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Sustainable Development Foundation's
Implementation Approaches
SDF adheres to the principle that sustainable
natural resource management must acknowledge the right of
communities to participate. The foundation recognizes the
importance of building the capacity of the communities and
community organizations, both in terms of ideology and practice.
SDF's approaches prioritize raising communities' awareness
of the importance of their concrete participation in natural
resource management. SDF also promotes communities' access
to information, and improves their ability to use information
to analyze problems by themselves. Equally important is the
active promotion of the roles of women and youths, and the
encouragement of their active participation in natural resource
management.
SDF operates at several levels to ensure
sustainable natural resource management and sustainable livelihoods
for rural communities. It aims to support the establishment
of people's organizations, and networking between such organizations.
It works at the local, provincial, regional and national levels
and tries to make connections between natural resource management
issues occurring at these different levels. Furthermore, the
foundation acknowledges the importance of developing knowledge
in a holistic and integrated manner, and to this end supports
collaboration between different stakeholders from society
and civil society both nationally and internationally. It
promotes transparency with regards public policy, and good
governance generally, focusing on human rights, people participation,
and decentralization.
Creating an Enabling Environment to Facilitate
People's Movements
Even though the spirit of the current Constitution
recognizes and supports community's rights and people's participation
as well as decentralization, it is apparent that the present
problems related to natural resource management still remain.
This is largely due to the fact that overall management and
authority remains centralized under the government. Therefore,
what is being promulgated under the Constitution are merely
principles, but have not yet been transformed into real practice.
Since the nature of natural resources and
environment issues are very complex, they require collaboration
and a shared responsibility between different stakeholders,
particularly the government, the private sector and people's
organizations. These stakeholders must have a deep understanding
and awareness of the necessity of such collaboration in order
to ensure sustainable management of natural resources.
SDF sees the importance of providing information
on issues and concerns regarding natural resources and the
environment. With freely available information and understanding,
the public should have the political capacity for exerting
policy recommendations to the government. This is a strategy
to ensure wider public support and to strengthen the public
force for policy advocacy.
'Working together
with networks at the national and international levels
in policy advocacy.'
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