Sustainable Development

In 1983, The World Commission on Environment and Development was asked to re-examine the critical environment and development problems of the planet and to formulate realistic proposals to solve them. They found failure and success and a range of in-betweens. The outcome was the report, Our Common Future, articulating the urgent need for humans to change the course of their development to move toward “Sustainable Development”. They proposed that it should become the basic, unifying objective of the whole United Nations system. They also defined sustainable development as follows:
“As paths of progress which meet the needs and aspirations of the present generations, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

Sustainable development as a new concept of development does not imply a fixed state. It is a process of change in both means and ends, and aims to induce development paths that are economically, socially and ecologically sustainable. The main attempt now is to make this concept applicable to the human living system. Humans are now looking for new routes to build the basic foundations on which the paths towards sustainability would be constructed.