Sustainable development is beginning to take root globally
Most countries in the world have accepted that sustainable development is an essential development pathway and are busy incorporating its principles into their own policies and programmes. The United Nations has taken sustainable development very seriously and it has established specialist units to deal with the issue and to identify opportunities and activities to support this development theory.
Sustainable development in itself is not a political theory but it has been recognised that without political change, sustainable development is not possible. A rampant capitalist society, where the rich have all the access to wealth and resources and where the only thing that matters is economic growth and profit, cannot support sustainable development. Social democratic states where issues of people’s health and welfare are paramount in the development cycle are better placed to support sustainable development. This is why the South African political model is well placed to support sustainable development and the ideas encompassed within the sustainable development debate have begun to be merged with all policies related to development. We are also fortunate to have a constitution that protects people’s rights to a clean and healthy environment.
The challenge now is to mainstream sustainable development thinking and to find sensible and simple solutions to our challenges. The beauty about sustainable development is that it really is very simple and people have been practising it for centuries. The next section will try to explain a lot of the jargon and give a summary of the theory, debates, issues, developments and ideas in simple terms. A later section will provide the learner with examples of programmes where sustainable development is being implemented and a practical guide for some simple things we can do as individual and development practitioners to make sustainable development happen in our communities.