Sustainable Development Goals

The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet"[1][2] – while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests.The global effort for the SDGs calls for prioritizing environmental sustainability, understanding the indivisible nature of the goals, and seeking synergies across sectors.Thirdly, the development and negotiations of the SDGs were not "town down" by civil servants but were relatively open and transparent, aiming to include "bottom up" participation.For the national context this means a focus on groups that are "suffering from exclusion and inequalities, namely children and the youth, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and migrants and refugees".Data needs to be “disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics”.In each case, parity indices are looked at to ensure that disadvantaged students do not miss out (data is collected on "female/male, rural/urban, bottom/top wealth quintile and others such as disability status, indigenous peoples"[31])."[46] Indicators in this goal include for example, the proportion of people who are employed in manufacturing activities, are living in areas covered by a mobile network, or who have access to the internet.[58] SDG 13 is to: "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy.[73][33] An inclusive society has "mechanisms to enable diversity and social justice, accommodate the special needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, and facilitate democratic participation".[77] Developing multi-stakeholder partnerships to facilitate knowledge exchange, expertise, technology, and financial resources is recognized as critical to overall success of the SDGs.[84] UN agencies which are part of the United Nations Development Group decided to support an independent campaign to communicate the new SDGs to a wider audience.[106] On 6 July 2017, the SDGs were made more actionable by a UNGA resolution that identifies specific targets for each goal and provides indicators to measure progress.In 2019 António Guterres (secretary-general of the United Nations) issued a global call for a Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030."[108]: 67 With regards to SDG 13 on climate action, the IPCC sees robust synergies particularly for the SDGs 3 (health), 7 (clean energy), 11 (cities and communities), 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 14 (oceans).[107][108]: 70 To meet SDG 13 and other SDGs, sustained long-term investment in green innovation is required to: decarbonize the physical capital stock – energy, industry, and transportation infrastructure – and ensure its resilience to a changing future climate; to preserve and enhance natural capital – forests, oceans, and wetlands; and to train people to work in a climate-neutral economy.The bank engaged with the SDGs selectively; efforts to integrate the goals into organizational practices remained limited; and their inclusion in country-level processes is primarily voluntary.[4] In general, the SDGs might be a low priority for international organizations that have many other assignments that are often more binding, have more urgent deliverables, and have more repercussions in case of inaction.[4] The breadth of the SDGs, covering nearly all areas of global governance, is at odds with international organizations that over time have become highly functionally differentiated and that operate through intra-organizational compromises.Working in silos may hamper the exchange of novel ideas and knowledge amongst international organizations that is required to deal with the complex and globally interconnected problems that the SDGs aim to address.[140] Another estimate from 2018 (by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics, that conducts the World Social Capital Monitor) found that to reach all of the SDGs this would require between US$2.5 and $5.0 trillion per year.[142] The Rockefeller Foundation asserted in 2017 that "The key to financing and achieving the SDGs lies in mobilizing a greater share of the $200+ trillion in annual private capital investment flows toward development efforts, and philanthropy has a critical role to play in catalyzing this shift.[152][121] Some studies, however, warn of selective implementation of SDGs and political risks linked to private investments in the context of continued shortage of public funding.This has been described as follows: "the world's social and natural biophysical systems cannot support the aspirations for universal human well-being embedded in the SDGs.[33] At the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July 2023, speakers remarked that the pandemic, and multiple worldwide crises such as climate change, threatened decades of progress on the SDGs.[162] In explanation of the findings, the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics said Biodiversity, Peace and Social Inclusion were "left behind" by quoting the official SDGs motto "Leaving no one behind.[168] The annual publication, co-produced by Bertelsmann Stiftung and SDSN, includes a ranking and dashboards that show key challenges for each country in terms of implementing the SDGs."[170] A commentary in The Economist in 2015 argued that 169 targets for the SDGs is too many, describing them as sprawling, misconceived and a mess compared to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).[169]: 145 Scientists have proposed several ways to address the weaknesses regarding environmental sustainability in the SDGs: There are concerns about the ethical orientation of the SDGs: they remain "underpinned by strong (Western) modernist notions of development: sovereignty of humans over their environment (anthropocentricism), individualism, competition, freedom (rights rather than duties), self-interest, belief in the market leading to collective welfare, private property (protected by legal systems), rewards based on merit, materialism, quantification of value, and instrumentalization of labor.[3] A meta-analysis review study in 2022 found that: "There is even emerging evidence that the SDGs might have even adverse effects, by providing a "smokescreen of hectic political activity" that blurs a reality of stagnation, dead ends and business-as-usual.[184]: 164 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has collected information to show how awareness about the SDGs among government officers, civil society and others has been created in many African countries.

SDG materials are being painted in the form of graffiti to raise public awareness by independent volunteers in Dhaka, Bangladesh in collaboration with UNDP, Bangladesh.

A proposal to visualize the 17 SDGs in a thematic pyramid

The sustainable development goals are a UN initiative.

Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN Resolution A/RES/70/1), containing the goals (October 2015)