Draft Issues Paper on Strategies for Sustainable Development

This paper begins with a few basic premises. First is the acknowledgement that current progress toward sustainable development is not commensurate with the severity of the economic, social and environmental issues of the 21st century. Hence the urgency of informed strategy and action that takes the long view and can deliver sustainability, accountability and adaptability.

Second is the understanding that strategy without action is pointless, and action without strategy is risky. Hence the need to understand what is working and what is not with respect to both strategy and action for sustainable development.
This paper, and the workshop it is informing, is therefore not about discussing the survival of the thing that is known as the national sustainable development strategy (NSDS); but rather, it is about recognizing that strategy-making for sustainable development has in fact gained momentum over the past two decades, and at all levels of governance.