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Current
Activities |
SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT The
global patterns
of production and consumption over the last fifty years or so have
stretched the tolerance margins of nature such that they are seen to be
depleting scarce natural resources or degrading the environment. And yet,
currently, almost 800 million people in the world are malnourished. More than
1.3 billion people are without clean water while about 2 billion people are
without sanitation. Over 2 billion
people are without electricity. As many as 1.3 billion people live on less
than $1 per day and 3 billion people on less than $2 per day. In addition,
about 1.4 billion people are exposed to dangerous levels of outdoor pollution
and even larger numbers are exposed to dangerous levels of indoor air
pollution and vector-borne diseases. A large number of people are living
today in areas susceptible to civil strife, environmental degradation, and
natural disasters. A
major change in the stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required
to move away from paradigms that rely exclusively on concepts of continuous
economic growth, corporate profit, and consumer avarice. The development
pathways need to maintain a balance between humanity’s economic and social
needs and the capacity of the earth’s resources and ecosystems to meet
present and future needs. The
primary focus on our current activities focusing on sustainable development
includes developing guidelines on best practices for protection of the
“Resource Base” such as maintaining soil productivity, water quality, and
myriad other ecosystem services to maintain a balance between economic growth
and environmental protection thus ensuring a better quality of life for
everyone, now and for generations to come. The key areas of our research
include: ·
Development
of strategic pathways for policy and investment reform options on
multiple fronts, including human resources, agricultural research,
rural infrastructure, water resources, and farm- and community-based
agricultural and natural resources management to achieve food security in the
region; ·
Exploring
the options and developing strategies for access to safe water and sanitation
to the rural and poor society with emphasis on improving water resource
management efforts, including inventorying of resources and their rational
and equitable allocation, and implementation of more efficient rainwater
harvesting methods, efficient use of water-saving devices, and aggressive
recycling efforts; ·
Waste
of all types - municipal, hazardous and toxic - has become a major problem in
the region with rapid urbanization and changing consumption patterns. Good
waste management (including waste
prevention and recycling) is an
integral part of sustainable development and our current activities aim at
developing stringent national plans and strategies to address numerous and
multi-disciplinary facets of the waste problem, i.e. issues concerning
policy, technology, data collection, awareness, etc. in an integrated manner. ·
Resource use,
energy and travel could be the main priority areas for action on sustainable
development for most of the countries in the region, and policy-makers across
the region should be encouraged to take these priority areas into account
when policy decisions are made. This necessitates education and awareness building initiatives at all levels (with
a view to promote and facilitate grass root environmental management and
sustainable development practices to overcome the vicious cycle of
environmental degradation and poverty) and CESDAC is actively considering to
launch several major activities
including vocational skills development and capacity building in this
direction. |
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