The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) defines sustainable development as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development is supported by three major pillars that are:
A sustainable system must be able to produce goods and services on a continuing basis, to maintain manageable levels of government and external debt, and to avoid extreme sectoral imbalances which damage agricultural or industrial production.
The system must maintain its resource base, avoiding over exploitation of natural renewable resources or sink resources, on depleting non renewable resources; this includes the maintenance of biodiversity, atmospheric stability and other ecosystem functions not ordinarily classified as economic resources.
The system must achieve distributional equity, adequate provision of social services, including health and education, gender equity, respect for minorities; political accountability and participation (Anand and Sen 1964).
Sustainable Development implies a participatory, multi-stakeholder approach to policy making and implementation, mobilising public and private resources for development and making use of the knowledge, skills and energy of all social groups concerned with the future of the planet and its people. Within this framework, communication plays a strategic and fundamental role contributing to the interplay of the different development factors, improving the sharing of knowledge and information as well as the active participation of all concerned.
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) elaborated the concept of Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development (SARD), that implies “the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional challenges in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs, for present and future generations. Such sustainable development (in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors) conserves land, water, plant and animal genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable” (FAO 1989).