Weekly Blog - 16 February 2024 - Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Last year marked the midway point in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals and 169 targets, that were agreed by the UN in 2015 for ending extreme poverty and creating a more sustainable environment by 2030. In 2024 the world really enters into the second half of this global endeavour, so in this week’s Arise weekly blog we take a look at the SDGs, what they are, what we as Christians should make of them, and what needs to be done to achieve them.
The 17 SDGs seek to secure successful international development through goals such as ending extreme poverty; ending all malnutrition; securing good education, health and wellbeing for all; ensuring all have access to safe clean water, sanitation, energy and decent jobs; building infrastructure; reducing inequality; working for gender equality, and building peaceful and inclusive societies. But they also hold these together with other goals that capture environmental sustainability such as ensuring our cities are sustainable; tackling climate change; protecting ecosystems, oceans and seas; halting biodiversity loss, and ensuring sustainable production and consumption. They then call for a global partnership of all the members of the international community to deliver them. This integration of traditional poverty reduction and international development goals with traditional goals for environmental sustainability recognises the deeply integrated nature of these combined challenges of ending poverty and protecting the natural world – hence these are not just ‘development’ but ‘Sustainable Development’ Goals.
What should Christians make of the SDGs?
As Christians we know that God loves all who endure poverty, has a special concern for them and wants to see all lifted out of extreme poverty. As he told his people when they entered the Holy Land, “If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you” (Lev 25: 35). We also know that God loves and deeply cares for the other part of his creation too, and that we too should care for creation, as Jesus says “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn, yet God feeds them … Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these”, for even though it is temporary, “that is how God clothes the grass of the field” (Luke 12: 24 – 28).
Indeed the SDGs map very well onto the indicators for a better world that Arise sets out in its major Arise Manifesto and 4 Shifts reports (Arise Manifesto, pg 10 – 20) (4 Shifts report, pg 4 – 10). Following the same Biblical principles set out above, the Arise Manifesto sets out what some of those targets and indicators would be for a world where extreme poverty and inequality has been eliminated and environmental sustainability secured. It tracks the number of people with sufficient food; safe water and sanitation; good housing; a good job/livelihood; good education; full healthcare, access to energy; access to the internet, and the levels of inequality within and between nations. Alongside this it also tracks environmental sustainability standards like reducing greenhouse gas emissions; ending biodiversity loss; levels of deforestation; the amount of land and marine territory that is protected from destructive human expansion; pollution levels; levels of waste, and population growth. Arise brings these targets together in our 4 Shifts Report, which looks at what is needed for a green and fair global economy that lifts all out of poverty, but does so whilst staying within safe environmental limits. As we can see, these targets and goals, derived from Biblical teaching, overlap and align extremely well with the Sustainable Development Goals, another indication of why all Christians should get behind the SDGs, and indeed, Arise’s vision and 4 Shifts Campaign.
So how on track are the SDGs?
The challenge is that the SDGs are currently massively off track on their target of ending extreme poverty by 2030. At current rates of progress, not a single one of the 17 SDG goals will be met. Steady progress was being made from 2015 – 2019, though certainly not on every goal in every country. However, in 2020 Covid had a huge impact, and the world’s least developed countries were knocked badly off track and have not recovered progress. Then in the years since 2020, the global cost of living crisis, increasing impacts from climate change, and growing conflicts have all knocked progress on the SDGs even further off track.
And this is not just a statistical exercise. Being off track means hundreds of millions more people around the world remain trapped in crippling extreme poverty. People like Adhel, a friend of Arise from South Sudan. Conflict in the nation forced her to relocate from her home village to a different region with her children. With no farm, no crops, no job and no income, in a nation which is already desperately poor, Adhel was forced to make brutal and impossible decisions. At one stage the food she had was so limited she had to make decisions about which of her children to feed, as she couldn’t save them all.
Or people like Admas Stefanos, a 45-year old mother of four living in Woreda 8, a community in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, whose story is told by Habitat for Humanity. More than 40,000 people live in the community, which has grown up in a ramshackle way, with houses built on any patch of available land, often in an unsafe way. Admas’ home is near a river, the roof leaks when it rains, and the river floods, weakening the foundations, and pooling on the floor. “Some houses are just not appropriate for humans”, says Tegene Gemuchu, a local community coordinator. Admas has lived in Woreda 8 for over 30 years without a toilet. She and her children walk to the local river and dig a hole because they have no toilet. “We would go to the river because the water can wash away our dirt. There were no toilets in the area”, she says.[1]
Or people like Rajesh Kumar Sharma in India, from an underprivileged family of 9 children in Uttar Pradesh with limited schooling. “The school was seven kilometres from my home,” Ramesh says. “It took me over an hour to cycle there. When I was in high school, I always missed chemistry, which was the first class. As a result, I didn’t get good marks in this subject, and couldn’t go on to study engineering, which was my dream.” Ramesh managed to get to university, but after a year he had to drop out because his family could no longer afford it. [2]
Or people like Nura, a friend of Arise from Bangladesh. She has seen six homes lost to rising sea levels as a result of climate change. She now lives in a very poor community on a thin strip of land trapped between commercial shrimp farms and a rising sea, protected by vulnerable flood defences.
So what is needed to get progress restarted on the SDGs?
Arise’s 4 Shifts Report and Campaign looks at what the Bible tells us, and all the lessons from history indicate, works best to reduce and end extreme poverty, and to create environmental sustainability. It finds that 4 essential shifts are needed. Two to guarantee a fair developmental social floor below which no one should be allowed to fall, and two to secure a safe environmental ceiling to prevent us overconsuming and destroying our natural environment. 1) Nations need to develop strong and fair national economies to create jobs and wealth. 2) They can then tax these to provide social spending and basic services like healthcare and education, to ensure all benefit, not just the richest in society. All nations that have developed successfully have followed this route. Indeed, it was the application of policies such as these that drove the steady progress on the SDGs from 2015 – 2019. We need to get back to that. But, to also guarantee the environmental ceiling, 3) Going forward all economies need to be powered by 100% clean renewable energy to avoid global climate change. 4) They also need to be circular economies that reuse precious natural resources rather than overconsume and dump them. These 4 Shifts are the best and only way that progress on the SDGs can get unlocked and drive forward again. 4 Shifts can rewire our economy and our world to be green and fair, so it still creates the jobs and wealth that lift people out of poverty, but does so without relying on fossil fuels and overconsumption which is wrecking our planet. Sign up to campaign with Arise to achieve the 4 Shifts and get the SDGs back on track.
Find out more
Find out more about why the world needs 4 Shifts to transition to a fair and green global economy in Arise’s 4 Shifts Report, and how this forms part of God’s bigger vision for our world in the Arise Manifesto.
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[1] Water and Sanitation Programmes in Ethiopia, Habitat for Humanity, https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/blog/2020/04/ethiopia-wash-programme-development/
[2] The school under a bridge in New Delhi, UNESCO, (28 Jun 2023), https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/school-under-bridge-new-delhi