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Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development is defined as the “development that meets the present needs without putting the future generations potential to meet their own needs at risk”. This means that each contemporary state ought to integrate the care for the future generations in its developmental programmes.

Sustainable Development aims at improving the living conditions of the individuals and, at the same time, safeguarding the environment in short-term, medium-term and, mainly, in long-term.

The objective of Sustainable development is triple:

  • Economic Development;
  • Socially fair development;
  • Environmentally sustainable development.

The strategy for the Sustainable Development, approved by the European Parliament in 2001 and revised in 2005, has been extended to incorporate, inter alia, the principle of integrating the environmental concerns in the European policies that have an impact on the environment.

The incorporation of the environmental issues in the definition and implementation of the other policies is of essential importance for the achievement of the Sustainable Development goals.

This principle, which was confirmed in the Maastricht Treaty and the Cardiff Summit in 1998, has formed the basis for a coordinated action in a community level for the incorporation of the environmental issues into the EU policies.

In order for the Sustainable Development to be promoted, the public authorities should take the appropriate measures to reduce the unfavourable consequences of transportation as well as the risks related to health, to improve the management of the natural resources, mainly their consumption, and to fight social exclusion and poverty in Europe as well as in the rest of the world. They should also confront the factors causing climate change and limit their consequences.

The “Foundation for the Child and the Family” collaborates with UNESCO in the programme “Education for Sustainable Development” which began in 2005 and will have been completed by 2014, i.e. during the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

The goals of this educational programme are the acquisition of new values, behaviours and abilities that will provide all with the opportunity to live in a climate of peace and creative harmony with the environment as well as effective answers and solutions to challenges such as poverty, unreasonable consumption, environmental misery, urban decadence, population increase, gender inequality, health, conflicts and violation of human rights.