Financing sustainable development: Needs and ways

Abstract

The present article makes an effort to understand, from the student-centric perspective, the notion of sustainable development and the role of Finance therein. Sustainable development, as suggested by Gro Harlem Brundtland, is the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Being a continuous process, the sustainable development considers the interaction of the five basic influential factors that actually shape the extent of any development, such as, a) population increase, b) structural change of (agricultural) production, c) depletion of non-renewable resource, d) industrial output, and e) pollution generation. The goals of socio-economic development can be defined by sustainability objectives in all countries - developed or developing, market-oriented or centrally planned. Without proper financing instrument there can be no probable conformity on achieving the goals and objectives of sustainable development, and without any explicitly defined goals, no guidance can be made to design a financing framework intended for sustainable development. The chapter is divided into four sub-chapters. The first two sub-chapters try to briefly describe the paradigm of sustainable development and its basic dimensions. The third and fourth sub-chapters respectively attempt to brief the need and the possible ways of finance in the process of sustainable development. Keywords: Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, Brown Agenda, Official Development Assistance (ODA), Other Official Flows (OOF), Public-Private Partnership (PPP), Sustainable development, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Remittances.