Post 2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

InTRODuCTIOn
A defining feature
of inclusive and
sustainable
development is
that it explicitly
combines concerns
to reduce poverty
and inequality,
in a sustainable
manner.
4
that all members of society – irrespective of
their age, sex, ethnicity, culture, nationality,
location, income and education – can
participate in and share the benefits of
development. the intersection of social
exclusion and inequality has often impeded
progress on reducing poverty (Kabeer, 2010).
reducing inequality is both a question of
justice and tends to be associated with stronger
growth and lower levels of poverty (unrISD,
2010).
• Sustainable: It is important that development
gains can be sustained to ensure that both current
and future generations benefit. the concept of
sustainable development, based on the three
pillars of economic, social and environmental
sustainability, was embraced at the 1992 Earth
Summit. thus greater sustainability means
that development must respect the limits set
by the natural environment, including its
planetary boundaries. 4 but equally it implies
that the solutions to poverty should be socially
and economically sustainable. Solutions based
on social welfare are of course valuable if they
help to save lives (barder, 2011), but a lasting
solution should enable people to sustain a
decent living into the future.
• Development: Economic growth is a
necessary but insufficient condition to raise
living standards. Development highlights
the need to address issues that go beyond the
narrow economic sphere, such as governance,
institutions, security and other aspects of
wellbeing. In fact, inclusive and sustainable
development can be achieved only through
economic and social transformation.
EuropEan rEport on DEvElopmEnt 2013
Economic structural adjustment – with a strong
focus on economic growth and liberalisation – was a
prominent feature of the 1980s and 1990s. the mDGs
were, in part, a reaction to the resulting neglect of
the social and human dimensions of development.
although the mDGs have contributed to achieving
some advances in these areas, they made no claim
to represent a new path to development. Indeed,
the International monetary Fund (ImF) and the
World bank embraced the mDGs, which they saw
as a complement to the prevailing ‘Washington
consensus’. It has been argued that the mDGs
enabled different stakeholders to agree on desirable
outcomes while disagreeing on the means to achieve
them (Sakiko Fukuda-parr, 2012). In addition, at
the rio+20 conference in June 2012, proposals to
adopt ‘sustainable development goals’ 5 underscored
the need to integrate both poverty eradication and
issues of environmental sustainability in any post-
2015 global framework.
thus a defining feature of the term inclusive and
sustainable development is that it explicitly combines
concerns to reduce poverty and inequality, while
stressing the need to do so in a sustainable manner.
While the concept of inclusive development is in
line with the human development approach, the
latter tends to be associated with outcomes, while
inclusive development tries to bring back a focus on
process. this opens the possibility of devising both
process (e.g. inclusive growth) and outcome goals
(e.g. current mDGs).
the linkages between inclusiveness and
sustainability have been tackled before (e.g. unDp,
2011), but the interaction between them and
economic growth (especially the need for structural
transformation 6 ) needs to be further elaborated
4 as shown in the ErD 2012 on ‘confronting Scarcity’, this means changing consumption patterns in Europe (and in other oEcD countries) as
well as promoting the green economy in poorer countries in ways that do not curtail their right to development.
5 Initially proposed by the governments of colombia and Guatemala.
6 Working definitions for key terms such as this are provided in a list at the start of the report.