ANTHONY ABANOBI ABIODUN AJERO
Bereft of MAN - the essence of it all - the
United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are fundamentally flawed.
§ THE SDGs ARE FLAWED
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (U.N.) are 17 goals articulated by nations for the earth’s development. Products of on-going conversations, they are progressive efforts towards the reclamation, development, and sustenance of our dear world. This laudable and direly-needed initiative, charts a guiding path to the holistic development of our world.
Indeed, the SDGs underscore the UN’s raison d’etre as the world’s de facto government. It sets the agenda and champions engagement towards a world that will be not only more secure, but with better socio-economic and environmental outcomes.
In the U.N.’s words: “The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice. The 17 Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030.”[1]
By their short titles, the 17 SDGs are:
1. No Poverty: Eradicating extreme poverty and ensuring equal access to resources.
2. Zero Hunger: Achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture.
3. Good Health and Well-Being: Ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all.
4. Quality Education: Providing inclusive and equitable education opportunities.
5. Gender Equality: Promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls.
6. Clean Water and Sanitation: Ensuring access to clean water and sanitation.
7. Affordable and Clean Energy: Promoting renewable energy sources.
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth: Fostering sustainable economic development.
9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure: Building resilient infrastructure.
10. Reduced Inequality: Reducing disparities within and among countries.
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities: Creating inclusive, safe, and resilient cities.
12. Responsible Consumption and Production: Promoting sustainable practices.
13. Climate Action: Combating climate change and its impacts.
14. Life Below Water: Conserving marine ecosystems and biodiversity.
15. Life on Land: Protecting terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity.
16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions: Ensuring peaceful societies and effective governance
17. Partnerships for the Goals: Strengthening global cooperation for sustainable development.
USE THE SDG image
Very encompassing, these SDGs hold a clear view of the earth’s key constituents: Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Gender, Justice, Oceans, Partnerships, Poverty, Sanitation, Science and Technology, Transport, Water, Work, etc etc; and their roles in development. Evidently, much work preceded their articulation.
Unfortunately, the SDGs are bereft of the most essential component – Man. They speak to Man’s environment and world but not to Man himself. Development is meaningful only as it focuses on human beings. Without Man, development is nonexistent. In focusing on developing man’s earth but not Man, the SDGs are disemboweled and flawed. Fundamentally.
· The Atlantic Charter; The United Nations Charter
The Sustainable Development Goals’ roots stretch back to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and indeed further back to the United Nations Charter and its precursor Atlantic Charter.
Across various civilizations and empires - ancient, post-classical, and modern - our world has had too many natural and man-made crises. Hence, there have always been efforts at a coordinated and peaceful world. Immanuel Kant's 1795 Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, for instance, articulated the idea of a league of nations that would control conflict and promote peace between states.[2]
It was at the end of World War One (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), however, that a group of concerned leaders developed the League of Nations to avoid a recurrence. With the main objective being to solve international disputes, the League of Nations is acknowledged as the first worldwide organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.
World War Two (September 3, 1939 - September 2, 1945), the deadliest and largest world in human history, meant the League of Nations initiative had failed. That failure, however, presented the need for another approach to global peace.
In August (9 & 10) 1941, the United States of America’s (USA) President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United Kingdom’s (UK) Prime Minister Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill held secret meetings aboard the ship U.S.S. Augusta moored in Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland in northern Canada. There, they discussed the possibility of starting an international peace effort and produced the Atlantic Charter declaration.
The US Department of State archives states
The Charter they drafted included eight "common principles" that the United States and Great Britain would be committed to supporting in the postwar world. Both countries agreed not to seek territorial expansion; to seek the liberalization of international trade; to establish freedom of the seas, and international labor, economic, and welfare standards. Most importantly, both the United States and Great Britain were committed to supporting the restoration of self-governments for all countries that had been occupied during the war and allowing all peoples to choose their own form of government[3]
This Charter paved the way for the development of the U.N. Specifically, from April 25 to June 26, 1945, national delegates from the earth’s sovereign entities congregated in San Francisco, California, in the United States of America, for the United Nations’ Conference on International Organization. It was at this historic gathering that the U.N. Charter was debated, and articulated. At least two-thirds of the delegates approved before any item was included in the final version of the Charter. On June 26, 1945, 50 of the 51[4] original member countries unanimously adopted the final text.
