Why did the crisis occur? While triggered by the financial meltdown, what other factors converged to generate it with such virulence and global reach? What is the dynamic that takes us away from a sustainable organic growth? How to avoid the reproduction of another cycle of exit from the crisis, recovery, expansion, and return of another crisis? What are the solutions being adopted: how to evaluate their relevance and likely effectiveness, what they include, what they omit, who are being ignored by them? Emerging from the crisis towards sustainable development requires overcoming the profound imbalances that exist both between and within countries. Inequality bankrupts economic growth, creates a gap between supply and demand, deviates investment towards financial speculation exacerbates consumerism over responsible consumption, forces a turn to substitutes such as over-borrowing rather than taking genuine solutions, creates financial bubbles that explode with devastating effects, impacts politics and the media and tends to homogenize the strategic thinking. Nowadays, we need to build trajectories where the economic, social, political, environmental, psychological, ethical dimensions converge to give way to achieving sustainable development that combats inequality. A better direction and more effective systemic form of functioning do not precede a fair distribution of opportunities; they are born with it.
About the Author: Roberto Sansón Mizrahi is an economist and urban and regional planner. He worked in several American and European countries, where he led business and development organizations, such as the Esquel Group in Quito and Washington DC, the South North Development Initiative in New York, Sur Norte Inversión y Desarrollo in Buenos Aires, and RAFAD (Research and Applications for Alternative Financing for Development) in Geneva. In addition, he was a member of Global Partners, a global action team focused on development and the environment. He has a broad international experience in sustainable development, micro-finance, employment generation, and local economic development. He has given courses, workshops and work sessions in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He is the author of the book Un país para todos and of several publications on inclusive business developers, new ways of promoting local development and the global crisis. Today he lives and works as a consultant in the capital city of Argentina, where he serves as co-editor of Opinion Sur.