Sustainable development which is a topic of maximum importance to me and us as Africans because we are at the receiving end of it. Maintaining sustainability in development in Africa is a plight of the world because most of the countries in Africa are either under-development or undeveloped. 

Sustainable development can be defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations.

The concept of sustainable development has been, and still is, subject to criticism, including the question of what is to be sustained in sustainable development. It has been argued that there is no such thing as a sustainable use of a non-renewable resource, since any positive rate of exploitation will eventually lead to the exhaustion of earth's finite stock; this perspective renders the Industrial Revolution as a whole unsustainable.

Importance of Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a hard topic to nail down because it consists of a wide range of things. Due to the technicality and complexity of this topic, it’s best to check out its importance holistically to be able to grasp it easily. Population is the main factor driving up sustainable development campaigns. A few of these importance are mentioned below.

·       Provides essential human needs

·       Agricultural requirement

·       Manage climate change

·       Financial stability

·       Sustain Biodiversity

Some examples of Sustainable Development include the use of;

·       Wind Energy

·       Solar Energy

·       Green Space

·       Crop Rotation

Each and every one of us has the right to a good standard of living, with better job opportunities. Economic prosperity is required if our country is to prosper and our businesses must therefore offer a high standard of products that consumers throughout the world want, at the prices they are prepared to pay. For this, we need a workforce equipped with suitable skills and education within a framework to support them.

Goals of Sustainable Development

There are three primary goals of sustainable development:

1.    To minimize the depletion of natural resources when creating new developments.

2.    To create development that can be maintained and sustained without causing further harm to the environment.

3.    To provide methods for retrofitting existing developments to make them into environmentally friendly facilities and projects.

Some other most important sustainable development goals set by some Global Organization like UN include:

·       Eradication of poverty across the world

·       Promotion of good health and well being

·       Provision of quality education for all

·       Provision of clean water and sanitation

·       Building up strong infrastructure, supporting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and incubating innovation

·       Enabling Access to affordable and clean energy

·       Achieving gender equality

How can we make sustainable development the norm?

To make sustainable development the norm, we have to change the vision of the cultures of each country. To change the vision of the culture two things have to occur.

1.    The culture must value a global benefit more than a local one.

2.    A responsibility towards providing and sustaining resources for the future must be of more value than profit in the present must be developed.

Both of these are very hard to do because it requires an element of self-sacrifice be adopted by the present society and the society must be willing to have a total mind change. The value of the future is something that is not held in high esteem when it comes to creating a profit, or to living with convenience. So if we could tune our minds to inculcate this element of self-sacrifice and concentrate much more on living a better life whiles ensuring sustainability rather than focusing on creating profit without thinking about the future, then sustainable development would be enhanced and the world would be a better place for us all.

Thank you.

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