Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth

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Barbara Ward

Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth DBE (born May 23, 1914 in Heworth , Yorkshire , † May 31, 1981 in Lodsworth , Sussex ), was a British economist , journalist, author and politician . She coined the term " sustainable development ."

Education and early years

Barbara Ward came from a strongly Christian family; she grew up in Felixstowe . Her father was a lawyer who said Quakerism was inclined convinced while her mother Catholic was. It was very important to the father that his daughter received as good an education as her brother. Barbara Ward attended a convent school before she began studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and later continued her studies in Germany . Originally she wanted to study languages, but then decided on politics , philosophy and economics. In these subjects she graduated from Somerville College , Oxford in 1935 with top marks. She then did research on politics and economics in Austria . In 1938 she published her first book, The International Share-out .

As a student, Ward experienced anti-Semitism personally in Austria and Germany , which led her to help Jewish refugees. She mobilized Catholic support for a war brewing in Britain, despite initially sympathizing with Hitler . Together with the historian Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) she founded the organization Sword of the Spirit to bring Catholics and Anglicans together in their opposition to National Socialism . The organization was ultimately Catholic, and it published its own magazine, the Dublin Review , whose director was Dawson and for which Ward wrote regularly.

During World War II , Barbara Ward worked for the Department of Information and toured Europe and the United States . She was editor of The Economist magazine until 1950 and then remained a freelancer. She wrote on economic and foreign policy, and her broadcasts on Christian values ​​in wartime were published by Sword of the Spirit under the title The Defense of the West . She was also president of the Catholic Women's League and a popular member of the team on the BBC radio show The Brains Trust , which answered questions from listeners. In 1946 she became a member of the board of directors of the BBC and the Old Vic Theater in London .

After the war, Ward advocated the Marshall Plan , for a strong Europe and for free trade in Europe.

Marriage and international activities

In 1950, Barbara Ward married the Australian frigate captain Robert Jackson, an employee of the United Nations . Their son Robert was born in 1956, the same year his father was beaten to a Knight Bachelor degree . Ward continued to work under her maiden name and was not known as Lady Jackson . In the following years the family lived in West Africa and traveled frequently to India . Ward's experiences shaped her future vision of how western countries could support the economic development of poorer countries. The couple also traveled separately many times, which caused the marriage to suffer. In the early 1970s, an official separation was agreed because Ward, as a Catholic, did not want to get a divorce. When she was promoted to Life Peer in 1976 , she used the surname of her husband, who was separated from her, for her title as Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth , of Lodsworth in the County of West Sussex.

Barbara Ward had been a sought-after public speaker since leaving university, and her lectures received international attention in the 1960s. Some of the lectures she gave in Canada , Ghana and India, among others , have been published as a book. She spent increasing amounts of time in the United States, and the Carnegie Foundation often supported her in her work . In 1958 she received the Harvard University the Doctor of Letters honoris causa. In 1966 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Until 1968 she was a Carnegie Fellow there and lived temporarily in Cambridge . She met Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy and acted as an advisor to various influential politicians, including World Bank President Robert McNamara and Lyndon B. Johnson , who valued her views on the Great Society project despite opposed the Vietnam War . She also influenced James David Wolfensohn's thoughts on development issues. She led correspondence with numerous prominent politicians such as Willy Brandt , James Callaghan , U Thant and Indira Gandhi .

Ward helped the Vatican set up an episcopal commission for justice and peace and in 1971 was the first woman to speak at a synod before Roman Catholic bishops.

One of the suggestions made by Barbara Ward was that rich countries should undertake to support the development of the world with a certain percentage of their gross national income . She suggested that there should be institutions that should enable “aid and trade”. This was a practical as well as an ethical consideration, as Ward believed that such strategies would ensure stability and peace. She was also called a " distributist ".

Ward was actively involved in three United Nations conferences, in 1972 the Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm (Earth Summit I), in the 1974 UNEP / United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and in 1976 in the Vancouver Habitat Conference on Human Settlements .

environmental Protection

Barbara Ward recognized a close connection between the distribution of wealth and the preservation of the earth's resources: “[…] the careful husbandry of the Earth is sine qua non for the survival of the human species, and for the creation of decent ways of life for all the people of the world ". (Eng. "[...] careful treatment of the earth is a necessary condition for human survival and for the creation of decent living conditions for all people in the world.") In 1966 she published the book Spaceship Earth , and it will said. that she coined the term Spaceship Earth .

In hindsight, Ward is seen as a pioneer in sustainable development. The book Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet was written for the United Nations Conference in Stockholm in 1972 , on behalf of Maurice Strong , Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment .

Barbara Ward's work was rooted in her sense of morality and Christian values. She saw protecting the environment and caring for the well-being of all human beings as a “double responsibility”, especially for those who shared her Christian beliefs. In 1971 she founded the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and was its President from 1973 and Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1980.

Later years

In the late 1940s, Barbara Ward had recovered from cancer thanks to what she believed to be the spiritual support of Padre Pio . The disease reappeared 20 years later, and surgery was unsuccessful. In 1973 she left Columbia University , where she had previously taught for five years, and moved to Lodsworth, Sussex. In the following year she was inducted into the Order of the British Empire and in 1976 made a Life Peer and thereby a member of the House of Lords . In 1980 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award ; in Maharashtra, India, there is a library named after her in the Center for Development Studies and Activities . Her last book, Progress for a Small Planet , was published two years before her death in 1981. Pope John Paul II sent a cardinal to her funeral to represent him.

Publications (selection)

  • The International Share-out . 1938
  • Turkey . 1941
  • Defense of the West . 1942
  • The West at Bay . 1948
  • Policy for the West . 1951
  • Faith and Freedom . 1954
  • Britain's interest in Atlantic union . 1954
  • Interplay of East and West . 1957
  • India and the West . 1961
  • The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations . 1961
  • The plan under pressure . 1963
  • Nationalism and Ideology . Lecture series. Carleton University 1966
  • Spaceship Earth . 1966. ISBN 978-0-231-08586-1
  • The Lopsided World . Lecture series. Johns Hopkins University 1968
  • With René Dubos : Only One Earth . 1972
  • A new creation? Reflections on the environmental issue . (1973)
  • The Home of Man . 1976
  • Progress for a Small Planet . 1979

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Pearce: "The Education of EF Schumacher". In Literary Converts . Ignatius Press 1999 ( Memento of June 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Only One Earth
  3. ^ Pugh in Sustainability
  4. ↑ Barbara Ward: Justice in a Human Environment . In: IDOC International . May 1973
  5. ↑ iccrindia.net ( Memento from March 23, 2013 on WebCite )

literature

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Ward, Barbara, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ward, Barbara Mary, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist and economist
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Heworth , Yorkshire
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1981
Place of death Lodsworth , Sussex