Agenda 21 is a non-binding action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development. It is a product of the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN, other multilateral organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be executed at local, national, and global levels. One major objective of the Agenda 21 initiative is that every local government should draw its own local Agenda 21. Its aim initially was to achieve global sustainable development by 2000, with the "21" in Agenda 21 referring to the original target of the 21st century.
Capacity building is the process by which individuals and organizations obtain, improve, and retain the skills, knowledge, tools, equipment, and other resources needed to do their jobs competently. It allows individuals and organizations to perform at a greater capacity. "Capacity building" and "Capacity development" are often used interchangeably. This term indexes a series of initiatives from the 1950s in which the active participation of local communities’ members in social and economic development was encouraged via national and subnational plans.
The Euclid Consortium is a distance learning educational consortium created in 2005 by the University of Bangui, the Université Libre Internationale (Belgium), and the International Organization for Sustainable Development. The original name was Euclid University Consortium, but the structure was renamed in December 2008 in order to avoid confusion with EUCLID University, which is a member of the consortium.
The term "sustainable communities" has various definitions, but in essence refers to communities planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. Sustainable communities tend to focus on environmental and economic sustainability, urban infrastructure, social equity, and municipal government. The term is sometimes used synonymously with "green cities," "eco-communities," "livable cities" and "sustainable cities."
Community economic development (CED) is a field of study that actively elicits community involvement when working with government, and private sectors to build strong communities, industries, and markets.
The Earth Charter Initiative is the collective name for the global network of people, organizations, and institutions who participate in promoting the Earth Charter, and in implementing its principles in practice. The Initiative is a broad-based, voluntary, civil society effort, but participants include leading international institutions, national government agencies, university associations, NGOs, cities, faith groups, and many well-known leaders in sustainable development.
Rural development is the process of improving the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas.
Business Action for Energy (BAE) is a business network set up to give input to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
Sustainable Bolivia is a nonprofit organization registered in the United States and with offices Riberalta, Bolivia and initiatives in the Bolivian Amazon. In 2016, Sustainable Bolivia secured protection for and established the Aquicuana Reserve, a reserve of more than 20,000 hectares of rainforest. Inside the Reserve, Sustainable Bolivia partners with local institutions and communities and oversees projects focused on community-based ecotourism, conservation and resource management, and environmental education/research. In the city of Riberalta, the organization aims to provide Bolivian NGOs with human and financial resources by offering internship and volunteer opportunities. Volunteers and interns have access to accommodation, language classes, and local excursions.
EUCLID, also called Pôle Universitaire Euclide or Euclid University, is an international intergovernmental organization with a university charter established in 2008. It has official headquarters in The Gambia and in the Central African Republic, but also maintains an executive office in Washington, D.C. Its primary mandate is to train officials for its Participating States but its programs are also offered to the general public. The institution's current Secretary-General is Winston Dookeran.
The Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE) is one of four academic and research centers at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Stuart School of Business (SSB) in the city of Chicago. The CSE has created a platform to convene the many disciplinary facets of the IIT colleges with business, community and government stakeholders in focused initiatives dedicated to making Chicago a sustainable city.
NetCorps was a volunteer-organizing coalition consisting of nine Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and managed by the NetCorps coordination unit. Through the program, the organizations created international information and communication technologies (ICT) internships in developing countries around the world. Interns typically participated in six-month programs, leaving between August and November for host organizations in the placement countries. Positions were limited to 19–30-year-old Canadian citizens or landed immigrants who had "appropriate information and communication technologies skills". Typical duties included creating webpages, developing databases, computer networking, setting up hardware, preparing manuals and other documentation, and general-to-advanced computer instruction.
The Sustainable Commodity Initiative (SCI) is a joint initiative launched by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 2003. The SCI works closely with the international community to discover ways to ensure that sustainable practices are adopted into commodity production and trade that enhance social, environmental and economic welfare on a global scale. The SCI was formed to facilitate the development of sustainable commodity production and trade sectors. The initiative works collaboratively with producers and producer organizations, voluntary sustainability initiatives (VSI's), the private sector, government institutions and development focussed NGO’s. The initiative receives project funding from numerous governments worldwide, United Nations agencies, foundations, the private sector and individual donors.
Miguel Altieri is a Chilean born agronomist and entomologist. He is a Professor of Agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.
The University of Dubai (UD) is an accredited university in the UAE. Licensed nationally by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, UD became the first private University in Dubai to hold the AACSB international accreditation in 2009, maintaining for further 5 years till 2019, as well as the first private university in the UAE to hold the ABET-CAC accreditation for its Computing and Information Systems (BS) program in 2006. The curriculum is aligned with international professional certification bodies such as Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM)-UK, which awards BBA HRM and MBA Leadership & HRM graduates with level 5 and 7 certifications. Similarly, the curriculum is aligned with Islamic Economy, Smart City, Innovation and Entrepreneurship initiatives of the government with IBM partnership.
A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
The Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS) is an inter-governmental organization, having a membership of 25 developing countries and one non-state member from three continents, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Twenty two S&T/R&D institutions of developing countries are affiliated with COMSATS as its Network of International S&T Centers of Excellence for Sustainable Development in the South. The organization aims at sustainable socio-economic uplift of the developing countries through appropriate applications of science and technology using the approach of South-South cooperation.
Soil governance refers to the policies, strategies, and the processes of decision-making employed by nation states and local governments regarding the use of soil. Globally, governance of the soil has been limited to an agricultural perspective due to increased food insecurity from the most populated regions on earth. The Global Soil Partnership, GSP, was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its members with the hope to improve governance of the limited soil resources of the planet in order to guarantee healthy and productive soils for a food-secure world, as well as support other essential ecosystem services.
International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, also known as IIRR is a non-profit organization that helps empower rural communities by making them self-sufficient. By offering programs across health, education, environment and livelihood, its goal is to have rural communities take charge of their own success. The organization has delivered programs to more than 40 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and directly impacted the lives of over 5 million people as of 2019.
Caroline King-Okumu is an international development opportunities manager for the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. She was formerly a senior researcher for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her major areas of research are dryland ecosystems, economic and environmental assessment, and climate change. She is considered an international expert on land and water management, particularly drylands agriculture. King-Okumu is based in Kenya but is involved in research and projects throughout the world.