Sustainable development

Sustainable development

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What is sustainable development?

• Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet.
• For sustainable development to be achieved, it is crucial to harmonize three core elements:
  • economic growth,
  • social inclusion and
  • environmental protection.
  • These elements are interconnected and all are crucial for the well-being of individuals and societies.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

• The 193 Member States of the United Nations officially adopted a new sustainable development agenda entitled, “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” at the Sustainable Development Summit held at UN Headquarters in New York in September 2015.
• This agenda contains 17 Goals and 169 targets.
• This universal, integrated and transformative agenda aims to spur actions that will end poverty and build a more sustainable world over the next 15 years.
• This agenda builds on the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were adopted in 2000 and guided development action for the last 15 years. The MDGs have proven that global goals can lift millions out of poverty.
• The new Goals are part of an ambitious, bold sustainable development agenda that will focus on the three interconnected elements of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.
• These are all the goals set by UNDP(United Nations Development Programme )

When will the SDGs start and end?

• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) start on 1 January 2016 and are expected to be achieved by 31 December 2030.

Are the SDGs legally binding?

• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not legally binding.
• Nevertheless, countries are expected to take ownership and establish a national framework for achieving the 17 Goals.
• Implementation and success will rely on countries’ own sustainable development policies, plans and programmes.

What are the elements underpinning the SDGs?

• People - to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.
• Planet - to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and future generations.
• Prosperity - to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives and that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.
• Peace - to foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies free from fear and violence. There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.
• Partnership - to mobilize the means required to implement this agenda through a revitalised global partnership for sustainable development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused in particular on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and with the participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people.

Why do we need SDGs?

• Some 795 million people around the world still go hungry and around 800 million people live in extreme poverty, with fragile and conflict-torn states experiencing the highest poverty rates.
• Between 2008 and 2012, 144 million people were displaced from their homes by natural disasters, a number predicted to rise as the planet warms, bringing more extreme weather and rising seas.
• Water scarcity affects 40% of the global population and is projected to increase.
• Some 946 million people still practice open defecation.
• Gender inequality persists in spite of more representation for women in parliaments and more girls going to school
• 57 million children still denied right to primary education.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.
15. sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, biodiversity loss
16. Promote, Just, peaceful and inclusive societies
17. Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

What is UNDP's Role in the SDGs?

• UNDP can support, and is already supporting, countries in three different ways, through the MAPS approach:
  • Mainstreaming,
  • Acceleration
  • Policy support.
• Providing support to governments to reflect the new global agenda in national development plans and policies.
• Supporting countries to accelerate progress on SDG targets.
• Making the UN’s policy expertise on sustainable development and governance available to governments at all stages of implementation.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network.
• SDGs are set by UNDP; UNDP helps in implementation, monitors the progress of SDG.
• UNDP operates in 170 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to global and national development challenges.
• UNDP focuses on helping countries build and share solutions in three main areas:
  • Sustainable development
  • Democratic governance and peacebuilding
  • Climate and disaster resilience

• Headquartered in New York City, the UNDP is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from member nations.
• The organization has country offices in 177 countries, where it works with local governments to meet development challenges and develop local capacity. Additionally, the UNDP works internationally to help countries achieve the SDGs.
• Reports published by UNDP:
  • Human Development Index
  • Gender Inequality Index
• In India NITI Aayog has been entrusted with the role to co-ordinate ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’.

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