Multilateral Institutions: Global Poverty Alleviation and Its Affects on the Environment Shaun Black.
Just in the past half century, the world has grown by leaps and bounds, not only in terms of population, which has more than doubled, but also in political systems. More population growth has taken place in Southern or less developed areas, places like Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Equivalent economic growth has occurred in places like North America and Europe. The world's economy has grown 600 percent and its trade by a factor of 1500. What's more is that the number of independent states acting globally has more than tripled (Soroos, 10.27). .
Because of this unbounded global growth, nation states have been forced to come together to work towards improving and sustaining the one earth. Sustainable development is socially responsible economic development. It is the idea that each nation will work not only to "promote a supportive and international economic growth and sustainable development in all countries," which includes growth in jobs, productivity, profits, and quality of life (Dernbach, 10.9, 10.14-10.15), but also a reduction in devaluing things such as waste, pollution, and poverty. This idea presents the world with the trial of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Dernbach, 10.9). To do this, there must be terms agreed upon which limit the exchange of natural capital for manmade capital. It is not only the process by which the world should ensure its existence for prosperity, but also the intended outcome of such a project. In accepting this responsibility, the world governments needed to organize their efforts, and they have tried to do so through their concessions to international institutions.
International institutions come in two varieties. Those that are governmentally regulated, called global intergovernmental organizations or IGOs, and those that are regulated by scientific and civil communities, called nongovernmental organizations or NGOs.