Sustainable Development with Gender Equality: Key to Global Development

This essay discusses the global problem of deforestation, the connection between community and individual resilience, and the importance of gender equality in sustainable development. It also highlights the role of women in achieving sustainable development goals.

Running Head: Sustainable development
Sustainable Development
Essay
System04104
2/22/2019

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Answer-1
Deforestation is a global problem now in these days in the sustainable development of the
various countries and it also affects our environment and responsible for adverse climate
change. Farming is one of the major accountable causes of deforestation. Most of the farming
activities like producing palm oil and using trees for making homes in rural areas are the
major causes of deforestation (Desbureaux and Damania, 2018). Producing palm oil in
Malaysia and Indonesia is the major business for the survival of the farmers. Thus, they
depend on these types of activities, which cause deforestation. These people have no money
neither they have the political power to acquire holdings or productive lands. Thus, these
farmers live as temporary colonists near the street or forest areas. Farmers use the slash and
burn technique for short-term agriculture. However, these types of deforestation help them in
their survival and it is not wrong because these slash-and-burn technique has been used for
centuries and if it does by farmers on small scale and in a rational manner then it also helps in
relative sustainability. Thus, the subsistence farmers should not be blamed for the
deforestation because government is responsible for the unequal distribution of land and their
inability to provide them shelter, food, and jobs and it further force the farmers to do such
activities which leads to deforestation (Kovacic and Salazar, 2017). However, if they blamed
for such things then the government and some legal mechanism should also be blame along
with these subsistence farmers.
Answer-2
Analysing and studying the connection between community resilience and individual
resilience is not easy because the factors allied with community resilience cannot be observed
directly (Lew, Ng, Ni, and Wu, 2016). The Community resilience concept can be defined as a
measure that helps the community people to utilise the available resources and enhance their
capabilities to respond to the adverse situation. Resiliency is the process of adopting suitable
and recovery measures that help to face any diverse condition, trauma, threats, or disaster. An
individual resilient in a community always better because it results in a number enhance
components or character in a person such as personality, self-efficacy, ideal thinking, social

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support, sense of coherence, and life events. These attribute together results in a competent
individual who is able to face difficult situations of life and bounce back in adverse condition
or in a situation of disaster (Martin, Distelberg, Palmer, and Jeste, 2015). While community
resilience the whole group of people learning these capabilities of resilience and it could not
be visible directly. It has been also considerable that community resilience is the key to
natural resource preservation and that further it enhances community resilience. Thus, we can
say that it is very difficult to study community resilience and its observation of the individual
resilience of each community member.
Answer-3
Sustainable development with gender equality is one of the major agendas in the United
Nations (UN), and in their ‘2030 Agenda.’ The target of the UN is to empower all women
and girls to achieve sustainable development goals. According to a report published by the
UN, 19% of women between 15-49 years of age group had suffered from sexual harassment
or experience sexual violations that not only raise the concern of physical integrity rather it
also raise the various gender-related issue (UN Women, 2018). In addition, it further leads to
restricting globally sustainable development goals, such as sexual harassment at the
workplace with women workers. Women have to play an important role in Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), and this can only be possible if the various governments all over
the world focus on women empowerment and gender equality. The government should
adequately channelize their development programs and policies in order to empower women
and give them the power to be a part of global development as well. UN declares in their
‘Agenda 2030’ that women are not only playing a vital role in sustainable development,
rather empowered women will help inequitable economic growth as well.
Gender inequality is not only a major concern for half of the world's population rather it is a
human right and a major concern for all the people of all community all over the world. It has
been seen that in many countries, women are just a mean of providing food and water for the
families and they have no involvement in even the family’s decision-making even though
they play a vital role in the family and their survival. They even do not have freedom or right
to talk publically (Leach, 2014). Then how we can think about sustainable development if we
do not give them full rights, empower them, and give them opportunities to show their

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capabilities to bring change in the world. Without women, no society can be developed
economically, politically, or socially (Robinson, 2015). Women are the part of the major
household nexus such as water, agriculture, food, industrial production and reproduction,
sanitation, and energy and they know very well about the problems and challenges in theses
area at very first hand (Raborar, 2016). Thus, the involvement of women all around the world
not only provides ideas to meet out these challenges but rather we can also hear about the
problem and struggle they face. The key ideas of women can be applied in various areas and
it could facilitate change in the major area of the economy that leads to the sustainable
development of the world.
Gender inequality is a major problem in sustainable development. We can say in other words
that gender equality creates pathways for the advancement and sustainable development of
the world, and without empowering women and without giving them all rights; we cannot
expect sustainable growth in future. Women and girls must have full rights to participate in
decision-making and forming policies for economic and social development of the world and
for it to be really sustainable.

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Reference
Desbureaux, S. and Damania, R. (2018) Rain, forests and farmers: Evidence of drought
induced deforestation in Madagascar and its consequences for biodiversity
conservation. Biological conservation, 221, pp. 357-364.
Kovacic, Z. and Salazar, O.V. (2017) The lose-lose predicament of deforestation through
subsistence farming: Unpacking agricultural expansion in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Journal
of rural studies, 51, pp.105-114.
Leach, M. (2014) why gender equality and sustainable development are inextricably linked
[online]. Available from: https://steps-centre.org/blog/gender-equality-sustainable-
development-melissa-leach/ [Accessed: 22/02/2019].
Lew, A.A., Ng, P.T., Ni, C.C. and Wu, T.C. (2016) Community sustainability and resilience:
Similarities, differences and indicators. Tourism Geographies, 18(1), pp. 18-27.
Martin, A.V.S., Distelberg, B., Palmer, B.W. and Jeste, D.V. (2015) Development of a new
multidimensional individual and interpersonal resilience measure for older adults. Aging &
mental health, 19(1), pp. 32-45.
Raborar, K.J.F. (2016) Sustainable Development, Education for Sustainable Development
and Philippine Community. Management of Sustainable Development, 8(2), pp.29-34.
Robinson, M. (2015) Why gender equality is key to sustainable development [online].
Available from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/03/why-gender-equality-is-integral-
to-sustainable-development/ [accessed: 22/02/2019].
UN Women (2018) Gender Equality and the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia and the
Pacific [online]. Available from:
http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/10/apsdg [Accessed:
22/02/2019].