Why SDGs Need Only To Be Utilized For Their Success, Not Achieved

        The much-anticipated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been adopted this September and will be applicable January 2016 to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  After extensive consultation processes with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), the general public and everyone else one could think of 17 crucial goals were set to move humanity and the environment towards sustainability and having basic needs met.  So what, right?  For most people in the world the announcement means very little even though the SDGs are about most people in the world and would mean everything to them if completed.  Those who are well off or well enough off brush it off as not necessary to their life, just lofty idealism, and for those that would benefit the most from these goals, many don't have access to decision-making influence to make them come true.  As I write this from Tanzania, interning at a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization, I can tell you that concerted efforts by governments towards these goals would make a substantial difference in the lives of the children this organization concerns itself with, even if those goals are not met.  The organization I’ve been privileged to intern at is called the Children’s Dignity Forum  (CDF), which is a leader on children’s rights in Tanzania on issues such as child marriage, Female Gential Mutilation (FGM), the voices, participation and rights of children with a program of male inclusion and support called MenEngage.

            The first proposed SDG reads as follows, “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”.  That is a tall order to start off with but moving hundreds of millions of people above (hopefully, substantially) $1.25/day could drastically improve the issues that CDF is working towards.  For example, one reason oft cited as a driver of child marriage is the receiving of a dowry for marrying off a girl child given from the groom’s family to the bride’s family in the form of livestock, money or other valuables as part of the marriage contract.  Some families marry off the girl children in order to gain a dowry to pay for their son's wife. Parents/survey respondents say that child marriage can lift the bride’s family out of abject poverty.  What CDF is trying to show through research and advocacy is that child marriage actually causes abject poverty on top of other expensive health complications. Child marriage leads to early, and difficult first pregnancies, the extraction of the girl from school because of pregnancy (which is the number one reason for girls dropping out), and then a cycle of poverty continues because the girl now has expenses but has few skills to run businesses, work for them or work in the government. Another issue from child marriage is child widows and child/young divorcees who have children of their own.

             The SDGs, though lofty, are a framework and a tool to guide governments and organizations toward the betterment of all-and even partial, meager successes can mean the world of difference to the beneficiaries. The SDGs may not be achieved, not because there isn’t a need, or even the ability, but because there is a lack of faith. If one is in a country and a class of people where most of these goals are taken care of (think water, electricity, nutritious food, etc.) it may be easy to disregard the ambitious goals but here is where I hope you’ll reconsider.  In my preparations as an intern I was to read the annual reports of the organization I will hopefully be able to contribute something to.  One of the meetings they had in 2008 was a round table discussion panel on how to complete the 2^nd Millenium Development Goal “achieving universal primary education”.  With that MDG as the centerpiece they broke down the obstacles for children in achieving that.  They sat down with local law enforcement, teachers, education officers, parents, activists and organization representatives.  These are how MDGs and now their replacement SDGs are changing people’s lives and giving a central goal around development where publics can emerge to help. The SDGs gain their power and relevancy by populations knowing about them, talking about them and holding governments and influential people accountable to them.  Success doesn’t necessarily mean that goals are achieved; success is guiding development efforts efficiently helping at least one more person than would be helped without the goals. It would be a mistake to call not reaching a goal a failure, when because of them and people’s commitment to them, literally, millions have benefitted. 

        Let us be better to each other by supporting and making these goals more relevant to our governance, to bring solutions to the problems that vex us all, wealthy or not.