S
Sustainable Development
Administration
Hartmut Fünfgeld
School of Global, Urban & Social Studies, RMIT
University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Synonyms
Development administration
Definition
The term “sustainable development administra-
tion” describes an aspect of public policy that is
concerned with the application of the sustainable
development paradigm to public administration
structures, processes, and institutions. “Adminis-
tration” here relates to a broad array of operational
processes and discrete tasks that facilitate the
development and implementation of public sector
policies – though the term is also used in relation
to private sector operations.
Introduction
Aligned with the definition set out above, sustain-
able development administration primarily refers
# Springer International Publishing AG 2017
A. Farazmand (ed.), Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1171-1
to the institutional and administrative structures
and processes within public administration that
facilitate and enhance sustainable development
as the global development paradigm agreed to at
the international scale at the Rio Earth Summit in
1992 and subsequently reiterated in Rio+20
(2012) and the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) agreed to by the member states in 2015.
From a contemporary vantage point, sustain-
able development administration can be consid-
ered as the administrative and operational side of
the sustainable development agenda, as it is
promoted and implemented through the SDGs,
for example.
This view, however, ignores the origins of
sustainable development administration in
modernist paradigms of development and devel-
opment administration, which emerged in the
post–World War II world. Since the 1970s, inter-
national development has undergone a transfor-
mation towards more holistic approaches that not
only take economic growth but also social
development and ecological conservation into
account, in line with sustainability thinking.
Sustainable development administration therefore
is not a new area of public policy but one that
gradually emerged over the past three to four
decades, as the international community tried to
learn from past mistakes in international
development while it, at the same time, embraced
sustainable development as its new paradigm.
2 Sustainable Development Administration
Development Administration as a “Big
Government” Instrument of
Modernization
The origins of development administration can be
traced back to the 1950s, as an area of practice and
research within what can be termed comparative
public administration. Beginning in the late
1940s, numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America achieved independence from
colonial rule. The historical shifts that led to inde-
pendent nations had raised hope for improved
social and economic conditions under now liber-
ated governments, while former colonial powers
sought to maintain economic ties with their for-
mer colonies and (in some cases) provide support
in the political transition process through interna-
tional development aid. The majority of these
“Third World” countries, however, were econom-
ically weak, with impoverished societies facing
significant domestic political and social chal-
lenges that – such was the Zeitgeist of the time –
could only be met with Keynesian economics and
big government (Esman 1988). Strong and far-
reaching government action, such as the one that
led to the creation of the Marshall Plan in Europe,
was considered the means of choice for tackling
poverty and fostering social progress.
At the same time, the social sciences, which
have expanded in significance since the 1950s,
were dominated by a modernization paradigm
that posited the universal validity of Western
values, including individualism, instrumental
rationalism, and enlightenment through science.
Eventually, so the view, all peoples and nations
around the world would adopt Western normative
systems and reap the social and economic benefits
of doing so, just as Europe and North America
had. This assumed cultural supremacy of the West
and the belief in a linear trajectory of development
and change towards more Westernized societies
with similar political and administrative system
would take place through technical assistance
from countries in Europe, North America, and
Oceania, who would work with well-educated
elites in developing countries, who in turn acted
as “modernizers” that took Western, rational
forms of planning, decision-making, and
implementation from increasingly “modernized”
urban centers to the rural periphery (Esman 1988).
In this setting, public administration using big
government was considered the most important
and most effective vehicle for guiding such a
process of transition and achieving moderniza-
tion. Hence, development administration was
born as a specialized field within public adminis-
tration, built on the fundamental assumption that
the various manifestations of development can in
fact be administered by building powerful bureau-
cracies. As developing countries strived towards
the Western ideal of modernization, their actual
administrative needs were considered different
from those of developed countries – albeit not in
a way that they were believed to differ signifi-
cantly from one developing country to the next.
All developing countries, it was argued, needed to
rapidly mature their public administrative systems
(including developing bigger government struc-
tures that could deal with the enormity of the task)
in order to improve their social and economic
conditions. Public administration in a developing
country context, therefore, required dedicated
modernization concepts, approaches, and admin-
istrative practices that were able to not only cope
with but catalyze constructing national infrastruc-
ture, facilitate democratic planning and decision-
making processes, ensuring the primacy of the
rule of law, and raising the standard of living
(Gant 2006). Development administration, there-
fore, took on an optimistic yet largely culturally
insensitive perspective that viewed developmen-
tal problems as transient and inherently solvable –
and effective public administration would need to
play a major role in the task.
