Publication: Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century
Loading...
Files in English
8,122 downloads
Other Files
1,371 downloads
2,219 downloads
1,033 downloads
Date
2023-03-15
ISSN
Published
2023-03-15
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
All development is about people: the transformative process to equip, link, and enable groups of people to drive change and create something new to benefit society. Development can promote societies where all people can thrive, but the change process can be complex, challenging, and socially contentious.
Continued progress toward sustainable development is not guaranteed. The current overlapping crises of COVID-19, climate change, rising levels of conflict, and a global economic slowdown are inflaming long-standing challenges—exacerbating inequality and deep-rooted systemic inequities. Addressing these challenges will require social sustainability in addition to economic and environmental sustainability.
Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century seeks to advance the concept of social sustainability and sharpen its analytical foundations. The book emphasizes social sustainability’s four key components: social cohesion, inclusion, resilience, and process legitimacy. It posits that
•Social sustainability increases when more people feel part of the development process and believe that they and their descendants will benefit from it.
•Communities and societies that are more socially sustainable are more willing and able to work together to overcome challenges, deliver public goods, and allocate scarce resources in ways perceived to be legitimate and fair so that all people may thrive over time.
By identifying interventions that work to promote the components of social sustainability and highlighting the evidence of their links to key development outcomes, this book provides a foundation for using social sustainability to help address the many challenges of our time.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Barron, Patrick; Cord, Louise; Cuesta, José; Espinoza, Sabina A.; Larson, Greg; Woolcock, Michael. 2023. Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century. New Frontiers of Social Policy. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39537 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Social Sustainability and the Development Process(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-07-10)Development debates frequently focus on making economic growth sustainable or ensuring that natural resources are used sustainably; such debates rest on longstanding scholarship and largely shared understandings of how such problems should be addressed. Increasingly, there are also calls for development to be socially sustainable. Yet the theory and evidence undergirding this third “pillar” are comparatively thin, focusing primarily on high-income countries and mapping only partially onto a coherent policy agenda. This paper seeks to help close these gaps by providing (a) a brief history and literature review of social sustainability, emphasizing its distinctiveness from economic and environmental sustainability; (b) a definition and conceptual framework, identifying social sustainability’s key components; (c) empirical evidence linking these components to mainstream development outcomes; and (d) operational insights for promoting social sustainability—on its own and as a complement to economic and environmental sustainability. The scale and intensity of the world’s current development challenges—and their impacts not just on economies and the environment but entire societies—requires a more robust understanding of their social dimensions, what policies and programs should be enacted in response, and how such efforts can be implemented with local legitimacy and sustained politically over time.Publication Social Sustainability, Poverty, and Income(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06)Social sustainability is often poorly understood and vaguely defined, despite growing appreciation of its relevance as a concept. This paper advances the empirical understanding of social sustainability by constructing a global database of 71 indicators across 193 countries and 37 territories between 2016 and 2020. The indicators are flexibly clustered around four dimensions—social inclusion, resilience, social cohesion, and process legitimacy—for which measurement indices are constructed. A simple empirical analysis using the database confirms that social sustainability is positively and strongly associated with per capita income, negatively and strongly associated with poverty, and negatively but weakly associated with income inequality. Much remains to be analyzed to understand the interactions between dimensions, but the results underscore that social sustainability matters not only in itself, but also to reduce poverty. Furthermore, extending access to markets, basic public services, and social assistance needs to be complemented with strengthening process legitimacy and social cohesion if inequality is to be reduced.Publication Local Conflict and Development Projects in Indonesia : Part of the Problem or Part of a Solution?