Understanding and mapping important aspects of the sustainable development goals: your think tank.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are often called the people’s goals. The SDGs were born at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 with the objective of producing a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges facing our world.

The SDGs substitute the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which started a global effort in 2000 to tackle the indignity of poverty. The MDGs established measurable, universally-agreed objectives for tackling extreme poverty and hunger, preventing deadly diseases, and expanding primary education to all children, among other development priorities.

For 15 years, the MDGs drove progress in several important areas: reducing income poverty, providing much needed access to water and sanitation, driving down child mortality and drastically improving maternal health. They also kick-started a global movement for free primary education, inspiring countries to invest in their future generations. Most significantly, the MDGs made huge strides in combatting HIV/AIDS and other treatable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

Key MDG achievements

• More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty (since 1990)

• Child mortality dropped by more than half (since 1990)

• The number of out of school children has dropped by more than half (since 1990)

• HIV/AIDS infections fell by almost 40 percent (since 2000)

The legacy and achievements of the MDGs provide humanity with valuable lessons and experience to begin work on the new goals. However, for millions of people around the world the job remains unfinished. We need to go the last mile on ending hunger, achieving full gender equality, improving health services and getting every child into school beyond primary. The SDGs are also an urgent call to shift the world onto a more sustainable path.

The SDGs are a bold commitment and statement to finish what we started, and tackle some of the more pressing challenges facing the world today. All 17 Goals interconnect, meaning success in one affects success for others. Dealing with the threat of climate change impacts how we manage our fragile natural resources, achieving gender equality or better health helps eradicate poverty, and fostering peace and inclusive societies will reduce inequalities and help economies prosper. In short, this is the greatest chance we have to improve life for future generations.

The SDGs are unique in that they cover issues that affect us all. They reaffirm our international commitment to end poverty, permanently, everywhere. They are ambitious in making sure no one is left behind. More importantly, they involve us all to build a more sustainable, safer, more prosperous planet for all humanity.

Therefore, government and non-governmental institutions seeking to achieve the SDGs need to engage with citizens, listen to them and mobilize them into action.  Understanding what different constituencies know and think about the SDGs is a crucial starting point. This will help to underpin the relevancy of SDGs and avoid a repeat of under achievements that were made during the MDGs. 

However, not a lot of people know what SDGs are and how each and every person globally is responsible for the implementation and attainment of the SDGs. The global inability to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) was a political as well as a civilian issue. Citizens therefore need to be aware of who their leaders are in order to keep them accountable, lobby them, and go out and vote on the pertinent issues. 

It is imperative that people voices are heard so they can take a proactive stance on pertinent issues and develop a culture of volunteerism. Information to community members on government policy and their inclusion in development planning especially at the local level are all crucial steps towards rural developments. 

Poor capacity of community members to engage relevant government stakeholders on responsiveness, accountability and transparency is another major factor hampering development at the grassroots. 

Creating awareness on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) among community members and concerned government stakeholders will improve and sustain interactions between government and the people, thereby setting a platform towards achieving the SDGs by 2030 through increased demand for improved services delivery.

To this effect, I will dedicate the next seventeen (17) weeks of my time digesting the SDGs goal by goal. Each week we will be talking about one goal, including its drivers for success and the indicators. 

Keep a close eye on this page every week (Friday) as we digest global issues as well as manifest the World we want, Leaving Nobody Behind. 

Email: haumban@gmail.com