nssd dialogues in partner countries

Sustainable Development and the Need for a Strategic Responses

Establishing national strategies for sustainable development: a Rio commitment and one of the seven international development targets

At the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio, governments made a commitment in Agenda 21 to "adopt national strategies for sustainable development [which should] build upon and harmonise the various sectoral, economic, social and environmental policies and plans that are operating in the country.[…] Its goals should be to ensure socially responsible economic development for the benefit of future generations".

The OECD’s "Shaping the 21st Century" strategy (1996) called for the formulation and implementation of a sustainable development strategy in every country by 2005. This is one of the seven International Development Targets (IDTs) agreed by the international community.

In 1997, the Special Session of the UN General Assembly met to review progress since the Rio Summit, and noted that there had been continued deterioration in the state of the global environment under the combined pressures of unsustainable production and consumption patterns and population growth. This assessment led governments to set a target date of 2002 for introducing national sustainable development strategies.

Although it is nearly ten years since the UNCED agreement, very little guidance has been available on how to fulfil these commitments. This document seeks to clarify the purposes and principles underlying effective national and local strategies for sustainable development; describe the various forms they can take in developing countries; and offer guidance on how development co-operation agencies can support them.

Challenges to sustainable development

Trends, major challenges, and responses

Development progress over the past thirty years has been unprecedented. Life expectancy in developing countries has risen by more than 20 years; infant mortality rates have been halved and primary school enrolment rates have doubled. Food production and consumption have increased around 20% faster than population growth. Improvements in income levels, as well as in health and education, have exceeded the performance of industrialised countries. Notwithstanding this remarkable progress, there remain many complex trends and urgent challenges for sustainable development (Box 1).

Decentralisation and globalisation

These challenges must be faced by local, national and global institutional systems. Two major trends, which can be either complimentary or contradictory, are relevant in this respect - decentralisation and globalisation. Whilst it is being increasingly recognised that many social and environmental issues are most effectively dealt with at a decentralised level, addressing globalisation requires global rules and global governance systems. The challenge for strategies for sustainable development is to determine which issues are best addressed at which level, ensure coherence between policy options pursued at different levels, and find ways of keeping local people involved where the policy agenda is best addressed at the national or international level.

Box1 : Key challenges to sustainable development in developing countries

Extreme poverty still ravages the lives of one out of every five persons in the developing world. The social ills associated with poverty, including diseases, family breakdown, crime, and the use of narcotic drugs, are on the rise in many countries

Political instability, sometimes leading to violent conflict, hinders socio-economic progress in many countries and regions. Growing inequality of income both within and between countries as well as the marginalisation of ethnic and other minorities contribute to instability.
Political instability, sometimes leading to violent conflict, hinders socio-economic progress in many countries and regions. Growing inequality of income both within and between countries as well as the marginalisation of ethnic and other minorities contribute to instability.
Environmental deterioration continues to increase with natural resource depletion (soil erosion; loss of forests, habitats and biodiversity and depletion of fish stocks); and pollution is clearly evident in most countries placing growing strain on the quality of water, soil and air. Current patterns of production and consumption and global climate change all raise questions about the continued capacity of the Earth's natural resource base to feed and sustain a growing and increasingly urbanised population Recent studies have revealed that the Earth’s ecosystems and renewable natural resources declined 33% over the last 30 years while demands on them have increased by 50%Developing countries, and notably the least developed, are expected to be the most vulnerable to the impacts of global climate change, although their current contribution to the problem is minimal.

Population growth is expected to exacerbate these pressures, although it is people’s consumption levels that matter more than their mere numbers. 97% of the estimated increase of 2 billion people over the next twenty years will live in the developing world

HIV-AIDS and malaria are particularly serious diseases which erode the productive capacity and social fabric of nations. In the worst affected countries, HIV has already had a profound impact on existing rates of infant, child and maternal mortality. Nearly 500 million people suffer from acute malaria a year, of whom 1 million will die

Marginalisation. Many countries are struggling under the combined weight of slow economic growth, a heavy external debt burden, corruption, violent conflict, and food insecurity, as well as suffering from actions taken in the North such as trade protectionism and pollution causing global warming. As a result, they are increasingly marginalised from the global economy

Decentralisation

Decentralisation can foster development policies and strategies suited to local social, economic and environmental conditions. It can potentially promote good governance structures which are responsive to citizens’ demands and that allow the downsizing and streamlining of central government institutions.

