A photography exhibition on ‘Sustainable Development’, organized by the EDUCAIDE Association, Beyoğlu Municipality, French Cultural Centre and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was held in İstanbul in April. The exhibition focused on four areas: Environment, Society, Education and Industry. The main objective of the exhibition, now in its second year, was to create public awareness on sustainable development.

Children were the major contributors of the pictures on display. Before the opening of the exhibition, the EDUCAIDE Association trained nearly 50 pupils from 17 primary schools in the Beyoğlu district on sustainable development. The children took courses on society, environment, education and industry during a two-day workshop. Then, they were provided with cameras and asked to take pictures in their everyday surroundings of related subjects concerning sustainable development. Besides these children, 34 civil society organisations from İstanbul contributed to the exhibition with photographs and statistical information related to their focus areas.

In her opening speech at the French Cultural Centre, UNDP Deputy Representative in Turkey, Sarah Poole said that UNDP supports all efforts regarding sustainable development, given the fact that sustainable development can only be achieved with the participation of all segments of the society.

Sustainable Development:

Sustainable Development is defined as “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations”. The present generation has the full responsibility to ensure the fair distribution of resources among generations, and eliminate the irreversible costs of environmental pollution and depletion of natural resources. Future generations should not pay the cost of damage caused by present generations.

However, in truth we are lagging behind in facing up to these challenges. In thirty years' time there will be two billion more people on the planet. Already 40% of the world population is short of clean water; given the current trends this will rise to 50% by 2030, in west Asia to 90%. One-third of the world's fish stocks and one-quarter of the world's mammals are threatened with extinction. There are already over a billion urban slum dwellers. By 2010, nearly a billion more people will be added to the world’s urban population, and the increase will continue. The World Bank recently estimated that nearly one fifth of preventable diseases in the developing countries is caused by environmental factors, such as urban air pollution and unclean water.

UNDP is seeking to establish and encourage sustainable ecological, social and economic development in these countries, through public awareness campaigns, in the light of the fact that the role of society is indispensable to sustainable development.