The Benefits Of Sustainable Development Goals

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The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched the Zero Hunger Challenge in 2012 which has been absorbed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs which aim at transforming the world through sustainable development are a set of 17 "Global Goals". These include ending poverty and hunger (SDGs 1 and 2), improving health, nutrition and education (SDGs 3 and 4), making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests (SDGs 11, 13 and 14). The focus of the fifth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is gender equality. Since women comprise of approximately half the global population, it is important that they are integrated in all the SDGs especially the first …show more content…

These are referred to as intergenerational benefits (Ramakrishnan et al, 1999, Hoddinott et al., 2011). Poor nutrition starts in utero and extends, particularly for girls and women, till adult life (United Nations ACC/SCN, 2000). Inadequate food, health and care and a lack of proper sanitation and drinking water, leads to the growth of more malnourished adults (UNICEF, 1990). Undernutrition that occurs during childhood, adolescence, and pregnancy for women has an adverse impact on the birthweight of infants. When undernourished women are pregnant, they are unable to provide the right environment for the foetus in the first 270 days of the window of opportunity when children are completely dependent on their mothers to get essential energy, protein, fats, and micronutrients (Martorell, 1999).These infants might be born with a Low−birthweight (LBW) and also suffer from intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). If these infants survive, it is quite probable that they suffer from undernutrition (Figure 1). Low birthweight is associated with higher probability of the child being stunted or underweight especially in the first 1000 days. Such children are more likely to face cognitive impairments, short stature, lower resistance to infections, and a higher risk of disease and death throughout their

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