Future-looking strategy
Ever since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, the world was seized with issues of sustainable development with some urgency. But sustainable development became the central theme of the global development agenda when members of the international community threw their weight behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 after it became abundantly clear that human progress could not proceed without a sustainable environment. The pursuit of sustainable development is a future-looking strategy that is intended to confront the consequences of past human conduct which is giving rise to global warming and climate change, and to stall what might be the inevitable without radical alterations in future human behaviour. This focus on agreed concerted action came at a time when the world was celebrating the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and recognized that the elimination of poverty, malnutrition and hunger had to be coupled simultaneously with strong efforts to protect the planet. The linkage between the two imposed a challenge on the international community to act with both compassion and responsibility