It is a program related to sustainable development which has been defined as “ a development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability to future generations to meet their own needs”. This concept was made popular in 1987, when the Bruntland Commission (the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development) issued a report known as “Our Common Future”.

Agenda 21 is a tool to help making real the idea of a worldwide sustainable development. To reconcile economics, ecology and social issues back together is one of the first step to sustainable development. In the long term, sustainable development will have to be an efficient economic development, and a socially acceptable environment-friendly development.

Agenda 21 is a guideline of concrete actions aimed at promoting a real sustainable policy at the scale of each country. It indentifies the every action to be taken in the short, medium or long term according to identity, culture, economics and social issues in each country.

Grand Alès is the first agglomeration communities of Languedoc-Roussillon which opted for an agenda 21, that is, the first to define a tool to secure a sustainable development on its territory.

Issued on March 21st , 2007, this Angenda 21 is made of three great guiding lines, 21 commitments and 66 actions to be taken in the field.

Agenda 21 must enable the community to meet its future demographics stakes and in the same time to maintain a unity, an identity and a sustainable quality of life. Its operational nature makes it easy for the citizens to change their habits and become real eco-citizens.

The agglomeration community of Grand Alès , as the initiator of its own Agenda 21, opens the door by the exemplary nature of its own organization. But the commitments of Agenda 21 also involve those who participate in the policy of sustainable development such as: the Nation Park of the Cevennes, the Chamber of Agriculture, the Chamber of Commerce , associations, schools, etc.

Eventually, the inhabitants have indeed an active part to play at the individual or family level, in changing their habits and their behaviors as customers.

World population

• 6 billion of human being now, and 10 billion in 2050.
• Each day in the world, 180 000 people more on average.
  Source: ONU, World Bank.

Natural Resources

• 20% of the world population are using 80% of the world natural resources.
  source: OECD.

Water Resources in the World

• 1.5 billion people have no access to drinking water. They will be 5 billion in 2025.
  source: UNEP

Energy Resources

• Oil reserves left for 40 years maximum.
  source: Statistical Review of the World Energy, 2004

Health

• 840 million people in the world are starving.
  source; FAO
  
  • Life expectancy…
  • In Francce: 81.
  • In Haïti: 52.
  • In Mali: 41.
    Source: WHO