LESSONS LEARNED - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 98

shaped research approaches in agricultural and environmental sciences for development,
then re-visit the objectives of the DLO-IC research programme between 1998 and
2005 (DLO 404) and, finally, provide a frame for assessing the programme's accom-
plishments and future challenges in the field of sustainable agriculture and rural
development.
Detailed summaries of selected DLO-IC projects and inventories of lessons for
each project are presented in Chapter 7 of this volume (De Jager et al. 2007).
UNCED Agenda 21 and Millennium Declaration 2000
The World Commission on Environment and Development, in its report 'Our
Common Future' (WCED 1987), challenged policymakers and society (including
the scientific community) by defining sustainable development as 'development that
meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs '. This report marked an important shift, i.e., from raising
awareness of global environmental problems to a focus on actions in support of the
integration of environmental, economic and social imperatives - as underlined,
subsequently, in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
in Rio (UNCED) and its Agenda 21 (UN 1992). The second Club of Rome report
'No limits to learning: Bridging the human gap' (Botkin et al. 1979) stressed the
existence of a gap between the task to deal with the growing complexity of the
sustainable development challenge and the ability of societies to learn about it,
respond to and cope with it (Leeuwis 2004; Van Paassen et al. 2007). Growing
concerns about the lack of progress following Rio 1992, triggered establishment of
the UN Millennium Project in 2000. In the project, eight goals (The Millenium
Development Goals (MDGs; see Box 1)) and 18 specific targets to combat world
poverty, hunger and environmental degradation, in support of sustainable development
were formulated (www.millenniumproject.org). The eight goals address the world's
main development challenges and have become an important guide for policy
formulation and donor communities.
The debates that followed the Earth Summit at Rio, had a clear impact on
(re)formulation of the objectives of the DLO-IC programme.
Objectives of the theme 'Rural Development and Sustainable Agriculture'
A major message from UNCED in Rio was the necessity to fully appreciate the
interlinkage of environment and development. This insight had a clear impact on the
first phase (1998-2001) of the DLO-IC programme which included a strong
component on natural resource management and multi-functional land use, in addition
to themes such as food security and policy research. The focus on natural resource
management and interactions between agriculture and environment became even
stronger and, factually, the overarching theme of the second phase (2002-2005). The
theme 'Rural Development and Sustainable Agriculture' aimed at integrating
research on natural resource management with research on poverty alleviation and
evaluation of supportive agro-technology and policy options. Moreover, ample attention