Sustainable development

The Government of the Slovak Republic considers sustainable development (SD) to be one of the fundamental pillars of the knowledge-based society and will therefore support its balance in such a way that not only the economic growth but also social and environmental impacts will be taken into consideration. The initiative for Slovakia therefore is to reflect the principles of SD into everyday life, to judge all planned as well as realized activities through criteria of SD and to evaluate the approach to sustainability with a set of quantifiable indicators of SD.

The goal of HP SD is to ensure that the final effect of all interventions financed within the NSRF supports SD in all of its branches, i.e. the environmental, economic and social, in accordance with goals and indicators of the renewed Sustainable Development Strategy of the EU.

On political level, the person responsible for the coordination of implementation of Horizontal priority Sustainable development (HP SD) is the Deputy Prime Minister for knowledge-based society, European affairs, human rights and minorities. He fulfils this role through the Slovak Government Counsel for Sustainable Development as its director. On the working level, the coordinator of HP SD is the Department of priority coordination for knowledge-based society, section of European politicy and knowledge-based society at the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic. The Ministry of Economy guarantees the coordination of support for the energy sector in the area of energy efficiency.

The binding programme document for implementation coordination of HP SD for the coordinator and the governing bodies of individual operational programmes is “System of coordination and implementation of Horizontal priority Sustainable development for years 2007-2013”, in which the basic processes of coordination and implementation are defined. You can find this document on the website of the Office of the Government: http://www.government.gov.sk.