World Economic Forum – The UN has a 17-step plan to save the world – Written by Simon Brandon, Freelance journalist.

 

This article is part of the Sustainable Development Impact Summit

If you have too many things you need to do, it’s best to write them down. Saving the world, it seems, follows the same principle.

In 2015, the UN announced a 17-point to-do list to transform the world for the better. Between them, these sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to end all poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change within the next 15 years, in order to fulfil the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The SDGs were agreed upon at a UN summit in September 2015 by a staggering 193 countries. Announcing them to the world, the UN declared: “We resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.”

The stated goals are pithy and unequivocal, and contain between them 169 targets to be met by 2030. So what are they?

That’s some to-do list. It’s not the first of its kind, however. In 2000, the UN announced a set of eight millennium development goals (MDGs). There is plenty of overlap between the two lists; the MDGs included pledges to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, to promote gender equality and to ensure environmental sustainability, for example.

But there are also big differences. The MDGs were aimed only at developing countries, while the SDGs are global. And despite their laudable intentions – not to mention some impressive progress – the MDGs came under fire from several quarters.

They were criticised for a lack of focus on social justice and inequality. The UN’s own assessment of progress towards the MDGs found that the needs of the most vulnerable – the poorest members of society, and those disadvantaged by gender, age, disability or ethnicity – were often overlooked. Another critique offered was that the goals had been drawn up without sufficient consultation of the very people they sought to help.

In crafting the SDGs, however, the UN took these criticisms on board. It launched what it called an “unprecedented outreach effort”, in which 5 million people from all over the world were consulted on their visions for the future. Nearly 10 million votes were cast in a survey of people’s priorities – the results are below:

The key to success, according to the UN, will be inclusivity: multi-stakeholder partnerships, as demanded by goal 17, that bring together local and regional governments, the private sector and civil society.

“Collaboration for the SDGs isn’t a nice to have, it’s an imperative. We need everyone: businesses and private investors must join with local stakeholders, governments, philanthropists, and experts,” says Terri Toyota, Head of Sustainable Development at the World Economic Forum. The Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit will take place in September, aiming to make these connections happen.

The SDGs are unquestionably – and necessarily – ambitious, and time is short. With more than 18 months since the goals came into effect, what sort of progress has the world been making? In July this year, the UN published the first annual SDG progress report. The verdict: patchy.

“Implementation has begun, but the clock is ticking,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement. “This report shows that the rate of progress in many areas is far slower than needed to meet the targets by 2030.”

It’s not all bad news, by any means. Remarkable progress has been achieved in some areas over the past two decades: the report points out that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide has fallen sharply from 1.7 billion in 1999 to 767 million in 2913, for example, while the numbers of deaths during pregnancy or childbirth fell by 37% between 2000 and 2015.

But overall, progress has been inconsistent. Goal 4, which calls for quality education for all, has so far enjoyed little success: the proportion of primary school age children out of education globally has remained around 9% since 2008. As for goal 17 – the call for partnerships to meet these targets – the report is blunt: “A stronger commitment to partnership and cooperation is needed to achieve the SDGs.”

There is still a long way to go to reach an ambitious destination. But nobody ever said saving the world would be easy.

 

World Economic Forum – This is how countries can make the world a better place. – Written by Mahmoud Mohieldin, Corporate Secretary World Bank, published in collaboration with Project Syndicate.

In September 2015, the leaders of 193 countries agreed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the most ambitious plan ever to promote human development – by 2030. Nearly two years into the process, there are plenty of reasons for concern: the amount of financing raised so far is unlikely to be sufficient, and not all countries have adequate data to measure progress on the ground. It is enough to test even the most diehard optimist.

But there is still plenty of reason for hope. I recently visited Colombia, which, at long last, is leaving behind its decades-long civil conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and setting itself up for SDG success.

