Week 7 : Challenges to Sustainable Development

 

Assalamualaikum wbt,

In the seventh week of class, Prof. Dr. Suhaimi brought up to us about challenges to sustainable development from the social, economic, and environmental aspects.

What are the general challenges to sustainable development? these consist of inequalities of access to clean water, healthy food, education resources, and health facilities. General challenge highlights four critical areas of inequality that societies face globally. Each of them represents fundamental needs that are not equally accessible to all individuals. Furthermore, we can see the broader implications that these challenges are interconnected and often exacerbate one another.

We talk about the concept of "unsustainability" and Inequity, emphasizing the link between unfair systems and their inability to sustain long-term social, economic, and environmental balance. Types of Inequities, as an example,

1. Socio-economic inequity: Disparities in wealth, income, or access to economic opportunities.

2. Cultural Inequity: Marginalization or devaluation of certain cultures

3. Societal inequity: broader systemic issues that create divisions within society.

The lecturer brought up that the average African lives on $2.30 a day, while a cattle in Europe draws an average subsidy of $2.20 a day. This comparison underscores the significant inequality in how resources are distributed globally. While people in developing regions struggle to meet basic needs, animals in wealthier nations benefit from substantial government subsidies, reflecting an imbalance in priorities and economic justice.

Besides that, key ideas for a sustainable economy include promoting efficiency and recycling, using mainly recycled materials as resource inputs, and reducing waste throughout production, packaging, and distribution. A sustainable economy functions like an ecosystem, where resources circulate responsibly, and emphasises the dematerialisation of economic activities to minimise environmental impact.

For environmental challenges, the key topics are unsustainable resource exploitation. For instance, loss of biological diversity has resulted from human activities such as deforestation and pollution; water and soil have been strained by high pollution levels.