SDG 1 – End poverty in all its forms everywhere

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With the bang of a gavel, our leaders approved a 15-year plan to curb one of the world’s biggest headaches: poverty. The Sustainable Development Goal 1, alongside 17 others, was set by the UN on September 25, 2015, and is contained in chapter 3 of Agenda 21 of the Sustainable Development Summit of 2015.

According to the UN, poverty is the inability to get opportunities and choices, a violation of basic human rights and dignity. It translates to the lack of capacity to participate in society effectively. It is the inability to provide health care to a family, the lack of enough food and clothe for the children, the lack of a job to earn a living or enough land to grow food, and the inability to access credit. It means powerlessness, insecurity and individual, household and community exclusion. It implies vulnerability to violence, and it often means living in fragile or marginal environments, short of clean water and sanitation.

SDG 1 Offers a Complex Challenge

Agenda 21 emphasises that poverty is one of the most complex and multidimensional problems, originating from both the national and international domains. There doesn’t exist a common solution for global application. Instead, country-specific approaches to curb poverty and coordination of national and international efforts, in addition to the parallel procedure of creating a conducive international environment, are vital for a way out of this problem.
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MDG Progress Report of Africa in 2015

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The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) era has seen significant transformation in the African development context. The prospects of Africa in 2015 are noticeably different from what they were in 2000: many African economies have grown at rates rivalling those of East Asia, averaging 6 percent in 2013 (with the exception of South Africa). If current growth trajectories continue, it will be possible for three out of every five African countries to become middle income by 2015.

The growth of Africa has been largely driven by natural resources, as well as its vibrant services sector, increased exports, rising private investment, and improved agricultural production. African leaders often depict the continent as a land of opportunity.
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Ban Ki-moon Urges ASEAN Nations to Support SDGs

Ban Ki-moon Urges ASEAN Nations to Support SDGs

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With the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda set to kick off in January 2016, United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has called upon the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to be more supportive of the agenda if the human right violation and climate change issues in Asia are to be eradicated.

Speaking at the seventh ASEAN-UN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the UN chief commended the heads of state in attendance for signing the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 earlier in the day, but insisted that focus should never be withdrawn from the global agenda even as smaller regional goals set in. “The Vision 2025 should be carried out in tandem with the SDGs. Action should be complementary to transform the lives of millions of people living in poverty. The United Nations expects each and every Member State to implement the SDGs through all possible domestic measures legislative, administrative or economic development plans,” said Ban.
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road safety to achieve SDGs

WHO Declaration – Road Safety Key to Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently released a declaration called Time for Results recommending focusing more on road safety as a key measure towards the realization of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

The declaration was developed during the Second Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety in Brasilia, Brazil and was based largely on the expertise of WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities on the connection between sustainable mobility and road safety.
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Fact sheet on current MDG progress of Rwanda (Africa)

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The Millennium Development Goals in Rwanda have been translated into the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategies (EDPRS I & II) that provide the framework for the budget allocation of vital sectors and activities observed to ensure that the MDG targets are met. The priority sectors are also reflected in the national framework – Vision 2020 – that specifies the country’s long-term development goals.

Currently, Rwanda is among the few African countries leading in the achievement of the MDGs. The Central/Eastern Africa nation has made remarkable progress on several MDGs, especially in gender equality women empowerment, universal primary education, child and maternal mortality, HIV prevalence, and environmental sustainability.

Many measures have been taken in efforts to bridge gender gaps through economic empowerment programmes for women, including women entrepreneurship program, women guarantee fund, and having rights to property and inheritance. The constitution has also been changed to guarantee 30 percent leadership positions in parliament for women. (more…)

MDG Progress Report of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2015

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The Latin America and the Caribbean region has made positive progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, albeit with differences among nations associated mostly with the progressive appropriation of the goals in each country, as well as adaptation to specific circumstances. However, there was a moment of stagnation and even reversal of some positive trends, during the economic crisis, making it harder to achieve the MDG targets.
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SDG sustanable development goals

The Sustainable Development Goals – A new framework to address development goals

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The Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015, and in their place, a new development structure will take over to scale the progress registered with the MDGs. This new development agenda is referred to as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Framework

The SDGs are the new, global set of 17 goals and 169 targets that UN member states will be expected to refer to when designing their national agendas and political policies for the next fifteen years – until 2030.

The sustainable development goals follow and expand on the MDGs, and have been structured based on a lengthy negotiation process led by the UN Statistical Commission and involving governments and development actors from across the globe to agree on the main priorities beyond 2015. (more…)

MDGs notable challenges

Outline of the Millennium Development Goals notable challenges

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At the start of the century, all 189 United Nations Member States unanimously agreed to forge a commitment via the Millennium Declaration to assist the poorest to achieve better living standards by the year 2015.

In most developing countries, the MDGs have formed a critical element of government policy-decisions for performance benchmarking. Although Africa as a whole has experienced remarkable change since the goals were set in 2000, sub-Saharan Africa is claimed to be the region that has witnessed the least MDG progress compared to other developing regions.

Although considerable achievements have been made on many of the MDG targets universally, progress has not been uniform across the developing regions and nations, leaving substantial gaps. Millions of people are lagging behind, especially the poor and disadvantaged due to their age, sex, ethnicity, disability, and geographic location. (more…)

Millennium Development Goals Infographic

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At the start of the new millennium, global leaders gathered at the United Nations to work on an expansive vision to fight poverty in its multiple dimensions. That vision was translated into eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have been a milestone in national and universal development priorities for the past 15 years.

As the end of the MDG period approaches, the global community has reason to celebrate. Thanks to resolute global, regional, national, and local efforts, the MDGs have not only saved the lives of millions, but also improved the conditions for many more.

Nearly all of the eight MDGs have been achieved before the final 2015 deadline, or were very near to hitting the targets, though progress has been uneven within and across regions and countries. As such, further efforts and an even stronger global partnership for development is necessary to accelerate progress in the post-2015 era.

Post-2015 sustainable development goals

The Global Goals build on the eight MDGs anti-poverty targets to ensure that no one is left behind. Here is a look at what has been achieved and what the Global Goals will strive to achieve: (more…)

SDG 9 – Build Resilient Infrastructure and Promote Sustainable Industrialisation

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Sustainable Development Goals were basically formulated to ensure acceleration in global economic growth. The economic status of a country or region has its physical reflection in the quality of infrastructure in that particular country/region. The better the infrastructure the better the economy, and vice versa. As set in Sustainable Development Goal 9, the UN’s plan is to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation in a bid to achieve substantial growth in incomes and productivity. The following targets, to be met by 2030, were set with regard to achievement of SDG 9:

  1. Build quality, resilient, reliable and sustainable national regional and trans-border infrastructure to support human well-being and economic development, with more focus on equitable and affordable access for all.
  2. Facilitate inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and substantially raise industry’s proportion of employment and GDP, in accordance with national circumstances, and double its share in low-income countries.
  3. Promote the access of small-scale entrepreneurs, particularly in developing countries, to affordable financial services, including credit, and their assimilation into value markets and chains.

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