In this context of a global strive for moderni-
zation, development administration can have two
different goals: to achieve the development of
administration in developing countries or to
administer development processes in developing
countries (Riggs 1970). Throughout the 1970s
and 1980s, the second focus become more prom-
inent and the term development administration
evolved into a synonym for the administration of
development in developing countries.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the achievements of
big government in developing countries stayed far
Sustainable Development Administration
behind its modernistic expectations and promises.
Suffering from formalistic, bureaucratic, and
vastly ineffective procedures that involved large
numbers of often poorly skilled public servants,
public administration became increasingly seen as
the problem rather than the solution for develop-
mental challenges. Development administration
attracted critiques similar to those of the modern-
ization model of development as such. In essence,
public administrations were not able to act as
effective agents that could carry social and eco-
nomic progress into all geographic corners of a
nation – rather, much development efforts were
not reaching the majority of poor people, devel-
opment projects were not reaching their objec-
tives, and whole public sectors became mired
in intransparency, corruption, and nepotism that
amounted to being complicit in, if not directly
responsible for, worsening socioeconomic
conditions.
As a subdiscipline, development administra-
tion was never very clearly defined, beyond
existing paradigms of modernization. Despite its
direct emergence from theories of development,
only few attempts were made within the field of
development administration to define how it
understood “development.” The implicit interpre-
tation inherent in most development administra-
tion approaches and practices was one where
economic development was foregrounded, often
with the result that other conceptualizations of
development appeared virtually nonexistent or
considered radical and non-mainstream. The lack
of theoretical engagement with the very founda-
tion of the term also manifested in that develop-
ment administration scholars and practitioners
seemed to lack interest in critiquing the field
from within. Mostly on the outside of the field,
however, critics argued that development admin-
istration was a manifestation of Western
hegemony of liberal-democratic values that it
imposed onto non-Western cultures in unsuitable
ways. Not only were Western administrative ideas
at odds with traditional administrative and
decision-making processes in developing coun-
tries; applying development administration to
such countries also highlighted that the institu-
tional structures and processes it relied on were
3
far from perfect and often did not work as effec-
tively and efficiently in developed countries to
justify “exporting” them and convincing other
countries to adopt them as best practices.
Ultimately, the notion of development as a linear
process that all countries or societies will undergo
in a similar way was considered no longer tenable
as there was little evidence in more developed
countries that this was the case. This realization
resulted in the rapid demise of the subfield of
development administration.
From New Development Administration
to Sustainable Development
Administration
In the late 1980s, after development administra-
tion as a professional subfield of public adminis-
tration and area of research and training had all but
disappeared, some scholars made an unsuccessful
attempt of a rebirth by referring to new develop-
ment administration (NDA; Esman 1988). Instead
of providing alternative theoretical and concep-
tual approaches to the question of how public
administration can achieve lasting change in
developing countries, NDA mostly offered
a reactive approach to changing economic and
political paradigms towards neoliberal
approaches that embraced minimal government,
privatization, and deregulation.
The late 1980s, however, also saw the wide-
spread adoption of the concept of sustainable
development, catalyzed to the forefront of inter-
national development politics and public admin-
istration by the 1987 World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED 1987)
report “Our Common Future” (widely known as
the Brundtland Commission report). The
Brundtland Commission defined sustainable
development as “development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own
needs” (WCED 1987). According to this most
widely accepted definition, sustainable develop-
ment is both sensitive to existing resources and
their use, while also acknowledging that society
has social and economic needs that are to be met.
4 Sustainable Development Administration
The WCED identified six objectives of sustain-
able development that further spell out these
needs:
1. Reviving growth
2. Changing the quality of growth
3. Meeting essential needs for jobs, food, energy,
water, and sanitation
4. Conserving and enhancing the resource base
5. Reorienting technology and managing risk
6. Merging environmental and economic
decision-making.
In summary, these objectives equate to two
underlying goals, namely, that resource exploita-
tion should be renewable and thus equal to regen-
eration rates and that the emission of different
forms of waste should stay within the natural
assimilative and absorptive capacity of ecosys-
tems (Carley and Christie 1993). A core principle
of this definition is intergenerational equity. Sus-
tainable development thus clearly stretches the
notion of development away from a sole focus
on the present onto one that takes future resource
availability and future societal needs into account.
