The Decision-Maker Factor − Through the Lens of Sustainable Development Goals

The decision-maker is increasingly overwhelmed by the weight with which investments are attracted, by the accumulated debts and by the lack of specific models that ensure an overview and predictability. It is a major problem of the decision-maker and the applied research which, although they have addressed the issue of sustainable development through dedicated institutions, a vast legislative framework and many research studies, have not made concrete steps forward, at the same time as the quality of life has deteriorated. The state of geo-economic tension is growing among the great powers of the world and represents the most urgent problem of the present. The world is heading towards a great divergence, after a period of globalization that has profoundly modified global economic policy. The reconfiguration of relations of deeply integrated countries is full of risks, so that trade and investment relations between many of the world’s powers have become difficult. For these reasons, it is complicated, but not impossible, to make collective progress on many of the global challenges these days, especially since Industry 4.0 has made a brutal debut in human history, and unexpected events have diverted attention in another direction, under the impact of the recent health crisis, ongoing military conflicts and global political tensions. Moreover, investments are closely linked to the decision-making factor, which causes long-term projects to have no continuity, and the maintenance of current infrastructure to be affected after each electoral process. In this situation, the question arises in which direction is the concept of sustainable development heading, given the current international context? In such a context, it is hard to believe that the development process of countries could continue as before. However, to answer this question, the authors made an incursion into the history of the last hundred years in Romania, through its evolutionary perspective, in close connection with the decision-making factor. Also, because the current moments seem to replicate the previous crisis, the authors took into account the evolutionary analysis of foreign investments, at a global level, in order to conclude on the future evolutionary trend of these sustainable developments.