Sri Suryani
The discourse of sustainable development has been interpreted in various ways since it was introduced in the early 1990s. Since then, the government has generally seen it as a way to promote the importance of environmental agenda in development. However, it is clear that policy makers and the general public have understood the term 'sustainable development' differently. If you look at Jakarta, for example, in pursuing what it understands as sustainable development, government projects have neglected other important socio-economic dimensions of development. This affects those who have limited access to resource and knowledge most. So, broadly speaking, it is this discord between policy makers and the general public on defining sustainable development that poses a big challenge.
Kathryn Hochstetler
A lot of what stands in the way of sustainable development is that many things that we call development aren’t really development. We have a good definition of development, with Amartya Sen, which looks at developing human capabilities through health and education. But even with this definition, you very quickly get back to the kinds of things that are associated with other forms of development, like electricity, which is what I’m working on currently because it’s very hard to have good health and good schools without electricity.
