General Operating Support for the Center for Sustainable Development

DESCRIPTION: The Center for Sustainable Development (CSD) mobilizes the scientific expertise of the Earth Institute to create tools and research that shape new solutions to the challenges of sustainable development, and to provide policy support – as requested by governments and development organizations – to address these challenges in the context of a global society. Our mission is to help countries and communities achieve sustainable development in all its dimensions – economic, social, and environmental – by translating the Sustainable Development Goals into meaningful policies and solutions. Our research projects, policy work, and convening initiatives span across SDGs including environment, education, gender, and health and well-being.

How We Work:
Weighing the individual needs of the countries in which we work, CSD creates the triple-bottom line impact that accounts for social, environmental and economic objectives. Our advising team includes specialists in economics, climate sensitive policy, systems design, health, education, and monitoring and evaluation. And we tap into the expertise of engineers, climate and seismology scientists, lawyers, social workers, and medical practitioners to identify integrated solutions to the complex challenges of sustainable development. We partner with governments and development agencies in primarily low- and middle-income countries to advise on national, regional and local public policy and implementation strategies.

Our Principles:
We believe that strong, solutions-oriented policy depends upon a robust public sector and civil society. CSD offers practical training workshops, toolkits for field-level work and a deep commitment to educating the next generation of development practitioners to ensure that those leading and implementing programs are equipped to manage and measure interdisciplinary efforts.
We believe that solutions to sustainable development challenges come from all sectors and disciplines and require coordination across academia, corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and individuals.
We focus on the spread of social and economic opportunities for all people, while both responding to and protecting the earth’s environment.
We believe that dealing with issues such as extreme poverty must involve tackling issues such as environmental degradation, and lack of access to health care and education.
We believe that with the right coordination and reprioritization, the world already has the tools it needs to effectively mitigate climate change, poverty and other critical issues.