The concept of sustainable development: implementation opportunities at the regional level (based on the example of the East Kazakhstan region)

Abstract

Sustainable development of the territory allows overcoming crisis situations in the economy and social sphere. The essence of the concept of sustainable development derives from the concept of "triple bottom line", which implies a balance between environmental sustainability, which aims to maintain the quality of the environment necessary for economic activity and the quality of life of people; social sustainability, which seeks to ensure human rights and equality, respect for cultural diversity, race and religion; economic sustainability, which is necessary to maintain natural, social and human capital relevant for income generation. The purpose of this study is to develop an approach to assessing the sustainable development of a territory, reflecting the characteristics of Kazakhstan’s regions and testing the proposed methodology using the example of the East Kazakhstan region. The authors of the article in this study are based on the application of deduction and induction methods, a comprehensive approach to the study of the research object, methods of general economic analysis – comparison, average values, methods of factor analysis. As a result of the analysis of socio-economic and environmental development of the East-Kazakhstan region, the authors found that the social and economic indicators of the region are in a relatively satisfactory condition. The region occupies a leading position among the regions with predominantly industrially oriented economy. In addition, the use of natural potential allows the region to maintain a strong position against the background of regions with a relatively agrarian-oriented economy. However, the analysis of the environmental component of sustainable development has shown that the relatively high performance of the region in terms of economic and social development was made possible by ignoring the value of the environmental potential. Consequently, the current development of the region is contrary to the principles of the sustainable development concept. In this regard, it is necessary to create mechanisms of state regulation to implement policies aimed at overcoming this trend. Based on the results of the study, the authors proposed practical recommendations to improve the mechanism of realisation of sustainable development goals of the territory.