Explanation on 17 SDGs

Name Ziyad Anas Zahari Course UHAK 1013
Matrices B19EE0048 Section 03
Assignment Citation and Reference Writing
EXPLANATION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDG)
Sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a set of global goals proposed by the United Nations General Assembly to be achieved by every country as a mission to attain a greater and sustainable future by 2030 through improving the environmental, economic and societal aspects of a country. SDGs are the extension of MDGs with more goals and modification based on the achievement of MDG. The main differences between these two sets are MDGs were set for developed countries and focus on the social scope while SDGs focus on the social, environment and economic scope. The deciding members have come to an agreement that to make significant changes to the quality of life on earth, every country needs to be involved regardless of the economic status hence the implementation of SDGs to the world by UN. There are 17 goals listed in the global goals to be achieved along with 169 targets followed led by the goals. The targets were specific to reach each goals and indicators were set to ensure the progress of the achievement. Some of the targets were set to be reach before 2030 or no end date while most of the other targets were expected to be reached by 2030. Many aspects of these goals are being monitored ensure the steady ongoing progress of the goals ("THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development", 2021).
The first goal of SDGs is no poverty. The longer phrase for SDG 1 is “end poverty in all its form everywhere”. SDG 1 roots after MDG where poverty rates have been decreasing steadily since 1990 but the rate was slightly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 causing the ending poverty by 2030 to be off track (United Nations, 2020).
The second SDG is to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture". Food insecurity had increased from 22.4% to 25.9% between 2014 and 2019 and it is expected to be worse because of the pandemic since more than 71 million people are threatened by extreme poverty in 2020 (United Nations, 2020).
The third SDG is to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. The pandemic also has affected this SDG by reversing the improvement of health by decades. Childhood immunization programs are also affected during this pandemic. Furthermore, malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa are also expected to be increased by 100% (United Nations, 2020).
The fourth SDG is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Even before COVID-19, the progress of SDG 4 is considered too slow and it became worse when 90% of all students are out of school due to school closure. Meanwhile, education inequalities in low-income countries are still significant when there were 79% completion of school compared to 34% for 20% richest and 20% poorest households respectively (United Nations, 2020).
The fifth SDG is “to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. The gender equality is still not able to be reached but the progress was still improved. The pandemic worsens the conditions of gender equality since the risk violence against women and girls were increasing. Additionally, women are facing more burden of housework and care work during the pandemic. Furthermore, the total of female front-liners during the pandemic is 70% (United Nations, 2020).
The sixth SDG is to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. Before the pandemic, insufficiently managed water and sanitation were indicated for 2.2 billion people and 4.2 billion people respectively. During the pandemic, 3 billion people did not install basic handwashing equipment at home. By 2030, it is predicted that 700 million peoples’ lives are going to be threatened by the insufficient supply of water (United Nations, 2020).
The seventh SDG is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. Before covid-19, 789 million people were not equipped with electricity. After the pandemic, 1 in 4 health facilities of some developing countries were not electrified. 2.8 billion people lack access of cooking fuels and technologies in 2018. It is expected that by 2030, 2.3 billion people may still have no access to cooking fuels and technologies. The financial investment on renewable energy had reached to $21.4 billion in 2017 but only 12% of the finance flew to the least developing countries (United Nations, 2020).
The eight SDG is to “promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”. Global economic growth had been decreasing since 2010 until 2019 which was from 2.0% to 1.5% and expected to be declined by 4.2% in 2020. Job losses were also expected for 400 million people and 1.6 billion workers were expected to experience reduced income. Tourism sector was also heavily impacted by the pandemic (United Nations, 2020).
The ninth SDG is to “build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. Before covid-19, tariff and trade tensions inhibit the growth of manufacturing. After covid-19, aviation industry faced the most consequences since about half of passengers have decreased from January to May 2020. Small-scale industries need credit from the governments to support their firms and enable them to struggle and thrive through the pandemic. 34.7% of these firms in developing countries had received credits and loans while only 22.9% in sub-Saharan Africa received credits.
The tenth SDG is to “reduce inequality within and among countries”. Before covid-19, there was increasing gap of income from 2010 to 2017 in 38 of 84 countries but covid-19 affected the most vulnerable people which are older persons, people with disabilities, children, women and migrants and refugees (United Nations, 2020).
The eleventh SDG is to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. 24% of people in urban population live in the impoverished area. Half of the world’s urban population needs more public transport to reduce pollution and traffic and to increase productivity and inclusion. 154 countries had made urban plan to be better prepared on preventing future pandemic. About 4.2 million premature deaths were caused by air pollution (United Nations, 2020).
The twelfth SDG is to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”. Natural resources were used unsustainably which was shown by the increasing global material footprint from 73.2 billion metric tons in 2010 to 85.9 billion metric tons in 2017. The emergence of covid-19 gives time to develop recovery plans for reaching a sustainable future. Circular economy and more recycling should be approached to reduce environmental impact due to high usage of raw materials. Food security and nutrition should be improved by reducing food loss and waste by lowering food production and advancement of food system (United Nations, 2020).
The thirteenth SDG is to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. Before covid-19, the global community did not commit to reversing the climate crisis contribute to the expectation of increased global temperature by about 3.2% in 2100. The covid-19 contribute to the decrease in greenhouse gas emission by 6% but to limit the global warming by 1.5?, 7.6% annual reduction is needed (United Nations, 2020).
The fourteenth SDG is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, sea and marine resources for sustainable development”. Ocean acidity is expected to rise by 100-150% by 2100
which may affect the marine life and ecosystems. The protected area of the ocean had been increased 44.8 % in 2015 to 46% in 2019 and the percentage needs to be increased over time. Small-scale fishers should be supported as they played an important role in providing food especially during the pandemic (United Nations, 2020).
The fifteenth SDG is to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”. Wildlife trafficking affect both human and animals by endangering the wildlife species and transmitting diseases from animals to humans. The transmission of coronavirus also happened through bats to humans. Unsustainable agriculture, deforestation, unsustainable harvest and trade and invasive alien species led to over 31000 animals being threatened to extinction. 123 countries had targeted to reverse land degradation by early 2020 and 60 countries had endorsed the targets (United Nations, 2020).
The sixteenth SDG is to “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”. Children are vulnerable to violence which mostly were unreported. Human trafficking also involved more children for sexual exploitation and forced labor (United Nations, 2020).
The seventeenth SDG is to “strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development”. It was expected that the remittance to low and middle-income country falls by 19.7% in 2020. A decline of 13-32% is expected for global merchandise in 2020. Only 53.6% people had access to the internet in 2019. Implementation of statistical plan for monitoring the national development agendas were given to countries for technical and financial support (United Nations, 2020).
These seventeen goals are kept being monitored by the UN to reach sustainability for future generation and the covid-19 has mostly affected the targets negatively especially the economy and social aspects. The environmental aspects were mostly affected positively due to the halted human activities giving the global community more time to reflect and replan the next steps of conserving the earth (United Nations, 2020).
REFERENCES
1. Sdgs.un.org. 2021. THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development. [online] Available at: <https://sdgs.un.org/goals> [Accessed 24 April 2021].
2. United Nations, 2020. The Sustainable development Goals Report. [online] United Nations. Available at: <https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2020/> [Accessed 25 April 2021].