Understanding The Sustainable Development Goals Part I
Sequel to raising awareness about climate change and how we can work together to achieve a safe and healthy environment (you should check out my Instagram post if you haven’t seen it yet), I figured this is a good time to also raise awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propounded by the UN General Assembly in 2015.
There are 17 SDGs in total, and they lay a blueprint of how we can all create a sustainable future by 2030 for ourselves, or might I say our generations.
For now, in this first part of a three-part series, I’ll share the first 5 goals and what they seek to tackle or achieve.
SDG 1 — No Poverty
Well over 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty as of today. This means they struggle to enjoy basic human needs like water, access to health, and sanitization. The advent of COVID-19 further debilitates things.
Some goals for SDG 1 include:
- To eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030.
- To reduce the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty.
- To reduce exposure and vulnerability of the poor to climate-related extreme events.
SDG 2 — Zero Hunger
Over the past 2 decades, the number of undernourished people has dropped significantly, which is a good thing. However, and this is quite unfortunate, extreme hunger and malnutrition are the major constraints to development.
In 2017, it was recorded that over 821 million people are undernourished.
The major goal of this SDG is to eradicate all hunger by 2030 by making sure everyone, especially children, have sufficient food all year round.
SDG 3 — Good Health and Well-being
Of what use are sustainable development goals if there are no healthy people?
Before COVID-19 hit, significant progress was made in terms of improving the health of millions of people and fighting against life-threatening diseases faced by children.
There is still an increase in child deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa, with children 15 times more likely to die before the age of 5.
SDG 3 aims to reduce premature death from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and put an end to preventable deaths of infants of children under the age of 5; amongst others.
SDG 4 — Quality Education
As of April 2020, nearly 1.6 billion children and youth were out of school with over 360 million of them unable to feed because they depend on school meals to stay nourished.
These are consequences of the pandemic. Already, more than half the population of children and adolescents worldwide don’t meet math and English capability.
SDG 4 aims to make all boys and girls ready for primary education by granting them access to quality early childhood development by 2030. Another goal is to ensure all women and men have access to the required skills for employment and decent jobs.
SDG 5 seeks to create equality by empowering the female gender. The impact of empowered females in the growth of an economy can not be overemphasized.
More girls are going to schools, more women are entering into the workforce, however, there are still gaps that pose themselves as sexual violence, discriminatory laws, and so on.
Targets for SDG 5 include ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere, eliminating harmful child practices such as early marriage, and adoption of policies that upend the misconception of the woman being lesser than the man
The SDGs are a great way to bring to the fore the variety of challenges the human race faces and deliberate measures put in place to tackle them. What remains to be seen is how plausible and attainable these SDGs are, especially with the advent of COVID-19.
