4.8.2015 - At a press conference in New York yesterday, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised the success of Member States in approving what he called, “a bold, ambitious and transformative sustainable development agenda for the next 15 years.” Negotiating through the weekend, the 193 Member States reached consensus on seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), inclusive of 168 targets.
The SDGs represent three years of planning and debate which began at the Rio+20 Summit Conference in 2012. At the gathering, a process for reaching an agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was laid out, goals which are set to expire at the end of this year. The Secretary General said of the agreement that, “it greatly expands upon the success of the MDGs… in many ways, these global goals represent a “to-do” list for people and the planet. They are people-centered and planet-sensitive.”
The approved outcome document is entitled, ‘Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and can be found on the UN’s Sustainable Development website. A summary of the seventeen SGDs has can be found at www.globalgoals.org. These goals are:
Goal 1) End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2) End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3) Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8) Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9) Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10) Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11) Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13) Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14) Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15) Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16) Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17) Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
These SDGs will be formally adopted this September when the UN General Assembly meets from the 25th to the 27th and will then commence with the start of the New Year. From there, as the Secretary General concluded yesterday, ‘implementation and follow-up will be critical…We must continue until we reach our destination of a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world for all humanity.”
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