"Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development.   They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature...'' 
- Principle 1 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992.

The Rio Declaration of 1992 recognizes that healthy populations are central to human progress and sustainable development, and remains equally true today. However, the economic pillar has been prioritized at the expense of the social and environmental pillars of sustainable development over the last few decades, becoming itself a source of volatility and destabilization.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, now offers an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between health and sustainable development. The proposed SDE Seminar series towards Rio+20 aim at contributing to this important debate by bringing different themes of relevance to sustainable development and health to inform all areas of the Pan American Organization about the themes under discussion in the Rio Conference, but also to inform public health stakeholders and other decision makers in the health sector, to better take part in the debate.

The Health and Sustainable Development Toolkit was designed to strengthen the capacity of advocates, program managers, policy makers, donors, and others to plan, implement, evaluate, promote, and scale up Health and Sustainable Development programs and to advocate for changes to national policy and service delivery guidelines.

This Toolkit contains a strategic set of tools and resources selected for high quality information as an instrument of evidence to support the World Conference RIO + 20.

• Description of the toolkit (PDF)
• PAHO/WHO website for Rio+20