Why the Sustainable Development Goals Matter
Razonamiento impecable y un soplo de razonable optimismo.
Mauricio López Dardaine
Siguiendo el progreso alcanzado bajo los Objetivo de Desarrollo del Milenio, que guió los esfuerzos globales de desarrollo durante los años 2000 a 2015, los gobiernos del mundo están actualmente negociando una serie de Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible para el período 2016-2030. Los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio se enfocaron en terminar con la pobreza extrema, el hambre y las enfermedades que pueden prevenirse, y constituyeron las más importantes metas de desarrollo en la historia de las Naciones Unidas. Los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible han de continuar con la lucha contra la pobreza extrema, pero van a agregar los desafíos de asegurar un desarrollo más justo y sustentabilidad ambiental, especialmente las metas claves de reducir los peligros del Cambio Climático inducido por el hombre.
Les Objectifs de Développement du Millénaire ont été mis au point dans le but de finir avec la pauvreté extrême, la faim et les maladies qui peuvent se prévenir et ont constitué les buts de développement les plus importants dans l'histoire des Nations Unies. Les Objectifs de Développement Durable vont continuer
la lutte contre la pauvreté extrême, mais ils vont ajouter le défi d'assurer un plus équitable développement environnemental durable, spécialement le but clef de réduire les dangers du Changement Climatique induit par l'homme.
Les Objectifs de Développement du Millénaire ont été mis au point dans le but de finir avec la pauvreté extrême, la faim et les maladies qui peuvent se prévenir et ont constitué les buts de développement les plus importants dans l'histoire des Nations Unies. Les Objectifs de Développement Durable vont continuer
la lutte contre la pauvreté extrême, mais ils vont ajouter le défi d'assurer un plus équitable développement environnemental durable, spécialement le but clef de réduire les dangers du Changement Climatique induit par l'homme.
Jeffrey D.
Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and
Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is also
Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium
Development Goals. His books include The End of Poverty,
ROME – Following
the progress made under the Millennium Development Goals,
which guided global development efforts in the years 2000-2015, the world’s
governments are currently negotiating a set of Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) for the period 2016-2030. The MDGs focused on ending extreme poverty,
hunger, and preventable disease, and were the most important global development
goals in the United Nations’ history. The SDGs will continue the fight against
extreme poverty, but will add the challenges of ensuring more equitable
development and environmental sustainability, especially the key goal of
curbing the dangers of human-induced climate change.
But will a new
set of goals help the world shift from a dangerous business-as-usual path to
one of true sustainable development? Can UN goals actually make a difference?
The evidence from the MDGs is powerful and encouraging. In September
2000, the UN General Assembly adopted the “Millennium Declaration,” which included the
MDGs. Those eight goals became the centerpiece of the development effort for
poor countries around the world. Did they really make a difference? The answer
seems to be yes.
There has been
marked progress on poverty reduction, disease control, and increased access to
schooling and infrastructure in the poorest countries of the world, especially
in Africa, as a result of the MDGs. Global goals helped to galvanize a global
effort.
How did they do
this? Why do goals matter? No one has ever put the case for goal-based success
better than John F. Kennedy did 50 years ago. In one of the greatest speeches
of the modern US presidency, delivered in June 1963, Kennedy said: “By defining
our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we
can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it and to move irresistibly
towards it.”
Setting goals is
important for many reasons. First, they are essential for social mobilization.
The world needs to be oriented in one direction to fight poverty or to help
achieve sustainable development, but it is very hard in our noisy, disparate,
divided, crowded, congested, distracted, and often overwhelmed world to mount a
consistent effort to achieve any of our common purposes. Adopting global goals
helps individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide to agree on the
direction – essentially, to focus on what really matters for our future.
A second
function of goals is to create peer pressure. With the adoption of the MDGs,
political leaders were publicly and privately questioned on the steps they were
taking to end extreme poverty.
A third way that
goals matter is to spur epistemic communities – networks of expertise,
knowledge, and practice – into action around sustainable-development
challenges. When bold goals are set, those communities of knowledge and
practice come together to recommend practical pathways to achieve results.
Finally, goals
mobilize stakeholder networks. Community leaders, politicians, government
ministries, the scientific community, leading nongovernmental organizations,
religious groups, international organizations, donor organizations, and
foundations are all motivated to come together for a common purpose. That kind
of multi-stakeholder process is essential for tackling the complex challenges
of sustainable development and the fight against poverty, hunger, and disease.
Kennedy himself demonstrated leadership through goal setting a
half-century ago in his quest for peace with the Soviet Union at the height of
the Cold War. In a series of speeches starting with his famous commencement
address at American University in Washington, DC, Kennedy built a campaign for
peace on a combination of vision and pragmatic action, focusing on a treaty to
end nuclear tests.
Just seven weeks
after the peace speech, the Americans and Soviets signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, a landmark agreement to
slow the Cold War arms race that would have been unthinkable only months
earlier. Though the LTBT certainly did not end the Cold War, it provided proof
that negotiation and agreement were possible, and laid the groundwork for
future pacts.
But there is
nothing inevitable about achieving large-scale results after stating a goal or
goals. Stating goals is merely the first step in implementing a plan of action.
Good policy design, adequate financing, and new institutions to oversee
execution must follow goal setting. And, as outcomes occur, they must be
measured, and strategies must be rethought and adapted in a continuing loop of
policy feedback, all under the pressures and motivations of clear goals and
timelines.
Just as the
world has made tremendous progress with the MDGs, we can find our way to
achieving the SDGs. Despite the cynicism, confusion, and obstructionist
politics surrounding efforts to fight poverty, inequality, and environmental
degradation, a breakthrough is possible. The world’s major powers may appear
unresponsive, but that can change. Ideas count. They can affect public policy
far more profoundly and rapidly than detractors can imagine.
In his final
address to the UN in September 1963, Kennedy described contemporary peacemaking
by quoting Archimedes, who, “in explaining the principles of the lever, was
said to have declared to his friends: ‘Give me a place where I can stand – and
I shall move the world.’” Fifty years on, it is our generation’s turn to move
the world towards sustainable development.
