Unit 4, Listening 2, The UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

Professor:     We’re going to listen to a report in class today related to our recent readings on how the United Nations began its work in the year 2000 to help companies around the world become more socially responsible by initiating the UN Global Compact. Remember, that program started with 38 companies in 13 countries and later grew to include over 160 countries. I asked you to review the Global Compact’s 10 principles in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000, which broadly safeguarded human rights, labor standards, and the environment. Then in 2015, the UN expanded the program to help meet the world’s challenges and created the Sustainable Development Goals. The plan is to achieve global equality and sustainability by the year 2030. Listen to this report on these 17 new goals. Please take notes and write questions for a follow-up discussion.

Speaker:       What are the SDGs? In 2015, world leaders from 193 countries agreed the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs—the world’s new action plan for the next 15 years to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, fight inequality, tackle climate change, and achieve sustainable development for all. The SDGs followed the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, agreed in 2000 in a global coordinated attempt to tackle development issues. As a result, the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined by more than half, compared to 1990. More girls and boys go to primary school than ever before, and far more people have access to water and essential medicines. But progress of the MDGs has been mixed. Today, over 800 million people still live in extreme poverty. They are also most vulnerable to the increasing impacts from climate change and environmental degradation[1]. Years of hard-won progress fighting poverty could easily be wiped out by even small conflicts, economic crises, or natural disasters. Also, sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia consistently achieved less progress than other regions.

The MDGs measured success on national averages, often missing what happened with marginalized[2] groups like people with disabilities, indigenous groups, rural communities, and women. The international community recognized the new challenges, and that human prosperity must go hand in hand with protecting the planet. After a three-year participatory[3] process, world leaders finally adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

So what are these goals for?

They are: end poverty for all, freedom from hunger, health and well-being, quality of education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation[4], sustainable energy for all, decent work and economic development, innovation and resilient[5] infrastructure[6], reducing inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, sustainable consumption[7] and production, action on climate change, healthy oceans, sustainable ecosystems[8], peace and justice, global partnerships.                            

There are four underlying principles that come with the SDGs and that are transformational[9] in the way we work on development in the future. Firstly, the SDGs are universal. They apply to every country, rich and poor, north and south, developed and developing. They recognize that global challenges, like tackling climate change and changing models of development, require global solutions. Domestic policies that look at these issues in one country will have an impact on other parts of the world, so we need to coordinate. Secondly, they integrate all dimensions of sustainability—economic development, social progress, and environmental protection. For example, they tell us to grow enough food for all without destroying the soil or overusing water, to develop our economies without increasing inequality, or to produce enough electricity for all without pumping more CO₂ into the atmosphere.

Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature. The SDGs tell us we should leave no one behind. Governments have agreed no goal should be met unless it is met for everyone, including those in society most vulnerable and hardest to reach. So education must reach indigenous communities, jobs created for women and men, quality health care available for all rural communities, and water and sanitation facilities accessible for people living with disabilities. Tackling exclusion[10] is the key to tackling inequality. And finally, the SDGs require the participation of all. The process to agree to the SDGs took years and included national dialogues, consultations with civil society groups, the private sector, and academia, and ended with negotiations[11] between all governments at the UN.

There’s a strong sense of ownership of these goals. The result is ambitious, but it reflects what the world wants. Today, the implementation of the SDGs requires ongoing participation at a national and local level. All stakeholders[12] have a role towards their successful achievement.

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[1] environmental degradation: noun the process of damaging the environment

[2] marginalized: adjective separate and powerless

[3] participatory: adjective allowing everyone to give opinions and make decisions

[4] sanitation: noun a system to keep places clean

[5] resilient: adjective able to adapt easily to change

[6] infrastructure: noun basic systems and services

[7] consumption: noun the act of using food, energy, and materials

[8] ecosystem: noun all living things in one physical environment

[9] transformational: adjective related to complete change

[10] exclusion: noun the act of preventing someone from participating

[11] negotiations: noun formal discussions to reach an agreement

[12] stakeholder: noun an investor in a project