Hello,

The term “sustainable development” includes such goals as environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, population stabilization, education, resolving the cycle of poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality, preventing violence and wars, closing the rich-poor gap, etc, etc, etc. I wonder if there is anything that is unrelated to sustainable development.

There seems to be increasing consensus that analysis of the traditional three pillars (social, economic, and environmental) are not enough to plan and manage sustainable development work. Most research groups are trying to develop methods to deal with sustainable development as a fuzzy and multi-dimensional process.

I have tried two approaches. Last year, I dealt with the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one at a time but analyzing each one in the context of all the others. My conclusion was that MDG3 (promotion of gender equality) is the pivotal MDG and the gateway to all the others.

This year, I am analyzing the various dimensions of sustainable development. I have a list of 40+ dimensions that are clearly relevant, so it will take a long time to analyze each one (in context with all the others) in order to elucidate which ones should be given highest priority. And this should be done by a multi-disciplinary research team, which I don’t have.

Is there anyone here who is working in this area and would like to compare notes and see if there are opportunities for collaboration?

Sincerely,
Luis

Luis T. Gutierrez, PhD
Independent Researcher and Editor,
“Solidarity, Sustainability, and Nonviolence”
luisgutierrez@peoplepc.com