The History of Sustainable Development & How United Nations SDGs Came About!
Sustainable Development or the pursuit of it has been with man since the beginning of time. In the Bible, it is argued that the sole purpose for man’s creation was so he could take care of the creation! Well, in this article, we explore the history of sustainable development and how the 2015 United Nations SDGs came about!
In 2015, the world leaders under the umbrella of United Nations enacted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be the guiding pillars for all forms of socio-economic development across the globe. In our earlier writings, we explored what these goals are, and in today’s article, we will explore the brief history of sustainable development.
On our YouTube channel, Miklah Life, we have also introduced you to our entrepreneurship trainings (the video) that involve empowering young people to start SDGs related businesses and or incorporate SDGs into their existing businesses in a program called Sacred Entrepreneurship.
While the formal global efforts for sustainability started off with United Nation’s first conference on environment and sustainability on 5-16th June 1972, the real argument for sustainability had started many years earlier! Probably, the best way to bring out this argument is to first define what sustainable development is.
Definitions: Development, Sustainability, & Sustainable Development
In an extensive literature review paper, Justice Mensah cites development as ‘an evolutionary process in which the human capacity increases in terms of initiating new structures, coping with problems, adapting to continuous change, and striving purposefully and creatively to attain new goals’. In many arguments about development, the goal shouldn’t be necessarily the introduction of new technologies and industrialization, but also preservation of freedoms, values and traditions, for example, of indigenous communities.
On Sustainability, Basiago (1999) insisted that it is the ‘capacity to maintain some entity, outcome or process over time’. However, as we have always argued at Miklah through our Sacred Entrepreneurship program, sustainability isn’t ONLY about maintenance of a process over time, but also doing that in consideration of societies and environment. Indeed, Mensah (2019) goes ahead and cites the works of Stoddart (2011) and defines sustainability as ‘efficient and equitable distribution of resources intra-generationally and inter-generationally with the operation of socio-economic activities within the confines of a finite ecosystem’. In other words, to be sustainable is to ensure growth and development within the confines or limits of our ecosystem!
With the above, we can now define sustainable development as the socio-economic transformation that is within the confines of environment or ecosystem. In other words, a business or process or entity or project is sustainable if it can keep growing and producing better results without adverse effects on society and environment. According to World Bank (2017), Hak et al. (2016), DESA-UN (2018), and Gossling-Goidsmiths (2018), this dynamic alignment and equilibrium of environment, economic progress, and people or society is what really defines true sustainable development. Therefore, argues Mohieldin (2017), sustainable development (SD) is an ‘approach to development which uses resources in a way that allows them (the resources) to continue to exist for others’.
The History of Sustainable Development
As earlier hinted on, if we are to take sustainable development to mean the socio-economic transformation that considers the confines or finiteness of our ecological system, it is right to say that such argument began so many years ago before the 1972 UN conference. For example, in early 1800, Thomas Robert Malthus, a cleric, demographer and economist, had observed that exponential population growth would outweigh the earth’s capacity to provide us with food and required resources. In his 1798 book, an essay on the principle of population, Malthus argued that birth rate control was necessary to reduce the exponential growth of population, which, according to him, was always far ahead of the earth’s ability to provide food and other resources.
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Of course, Malthus’ fears were always shrugged off by those who claimed that scientific progress, industrialization and technology would always enable us to get the more resources that we need, including food, clean water, shelter, and others.
However, with time, observed Kates et al., 2001, world leaders realized that technology wasn’t helping at all; there are those non-renewable natural resources that need conservation. Additionally, industrialization and technology efforts produced their own side effects that convinced us more of the eminent havoc due unsustainable methods of development. For example, argues one article at You Matter, industrialization resulted in some of the worst disasters in 20th century (see the screenshot below).
In 1968, the ecologist and philosopher Garret Hardin wrote an essay, the tragedy of the commons, in which he argued that if we individually pursue our goals without minding about the effects on the community needs, we will depreciate the natural resources, thereby putting societies in jeopardy, which is the tragedy of the commons. His common quote was, “we can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable.”
In 1972, following the above essay, Meadows and colleagues, under the CLUB OF ROME, were tasked to use computer simulations and predict what was to happen to us if nothing was done to control population and industrial growth. They were to study the interaction between population growth, natural resources, food, population generation, and industrialization. In their report, the limits to growth, the researchers concluded that there would be economic and social collapse by the end of 21st century if nothing was done.
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With the current environmental challenges and human suffering, their predictions seem to be materializing!
The United Nations efforts on environment and sustainable development
Following the above developments and various scholarly arguments across the globe, global leaders under United Nations organized and held their first UN conference on human environment in 1972 in Stockholm city, Sweden. The conference, suggested by and held in Sweden discussed human interaction with environment and the best way to go about it. In the report, also called the Stockholm declaration on the human environment, member states agreed on 26 principles regarding environment and development with about 109 actionable recommendations.
And that marked the beginning of global and formal and legal efforts on sustainable development.
In 1987, about 15 years after the first UN conference on environment, the Brundtland Commission (also known as the World Commission on Environment and Development-WCED) released a report, the Brundtland Report (also called Our Common Future-download here) in which it was insisted that the environmental problems raised in Stockholm declaration needed a practical and political assertiveness and that there was need for global cooperation to achieve this.
