The Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), which is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was established in 1996 by Dr.Tewolde Gebre Berhan Egziabher and Sue Edwards, and obtained legal recognition towards the end of 2002. Its main purpose is to pursue sustainable development, primarily in Ethiopia, by empowering local communities and helping them build on their own sustainable development practices.

The work of ISD currently focuses on the following:

• Working with local farming communities, their development agents and local agricultural experts to build on the culture of sustainable production and conservation to improve the livelihoods of local communities through improving local productivity and environmental health using ecologically sound technologies and practices.
  
• Working with representative school and agricultural college environment clubs, rural and urban youth groups and farmers throughout the country to raise and plant seedlings of indigenous trees, make compost, appreciate the local agrobiodiversity and the culture associated with it, and develop organic vegetable gardens.
  
• Developing a programme for enhancing the links between cultural diversity and biodiversity through assisting teachers and students to understand the value of local, indigenous biological diversity in sustaining cultural traditions and local lifestyles and endogenous production systems.
  
• Supporting the training of local experts for the construction and maintenance of biogas digesters to recycle waste, produce organic fertilizer, produce gas, and purify dirty water so that it is safe to use for growing crops.
  
• Promoting the adoption of the African Model Law on Safety in Biotechnology, and the African Model Law for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources.
  
• Producing publications and sending out information.