The Sustainable Development Goals

2015 marks the year that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire.  There has been considerable debate over what should replace them, but the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will come into force in September this year, have almost been finalized.

How important are the SDGs?  They are designed as a universal set of targets and goals that the 193 UN members will use to frame their agendas and policies until 2030.  So far, so important.  The reality is likely to be more complex; the MDGs – though theoretically applicable to all states – were considered in reality as targets for the poorest countries.  The role of the developed world was generally seen as limited to finance.  Efforts are being made to ensure that the SDGs are different, and that the targets are all seen as equally applicable to all states.  At the very least, we can be sure that the rhetoric and framework of the goals will pop up again and again over the coming decades, and it’s therefore worth both acquiring a good working knowledge of what they are and what they mean, and maintaining a critical perspective as to ways in which these goals can and cannot help us.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the sustainable development goals recently.  There are a number of reasons for this.  Firstly, they are absolutely at the center of the mission of CIRSD here in Belgrade. Vuk Jeremic, founder and president of the organization, was President of the 67^th session of the UN General Assembly.  During his time in office he played a key role in shaping the UN post-2015 sustainable development agenda, and this is something that he’s deeply passionate about; it’s no coincidence that CIRSD stands for Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development.  Vuk – and CIRSD – believe passionately in the need for the rallying call provided by a set of concrete targets, and also in the philosophy that it is entirely essential that development both works for everyone and takes a long-term view; helping one individual at the expense of another, or at the expense of the future, is no solution.

And this of course, is entirely right in theory.  The ‘practice of sustainability’ can be much harder.  I’ve been faced with this fact in a number of different ways over the years; it was a problem when working for the Central Bank of Sierra Leone (as trade-offs that are clear in theory become much more murky during resource-constrained policy making), it’s been a central theme of many of my courses at Harvard, and now I’m spending my days at CIRSD reading (and re-reading and re-reading!) pieces by politicians and practitioners who grapple with these issues every day.

But back to the new set of goals.  I’ve copied both the MDGs and SDGs in to the bottom of this article (for ease of reference), and I wanted to set down some thoughts based on what I’m doing and reading at the moment.

The first point that jumps out, clearly, is that there are many more SDGs than MDGs.  Each SDG is also more complex than each MDG as it contains a number of subsidiary targets; there are 169 specific targets across the 17 goals.  This is a response to a common criticism of the MDGs, which is that they were too narrow, and failed to consider the root causes of many issues.  There was also criticism both that human rights were neglected, and that the goals should address economic development more explicitly, rather than simply focusing on extreme poverty.  The resulting SDGs are clearly more exhaustive, but they are therefore also less succinct, and therefore perhaps less able to form a simple, coherent rallying call.  By broadening are focus are we, in fact, in danger of losing focus on the things that matter most?

There are some obvious shifts of focus in the SDGs compared to the MDGs, summed up nicely by this graphic from the Guardian Newspaper. 

This graphic first appeared in the Guardian article "Sustainable Development Goals:  Changing the World in 17 Steps", accessible here.

The most obvious winners?  The ‘Planet’ (hooray!) and ‘Prosperity’.  And the losers?  ‘People’ and ‘Dignity’ were clearly the focus of the MDGs, but have had their importance (at least numerically) significantly watered down in the SDGs.  Does this matter?  I think so.

To make this more concrete, let’s focus on gender issues, which are very close to my heart.  MDGs 3 and 5 clearly have a strong gender focus, as does SDGs 5.  Other SDGs clearly have a gender angle, not least in the insistence on ‘inclusion’ or ‘inclusiveness’ in no less than five.  But in moving from 8 simple goals to 17 more complex ones I cannot help but feel that gender is less center-stage than it used to be.  This is not, of course, to argue that any of the other goals are unimportant or unnecessary, but I think we should be very aware of the fact that the new, broader goals will make it easier for the focus to turn away from women’s rights.  And this is something that we should both be prepared for, and actively fight.

The other thing that struck me in reading through these goals is that one can almost see politics in action.  Again, I’m going to take gender as an example.  If we look at the specific gender-related targets (which I’ve put at the base of this post) there are a couple of sentence-ends that were clearly afterthoughts.  The most egregious, perhaps, are the ending to 5.4 (ie we should properly value domestic/unpaid work “as nationally appropriate”) and 5.7 (that we should give women equal economic rights “in accordance with national laws”).  Now I understand the need for politicians to be pragmatic – really I do – but this seems staggeringly unambitious.  So anything enshrined in law is sacrosanct? Should we not be aspiring to change state and judicial systems, rather than simply to act within their current parameters?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

1) Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

2) Achieve Universal Primary Education

3) Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

4) Reduce Child Mortality

5) Improve Maternal Health

6) Combat HIV/AIDs, Malaria and other diseases

7) Ensure Environmental Sustainability

8) Global Partnerships for Development

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

1) End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2) End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

3) Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages

4) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8) Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all

9) Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation

10) Reduce inequality within and among countries

11) Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13) Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

14) Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15) Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss

16) Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17) Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development

(And within the SDGs – not added here! – are a proposed 169 targets to make concrete the aims of each.)

Targets sitting underneath SDG5:

5.1 end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere

5.2 eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation

5.3 eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilations

5.4 recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate

5.5 ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life

5.6 ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of theICPD and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences

5.7 undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources in accordance with national laws

5.8 enhance the use of enabling technologies, in particular ICT, to promote women’s empowerment

5.9 adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels, adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels