid-90s, TV3, Catalonia's television channel, created a character -Capità Enciam- to raise awareness among the little ones about the importance of taking care of the environment. In this way, the regional public entity moved forward to what is now a necessity, and also a fashion, with training work. The motto of Capità Enciam, a character who parodied superheroes, was “Els petits canvis són poderos” (Small changes are powerful).
That same argument has been repeated ad nauseam to make the population aware of the necessary sum of efforts of each of us in the race against the clock to avoid more ecological disasters and safeguard the health – at least what remains – of the planet. However, there are many who throw in the towel in the face of the overwhelming power of the political-economic structures that dominate a market-based world.
“What's the point of me separating the garbage if the industry continues betting on planned obsolescence?” “Why am I going to make an effort using the bike if a multitude of planes burning kerosene fly over me daily?” These are common arguments of the less optimistic. On the contrary, more and more people worry about what they eat, how what they buy is produced, what their carbon footprint is or the energy consumption of their home. According to data from the CIS, 80% of the Spaniards interviewed are “a lot” or “fairly” concerned about climate change. However, while it is true that in Europe, Japan or South Korea the population is increasingly aware of sustainability and its threats, in countries such as the United States, Israel, Malaysia or Singapore they consider the threats of the spread of diseases to be more alarming. than the consequences of global warming.
In the advances to alleviate the effects of our extractive and productive activity on the environment, technology plays a fundamental role. Online communication has put in the hands of many inhabitants of the planet - not all of them, remember that the digital divide leaves out a good number of people - the possibility of reporting activities of companies, administrations or institutions that are harmful to sustainability. Likewise, having a speaker makes it easier to report unequal, discriminatory or abusive decisions and has served to popularize personal initiatives. Admitting that sometimes the noise is so much that the forest cannot be seen for the trees, it is also true that civil society has never had so much power before.
Would the pressure from teenagers have extended to international powers if the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg had not relied on the networks as a means of dissemination? In the same way, we can ask ourselves how the Pakistani Malala Yousafzai would have made known her fight in defense of the right to education for girls in her country of origin if she had not had a blog from which she spread the word. message from her. They are just two examples of the most popular of the endless collection of signatures, complaints, proclamations, initiatives... that represent small advances, but at the same time often the necessary push for institutions to act in a certain line. Or even to achieve the support of private corporations eager to obtain greenwashing arguments that will wash its image.
While it is true that the major international players have joined a race to show their efforts in favor of sustainability, in its broadest sense, it is also true that they are efforts that, without their consequent public display, would probably not have been attacked. Are they insufficient? Of course. Are they better than nothing? Also. Without going any further, the World Bank has proposed as an institutional goal to achieve by 2030 the halving of learning poverty, the percentage of 10-year-old children in the world who are not able to read and understand a simple text. . To this end, it has organized a campaign aimed at helping countries in need by providing technical assistance, donations and loans (sic) so that children and young people around the world can acquire basic training skills. Today, the World Bank is the largest source of external financing for education in developing countries, with a portfolio of around $24 billion in 95 countries.
The portfolio covers the entire learning cycle. Investment in early childhood education has increased markedly and now represents 11% of the institution's portfolio. Around 25% of projects are implemented in environments affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV). These projects benefit at least 432 million students and 18 million teachers, or a third of students and almost a quarter of teachers in low- and middle-income countries.
