Sustainable Goals: The Success Of The Sustainable Development Goals

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Sustainable Development Goals
The year 2000 marked the beginning of the Millennium Development Goals, a 15-year plan to combat poverty, child mortality and disease, as well as promote primary education, gender equality, maternal health, environmental sustainability, and global partnerships worldwide. (United Nations, 2015, pp. 4-7) In the year 2015, the United Nations Development Program created an additional seventeen goals with 169 accompanying targets, to build upon and continue the success of the Millennium Development Goals. These seventeen goals make up what is called the Sustainable Development Goals, which address economic, environmental, and social aspects of development and sustainability. (United Nations , 2015 , p. 5) UNDP Administrator, …show more content…

First, women worldwide still face discrimination day to day, due to a lack of access to employment opportunities, and a lack of power to make decisions in their own household all the way up to levels of government. Secondly, increasingly large gaps exist between rich and poor households and nations as well as between rural and urban areas. Thirdly, since 1990, Global carbon emissions have only become worse, rising over 50 percent. These changes in the environment are impacting some of the poorest nations of our world who live in vulnerable areas that experience frequent natural disasters and destruction of natural resources. Fourthly, as previously noted, there are still millions of people living with inadequate access to basic services. It is the most vulnerable populations who have experienced the least amount of change over the 15 years of the Millennium Development Goals. And finally, the report also notes that conflict continues to be the largest threat to development worldwide. (p. …show more content…

Broadening the scope also brought an increasingly comprehensive list of goals. There are over twice as many SDGs as MDGs, which represent the complex issues facing the world more fully. For example, the SDGs distinguish the difference of hunger and poverty, and created goals to address these issues separately. Environmental Sustainability, a goal made in the MDGs has been divided into four separate goal areas in the SDGS; responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, and life on land.
Looking Ahead
The SDGs are just as lofty, if not more so compared to the previous MDGs. It will be extremely difficult for the SDGs to be met. Today’s world is faced with so many global challenges, from climate change, health epidemics, and the detrimental repercussions of violence. Creating infrastructure for sustainable living is a very difficult.
The goals that have been set in place will be challenging to accomplish, and may not be able to be completed in the span of 15 years. However, setting such a lofty goal is of no harm.
The SDGs are concrete well throughout goals to promote human dignity, equality and equity. If these goals are closely followed, significant and sustainable progress toward the goal will be achieved even if total success is

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