What is sustainable development?
Answers
The proper integration of policy interventions in different areas can make the difference between achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and failure.
The Integrated model for Sustainable Development Goals strategies (iSDG) offers this capability.
The iSDG model enables policy makers and planning officials at all levels of governance to understand the interconnectedness of policies designed to achieve the SDGs and test their likely impacts before adopting them.
An integrated analysis is required to successfully address complex development issues that balance social, economic, and environmental development. By bringing together the three dimensions of sustainable development into one framework, the iSDG model enables broad, cross-sector and long-term analyses of the impacts of alternative policies.
The model simulates the fundamental trends for SDGs until 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario, and supports the analysis of relevant alternative scenarios. It also traces the trends beyond the SDGs’ time span to 2050. The iSDG model is especially useful both in the early stages of policy design, to support scenario exploration, and in its advanced stage, when specific interventions designed for various sectors can be jointly simulated to assess their combined effect and the emerging synergies.
The model is structured to allow for rapid expansion to support the analysis of other country-specific development issues beyond the SDGs. Its user-friendly desktop interface allows various stakeholders to use it, and a portable version is also being developed.
Sustainable development is the kind development activities that meet the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This kind of development is expected to be undertaken without stripping the natural world of resources that the future generations would need.