What are the UN Sustainable Development Goals?
In this new normal of global instability, social isolation, and health anxiety, it can often be difficult to find uplifting news. But even in the face of economic suspension and a global pandemic, there is fantastic work going on all over the world to promote liberty, reduce poverty, and eliminate starvation. Within Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like the International Rescue Committee, Alight, or the Minnesota International NGO Network (MINN) there is a renewed focus on a series of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are designed to help make the world a better place for all. This week, we’ll take a step back from the doom and gloom of the Coronavirus to focus on the United Nations SDGs and how they can dramatically improve the lives of billions of people.
UN Summit on SDGs
First of all, what are the Sustainable Development Goals?
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
These seventeen goals were formally adopted by the United Nations in 2015 on a fifteen year timeline to completion by the year 2030. These are intended to solve or help resolve the greatest problems facing our world today and to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. These were adopted by the full General Assembly of the UN along with a total of 169 targets and indicators to help measure the progress and success of these goals. The entire SDG initiative originated with the Millennium Development Goals back in the year 2000. But the Millennium Development Goals had a heavy focus on simply transferring money and resources from wealthy nations to poorer nations. That process was often criticized as Western nations lecturing other nations about how to be better. Instead, the SDGs are intended to be centered towards addressing the fundamental root causes of global problems and instability. The focus this time is on governments, corporations, and NGOs to work directly with people on the ground to determine what they need in order to thrive and help accomplish these goals. This also coincides with a shift in international development theory away from dictating projects to developing nations and towards cooperation and communication with the people most directly impacted by international development projects. This is sometimes known as “decolonizing” development.
While the SDGs are primarily focused on improving the lives of people abroad, there are significant benefits that Americans at home can enjoy from these programs too. As we discussed in a previous post, America’s foreign aid and investment programs generate substantial benefits to American companies and workers based here in the United States. For example, local Minnesota companies like Land O’Lakes and the Cargill Foundation utilize grants from the federal foreign affairs budget to help solve problems of global hunger by getting food to the people who need it most. This helps create global supply chains for Minnesota companies that bring even more wealth to the state. These types of investments not only help achieve the goals of the SDGs, they also help sustain good paying jobs for Americans here at home.
The International Affairs budget is just about 1% of the total federal budget.
But of course, the rosy picture that these goals paint of a better world presents plenty of real-world problems. First, the seventeen goals are extremely broad and sometimes difficult to define. Even when they are distilled into 169 targets with multiple success indicators for each target, it is hard to image that any one of these (let alone all of them) could be realistically achieved within only fifteen short years. The fact that there are seventeen goals also makes it hard to focus on a few of the really critical things (such as poverty and food security) that could help solve multiple problems at once. Finally, these goals would be difficult to achieve even with the full cooperation of every nation on Earth. But as we all know only too well, international cooperation is extremely lacking these days. Some of these goals run counter to political, social, and cultural norms of other nations (think gender equality in Saudi Arabia or strong institutions of justice in Russia or China). The major focus of these goals on human rights, along with their implied separation of business and government, are basically incompatible with the operations of modern China. Though nearly every nation has signed on to these goals in theory, in actuality there is only limited progress that most of the world’s authoritarian countries will tolerate towards these ends.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still strive for these goals. And one of the greatest hopes for success may lie in the private sector. The success of the SDGs requires the robust cooperation of businesses and the private sector. A recent virtual event by the Corporate Volunteerism Council - Twin Cities highlighted the ways in which corporations and NGOs can help build the SDGs into their organizational missions. After decades of working solely to maximize shareholder profits, many companies are starting to change their attitude to prioritize their social and environmental responsibilities too. Recently, major investment firms have started forcing companies in which they invest to adopt clean energy and carbon neutral policies. The progress is certainly slow-going, but it is a much needed step in the right direction.
The Bottom Line
In short, in order for the SDGs to succeed, they require the active participation and support of governments, corporations, and individual people. We have to show everyone just how important it is to work together on these issues. This involves demonstrating the long-term benefits of sustainable development investments and the marketing benefits of working towards these goals. When companies see a monetary value in adopting these policies and working with NGOs, they are far more likely to invest in them. Like climate change and Coronavirus, we stand the best chance of success when we help each other achieve a common goal. That is the point of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.