The concept of sustainable development is one of the most prominent ideas that has emerged over recent decades. It refers to balancing the fulfillment of present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainable development has become crucial for achieving a secure future. It encompasses a comprehensive framework represented by the model of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic). Therefore, achieving it requires a holistic vision and poses significant challenges for every contemporary economy.
In this article, we will delve into the concept of sustainable development, its foundations, types, requirements, fields, obstacles, and application pathways.
What is meant by sustainable development?
The concept of sustainable development is linked to various definitions and meanings and has become a common term in development discourses.
The most widely accepted definition is the one proposed by the Brundtland Commission report (Schaefer & Crane, 2005), which defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This development requires balancing economic, social, and environmental dimensions through mechanisms by which society can interact with the environment without depleting resources and preserving them for the future.
Thus, it is a developmental model and a concept that calls for improving human life without harming ecosystems, which can lead to problems such as climate change and species extinction. Sustainable development aims to eradicate poverty, protect the environment, and ensure a comfortable life for all.
Foundations and Pillars of Sustainable Development
As a forward-looking developmental concept, sustainable development focuses on positive transformation based on social, economic, and environmental factors. Therefore, it rests on three main pillars:
- Economic Sustainability: Economic sustainability means a production system that meets current consumption levels without compromising future needs. It aims to achieve sustainable economic growth, improve living standards, and provide suitable employment opportunities for everyone. This growth must be balanced to ensure benefits reach all societal segments.
- Social Sustainability: This includes concepts of justice, empowerment, access, and participation. It aims to promote social justice and reduce disparities between social groups, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region, where 29.2% of the population suffers from multidimensional poverty, including healthcare, living standards, and education deficiencies. Many students in northern Syrian camps, for example, suffer from a lack of education. Therefore, at Masarat Initiative, we strive to deliver the right to education to every student, guiding them back to the path of knowledge and future-making.
- Environmental Sustainability: This relates to the natural environment and how to maintain and preserve it to remain productive and support human life. Environmental sustainability aims to protect natural resources, preserve biodiversity, and ensure the integrity of the ecosystem.
Types of Sustainable Development
Sustainable development, in its broad sense, refers to programs and initiatives aimed at preserving a specific resource. However, it actually revolves around four distinct areas: human, social, economic, and environmental, which are the four pillars of sustainability:
- Human Sustainability: This focuses on the importance and value of humans and seeks to develop human skills and capabilities to support and enhance the well-being of societies as a whole.
Preserving and improving human capital in society, investing in health, education systems, nutrition, and knowledge, all fall under the umbrella of human sustainability. Therefore, believing in the importance of education and knowledge as a right for all, Masarat Initiative has paid great attention to educational projects targeting students in northern Syrian camps who have been severely affected educationally due to the long-standing hardships in the region.
- Social Sustainability: Social sustainability seeks to maintain social balance through valuable concepts like cohesion, reciprocity, honesty, and the importance of relationships among people. Social sustainability can be enhanced and supported through laws, shared ideas about equality and justice, and the right for everyone to live at a decent standard of living. Thus, at Masarat Initiative, we focus on student sponsorship projects aimed at helping them complete their education and build their social lives as they desire.
- Economic Sustainability: Sustainable economic development is more than just economic growth. The quality of growth is crucial in sustainability as much as the quantity, aiming to keep economic resources intact while improving the living standards of every individual in society.
- Environmental Sustainability: This is development concerned with protecting the environment from pollutants and other harmful issues that affect its natural resources. Initiatives and programs can be considered environmentally sustainable if they ensure meeting the needs of the population without the risk of harming the natural environment.
Requirements for Achieving Sustainable Development
Achieving sustainable development requires several integrated requirements to bear the desired fruits:
- Legal Framework: The existence of laws and legislation supporting sustainable development, including environmental protection, workers’ rights, and encouraging investments in renewable energy.
- Strategic Planning: Goals must be long-term, requiring the development of long-term plans and strategies that yield better results in sustainable development fields.
- Awareness and Education: Intensifying awareness efforts about the concept of sustainable development, its importance, implementation methods, and the shared responsibility that includes every individual in society towards it. This is essential for development programs to be realized through the efforts of individuals who are the ultimate goal and primary substance of development.
Key Issues in Sustainable Development
Sustainable development encompasses a wide range of social and economic issues:
- Poverty: Development aims to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. This issue targets the most vulnerable groups to ensure they access essential resources and services and support communities affected by natural disasters and conflicts that negatively impact them. Therefore, the Masarat Initiative has focused on reaching the most affected students in northern Syria to benefit from student sponsorship projects.
- Hunger: Sustainable development aims to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition, ensuring that all people, especially children, have sufficient and nutritious food year-round.
- Health: Sustainable development in health seeks to achieve universal health coverage and provide safe, affordable medicines and vaccines for all.
- Education: Quality education is one of the most powerful and consistent means of achieving sustainable development. Ensuring the right to education for all guarantees that all students complete primary and secondary education for free and aims to provide equal opportunities for vocational training and high-quality higher education.
Therefore, Masarat Initiative strives diligently to ensure that its educational projects enable all students who have dropped out of school in northern Syria to have access to appropriate, continuous education.
Additionally, sustainable development also includes various issues such as social justice, gender equality, climate change, water, sanitation, energy, and the environment.
Fields of Application of Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is not just about multiplying material wealth but is a continuous developmental strategy across successive generations and a comprehensive societal movement in fields of science, skills, economic and social directions, and other high values to improve individuals’ living standards.
Thus, the application of sustainable development spans multiple fields, including:
- Human and Societal Field: This focuses on the human being as the core of development and its ultimate goal. It works on achieving social justice, rights, and combating poverty, ensuring that humans maintain their dignity and natural right to live in a sound social environment, with fair access to natural resources, social services, and obtaining health and educational services. Therefore, Masarat Initiative specializes in the educational field, which is a fundamental right for every student delayed due to surrounding circumstances.
Discover in this article how family education and good role models can shape a distinguished generation, relying on the educational methods used by the Prophet (PBUH).
- Economic Field: Its goal is to alleviate poverty, reduce income inequality, and minimize disparities between the poor and the rich by directing economic policies and improving income distribution in favor of the poor.
- Environmental Field: This aims to raise individuals’ awareness of the environment, the relationships between its components, and develop environmental values and skills, ensuring humans are conscientious stewards of the environment.
In addition to several fields under sustainable development, such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, urban planning, food security, clean energy, and many more.
Obstacles to Sustainable Development
Despite global efforts to provide solutions related to achieving development, there are obstacles to sustainable development, represented by the following points:
- Population density increases, hindering sustainable development.
- Widespread poverty in both developing and wealthy countries due to deteriorating economic conditions.
- Widespread wars and conflicts have impacted many countries’ independence. Syria is among the most affected, resulting in nearly non-existent sustainable development resources, negatively impacting the educational state, especially in northern Syria. Therefore, the Masarat Initiative has paid special attention to the educational field, establishing many educational projects for students delayed in their studies and student sponsorship projects to support education.
- Declining levels of technical capabilities and professional expertise due to the brain drain towards developed countries, negatively impacting development plans.
- Planning shortcomings, as development requires an integrated approach and plans, necessitating a multidisciplinary interaction involving all relevant ministries working simultaneously together for comprehensive planning.
- Many regions worldwide are subject to harsh climatic conditions.
Masarat for Sustainable Development in Syria
After continuous years of adverse conditions in Syria, it now faces significant challenges in development fields due to the deterioration of infrastructure and scarcity of financial and human resources, which are the foundation of development. Therefore, achieving sustainable development in Syria requires intensified efforts and support from all parties to enable positive, albeit slow, progress.
Thus, Masarat Initiative has taken upon itself to work in the field of education, one of the most critical areas of sustainable development. In northern Syria, large numbers of students have dropped out of school and benefit from the initiative’s educational projects and pathways.
According to many global organizations, quality education is not just about providing educational material but requires a collaborative community effort. It is a long-term process that demands significant efforts to create a healthy educational environment capable of harnessing the latent capacities of learners and teachers and directing them correctly.
One of the most critical obstacles facing the education sector in northern Syria is the lack of necessary educational services for the youth, due to the ongoing crisis in the region for many years, causing about 2.5 million children to drop out of school.
For all the above reasons, and believing in the right of every student to receive the best level of education that imparts important values and equips them with essential life skills, enabling them to face the future prepared for the labor market and its significant challenges, Masarat Initiative strives with all its resources and human capabilities to achieve this goal through various pathways such as school education, student activities, academic advising, and vocational training. All these different avenues converge in the interest of the student and their life and academic advancement.
The initiative has achieved many outstanding success stories, and you can be part of them by supporting its ongoing educational projects, benefiting thousands of students eager to complete their education fully.
Your contributions to these projects help build people, the fundamental building blocks from which communities and nations are constructed. So, join us on the path of goodness to make a difference.
