Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals (abbr. SDGs) were adopted in 2015 by all United Nations (UN) members for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The aim of the 17 global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet," tackling climate change, and working to preserve oceans and forests. The SDGs also include 169 measurable targets.
The SDGs highlight the connections between the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainable development. Sustainability (meeting the needs to the present without comprising the ability of future generations to meet theirs) is at the center of the SDGs, as the term sustainable implies, but achieving the goals has been challenging.
There are cross-cutting issues and synergies between the different goals; for example, for SDG 13 (climate action), the IPCC sees robust synergies with SDGs 3 (health), 7 (clean energy), 11 (cities and communities), 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 14 (oceans).
17 Goals
The short titles of the 17 SDGs are:
- No poverty
- Zero hunger
- Good health and well-being
- Quality education
- Gender equality
- Clean water and sanitation
- Affordable and clean energy
- Decent work and economic growth
- Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- Reduced inequalities
- Sustainable cities and communities
- Responsible consumption and production
- Climate action
- Life below water
- Life on land
- Peace, justice, and strong institutions
- Partnerships for the goals
Principles
The SDGs are universal, time-bound, and legally non-binding policy objectives agreed upon by governments. They come close to prescriptive international norms but are generally more specific, and they can be highly ambitious. The overarching UN program "2030 Agenda" presented the SDGs in 2015 as a "supremely ambitious and transformative vision" that should be accompanied by "bold and transformative steps" with "scale and ambition".[11]
The SDGs apply to all countries of the world, not just developing countries like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) did (from the year 2000 to 2015). They target all three dimensions of sustainability and sustainable development, namely the environmental, economic and social dimension. Another aspect that makes the SDGs different to the MDGs is that the development and negotiations of the SDGs were not "top down" by civil servants but were relatively open and transparent, aiming to include "bottom up" participation.
Development
In January 2013, the 30-member UN General Assembly Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals was established to identify specific goals for the SDGs. The OWG submitted their proposal of 8 SDGs and 169 targets to the 68th session of the General Assembly in September 2014. On 5 December 2014, the UN General Assembly accepted the Secretary General's Synthesis Report, which stated that the agenda for the post-2015 SDG process would be based on the OWG proposals.
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) created the SDGs as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. These goals were formally articulated and adopted in a UNGA resolution known as the 2030 Agenda. On 6 July 2017, the SDGs were made more actionable by a UNGA resolution that identifies specific targets for each goal and provides indicators to measure progress. Most targets are to be achieved by 2030, although some have no end date.
Adoption
On 25 September 2015, the 193 countries of the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Development Agenda titled "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."
Implementation
Implementation of the SDGs started worldwide in 2016. This process can also be called Localizing the SDGs. In 2019 António Guterres (secretary-general of the United Nations) issued a global call for a Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This decade will last from 2020 to 2030. The plan is that the secretary general of the UN will convene an annual platform for driving the Decade of Action.
There are two main types of actors for implementation of the SDGs: state and non-state actors. The former include national governments and sub-national authorities, whereas the latter are corporations and civil society
Financing
The top-5 sources of financing for development were estimated in 2018 to be: Real new sovereign debt OECD countries, military expenditures, official increase sovereign debt OECD countries, remittances from expats to developing countries, official development assistance (ODA). Private finance or market-making processes are another option for development finance, for example green bonds and SDG bonds.
The Rockefeller Foundation asserted in 2017 that "The key to financing and achieving the SDGs lies in mobilizing a greater share of the $200+ trillion in annual private capital investment flows toward development efforts, and philanthropy has a critical role to play in catalyzing this shift." Large-scale funders participating in a Rockefeller Foundation-hosted design thinking workshop concluded that "while there is a moral imperative to achieve the SDGs, failure is inevitable if there aren't drastic changes to how we go about financing large scale change."
A meta-analysis published in 2022 found that there was scant evidence that governments have substantially reallocated funding to implement the SDGs, either for national implementation or for international cooperation. The SDGs do not seem to have changed public budgets and financial allocation mechanisms in any important way, except for some local governance contexts.
Results and outcomes
Most or all of the goals and targets are unlikely to be achieved by 2030. Countries are falling particularly short in efforts to reduce inequality (SDG 10), with inequality actually widening according to many indicators (as of 2023).
Of particular concern - which cut across many of the SDGs – are rising inequalities, ongoing climate change and increasing biodiversity loss. In addition, there is a trade-off between the planetary boundaries of Earth and the aspirations for wealth and well-being. This has been described as follows: "the world's social and natural biophysical systems cannot support the aspirations for universal human well-being embedded in the SDGs."
Due to various economic and social issues, many countries are seeing a major decline in the progress made. In Asia for example, data shows a loss of progress on goals 2, 8,10,11, and 15. Recommended approaches to still achieve the SDGs are: "Set priorities, focus on harnessing the environmental dimension of the SDGs, understand how the SDGs work as an indivisible system, and look for synergies."
Criticism
Scholars have pointed out flaws in the design of the SDGs for the following aspects: "the number of goals, the structure of the goal framework (for example, the non-hierarchical structure), the coherence between the goals, the specificity or measurability of the targets, the language used in the text, and their reliance on neoliberal economic development-oriented sustainable development as their core orientation."
The SDGs may simply maintain the status quo and fall short of delivering an ambitious development agenda. The current status quo has been described as "separating human wellbeing and environmental sustainability, failing to change governance and to pay attention to trade-offs, root causes of poverty and environmental degradation, and social justice issues."
A commentary in The Economist in 2015 argued that 169 targets for the SDGs is too many, describing them as sprawling, misconceived and a mess compared to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Westarctica's involvement
Since January 2015, Westarctica has enjoyed non-consultative status as a member of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs - NGO Branch. In this capacity, representatives from Westarctica have participated in annual planning sessions with other NGOs to create and implement Sustainable Development Goals on a global scale.
On 9 July 2026, Grand Duke Travis attended a Global Policy Dialogue at the United Nations headquarters building. His Royal Highness represented Westarctica in a discussion concerning innovation of water and energy infrastructure as it relates to the SDGs.