The emerging sustainable development para-
digm gave new impetus to debates about how
development, now framed in terms of resource
efficiency, ecosystem health, and intergen-
erational equity, can be facilitated as a sustainable
process. Sustainable development administration
is no longer primarily focused on how (linear)
development can be administered but what strat-
egies can be employed to establish the ideal of
sustainable development as a new and lasting
practice. Sustainable development administration
therefore signifies a move in public administration
to support a holistic societal transition to sustain-
able practices, rather than being an approach for
facilitating economic development. Inherent to
this is the assumption that collective effort will
be required across disciplines, sectors, and socie-
ties in order to devise more sustainable strategies
and implement them in differing institutional con-
texts. To achieve structural and behavioral change
towards more sustainable practices, sustainable
development acknowledges cultural diversity
and calls for culturally sensitive approaches
developed from within a given cultural context,
rather than promoting one-size-fits-all techno-
cratic solutions.
As an important conceptual departure from
previous paradigms of development with impor-
tant global political implications, sustainable
development applies to both developed and devel-
oping countries and sees learning and transfer of
knowledge to occur in both directions – at least it
is open to such cross-fertilization in theoretical
terms even though the international development
aid programs remain largely focused on transfer of
sustainable technology and expertise in sustain-
able development from the global North to the
South. While developed countries may harbor
advanced economies and sophisticated adminis-
trations, they may be poorly developed in terms of
resource efficiency and waste minimization,
leaving behind degraded ecosystems for future
generations. Therefore, sustainable development
asks countries to limit and transform all practices
that are harmful to ecosystems, including manag-
ing population growth, resource use, and the pro-
duction of pollutants and other waste products.
More recently, since the global acceptance of
anthropogenic climate change, sustainable devel-
opment also encompasses reducing global green-
house gas emissions and ensuring that societies
can adapt to changes in the global climate and
avoid suffering severe consequences.
Sustainable development was adopted as the
new global paradigm for development at the 1992
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. At the Rio+20
conference in 2012, the United Nations member
states renewed their commitment to sustainable
development as the guiding principle for all devel-
opment efforts across the globe, paving the way
for a global agenda on sustainable development
agreed upon by the global community in the form
of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
in 2015, which are supported by 169 targets. The
SDGs are:
Sustainable Development Administration 5

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and
2. End hunger, achieve food security and revitalize the global partnership for sustain-
improved nutrition, and promote sustainable able development.
agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being
for all at all ages
Sustainable Development
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality educa-
Administration: Invigorated Role for
tion and promote life-long learning opportu-
Public Administration Under the SDGs
nities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all
The paradigm shift away from economic develop-
women and girls
ment and otherwise compartmentalized yet linear
6. Ensure availability and sustainable manage-
approaches towards trajectories of sustainable
ment of water and sanitation for all
development that do not degrade natural resources
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustain-
and minimize harm to ecosystems and humans
able, and modern energy for all
coincided with transformational social and tech-
8. Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable
nological changes, such as increasingly ubiqui-
economic growth; full and productive
tous migration and mobility and the arrival of
employment; and decent work for all
the Internet and fast and efficient means for global
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclu-
communication. If development administration –
sive and sustainable industrialization, and
and public administration in general – was to shift
foster innovation
towards achieving more holistic goals for devel-
10. Reduce inequality within and among
opment, it needed to change tack and capture the
countries
opportunities provided by increasingly networked
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive,
societies, as well as come to terms with the
safe, resilient, and sustainable
inherent complexity and multiscalar, multiactor
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and produc-
nature of sustainable development. This not only
tion patterns
required gradual adjustment of existing adminis-
13. Tackle urgent action to combat climate
trative processes within governmental and other
change and its impacts
public sector institutions; beyond that, it called for
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans,
significantly re-thinking the role of government
seas, and marine resources for sustainable
itself in an increasingly connected and globalized
development
world. At the same time, sustainable development
15. Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use
administration is also bound by largely
of terrestrial ecosystems; sustainably manage
unchallenged paradigms of new public manage-
forests; combat desertification; and halt and
ment that favors adopting private sector
reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity
approaches to reduce overly bureaucratic
loss
processes, increase efficiency, and focus on pro-
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for
viding effective end user services to citizens, who
sustainable development, provide access to
are considered “customers.”
