Sustainable Development
Sustainable development means development, which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. At Rio de Janerio where the Earth Summit was held in 1992, Agenda 21 was adopted by the International Community.
It was a landmark achievement which incorporated economic and social concerns. It contained a wide variety of recommendations related to actions on the following issues:(1) Reducing wasteful use of natural resources
(2) Fighting poverty
(3) Protecting the atmosphere, oceans, plant and animal life
(4) Promoting sustainable agricultural practices for feeding the ever- increasing population of the world.
Thus, Agenda 21 was world’s action plan for sustainable development. It offers a better approach for the management of natural resources. There are various adverse effects of globalisation including destruction of natural resources, pollution and loss Ofbiodiversity. These adverse effects have their shadow on both developed and the developing countries. The consequences of mismanagement of the natural resources and the environment threaten each one on the earth.
The following points give a glimpse of this:
(1) About 1.2 billion people worldwide lack sufficient access to fresh water.
(2) MilUons of people die every year due to water borne diseases.
(3) Air pollution is major health havoc and causes a large number of diseases and deaths worldwide.
(4) Millions of people die due to diseases such as malaria and AIDS. Had there been better health care systems and proper sanitation, the outbreak of such diseases would have been prevented.
(5) Deforestation and degradation of land leads to poverty and famine and finally results in complex social problems.
Ten years later, the World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26th August to 4th September 2002 which brought tens of thousands of participants together.
The participants included Heads of State and Government and National Delegates and people from Non- Governmental Organizations, businesses and other major groups. The attention was focused on conserving the natural resources on one hand and providing food, water, shelter, sanitation, energy, health services and economic security to the ever-increasing population of the world, on the other. The Summit was organized by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development whose 10th Session known as CSD 10 acted as the Preparatory Committee for the summit.The Summit involved various sectors of society such as children and youth, women, workers, trade unions, local authorities, farmers, scientific and technological communities and people from business and industries.
There were around 22,000 participants out of which about 10,000 delegates were accredited by the United Nations. In addition, about 8,000 participants were from the major groups of the society and 4,000 were media people. The Summit was attended by 100 Heads of State and Government.
The three main out comes of the Summit were as follows:
∙ Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development which involved the commitment from Head of State and Government for taking action to make the sustainable development a reality.
• The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation which laid down the specific action plans.
• Commitments of various governments and other stakeholders and partnership activities and initiatives for the implementation of sustainable development. Partnerships worth $ 235 million which numbered to 220 were identified before the Summit whereas about 60 more partnerships were announced during the Summit including various major initiatives by the US, UK, Japan, Germany, France and European Union.
Several targets were set:
• To halve the proportion of people lacking access to basic sanitation by 2015.
• To use and produce chemicals in ways not having adverse effects on health and environment by 2020.
• To maintain or restore depleted fish stocks to levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yields on an urgent basis or where possible by 2015.
• To achieve a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.
Agreements were made to help the developing countries through partnership activities for addressing sustainable development issues.
16.6