The Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") have increasingly come onto my radar in recent weeks, whether in the news, magazines or at the 'Battle of Ideas'. I have become aware of different opinions about their effectiveness, which I intend to outline in this post with the aim to coming to my own conclusions.
The SDGs are a replacement for the Millennium Development Goals ("MDGs") of 2000-2015, which had a main thrust towards reducing poverty. One argument for the need for the SDGs is the (debatable) success of the MDGs. It has been said that the MDGs have led to the most successful anti-poverty movement in history, with extreme poverty, child mortality and the number of people without access to water more than halving. Many people argue that the MDGs demonstrate the value of the goals system, and that the SDGs must now complete the mission that the MDGs began.
Arguably, the new set of goals should have the potential to be even more effective since errors of the MDGs can be identified and amended. There is evidence of this having been done. Firstly, since the MDGs were felt by many not to incorporate the views of the developing countries or to reflect the development discussions at the time, the working group for the SDGs was comprised of 69 countries, 11 of which are from Africa. In addition, the 'My World' survey of 7 million people in remote villages to identify their needs was used in decision making. The involvement of developing nations in the construction of the goals should lead to reduced cynicism and pessimism in these countries. Also, the MDGs were criticised for a lack of focus on underlying issues, for example those exacerbating poverty, so the SDGs integrated factors such as inequality and infrastructure. This will hopefully mean that the alleviation of poverty is more sustainable, so the alleviated are at less risk of falling below the poverty line again. Linking to this sustainability aspect, an important issue addressed in the SDGs, but not the MDGs, is the environment. They make connections between the environment and development, which some would say puts to rest the misconception that 'sustainable development' is an antithesis. It is suggested that this can be done, for example, by encouraging TNCs to adopt sustainable practices and rationalising inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Professor Miles Wickstead said at the 'Battle of Ideas' that these goals may be our last chance for people and planet to work together.
However, some people feel that the transition from MDGs to SDGs has been one with negative consequences, and also that some of the major issues with the MDGs have not been addressed by the SDGs. One topic of note is the definition of extreme poverty as having an income of less than $1/day. Although this figure has now been adjusted to $1.90, it is still considered too low by many, with studies showing that an income closer to $5/day is needed to have a chance of a normal life expectancy and of basic needs being met. The use of this figure also exaggerates the progress made by the MDGs, with the reduction of people living on less than $2/day being only 15% since 1981, with 61% of people in the developing world still living on less than $4/day.
This issue highlights a problem with goal-orientated measures. With the focus of governments on lifting people above the extreme poverty income, once this has been achieved the people are effectively ignored, even if they are only one cent above the poverty line. Evidently, these people hovering above the poverty line are still impoverished so although the goal has been met on paper, in reality it has not. Another goal-related issue made worse by the SDGs is the fear that, with 169 goals in total, the concept of many priorities meaning no priorities will come into play. Of particular concern is the potential for the dilution of the focus on poverty. Also, with the SDGs being more specific they may become less effective, since local context is important.
With the MDGs, national governments were able to draw up national plans on how the goals would be implemented to solve the issues most acute in their respective countries in the ways they feel would be most effectual. This degree of tailoring may no longer be possible. Although for some goals this level of international control is beneficial, such as the eradication of global diseases and mitigation of climate change, other goals would be much more effective if more power was given to local governments.
Anthropologist Jason Hickel also argues that the Sustainable Development Goals are unlikely to be successful. In his article, 'The Problem with Saving the World', he writes that the goals are "profoundly contradictory, to the point of being self-defeating". This is firstly the case with the goals of sustainable growth. Whilst targets such as an end to the loss of biodiversity and the restriction of global warming to 2ºC exist, so do targets such as 7% annual GDP growth in least developed countries and higher levels of economic productivity globally. However, the current method of achieving economic growth is based on increased production and consumption due to the prevalence of capitalism, and our production and consumption levels at the moment exceed earth's capacity by 50% each year. Evidently, the capitalist structure of our economy needs to change in order to achieve sustainable growth; reducing food waste and making resource use more efficient will not suffice.
Linked to this point, the SDGs propose income growth of the bottom 40% of the population at a rate higher than the average as a solution to reducing inequality and poverty. But if this was achieved and the developing countries reached the GDP of the average high-income country, then 3.4 earths would be required to sustain the associated level of production and consumption. Therefore, although the SDGs are often praised for addressing the root causes of poverty (as seen in the third paragraph), this is essentially false. Largely, the reason for this neglect of capitalism within the goals is the significant role of corporations in the SDG process. For example, the corporate sector and the UN will be working together to increase funding for the achievement of the goals. Overall, Hickel argues that the SDGs are "dangerous" since they will cause the global focus for the next 15 years to be focussed on an agenda that does not solve our pertinent issues, but in fact exacerbates them.
You may be questioning at this point why, if the MDGs were so successful, the SDGs have so many negative feelings about their potential success. After all, improvements have been made and many of the issues associated with the SDGs were also existent in the MDGs. Well, the answer is that there is debate about whether the MDGs were actually the cause of the considerable progress made within the time of their implementation. It is commonly thought that much of the progress was a by-product of economic growth in China. An article in the Economist mentions that China is responsible for the achievement of three-quarters of the poverty reduction. However, China's growth is slowing and its experience is unlikely to be replicated in India and Africa due to poorer governance. Also, following Hickel's line of argument, it seems wrong to call this poverty reduction a success due to the unsustainability of the economic growth linked to capitalism.
Before reading Jason Hickel's article, my opinion was that we do need the Sustainable Development Goals because they cause governments worldwide to focus on issues that matter for the progression of our world in coming years. Even if the goals are not legally binding (which in some ways can be seen as beneficial since it can allow the degree of tailoring mentioned in the sixth paragraph leading to more effective policies on a local scale), they cause beneficial strategies to be translated into policies within countries largely as a means to gain or maintain respect between nations. For example, the SDGs now include inequality reduction which may counter the effect of the slowing economic growth of China, since economic growth has a much greater impact on poverty reduction in an equal society.
Hickel caused me to question this viewpoint since, from what he argues, it appears that in order for sustainable development to be achieved capitalism must go, and since the SDGs do not attempt to combat capitalism they will detrimentally limit any chance of governments focussing on this. However, perhaps the SDGs are, in fact, encouraging a move from capitalism. The rise of the Collaborative Commons threatens the reign of capitalism, and it is fueled mostly by the emerging technology platform, which makes up multiple goals of the SDGs, like many in section 9. This new system involves the reduction of marginal costs to almost zero, to trigger a sharing economy with universal access to and inclusion in the 'Internet of Things'. It reduces the drive for production and consumption that characterises capitalism and thus is transforming the dream of 'rags-to-riches' into the dream of a sustainable quality of life. Therefore, the goals may not be as contradictory as Hickel suggests, so I would argue that yes...we do need Sustainable Development Goals.
No comments:
Post a Comment