Capacity Building for Sustainable Development in Asia

Within the Asia-Pacific region, human resources development has been recognized as being critical to arresting environmental degradation, achieving more sustainable rates of natural resources consumption, and improving the quality of life. For a region so large and diverse, national and bilateral initiatives must be complemented by regional and international networking. This article describes current and emerging trends in HRD, with particular emphasis on sustainable development, environmental management, resource and environmental economics, and industry and environmental engineering. Two case studies are used to demonstrate how regional strengthening and cooperation activities can help address the constraints placed on sustainable development by a lack of people who are appropriately informed and skilled. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation has established four networks and taken other initiatives in HRD to provide quality education within the context of sustainable development, including environmental protection. But the recent Asian financial crisis has increased the tension in APEC between the longer-term concerns of HRD and the typically shorter-term perspectives of labor market management. The Network for Environmental Training at Tertiary Level in Asia and the Pacific (NETTLAP), implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme, works on the premise that enhancing the environmental knowledge and skills of educators and trainers in tertiary institutions has a large multiplier effect through benefits to graduates, government, the private sector, and the community at large.