9.1 Improving information
9.2 Education and training needs
9.3 International cooperation
9.4 Future directions for research on SARD
While there is growing recognition of the importance of SARD and of the significance of the various threats to sustainability, there is still a lack of sound information on these matters. An important priority for the implementation of the procedures set out in this document is to improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of information about SARD, globally, nationally, and locally (Dixon, Hall, Hardaker and Vyas 1994). Information systems such as national income accounts and environmental databases need to be upgraded. There is also a need to produce summaries of the relevant data in timely fashion and in readily understood formats. In these days of computerized data storage and management, and of geographical information systems that include the capacity to generate informative maps and overlays relatively quickly, the scope to answer important questions about SARD is improving. This technology needs to be brought into use in more countries more quickly before impending sustainability problems become serious.
The importance of human capital formation for the attainment of SARD has been emphasized at several points in these guidelines. To a large extent, that means there is a need to step up relevant programs of education and training (Boddington 1996).
SARD is everyone's concern, so, in principle, everyone needs to be educated about it and trained to do their part in improving the situation. In reality, some priorities need to be set for the provision of relevant education and training. High priority target groups include general and rural policy makers and analysts; agricultural research and extension personnel; and rural opinion leaders.
In the longer term, the reality needs to be recognized that it is rural people themselves who are responsible for most rural resource management. Therefore, they are the ones, above all, whose skills need to be improved. That may be approached in a variety of ways - gradually, though the education of children in the schools, through adult education and training programs, and indirectly, through rural elites, such as community leaders and government officials.
In the last analysis, sustainability is a global issue. Therefore, international cooperation is vital. Trade reform should encourage the more sustainable use of resources by leading to the location of production according to the principle of comparative advantage. Foreign aid and improved international financing can give governments and individuals access to the funds needed for investment in the future of agriculture and rural industries. International cooperation is needed in important areas such as the management of oceanic fish stocks, the limitation on greenhouse gas emissions, or to control the international spread of pests and diseases. International agencies such as FAO can contribute to the increased awareness of governments about both their domestic and international obligations in the pursuit of SARD.
Before SARD, there was simply ARD, with its features of efficiency, equity, and poverty reduction. SARD, as the name suggests, grafts on the additional concept of sustainability. It is generally taken that efficiency, equity, and poverty reduction are important conditions of sustainability. However, there may exist very complex trade-offs between sustainability and the other criteria of ARD. Analysis of the nature of these tradeoffs from a policy making standpoint would make for an interesting future research agenda.
If these tradeoffs are significant, it would then be clear that there are gainers and losers from SARD compared to ARD. If many real world "policies" are not sustainable, it is not simply a result of policymakers lacking proper guidelines for producing sustainable policies, but that there is a political economy aspect to the implementation of SARD policies that needs to be considered. However, that little work has been done on to date on this aspect. Future work can start by mapping the conditions under which, for instance, feasible coalitions in support of SARD policies could be put into place, and identify as well which approaches to SARD have greater likelihood of meeting the political feasibility criterion. All of this is difficult to do, and largely left to be done.
