Sustainability seems an obvious and very obtainable goal. It may be obvious, but it is often not easily obtainable.

There are usually three dimensions of the sustainability issue that pose different challenges:

• Program management
• Technical support
• Financial support

The reasons that programs are not sustainable are multiple, complex, and inter-related:

• Programs may be initiated where there is not a felt need. When the initiator leaves, the program lapses.
• A program may depend upon a certain body of technical knowledge. When the person having this technical knowledge leaves, the program falls apart.
• A program may challenge a common or traditional way of doing things. Such programs may fail if the local people see little advantage in changing their traditional ways.
• A program may be viable only as long as there is external funding support. When this support is lost, the program disintegrates.
• A program may be designed to meet a temporary need or condition. When this condition changes, the program fails.
• A development program is commonly controlled and managed by an outsider. This outsider understands the logistical, technical, and management demands of the project. The project works as long as these demands are met. When the outsider leaves, the project often fails because the local persons left in charge of the project do not fully understand what it takes to make it work successfully.

Most donors, aware of these problems, now insist that any program they fund have built-in mechanisms for addressing the problem of sustainability. They want to ensure that those who initiate the program address the need to train and mentor local people, and to gradually hand over the program. The program or its effects then can continue after the initial phase of the program has been completed.

Few innovators and program personnel fully understand and appreciate the amount of work and effort needed to achieve sustainability. In most cases, years of careful attention to training and mentoring are required to achieve sustainability. Furthermore, funding has to be found to keep a program functioning in some form.

Successful programs that have achieved sustainability tend to be characterized by

• extensive time invested in training, and
• an intentional process of gradual turnover of project responsibility to a local person, committee, or organization.

In the case of literacy, it may not be necessary for a program to continue indefinitely.

In most contexts where organizations like SIL do literacy, however, these scenarios are unlikely. The sustainability issue will almost certainly be one that you will have to wrestle with in your program.