However, it was not until October 24, 1945[5], that the U.N. came into formal existence via the ratification of the five permanent members - the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, and China. in January 1946, all 51 original members held the U.N.’s first session in London, U.K. The four main purposes contained in its 19-chapters are:
- Maintaining international peace and security;
- Developing friendly relations among nations;
- Achieving international cooperation in solving international problems; and
- Serve as a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
It was, and remains, the abiding hope of the representatives of our world that this Charter “would prevent another world war like the one they had just lived through;”[6] To achieve this unifying goal, the UN is structured along the following key bodies:
1. The General Assembly: All 193 members form this main policymaking body.
2. The Security Council: This 15-member council assesses threats to world peace and security; and tries to produce peaceful settlements.
3. The Economic and Social Council: Its 54 members are elected by the General Assembly for three-year terms. The Council builds policies on economic, social, and environmental issues.
4. The Trusteeship Council: Formerly supervised the 11 Trust Territories which have all gained self-government or independence. The seven-member Council meets occasionally.
5. The International Court of Justice: Settles legal disputes between/among States, and answers questions based on international law.
6. The Secretariat: Headed by the Secretary-General, and aided by the U.N. staffers, the Secretariat administers the U.N.
The United Nations is succeeding in its efforts towards international peace. Within the context of our nuclear-proliferated world, this is no mean feat. Moreover, the U.N has proactively charted a course for human development. Hence, the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. But before these were the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
The Millennium Development Goals
As mentioned above, the World Wars triggered concerns about Man’s self-destructive tendencies. The ease and extent of the large scale destruction, alongside the cost of physical and emotional reconstruction arising from the World Wars demanded serious collected attention. In short shrift to the earth, man added nuclear weapons, climate change, and deepening poverty etc, making discussions most urgent.
The U.N. rose up to this existential challenge with a number of initiatives such as:
· Stockholm, Sweden. June 5 – 16, 1972: The United Nations’ Conference on the Human Environment
· Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. June 3 – 14, 1992: The United Nations’ Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) – Also known as The Rio Conference or The Earth Summit, this was the major engagement which produced The Climate Change Convention
· New York, USA. September 6 – 8, 2000: The United Nations’ Millennium Summit. World leaders from 189 countries adopted The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was a U.N. initiative in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The eight Millennium Goals (MDGs) with a 2015 target are summarized below:
1. Reduce extreme poverty and hunger;
2. Ensure primary education for all;
3. Promote equality and empower women;
4. Reduce infant mortality;
5. Improve maternal health;
6. Fight diseases;
7. Ensure a sustainable human environment;
8. Establish a global partnership for development.
· Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. June 20 to 22, 2012 – The Rio + 20 Conference “Appraised progress and gaps in implementation of agreements reached at the landmark 1992 UN Conference on the Environment and Development, and beyond. The final outcome document, The Future We Want, recognized the importance of gender equality and women’s empowerment for sustainable development.”[7]
· New York, U.S.A. September 25 - 27, 2015 – The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (The 2030 Agenda). Two years earlier as the MDGs’ life cycle drew to closure, the U.N. agreed to merge the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Rio Earth Summit conventions into one agenda. This resulted in the adoption of the 2030 Agenda which comprises the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. Its hope: that countries around the world will have achieved these by 2030.
Of Centralising Man in His Development
It is a fundamental flaw that the SDGs have ensured multi-faceted attention to development for Man, but not of Man himself; in other words, they focus on development for Man but not on development of Man!
Think upon this: what brings development or retrogression? Who makes the decisions that make or mar the earth? What is the critical factor in development? Unarguably, Man. Who will bring the desired improvements in the areas of hunger, health, and education; build focus on gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy as well as decent work and economic growth; drive development in industry, inequality, sustainability, and responsible consumption; to take action on the climate, waters, land; and build peace and justice alongside the partnerships to drive them all. It is Man. The SDGs as currently enunciated is akin to excising man from the earth. To develop man’s earth, Man must develop or be developed. The challenge simply put: we are working on development for Man but ignoring Man’s development.
Is it possible to develop a man’s health without attention to the heart? Wash the limbs, trim the hairs, beautify the skin, etc etc, without due attention to the engine room, the heart? In simple terms, man without a pumping heart ceases. How do you develop the game of football - the footballers, pitch, referees, and even the fans - but pay scant attention to the football?[8] Why? It is the essence of the game.
Man’s greatest problem is Man himself. We pollute the waters, we indiscriminately fell the trees, we impoverish others by our conspicuous and squander mania, we start wars, and we build nuclear armaments. We make the decisions that develop or ‘undevelop’ earth. The development of Man is the crux of the matter.
§ Man Needs Global Values
The Sustainable Development Goals need to return Man to the centre of development for we are the essence and key determinants of earth’s development. To the extent to which Man is trained and encouraged to make the right decisions as a way of life, to that extent will our world be defended from negative attitudes and decisions. Consequently, we need Global Values to guide Man’s behaviour in relation to the world. Values drive action.
