sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

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Governments in the region have also been incorporating environmental issues into their policies
and planning systems by including environmental protection as one of the stated objectives of their
national <strong>development</strong> plans, integrating environmental institutions into their legal and general institutional
frameworks, concluding multilateral environmental agreements, incorporating environmental
considerations into trade integration mechanisms and developing fiscal tools that can be used to promote
environmental management. Concern about climate change is also reflected in the vast majority of these
<strong>development</strong> strategies or plans, with climate change being seen as a mega-trend that will be one of the
determinants of national <strong>development</strong> processes or as a component of environmental policy. Where this
latter approach is taken, climate change strategies have been developed that set out defined objectives,
lines of action, benchmarks and targets. Some countries, such as Mexico, have strategic programmes for
dealing with climate change that have been designed to incorporate medium- and long-term projections
into short-term actions aligned with their national <strong>development</strong> plan. 25
Strengthening planning processes is of crucial importance in order to coordinate the various areas
of government action. Poor coordination in this respect is, as noted earlier, one of the factors that reduces
the effectiveness of policies designed to promote sustainability (e.g., energy efficiency policies) (see also
chapter II). Moreover, any socioeconomic activity has a territorial impact. Land-use planning is a
scientific, technical and administrative discipline and involves political action. Indeed, it is conceived as a
comprehensive, interdisciplinary practice, designed to achieve balanced <strong>development</strong> between the regions
and proper organization of land space. Authorities should be urged to develop national,
subnational/regional or local land-use plans that project spatially the social, economic and environmental
policies that are part and parcel of <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong>. The distribution of human activities under
these plans should be subject to the potential and limitations of the land, thereby preventing and/or
mitigating risks for human security (UNCRD, <strong>20</strong>11b).
Other challenges also remain to be met, such as those involved in expanding and implementing
planning mechanisms and achieving an appropriate allocation of resources among their various
components. This is the framework within which the need to strengthen the environmental pillar of
<strong>development</strong> must be understood, as will be discussed in the following chapter.
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See the presentations made at the twenty-third Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy held in January <strong>20</strong>11 [online]
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