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-04)Drawing on an integrated mixed methods research design, the authors explore the dynamics of the development-conflict nexus in rural Indonesia, and the specific role of development projects in shaping the nature, extent, and trajectories of "everyday" conflicts. They find that projects that give inadequate attention to dispute resolution mechanisms in many cases stimulate local conflict, either through the injection of development resources themselves or less directly by exacerbating preexisting tensions in target communities. But projects that have explicit and accessible procedures for managing disputes arising from the development process are much less likely to lead to violent outcomes. The authors argue that such projects are more successful in addressing project-related conflicts because they establish direct procedures (such as forums, facilitators, and complaints mechanisms) for dealing with tensions as they arise. These direct mechanisms are less successful in addressing broader social tensions elicited by, or external to, the development process, though program mechanisms can ameliorate conflict indirectly through changing norms and networks of interaction.Publication Inclusion Matters in Africa(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020)Africa has garnered global attention for its many achievements and its dynamism, and at the same time, it has taken the spotlight for its substantial challenges. As in other parts of the world, positive developments have been uneven in Africa. This report places the notion of social inclusion in an analysis of Africa’s achievements and challenges. Its interdisciplinary approach uses evidence to bring empirical weight to issues that are often debated through advocacy and contestation. It also contributes to the priority areas of a new regional strategy for the Africa region of the World Bank by focusing on women’s empowerment, digital technology, fragility, and climate change, among others. The report asks, in the wake of the advances Africa has made over the years, who is excluded, from what, how, and why. It then highlights what has been attempted in the quest of African countries for social inclusion. One of the main contributions of this report is that while grounded in the experience of African countries, it shows that Africa’s challenges in social inclusion are not unique or exceptional. It highlights examples of the remarkable innovations that abound in Africa and of the policy and programmatic movement towards social inclusion. It surmises that social inclusion must be based on a clear social contract that recognizes both the costs and benefits of policies and interventions towards social inclusion.Publication Measuring Social Capital : An Integrated Questionnaire(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004)The idea of social capital has enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence in both the theoretical and applied social science literature over the last decade. While lively debate has accompanied that journey, thereby helping to advance our thinking and to clarify areas of agreement and disagreement, much still remains to be done. One approach that we hope can help bring further advances for both scholars and practitioners is the provision of a set of empirical tools for measuring social capital. The purpose of this paper is to introduce such a tool-the Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital (SC-IQ)-with a focus on applications in developing countries. The tool aims to generate quantitative data on various dimensions of social capital as part of a larger household survey (such as the Living Standards Measurement Survey or a household income/expenditure survey). Specifically, six dimensions are considered: groups and networks; trust and solidarity; collective action and cooperation; information and communication; social cohesion and inclusion; empowerment and political action. The paper addresses sampling and data collection issues for implementing the SC-IQ and provides guidance for the use and analysis of data. The tool has been pilot-tested in Albania and Nigeria and a review of lessons learned is presented.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-17)The growing disparity between the rich and poor remains a critical challenge, affecting countries across all continents, irrespective of their per capita gross domestic product. This widening gap not only impedes efforts to eradicate extreme poverty but also hinders progress toward social justice and resilience-building. Rising inequalities pose substantial barriers to sustainable development, and it is within this context that this book, 'Inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Multidimensional Perspectives and Future Challenges', contributes to ongoing debates, offering a comprehensive analysis of the current challenges and future perspectives of inequality on the African continent. Despite the intensification of calls for wealth taxation and inequality reduction, progress has been slow. A key challenge lies in creating a viable political path for implementing progressive taxation policies. Resistance from those benefiting from the current system often stalls efforts, making progress difficult. Moreover, reducing inequality requires mechanisms that address inequality at its roots. Policies targeting education, competition, financial market regulation, and industrial development all hold the potential to create equitable economic opportunities, ensuring access to credit, job creation, and more-balanced economic growth. Despite facing unique, profound challenges, Africa is often overlooked in these global discussions. This book seeks to place the continent’s issues of income inequality, unequal access to education and health care, climate vulnerability, and inclusive growth at the center of the conversation. The book further advocates for innovative policies, including competition reforms and bargaining frameworks that shift the balance between capital and labor. Given that inequality in