Rokeach, 1968, states “In their essence, values are ‘abstract ideas, positive or negative, not tied to any specific object or situation, representing a person’s belief about modes of conduct and ideal terminal modes.’[9]
On one hand, it is possible that this is a simple omission in the pressured race to pull Man from the brink of self- destruction arising from poor decisions and outright indecisions across the ages. It is not difficult to imagine how Man can be excised from conversations around his development. Prominent scholar Toffler notes that despite their decisive roles in human motivation…Values and discussions around them are “quick-silvery.”[10] Leaders from various climes, opposing religions and contrasting denominations may not find attractive discussions around Man, humanity, and values. Such conversations tend to run into emotions and passions due to personal contexts and beliefs.
On the other hand, virtually all religions seek to build positive values that ensure Man is in good terms with his neighbours, society, and world. In the final analysis, that Man is in the best terms possible with himself and his potentials. It can be argued that one of religion’s key attractions is Values education.[11]
Socrates is credited with the quote: “Humanity is not a religion, but rather a rank that some people reach.” With our history of slavery, pogroms, world wars, and other inhumane acts against our world, the right Values are clearly not natural to all, hence needs to be inculcated and celebrated. On this crucial challenge, our world seems to be playing the proverbial Ostrich hiding its head in the sand.
Let’s learn from the corporate world which has latched onto Values for quite a while now. The core beliefs which guide thought and actions with internal and external publics, and society at large, these corporate values are extensively discussed, carefully articulated, and consistently communicated. Indeed, they are so hewn into the corporate essence, that they are each organisation’s strongest commonalities. So vital are they that transgressions attract severe repercussions including disengagement. Little wonder that the world’s best corporate entities are driven by specific corporate values.
Moreover, various researchers show the most progressive nations hold distinct values sacrosanct. Indeed, some surveys identified commonalities in Values across nations.[12] Instructively, the United Nations itself is held together by four Core Values of Inclusion, Integrity, Humility, and Humanity. These values are threaded by five behaviours which include Connect and Collaborate; Analyse and Plan; Deliver Results with Positive Impact; Learn and Develop; as well as Adapt and Innovate. The logical question arising is “What are our values as a planet”?
§ Recommendations
The development of Man needs to be returned to the centre of global development. Obviously, improvements in these area improve Man’s quality of life. However, it is Man that makes the decisions making or marring our earth. Man is the problem. The more we develop Man’s thinking, Values, and decisions, ipso facto the more we develop all the facets of our world for we hold the key to development.
The following may be helpful:
1. We need to urgently place the Development of Man at the centre of the Development Agenda.
2. Utilising research, build discussions around the Values that hold us together.
3. The U.N.’s four Core Values can provide a starting compass for the conversations.
4. Begin immediately to speak to Values among the young and old.
The official SDGs document “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’s”[13] first sentence reads: “This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity.” We need to redress the misplacement of the development of People (Man) in the intervening six years before 2030 when the SDGs are up for review. In view of man’s proclivity for courting avoidable catastrophes, this may be a now-or-never challenge.
[1]
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/League of Nations
[3] https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/86559.htm
[4] The provisional government in Poland signed it two months later. It was not represented at the conference,
[5] October 24, the United Nations’ Day, became an official international holiday in 1971
[6] https://www.un.org/ en/about-us/history-of-the-un
[7] https://www.unwomen.org/ /how-we-work/intergovernmental-support/climate-change-and-the-environment/rio20-conference
[8] FIFA uses a different football at every World Cup in the modern era. The changes range from name to weight, to speed, to colours, name it. Indeed, to herald every World Cup, the football world looks forward to the new football as it can make victory or failure.
[9] Rokeach, 1968, ‘Beliefs, attitudes, and values: A theory of organization and change’
[10] Alah, Amed (Dr.), Toffler, 1969, A History of Research into Core Values, https://startwithvalues.com/ /a-history-of-research-into-core-values/
[11] Unfortunately, whereas as much as 85% of people align with a religion, many religious people do not practice good values; else we would not have the wars, crimes, and inhumane acts that today characterise our world.
[12] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/most-influential-values/#google_vignette. In a survey of over half a million earthlings in 152 countries, Valuegraphics identified 56 values. says “individual motivations and values are universally organized.” World Values Survey says the top 10 values being family, relationships, financial security, belonging, community, personal growth, loyaty, religion/spirituality, employment security, and personal responsibility.
[13] sustainabledevelopment.un.org