In any country, achieving the SDGs will require government, business, aid agencies, multilateral banks, and civil society to work together, adopt flexible approaches, share knowledge, measure progress effectively, and recognize that the various targets are interconnected. Colombia seems to understand this, and is pursuing an integrated approach that leverages the strengths of each actor.

Start with government. According to Colombia’s finance minister, Mauricio Cárdenas Santamaría, the country is localizing the SDGs through the planning department, using the SDG framework to guide reforms relating to the implementation of the peace agreement with the FARC, OECD accession, the National Development Plan, and the Paris climate

Meanwhile, Cárdenas points out, Colombia’s policymakers are taking care to highlight the benefits of these efforts – in areas ranging from health care and education to employment – for the public. They recognize that a top-down approach will not work: to achieve the SDGs, all levels of the government, economy, and society must feel connected to the goals, understanding the concrete impact that achieving them will have.

To get business on board, the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, led by Monica de Greiff, is raising awareness of the SDGs among its 640,000 members and providing skills training in sectors like construction and health care. The aim is to achieve the SDGs’ targets while increasing the economy’s overall competitiveness.

The good news is that, as Bruce MacMaster of the Bogotá-based business advocacy and think tank ANDI noted, businesses have a strong incentive to consolidate the gains of the peace process, especially in remote areas that have traditionally been cut off from government services. And, indeed, in Medellín, once the illicit drug capital of the world, the leaders of small and large businesses with whom I met are already integrating the SDGs into their business plans and supply chains.

ANDI is working to support that effort, including by raising awareness among diverse industries, from mining to beverages, regarding their interest in keeping their water resources clean and abundant. The result will be more robust protection of watersheds – crucial to meet Goal 6, on water and sanitation, among others.

Of course, in a truly bottom-up process, strong engagement with local communities and civil society is vital. And Colombian youth are already deeply involved in promoting and implementing the SDGs. On my visit, youth leaders in Medellín’s Comuna 13 proudly showed off the progress in their low-income neighborhood.

In the 1990s, when Medellín had the world’s highest homicide rate, Comuna 13 was among the city’s most dangerous areas. Today, it is a vibrant area benefiting from strategic investments in public transportation (including cable cars and new metro stations), education (libraries and schools), and security. Similar strategic investments will be needed throughout the country to ensure that nobody is left behind; the empowerment of women and girls being one crucial objective.

Leadership by municipal and regional governments to facilitate such local-level progress is particularly important. All of the SDGs have targets directly related to the responsibilities of local and regional governments, particularly regarding their role in delivering basic services. But it is SDG 11 – which focuses on making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable – that is the lynchpin of the localization process.

That process has the support of the World Bank, the United Nations, and other international development partners, which are working to provide more effective and coordinated support to all levels of government. But success will demand that local governments urgently improve their own capacity in key areas, such as expenditure control, revenue expansion, responsible fund-raising, and creditworthiness.

In Colombia, the municipal development bank FINDETER is aiming to promote such learning, as it strengthens local governments’ public finances and their management and planning capacity. This will enable local governments to invest more effectively in infrastructure and service delivery, thereby advancing local development objectives. Enabling institutions like FINDETER will be critical to localizing the SDG-implementation process to leverage the efforts of local governments elsewhere.

Beyond capacity-building, local governments must engage in smart innovation. In Colombia, innovation has been essential to Medellín’s progress in reducing urban crime and violence, improving mobility, and mitigating social exclusion. The same is true of the city of Bucaramanga’s success in attracting private investment and forging public-private partnerships to improve its competitiveness.

Careful planning processes, including a strong national framework and effective monitoring, are needed to support such innovation and anticipate potential challenges and shocks. For example, in Colombia, obstacles may arise from continued drug trafficking, as well as from the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, which is causing thousands of desperately poor people to pour across Colombia’s border.

Colombia still has a long way to go before achieving the SDGs. But its localized and integrated approach has put it on the right path. Other countries would do well to follow suit.