„Over one billion men, women, and children are living in slums in the developing world. These abhorrent conditions are a personal tragedy for each family that lives in them. They also represent a moral crisis for the rest of us – and a threat to the global economy and world security” (www.globalhousingfoundation.org).
“Sustainability is the process of maintaining change in a balanced fashion, in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.“ (“What is sustainability”; available at: www.globalfootprints.org; retrieved 2018-05-02)
„Circles of Sustainability is a method for understanding and assessing sustainability, and for managing projects directed towards socially sustainable outcomes. The method is mostly used for cities and urban settlements…The method began with a fundamental dissatisfaction with current approaches to sustainability and sustainable development, which tended to treat economics as the core domain and ecology as an externality. Two concurrent developments provided impetus: a major project in Porto Alegre(https://www.old.metropolis.org/awards/4th-edition-2011/vila-do-chocolatao) and a United Nations’ paper called Accounting for Sustainability, Briefing Paper, No. 1, 2008“ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circles_of_Sustainability).
Three quotations using different arguments in explaining the term:
“Sustainable development is maintaining a delicate balance between the human need to improve lifestyles and feeling of well-being on one hand, and preserving natural resources and ecosystems, on which we and future generations depend.” (https://www.gdrc.org/sustdev/definitions.html).
“Sustainable development is the organizing principle for meeting human development goals while at the same time sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society depend” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development).
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
(Brundtland Report. Our Common Future; available at: https://www.sustainabledevelopment2015.org/AdvocacyToolkit/index.php/earth-summit-history/historical-documents/92-our-common-future).
On the web page of World Economic Forum (https://www.weforum.org/agenda) you can find up-to-date strategies to empower global (mostly economic) development and to achieve sustainability; prepared and discussed by the representatives from the most prosperous countries in the world exclusively.
complexity of current Human/Earth existence the only recent global development platform – United Nations Organization (http://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/overview/) – initiated many meeting, conferences on various levels, which eventuated into so called Global Agenda
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are 8 goals of Global Development Agenda set by 189 UN member states in September 2000, and agreed to be achieved by the year 2015.
http://www.mdgmonitor.org/millennium-development-goals/
http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/sk/topics/2013/mdg.html (in Slovak language).
It was the first attempt of its kind to solve urgent development problems by global policy measures. As such, it was implemented with many confusions and disagreements.
https://svet.sme.sk/c/2370673/undp-varuje-svetovi-lidri-maju-poslednu-sancu-na-splenie-cielov-milenia.html (in Slovak language).
The UN Final Report on achievements/results of the Goals is here:
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf
More information:
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
A UN Open Working Group (OWG) made up of 70 countries sharing 30 seats was established in 2013 to draft the SDGs and was tasked with incorporating a range of stakeholders into their negotiation process. As a result, developing countries have been able to provide significant input into the content, as have local and sub-national governments, and prominent actors from civil society and the private sector”(http://localizingthesdgs.org/library/251/From-MDGs-to-SDGs-What-are-the-Sustainable-Development-Goals.pdf).
Global Housing is covered by SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities
UN-Habitat Global Housing strategy
“The UN-Habitat Global Housing Strategy is a collaborative global movement towards adequate housing for all and improving housing for and the living conditions of slum dwellers. Its main objective is to assist member States in working towards the realization of the right to adequate housing.”
(http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SHS/pdf/Workshop-Social-Inclusion_UN-Habitat.pdf)
Habitat I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_I)
Habitat II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_II)
Habitat III (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_III), (http://habitat3.org/)
World green building, Source: https://www.worldgbc.org/news-media/green-building-improving-lives-billions-helping-achieve-un-sustainable-development-goals
More information:
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/active-citizenship-can-change-your-country-better
https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/our-work/publications-other-work/publications/active-citizenship
In Slovak language:
https://ec.europa.eu/epale/en/node/36186
Lifestyle is a composite of motivations, needs, and wants and is influenced by factors such as culture, family, reference groups, and social class”.
(http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/lifestyle.html)
https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDivotn%C3%BD_%C5%A1t%C3%BDl (in Slovak language)
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012, took place in Rio de Janeiro. This was a breakthrough – reconciling the economic and environmental goals of the global community. The heads of state of the 192 governments in attendance renewed their political commitment to sustainable development and declared their commitment to the promotion of a sustainable future.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140818215812/http://www.uncsd2012.org/about.html
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/rio20
“One of the key concepts of sustainable development is the interdependence of society, economy and the natural environment.”
http://www.sustainable-environment.org.uk/Principles/Interdependence.php
https://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C13/E1-45-03-16.pdf
Economic sustainability is simple: Social housing developments should support local economic diversity and provide employment opportunities to residents.” (https://blueprint.cbre.com/rb-best-practices-in-global-social-housing-report-for-china/
A third of urban dwellers—1.6 billion people—could struggle to secure decent housing by 2025; Source:
In 2013, Oxfam reported that the richest 85 people in the world owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population.”
https://www.rgs.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?nodeguid=9c1ce781-9117-4741-af0a-a6a8b75f32b4&lang=en-GB