Or, to paraphrase the great @HansRosling, did the UN go mad in adopting the #2030Agenda and the #SustainableDevelopmentGoals?
Next week marks the opening of the High-Level Political Forum, and New York City will be buzzing with all things #SDGs. As the UN Secretary-General address global progress and 48 countries get ready to formally present their “Voluntary National Reviews” of the SDGs, here is my - totally unofficial and not at all comprehensive – list of reasons for thinking we did not go mad and that we’re actually getting on the right SDG trajectory. (For each, I include one or more of my own favourite links on the topic or a particular story.)
- The UN is changing (for the better). After years of talk, on 31 May 2018, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution on UN Reform (71/243). UN Chief Antonio Guterres noted that the package “gives practical meaning to our collective promise to advance the SDGs… putting in place the mechanisms to make a real difference in the lives of people.” No one doubts that it’s a rocky road ahead, given the significant changes envisioned to the setup, leadership, accountability mechanisms and capacities of the whole UN development system. But the first steps have been taken.
- We’re seeing the emergence of real cross-sectoral (“integrated”) thinking. After the first surge of slapping SDG branding on the status quo, the development community has begun engaging seriously in the hard work of analyzing complex interactions across economic, social and environmental dimensions. @UNDP has been proud to champion “MAPS engagements,” which has brought together UN experts from over 20 agencies to support countries with SDG diagnostics and policies in over 30 countries in all regions. It’s time-consuming work and not always smooth sailing, but a definite advance in pulling good minds out of siloes in order to jointly tackle difficult problems. And the complexity of addressing synergies and tradeoffs has seeded work in methodologies and approaches to understand ways to accelerate towards the SDGs.
- We’re beginning to count what counts. With 17 Goals, 168 targets and 230 individual indicators, the SDGs demand a data revolution and a deep-dive into evidence-based policy-making. Painfully slowly, for sure, but there’s transformation afoot, with new, bigger, real-time kinds of data and newer suppliers of data and analytics. It’s worth taking a look at the World Bank SDG ATLAS , the Africa Regional Data Cube for satellite data and the SDG Tracker, to mention a few. And there’s a welcome focus on greater disaggregation. For instance, a new initiative on ageing-related statistics and age-disaggregated data will finally go beyond lumping all people in a 60+ age group, to recognize that even older people are not all the same.
- We’re not resting on national averages. While mainstreaming the SDGs into national development plans and strategies is critical, SDG actors are seeing the opportunity to work with local actors and local communities to tackle their most pressing problems. All of the SDGs have targets directly related to the responsibilities of local and regional governments, particularly their role in delivering basic services. I’m especially excited about our new emerging area of work in SDGs and urbanization, as well as the “SDG hotspot” methodology that UNDP colleagues in Latin America and the Caribbean have developed to assess service provision tailored to the changing needs of households. This is exciting work!
- The SDG venture is making us bolder, savvier, and even less risk-averse. Innovation labs. Block-chain. Artificial Intelligence. Drones. Solar currency. Behavioural experimentation. Alternative finance. These – and more - have crept into our vocabulary and are changing the nature of development and humanitarian work, as we try to deliver results that are more cost-effective, timely, more effective in reaching identified target groups, more inclusive, and unlock new forms of financing. I love the initiative to turn plastic waste into roads in India. 21st century solutions for sustainable development problems.
- New private sector partners, with deeper pockets and broader expertise, are entering the SDG arena, alongside public actors. Think of the Lion’s Share Fund launched recently-- by UNDP, Finch, Mars Incorporated, BBDO and Nielsen -- to use a portion of advertising spend for a global movement to secure healthy wildlife populations. (The introduction by David Attenborough is my personal favourite!) Or the Insurance Development Forum – bringing together the World Bank, the UN, government, and insurance companies and brokers such as Willis, Munich Re, Swiss Re and BlackRock - to help define how to de-risk investments and attract institutional investors to help address climate change.
And that's just for appetizers. There's much more, ranging from leveraging new sources of financing to better linking of post-crisis and development investments. I find it a really interesting time to be working at the United Nations Development Programme, where our strategy has been infused with the ambition and challenge of the SDGs. Our “signature solutions” aim to: Keep people out of poverty; strengthen effective, inclusive and accountable governance and peaceful societies; enhance societies’ prevention and recovery capacities; promote nature-based solutions for our planet; close the energy gap; and strengthen gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
There's a *lot* that's not where it needs to be, of course. But still, glass half-full?
