Creating a new world; changing the MDGs to SDGs
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” R. Buckminster Fuller.
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Can you imagine a country or world. Many world leaders, planners, philosophers and idealists have all envisioned a world where everyone will live happily, irrespective of their social status.
Politicians, for instance, even design manifestos tailored particularly to either reduce or eliminate some of these societal ills.
As part of global measures to find lasting solutions to some of these enemies of humanity such as poverty, pestilence and hunger, the United Nations (UN) established the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000.
The MDGs are the eight international development goals with 21 targets that were established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations (UN) in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
The MDGs, to a great extent, have produced the most successful anti-poverty movement in history. About two decades ago, nearly half of the developing world lived in extreme poverty.
However, the number of people now living in extreme poverty has declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.
They have made tremendous impacts in the areas of poverty reduction, access to improved sources of water, primary school enrolment and child mortality since its inception in September 2000.
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MDGs gives birth to SDGs
Considering the transformational successes of the MDGs, world leaders gathered on September 25 to 27 this year, at the United Nations in New York, to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The 2030 Agenda comprises 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, or Global Goals, which will guide policy and funding for the next 15 years, beginning with a historic pledge to end poverty everywhere permanently.
The SDGs replace the 15-year Millennium Development Goals.
The objective is to produce a set of universally applicable goals that will balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: environmental, social and economic.
World leaders have committed to the 17 SDGs to achieve three things in the next 15 years. They are to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and to fix climate change. Thus, the SDGs are expected to guide the UN’s development agenda up to 2030.
The 17 goals
Goal one of the SDGs aims to end poverty in all its forms by 2030 while goal two aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
Goal three is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all while the fourth goal of the SDGs aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls constitute the goal five while ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all form goal six.
To ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all is goal seven while promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all is embedded in the eighth goal.
Goal nine aims at building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation, while reducing inequality within and among countries constitutes goal 10.
Goal 11 aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable while goal 12 talks about ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns.
To take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts is the goal 13 while goal 14 seeks to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Goal 15 is to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss.
goal 16 seeks to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels while the final goal, goal 17, aims to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.
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Diversities of the MDGs-SDGs
It must be noted that the MDGs and the SDGs are on a different wavelength in terms of scope, objectives, financing and implementation.
While the SDGs have 17 goals and 169 targets, the MDGs had eight goals with 21 targets.
In addition, the SDGs are universal in nature and apply to all countries including the developed and developing. However, the MDGs were intended for actions in developing countries, particularly the poorest.
Ghana and SDGs
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Dr Owusu Boampong, an international development expert and a research fellow at the University of Cape Coast’s (UCC) Institute for Development Studies (IDS), said although the SDGs covered a wide range of ambitious goals, the country could prioritise some of the goals.
He argued that it was better for the country to focus on few of the goals and achieve maximum impact than to spread her thin resources and energies on all the goals and in the end achieve indifferent results.
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He said the country's leadership in consultation with the relevant stakeholders could pick and choose the SDGs that were of utmost importance to the country's development.
Dr Boampong suggested that Ghana could focus on education, health, agriculture, building of effective institutions, sanitation and industrialisation.
He said the SDGs were more overwhelming and too global compared with the MDGs which were few.
He also said unlike the MDGs, the SDGs emphasised qualitative outcomes which required extra effort and financial commitment to achieve them.
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He added that the country could not rely solely on foreign donors for financial assistance to implement the SDGs.
Dr Boampong, however, said the country could align its 40-year developmental plan with all the SDGs.
Industrialisation
He explained that for the country to achieve some of the key goals, it needed to transform the economy through massive industrialisation.
“History has shown that countries that have eradicated poverty have done so through industrialisation,” Dr Boampong said, noting: “Industrial growth will bring the needed resources to implement the other goals.”
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