However, the underlying principles of decentralisation are weakly understood and capacities for managing the process are inadequate. Successful decentralisation depends on a clear definition of the respective roles of local, regional and national-level authorities and the development of effective local level institutions for planning and decision-making. Unless these requirements can be put in place, the risks include the reinforcement of local elites, socio-political fragmentation along ethnic lines - sometimes leading to conflict - the marginalisation of less dynamic regions and the weakening of national cohesion.

Globalisation

The process of globalisation has been driven by factors such as trade liberalisation, increasing foreign investment, rapidly improving and cheaper communications, rapid technological innovation, the spread of economic reform programmes and the proliferation of multilateral institutions and agreements.

Globalisation is fuelling economic growth, creating new income opportunities, accelerating the dissemination of knowledge and technology and making possible new international partnerships. It can have profound implications for sustainable development in developing countries. There are worries about the external shocks associated with globalisation, and the vulnerability and marginalisation this causes. For example, the Asian economic crisis had a serious social and environmental impact which affected the poor disproportionately. But the impact of globalisation has thus far only been weakly addressed in strategies for sustainable development. There is a particularly urgent need for a new approach to the international dimension of national strategies and for dealing with the issue of resilience to such shocks. A key challenge will be to involve the private sector in this.

Sustainable development - a guiding vision to tackle the challenges

The 1987 Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as "development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". At the heart of the concept of sustainable development is the belief that over the long term, social, economic and environmental objectives should be complementary and interdependent in the development process. In 1992, the Rio Summit established sustainable development as the guiding vision for development in both industrialised and developing countries, and for international development co-operation.

Integrating and making trade-offs between economic, social and environmental objectives

Sustainable development is not just about the environment. The pursuit of sustainable development requires policy changes in many sectors and coherence between them. It entails balancing the economic, social and environmental objectives of society - the three pillars of sustainable development - integrating them wherever possible and making trade-offs where it is not (Figure 1). However, sustainable development has often been interpreted narrowly as an environmental issue without implications for more than a small group of society. In many countries, the responsibility for sustainable development has been given to environmental ministries and departments - often amongst the weakest and least influential in government.

Country-specific approaches to sustainable development

The relative priority given to the three pillars of sustainable development will vary in individual countries, societies, cultures and situations, and over time. Approaches to sustainable development reflect the diversity of the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by developing countries. Thus, whilst sustainable development is a universal challenge, the practical response can only be defined nationally and locally. This is why there are many interpretations of sustainable development, deriving from different values and interests in different societies. For example, in Thailand, sustainable development is defined as holistic development which involves six dimensions: economic, social, environment, politics, technology and knowledge, and mental and spiritual balance. In Bolivia, there is a particular emphasis on political dimensions (e.g. good governance and participation) and on the cultural and spiritual identity of diverse indigenous peoples.

The importance of governance to the achievement of sustainable development

Reaching agreement on how to address the challenges that countries face requires a degree of pluralism and room for negotiation. The ability to reach consensus on how the challenge of sustainable development can be met will depend on factors such as peace and security, prevailing economic interests, political systems, institutional arrangements and cultural norms. So achieving sustainable development is essentially a task of transforming governance.

The systems of sustainable development

Note: Sustainable development will entail integration of economic, social and environmental objectives where possible and, since full integration is unlikely, making choices between objectives where necessary.

Why we need a strategic approach to sustainable development

The need for structural changes

Achieving sustainable development will require deep structural changes and new ways of working in all areas of economic, social and political life.

Economic policy should promote pro-poor economic growth. Fiscal policies which negatively affect the poor or promote environmental damage should be reformed. In the longer term, countries should ensure that their net wealth (including natural, manmade and human capital) remains constant or increases. This will require ensuring that market prices reflect the full social and environmental costs of production and consumption.

Social policy should confront issues of inequity and inequality of access to assets and resources. For example, it may be to necessary to reform land tenure policies so as to increase access to disadvantaged and marginalised groups. Equally, it may be important to strengthen social capital and formal safety nets to cope with both external and domestic shocks.

Sustainable development has important political, institutional and capacity implications. At the national and local level, it requires cross-sectoral and participatory institutions and integrating mechanisms which can engage governments, civil society and the private sector in developing shared visions, planning and decision-making. Governments, corporations and development co-operation agencies will also need to be more open and accountable for their actions. Innovation and investment in actions which promote sustainable development should be encouraged. More generally, economic planning and policy-making will have to become more participatory, prudent and transparent, as well as more long-term so as to respect the interests of future generations.

Difficulties in introducing changes

There are many technical and political difficulties in integrating social, economic and environmental objectives and in adequately addressing the intergenerational dimension of sustainable development. In general there is little documented experience in most countries of developing such mechanisms and there are no tried and tested methodologies. Integrating and making trade-offs between sustainable development objectives also requires strong legislative and judicial systems. These are often very weak in developing countries.

As outlined earlier, different challenges need to be addressed at different levels. Some of the challenges to sustainable development need to be addressed at the global level (e.g. climate change and ozone depletion); some challenges need to be addressed at the national level (e.g. economic, fiscal and trade policy or legislative changes); and some challenges can only be addressed at the local level (e.g. changes in resource use). The impacts of decisions taken at different levels need to be taken into account in an integrated and coherent way. Their consequences must be considered and particularly the implications across different sectors and for different interest groups.

There can be conflicts between global, national and local sustainable development priorities, especially in the short-term. But there can also be complementarities. For example, the conservation of global biodiversity requires the preservation of habitats, while the need to feed growing populations implies their conversion to agriculture. However, for long-term sustainability, the need to preserve habitats for ecosystem services such as crop pollination, flood controls and water purification ultimately benefits agricultural production. Another is improved energy efficiency leading to reduced local air pollution, with corresponding health benefits, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Often there are costs involved in establishing or harnessing institutions and processes to move towards sustainable development (e.g. regular fora for participation, time and effort to engage in the process, mechanisms for collecting information and monitoring sustainable development indicators). These costs can be high in the short term, particularly for developing countries and poor groups. But the costs of taking no action are likely to be much greater.

All these issues need to be taken into account in steering a track towards sustainable development. They cannot be effectively dealt with on an ad hoc or piecemeal basis. They require a strategic approach.

What being strategic means

Being strategic is about setting goals and identifying means of achieving them. This implies adopting an approach which is based on good evidence, has an underlying vision, sets priorities, goals and direction and sets out the main tactics for achieving these. For sustainable development, being strategic requires a comprehensive understanding of the concept and its implications, but not necessarily a comprehensive set of actions – at least at any one time.

A strategic approach to sustainable development implies new ways of thinking and working so as to:

Move from developing and implementing a fixed plan, ideas and solutions towards operating an adaptive system that can continuously improve governance to promote coherence between responses to different challenges.
Move from a view that it is the state alone which is responsible for development towards one that sees responsibility with society as a whole.
Move from centralised and controlled decision-making towards sharing results and opportunities, transparent negotiation, co-operation and concerted action.
Move from a focus on outputs (e.g. projects and laws) towards a focus on outcomes (e.g. impacts).
Move from sectoral towards integrated planning.
Move from a dependence on external assistance towards domestically-driven and financed development.
Move towards a process which can accommodate monitoring, learning and improvement.

Such an approach will assist countries to participate more effectively in international affairs –providing opportunities to consider the adverse social and environmental effects of globalisation and how nations might benefit from its advantages. It should also enable improved dialogue with foreign governments, corporations and NGOs to negotiate new ways of working towards and supporting sustainable development.