Taking good care of the planet is a phenomenon that is agreeable to all nowadays. This was brought about by the groundbreaking 1987 Brundtland Report which popularized the term "sustainable development" and the 1992 Rio Earth Summit which developed Agenda 21.

Since then, sustainable development has been the buzzword for the past decade and set policy for development planning and intervention. It looks promising that it will encourage global solutions to global problems and aspires to be the solution for global environmental ills.

Unsurprisingly, everyone is charmed by sustainable development. The world was thirsting for a novel development framework when sustainable development burst onto the scene. In no time, politicians were preaching it. Donor institutions and funding agencies insisted in adopting it. NGOs willingly approved and implemented it. Corporations joined the bandwagon of enthusiasts for sustainable development.

However, does everyone get the same message?

With everyone on the same side, who is now against whom? Sustainable development seems to have reconciled the clashing sectors and actors of development. Governments and corporations have co-opted the NGO style and their workers in order to implement their own development projects in certain communities.

They know well that NGOs have more credibility and a better track record of doing development work on the ground. NGOs, in turn, link up with governments and corporations to be more financially viable and more responsive to the needs of the communities. Communities likewise have known many corporations not just through their advertisements and brands, but through school buildings, scholarships, water systems, livelihood projects and feeding programs.

Others call this arrangement a partnership. Some say it is collaboration. Few label it as accommodation. Whatever it is called, the point is everyone is in the act of promoting and implementing sustainable development.

The 1987 Brundtland Report mentions that the basic tenet of sustainable development is meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising those of the future generation, and in the process improving their quality of life.

For so long a time, development frameworks marginalized the environment as a factor in development discourse. Sustainable development has reversed this. It reiterates the centrality of human beings in development and puts the environment on the agenda of development discourse.

The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro laid out a guiding blueprint for a plan of action for sustainable development to be adopted by governments, institutions, NGOs and other interested groups. Many countries including Indonesia incorporated the blueprint into their own national development programs.

The blueprint had an over-arching influence on policy making and policy directing initiatives which dealt with conservation and preservation of the environment and a quest towards sustainable development.

With the wide acceptance and adoption of sustainable development as the key to address global ills, the UN put forward the noble Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to measure the impact of global development efforts and interventions. MDGs are a set of eight remarkable goals to be achieved by the year 2015 and agreed on by 189 heads of states -- including Indonesia -- at the Millennium Summit in 2000.

One of these goals is to ensure environmental sustainability which mandates the integration of sustainable development in the national development programs of countries which are parties to the MDGs agreement.

Year after year, country reports monitor and present the progress of development programs and interventions. Things were moving ahead rather respectably for certain goals such as poverty reduction and HIV-AIDS deterrence when the food and fuel crises hit this year. The crises have reversed earlier gains to an aggravation of poverty and hunger of the world's population.

The poor have been the hardest hit. Governments have tried to mitigate the impact of the food and fuel crises by providing subsidies, but these subsidies are palliative measures. They do not necessarily address the real issues of the poor who possess little economic, political and social entitlements.

After 21 years, sustainable development still faces growing global problems that it aspires to resolve. Seven years from now, MDGs shall have been achieved. Let us see -- or better yet, let us do it.

The writer is an intern at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta and a graduate student of International Peace Studies at University for Peace in Costa Rica and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. He can be reached at his blog (http://mensab.wordpress.com).

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