Sustainability And Equity: A Better Future For All

SUSTAINABILITY AND EQUITY: A BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL by Shahid Najam, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey Two years ago, 2010 Human Development Report showed that there has being significant (and remarkable) progress in human development over the past several decades. But despite all that has been achieved, development progress in the world’s poorest countries could be halted or worse, reversed, by mid century unless bold steps are taken now to slow climate change, prevent further environmental damage and reduce inequalities among nations. The Human Development Report focuses on the challenge of sustainable and equitable progress. It provides a joint lens which shows how environmental degradation intensifies inequality especially for disadvantaged people and how inequalities also negatively affect the environment. It highlights the many ways that environmental challenges have a negative impact on human development at the household level. And we point to pathways to promote sustainable and equitable progress. We are concerned with sustainability because future generations should have at least the same possibilities as people today. The Concept and its Evolution Creators of the Human Development Reports are, Mahbub ul-Haq of Pakistan and his close friend and collaborator, Amartya Sen of India who worked with other leading development thinkers. Their concept has guided not just 20 years of global Human Development Reports, but more than 600 National Human Development Reports—all researched, written and published in their respective countries including Turkey—as well as the many regionally focused reports supported by UNDP‘s regional bureaux. The first report in 1990 opened by stating that ―People are the real wealth of a nation‖. This was obviously a reference to the book of 18th century Scottish thinker Adam Smith, called ―The Wealth of Nations.‖ With these words, these reports began a forceful case for a new approach to thinking about development. The report defined human development as a process of ‗enlarging people‘s choices‘. It emphasized the freedom to be healthy, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living. It was continuing its definition with this sentence: “Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human rights and self respect - what Adam Smith called the ability to mix with others without being „ashamed to appear in public‟". Twenty years later, the report re-examines the concept with the benefit of hindsight and it concludes that it is as relevant as ever. 2010 report defines the Human Development concept as follows: “Human Development is the expansion of people‟s freedoms to live long, healthy and creative lives; to advance other goals they have reason to value; and to engage actively in shaping 1

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