Global System for Sustainable Development

Addressing emerging political and strategic challenges in the domain of sustainable development, the GSSD project is an Internet-based multilingual knowledge networking system designed for distributed interactive participation around the world. Current languages supported include Chinese, in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology, ACCA21 administrative office (GSSD-China) and Arabic, in collaboration with faculty members and researchers at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon (GSSD-Arabic). As a knowledge networking system (as distinct from ‘portal’ or ‘web-site) the GSSD intellectual framework and operational system seeks to capture the interconnections among various dimensions, features, or policy aspects of ‘sustainable development’ -- a concept and policy target characterized by considerable complexity and ambiguity. Within the MIT community, GSSD is integrated in, and partners with, the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) notably for the development of GSSD-Japan as well as Technology and Development Program, especially in the new MUST program core course on Sustainable Development: Theory, Economics & Policy. Among the past and currents sponsors of this Program are AT&T Foundation, Sony Environment Center, Lotus-IBM, Europe, MISTRA (Swedish foundation), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and other UN agencies.