justice for all, and build effective, account-
This complex set of institutional and social
able, and inclusive institutions at all levels
paradigms and trends was confounded by the
difficulty of making sense of sustainable
6 Sustainable Development Administration
development as it related to public
administration – beyond obvious sectors such as
environmental and natural resource management
where the principles of sustainable development
can be readily applied. While development
administration lacked theoretical depth and criti-
cal engagement with underpinning concepts,
SDA grapples with the opposite problem: the
broad conceptual focus of sustainable develop-
ment and the translation thereof into operational
practice, across sectors and institutions. The
SDGs were useful in this regard: not only did
they set the global policy agenda, they also placed
boundaries around the meaning of sustainable
development for different spheres of human and
nonhuman life and, through defining concrete
goals, articulated clear expectations on govern-
ments who were to implement and administer
strategies through their public administrative sys-
tems. Subsequently, the Rio+20 conference out-
put document provided important, overarching
guidance on how public administration will be
required to transform in order to become fully
aligned with the SDGs and support their imple-
mentation. This guidance included the following
principles (UN-DESA 2015: 77f):
1. Broad, active, and meaningful participation in
decision-making, planning and implementa-
tion of policies and programs for sustainable
development at all levels
2. Improved access to ICT, especially broadband
networks, and access to government proceed-
ings, regulations, data, and easy-to-understand
procedures
3. National regulatory and policy frameworks
that enable business and industry to advance
sustainable development initiatives
4. Well-functioning institutions at all levels those
are able to demonstrate transparency and
accountability mechanisms as well as the
capacity to achieve and demonstrate results
5. An integrated approach to planning and build-
ing sustainable cities and urban settlements,
including strengthening local authorities
and the participation of urban residents in
decision-making
6. Combatting corruption in all of its
manifestations
These new principles for sustainable develop-
ment administration represent both a
reinvigoration of globally accepted standards for
good public management and a shift of focus
towards justice and security, regulatory control,
and the delivery of services considered essential
for enabling sustainable development. They also
signify a far greater focus on people-centered
administration and on noneconomic dimensions
of development, including investing in human
capital through education and health, and
safeguarding natural assets through environmen-
tal protection and sustainable management of
natural resources.
Inherently – and fully aligned with the spirit of
the SDGs – these principles call for the ongoing
development of public administration itself into
more sustainable pathways that take ecological,
social, and economic considerations into account.
Capacity building of and for the public sector,
it has been argued, can “become the key to trans-
forming governance and integrity, improve skills,
boost professionalism and mobilize citizens
to become involved, thus generating a positive
effect on democracy and development alike”
(Zarrouk 2014: 2)
Conclusion
Sustainable development implies a pluralist view
of knowledge, where development approaches
and programs devised are challenged to respond
to local social, cultural, and economic circum-
stances in order to produce the desired results.
Likewise, sustainable development administra-
tion needs to accept pluralist approaches, while
adhering to globally agreed principles of good
public administration and management. Since
development administration evolved into a
subfield of public administration after World War
II, much has changed in the public administration
of developmental processes across scales. The
emergence and global adoption of sustainable
development has brought about a shift towards
Sustainable Development Administration
more holistic thinking in administration, where
social and environmental principles have a
stronger weight than ever before – yet the
principles of effectiveness and efficiency in
using public funds continue to prevail.
Sustainable development administration faces
many challenges, including how to contribute to
transformation of sectors, organizations, and
individual behavior while also satisfying criteria
of resource efficiency and transparent and demo-
cratic decision-making. The tasks required of
sustainable development administration have
broadened in scope and remit when compared to
the early days of development administration; at
the same time, technological and communicative
instruments that public authorities can use have
multiplied and diversified. The interconnected-
ness of many of the problems at the heart of
unsustainable development, however, demand
that public administrators find innovative solu-
tions for supporting and implementing politically
and institutionally complex and increasingly
multilayered processes. In this sense, it will not
be sufficient for sustainable development
administration to be merely about administering
sustainable development; it will need to lift its
game and develop in its own right in order to be
able to address the most pressing global
challenges, as they have been articulated in
the SDGs.
7
Cross-References
▶ Domains of sustainability
▶ Modernity and Bureaucracy
▶ New Public Management
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