SDG Goals
The United Nations summit on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), that was held in New York (September 18-19), assessed progress towards achieving the SDGs.
The Agenda-2030, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, identified 17 SDGs with 169 specific targets to be achieved by 2030.
The programme is internationally non-binding, but all countries have committed to work towards these goals as transiting to sustainable development is a common global endeavour
History
Progress, according to available reports, is off track.
From 2015 to 2019, there were some improvements, although grossly insufficient to achieve the goals.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises have virtually halted progress.
Apart from slow progress, and little or no attention towards the goals related to the environment and biodiversity, it is a matter of great concern that the current practice of pursuing SDGs defies the integrated and indivisible nature of SDGs.
We are far from the overarching target of balancing human well-being and a healthy environment.
Urgent actions needed
Given this emerging scenario, the UN SDG Report, 2023 identified five key areas for urgent action:
1. Commitment of governments to seven years of accelerated, sustained and transformative actions to deliver on the promises of SDGs;
2. concrete, integrated and targeted government policies and actions to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and to end the war on nature with a focus on advancing the rights of women and girls and empowering the most vulnerable;
3. strengthening of national and subnational capacity, accountability, and public institutions to deliver accelerated progress;
4. recommitment of the international community to deliver and mobilise resources to assist developing nations, and continued strengthening of the UN development system.
Study
A team of 64 scholars analysed 3,000 studies, across the world to examine ‘Scientific evidence on the political impact of the sustainable development goals’ within national and global governance to address pressing challenges of poverty eradication, social justice and environmental protection.
The authors look at five dimensions:
global governance,
domestic political systems,
the integration and coherence of institutions and policies,
the inclusiveness of governance from local to global level,
the protection of ecological integrity.
They concluded that ‘the SDGs thus far have had mainly discursive effects but also have led to some isolated normative and institutional reforms
In this context, another UN report, ‘Future is Now’ (2019), perhaps provides some guidelines for action.
It emphasised that ‘The true transformative potential of the 2030 Agenda can be realised through a systemic approach that helps identify, manage trade-offs while maximising co-benefits.’
By co-benefit the stress is on the activities that, while addressing one SDG, will help address others at the same time
The report suggests adopting locally best suited entry points following regional and national priorities and applying four levers — governance, economy and finance, individual and collective action, and science and technology to propel our actions along the entry points
Actors from these levers must develop partnership and establish novel collaboration to design and rapidly implement integrated pathways to sustainable development corresponding to the specific needs and priorities of the country.
This will ultimately contribute to global transformation.
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