The views expressed and the accuracy of the information on which they are based are the responsibility of the authors. Its activities focus mainly on peace and conflict resolution, development in a changing world, and science and technology in relation to human welfare. The University operates through a worldwide network of research and postgraduate training centres. The United Nations University Press, the publishing division of the UNU, publishes scholarly books and periodicals in the social sciences, humanities, and pure and applied natural sciences related to the University's research. Sustainability, capacity, and institutions John B. Mason Development depends on people.
Sustained development depends on people being productive and effective in the long run.
People need skills, motivation, resources, and much else besides, including a satisfactory institutional setup to work in. Such overall concepts relating to development in general apply with equal force to nutrition, and are now being elaborated in this context. For nutrition, the long-run objective is to reduce and finally eliminate malnutrition in children, mothers, and everyone else. Sustainability in this context means keeping effective programmes going, with flexibility in response to changing conditions, and starting and maintaining necessary programmes where nutrition is deteriorating or not improving as fast as it should. Since this essentially means people with the necessary skills, training is involved, but the issue goes much further.