What are the Sustainable Development Goals?
The Sustainable Development Goals are a series of measures to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure the global well-being of human beings
One of the major recent achievements in sustainability has been the adoption of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Do you know what they are and how they how they were born?
Human-kind faces many challenges to ensure that all people have the same development and well-being opportunities. In the year 2000, the United Nations adopted eight objectives to meet the main needs of the poorest, the Millennium Development Goals:
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
From the Millennium Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals
Fifteen years later, 193 countries adopted the 2030 Agenda, that sets out the Sustainable Development Goals, a new horizon with the most pressing challenges for human beings in the coming years.
These are seventeen ambitious goals, disaggregated into 169 targets, that require the collaboration of civil society and the public and private sectors, whose success means a more egalitarian and livable world.
What do the Sustainable Development Goals seek?
The Sustainable Development Objectives cover different apects of social development, environmental protection and economic growth, and these are the main ones:
- The eradication of poverty and hunger so as to ensure a healthy life.
- Achieve universal access to basic services such as water, sanitation and sustainable energy.
- Support the generation of development opportunities through inclusive education and decent work.
- Foster innovation and resilient infrastructures by creating communities and cities capable of producing and consuming in a sustainable way.
- Reduce inequalities in the world, especially gender inequalities.
- Caring for the environment by combating climate change and protecting oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.
- Promote collaboration between different social actors to create an environment of peace and sustainable development.
If we achieve these Sustainable Development Goals among people, governments and companies, we will make the world a more prosperous place for all.
Read more about sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals.