WCED was founded in 1983 after UN realized that issues raised in Stockholm declaration weren’t being addressed well. In efforts to bring this to fruition, the then United Nations’ boss, Javier, appointed Grow Harlem Brundtland, the then or former Prime Minister of Norway to form and head a special commission on environment and development, giving rise to Brundtland Commission formation in 1983.
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In summary, the commission’s report focused on three issues; 1. Environment and development problems are real and needed to be explored deeply and actionable measures implemented; 2. There was need for international cooperation to achieve this; 3. Creating awareness and understanding regarding these issues among government, individuals, organizations and businesses.
According to Professor Katherine Richardson (see video here), the same report emphasized sustainability as the ability to meet today’s resource needs without compromising the future generation’s ability to meet theirs. Additionally, clarifies the professor, the report asserted that, apart from economic progress, social and environmental sustainability are important pillars of true sustainability.
In 1992, following the Brundtland report, there was a United Nations major conference, the Rio Summit or the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit or the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development-UNCED (download here).
The summit aimed at enhancing cooperation among nations for sustainability focused on 4 issues: 1. Scrutiny of patterns of production, particularly lead and poisonous radioactive waste; 2. Alternative sources of energy other than fossil fuels; 3. New reliance on public transportation other than individual cars; 4. The growing usage and limited supply of water. Citing Jain and Islam (2015), Mensah (2019) says that this summit discussed a lot that had been produced in the Brundtland report.
The efforts of this conference led to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development-WSSD, also called the Rio+10 in Johannesburg, South Africa (the 10 signifies 10 years after the first earth summit). The purpose of the summit was to review the progress made on the Rio Summit’s resolutions, design action plan, the Johannesburg action plan (download here), to accomplish the remaining work, and also encourage and form multi-stakeholders partnerships for sustainable development.
In 2012, after 20 years since the first Rio conference in South Africa, another conference, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development -UNCSD was held, this time in Brazil. The conference centered on green economy and institutional framework for sustainable development. In the conference’s document, the future we want, a process for designing and enacting the 17 SDGs was initiated. In our other writings, we had expounded on how the conference of Rio+20 and the efforts that followed, for example, the My World Survey, a platform that collects people’s views in relation to what issues they need addressed with SDGs, paved a better way for sustainable development.
Instead, what isn’t seen along this way are millennium development goals (MDGs). While UN insists that SDGs came to replace MDGs, it isn’t clear how MDGs were part of this long time fight for sustainable development. MDGs were formed and enacted in 2000 to lead global efforts to eradicate poverty, enforce universal education, and take care of gender inequality until 2015. However, to connect MDGs to the long fight for sustainability, we will have to consider the background.
In 2000, world leaders under United nations had what was called the Millennium Summit, the most attended three days conference at United Nations head quarters in New York. The purpose of the summit was to review and discuss the purpose of UN in the opening 21st century. Well, after the 3 days discussion, these guys decided that the major goal was to help the world’s poorest countries catch up with development.
To be exact, this was 8 years since a special activity on environment and development, the Brundtland report, had been done! To affirm their decision, they declared what is called the UN millennium declaration, the document containing the declarations of UN members states following their 3-days summit of 6-8th September 2000. Millennium Development Goals was the framework through which they would implement and measure the declaration!
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They were 8 MDGs with 21 measurable targets. Environmental sustainability sat at number 7 (see the photo below). Though the goals included environmental sustainability, there wasn’t too much emphasis on it. Besides, because the whole agenda was more about the less developed nations, it wasn’t implemented evenly and globally.
Additionally, critics say, while, during the 2005 evaluation meetings, G8 countries channeled a lot of funds to IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank so as to aid development in heavily indebted poor countries, much of the forgiven debt and money was channeled to military aid, natural disaster aid, and corruption, leaving less, if not nothing, for education, health, poverty eradication and HIV eradication. Indeed, in the above professor Katherine’s video, it is made clear that without addressing climate change, all other developments are impossible!
Based on these MDGs shortcomings, it shouldn’t be a surprise that UN had to go back to sustainable development as true basis for real development. Besides, the Rio conferences of 2002 and 2012 had again reminded UN member states that any development that isn’t in line with society and environment wasn’t development at all. So, when UN member states sat (2012) to decide on the way forward after 2015 or the era of MDGs, SDGs were the viable choice. And that is how SDGs came up.
In our earlier writings here, we had captured the UN’s declaration on SDGs and I think you will love reciting it! See below:
“We, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 25 to 27 September 2015 as the Organization celebrates its seventieth anniversary, have decided today on new global Sustainable Development Goals (70/1). On behalf of the peoples we serve, we have adopted a historic decision on a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centered set of universal and transformative Goals and targets. We commit ourselves to working tirelessly for the full implementation of this Agenda by 2030. We recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. We are committed to achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions – economic, social and environmental – in a balanced and integrated manner. We will also build upon the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals and seek to address their unfinished business” (70/2) (United Nations, 2015)”.
You can download the full SDGs declaration here
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