Africa is deeply rooted in historical, economic, and institutional factors, a stronger focus on pre-distribution policies is necessary. These systemic changes can help reshape the conditions under which inequality emerges and persists. In addition to policy reforms, it is vital to strengthen the research and academic infrastructure that underpins the understanding of inequality. Equity concerns must be addressed within the scientific field, and African research capabilities must be bolstered. This volume, written in collaboration with the African Center of Excellence for Inequality Research, calls for a greater focus on empowering African researchers as part of a broader development strategy. By doing so, it aligns with the World Bank’s and the Agence Française de Développement’s commitment to supporting research as a critical tool for sustainable development.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Services Unbound(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-09)Services are a new force for innovation, trade, and growth in East Asia and Pacific. The dramatic diffusion of digital technologies and partial policy reforms in services--from finance, communication, and transport to retail, health, and education--is transforming these economies. The result is higher productivity and changing jobs in the services sector, as well as in the manufacturing sectors that use these services. A region that has thrived through openness to trade and investment in manufacturing still maintains innovation-inhibiting barriers to entry and competition in key services sectors. 'Services Unbound: Digital Technologies and Policy Reform in East Asia and Pacific' makes the case for deeper domestic reforms and greater international cooperation to unleash a virtuous cycle of increased economic opportunity and enhanced human capacity that would power development in the region.Publication Applying the Degree of Urbanisation(European Union/FAO/UN-Habitat/OECD/The World Bank, 2025-01-31)This manual develops a harmonised methodology to facilitate international statistical comparisons and to classify the entire territory of a country along an urban-rural continuum. The degree of urbanisation classification defines cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural areas. This first level of the classification may be complemented by a range of more detailed concepts, such as: metropolitan areas, commuting zones, dense towns, semi-dense towns, suburban or peri-urban areas, villages, dispersed rural areas and mostly uninhabited areas. The manual is intended to complement and not replace the definitions used by national statistical offices (NSOs) and ministries. It has been designed principally as a guide for data producers, suppliers and statisticians so that they have the necessary information to implement the methodology and ensure coherency within their data collections. It may also be of interest to users of subnational statistics so they may better understand, interpret and use official subnational statistics for taking informed decisions and policymaking. This report has been produced in close collaboration by six organisations, the European Commission, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHabitat), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and The World Bank.Publication Greater Heights(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-12)Twenty-seven countries have reached high-income status since 1990. Ten of these are in the Europe and Central Asia region and have joined the European Union. Another 20 in the region have become more prosperous since the 1990s. However, their transition to high-income status has been delayed. These middle-income countries have found that the prospects for growth to high-income status have become even more difficult since the 2007–09 global financial crisis. This reflects partly a slowdown in structural reforms at home and partly the challenges associated with a deterioration in the global environment. The concern has emerged that many countries in the region may be caught in the middle-income trap, a phase in development characterized by a recurring deceleration in growth and by per capita incomes that are systematically below the high-income threshold. To ensure that these countries overcome the obstacles to growth and achieve progress toward high-income status, policy makers need to make the transition from a strategy driven largely by investment to a strategy that is supported by the importation and diffusion of global capital, knowledge, and technology and then to a strategy that complements these with innovation. The report Greater Heights: Growing to High Income in Europe and Central Asia relies on the 3i strategy described in World Development Report 2024—investment, infusion, and innovation—to propose policy options to assist middle-income countries in Europe and Central Asia in the effort to reach high-income status. Drawing on comprehensive empirical analysis, the report offers actionable recommendations that will enable policy makers to advance stronger economic growth across the region. Such a transition will require continued and sustained foundational reform to maximize the drivers of economic growth while pivoting to new transformative reforms to promote the development of more complex economic structures and institutions. These involve the need to discipline incumbents, boost the role of the private sector, strengthen the competitive environment, and reward merit. The emphasis on a strategy driven by innovation is also critically important for those countries that have already attained high-income status.