learningforsustainability.netSustainable development and community resilience
"Sustainability, is better seen as a measure of the relationship between the community as learners and their environments, rather than an externally designed goal to be achieved" (Sriskandarajah et al, 1991).
All too often "sustainability" is seen as an outcome - a tangible situation that we strive to define and arive at - rather than a process of "planned change" ... or "managed learning". This process must involve the building of sustainable relationships between people, and between people and their environment. To do this requires the development of learning societies ... capable of adapting to feedback, with improved abilities to improve decision making through the sharing of information, communication and understanding. As Allen (20011) points out, Agenda 21 clearly identified information, integration, and participation as key building blocks to help countries achieve development that recognises these interactions. It emphasises that in sustainable development everyone is a user and provider of information. It stresses the need to change from old sector-centred ways of doing business to new approaches that involve cross-sectoral co-ordination and the integration of environmental and social concerns into all development processes. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasises that broad public participation in decision making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development.
As these multiple dimensions of development have been taken into account by governments, agencies and other organisations, so we have seen a different language emerging in development papers and reports. The World Bank defines participation as 'a process through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources which affect them', and talks about the need to 'empower' the poor -- helping them move from being 'beneficiaries' to 'clients' (World Bank 1996). The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) coined the term 'sustainable human development' to describe the very human-centeredness of sustainable development (UNDP 1996). Within Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Vice-President Pierre Beemans suggested that development is 'change that improves the conditions of human well-being so that people can exercise meaningful choices for their own benefit and that of society'. This ability lies at the heart of current initiatives to strengthen governance initiatives, particularly those with a focus on community resilience and community adaptation in the face of global environmental change and other sustainability issues.
Sustainable development
- Introduction to sustainable development This introduction has been developed by the Sustainable Development Communications Network, including sustainable development organizations from around the world. The site contains a timeline of sustainable development history, background material on the most important aspects of the concept, and suggestions for further exploration.
- Sustainable development: how to manage something that is subjective and never can be achieved? This paper by Ren� Kemp & Pim Martens examines the notion of sustainable development that has emerged as a new normative orientation of Western society. The authors argue that sustainable development is an inherently subjective concept and for this reason re-quires deliberative forms of governance and assessment. They outline the contours of sustainability science as a new form of science, complementing traditional science. Such science is to be used in service to reflexive modes of governance, for which they also outline the general principles and offer a practical illustration - the transition-management model. The example shows that it is possible to work toward sustainable development as an elusive goal through provisional knowledge about our needs and systems to satisfy these needs. Heterogeneous local understandings and appreciations are not suppressed but drawn into the transition process in various ways such as participatory integrated assessment and social deliberation. The social interest in sustainable development is exploited without falling into the modernistic trap of rational decision making that disregards local cultures.
- Sustainable development - Global issues This part of the globalissues.org web site attempts to introduce the issue of development and sustainable development. Sustainable development is often seen as an over-used concept, but it goes to the heart of tackling a number of inter-related global issues such as poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental degradation. In theory, development that is sustainable and not damaging to the planet is very possible. Of course though, in reality there are a lot of politics and challenges involved as highlighted throughout this site.
- Social learning processes and sustainable development As this site from the Centre for Development and Environment points out, sustainable development issues are always part of a larger �multi-stakeholder� setting. Therefore, the translation of sustainability into concrete social practice must be the result of a joint effort, involving all relevant actors. This translation of the sustainability principles into concrete action can be understood as a social or collective learning process involving all actors related to a certain issue.
- Resilience and Sustainable Development: Building Adaptive Capacity in a World of Transformations
This paper was written as a scientific background document to the process of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. It sets a context by acknowledging the linked systems of humans and nature as complex adaptive systems. It provides examples to highlight the tight coupling between societal development and ecosystem dynamics, as well as the role of key properties for sustainability, i.e. resilience and adaptive capacity. The next section exemplifies
essential processes and mechanisms of resilience. These threads are gathered together in a section on managing for social-ecological resilience and sustainability. Some recommendations for implementation of sustainable development in the context of social-ecological resilience are provided. - What is sustainable development? This site is home to the UK-based Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) is situated within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). A widely-used and accepted international definition of sustainable development is: 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' - Globally we are not even meeting the needs of the present let alone considering the needs of future generations.
- Sustainable development as a policy concept The need for new approaches to environmental policy and ecosystem management has emerged in line with the evolving concept of 'sustainable development'. Over the past three decades, 'development theorizing has progressed beyond economic parameters based on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth, and even the conventional social indicators of literacy, life expectancy and caloric intake ... interventionist frameworks now regularly include such dimensions as sustainable environmental practices, gender equity, respect for human rights and participatory governance'. While conventional approaches to agriculture have in the past tended to employ narrow economic or productivity criteria to measure their success, today the questions have been broadened to simultaneously evaluate the health of relevant systems in terms of ecology, ethics and equity
- Looking for Oregon's future: What is sustainability? The publication, "Looking for Oregon's Future: What is Sustainability?" features 33 articles about sustainability, an interactive quiz to test your knowledge and links to other sustainability sites.
The concept of social resilience is closely linked to the ideas of sustainable development outlined here. A number of other papers that extend the ideas of sustainable development highlighted through the links here can be found from the social learning and governance sections. The main index points to related topic areas that can support the achievement of these ideas in practice.