By Ranga Pallawala
Janathakshan, Climate Action Network
South Asia (CANSA) and Sri Lankan Youth Climate Action Network (SLYCAN) in
partnership with Action/2015 organised a multi-stakeholder consultation on
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the September 23, 2015. There were
several ideas that were raised during this initial consultation that opened up
the requirement to have more constructive discussions at national and
sub-national levels to make SDGs the dream that will made a reality. The SDGs comprising 17 goals and over 120
targets were formally launched during the recently concluded UN General Assembly held in New
York, marking another turning point of the development of the human civilisation.
“Development” is defined in many ways
in different books and dictionaries. The general understanding is a concept
that describes a positive change of the current status. The concept of
development itself underwent several stages of evolution within human civilisation
and reached the current status of “sustainable development”. It was not a
complete metamorphosis but a gradual one that kept adding a new feature/s atop the
previous stages. There are definite overlaps and grey areas but there are five clearly
distinct stages that have been identified and it is worthwhile to look at this
whole evolution process in order to understand the SDGs and their modalities.
Stage 1:
Economic Growth and Income
Development is purely looked at as an
overall tool for positive economic growth. The development was measured using
indicators such as economic growth, per capita income, GDP, per capita GDP etc.
Stage 2:
Economic Equity
It was soon realised that economic
growth and related indicators do not provide a clear picture of development and
it moved to the second stage of economic equity. With equal income distribution
being the main ask and arguments on the gap between the rich and poor triggered
this new stage and the introduction of indicators such as Gini co-efficient,
percentile income distribution, etc.
Stage 3:
Quality of Life
The third stage of development came
with the realisation of “money is not everything” and saw the rise of arguments
calling for higher standards of living and access to services. Hundreds of new
development indicators including literacy rates, child mortality, life
expectancy, access to sanitation, quality of housing, came into the picture at
this stage. This stage created a higher level of agitation within the
development sector than previous stages. Indicators for this stage include ICT
literacy, number of people with access to internet and mobile use etc.
Stage 4:
Righteous Development
The rights aspect in development
brought another significant turning point in the evolution of development. This
included the accepting and ensuring of rights in different segments namely gender,
rights of indigenous communities, minorities’, people with disabilities and so
on. This stage of righteous development stage was vastly supported by long-standing
rights movements against different forms of discrimination across the world.
Stage 5:
Sustainable Development
The current stage of sustainable
development was triggered by the growing concerns of inter-generational equity
of development and the role of natural environment in ensuring sustainability
of development. The lack of ability to maintain at least a similar level of
development with economy and quality of life orientation was challenged. The
focus of rights expanded its boundaries from the current generation to future
generations. The strong link between the natural environment and socio-economic
development has been widely recognised with the dawn of this stage.
Sustainable Development is therefore
a composite of economic, social and environmental aspects and has extended beyond
the human civilisation through the addition of other components in the natural
environment. There are a number of piled up indicators probably thousands,
which we can use to measure the sustainable development. This will give us a
sense of ground realities we need to cover in order to achieve the SDGs and related
targets.
Irrespective of the level of
feasibility in achieving the SDGs, it is important to lay the development pathway
towards achieving them. Locally appropriate plans; finance mechanisms and a
joint approach by governments, private sector and civil society are crucial
here. On the other hand the SDGs must not overshadow the two other global agreements
that made 2015 a landmark year: the agreement reached in Sendai in May 2015 to
tackle challenges faced in Disaster Risk Reduction for the next 15 years and
the legally binding climate change global agreement that is aimed to be agreed
in Paris in December 2015. These should not be worked in isolation but linked
to and worked in co-operation with the SDGs. Proper co-ordination among these
three global agreements is imperative to achieve the targets. Another important
aspect is that SDGs are universal unlike its predecessor Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), which focused exclusively on developing countries. This means we
speak of two sides of the same coin; increasing the standards of the lower
stratum and decreasing the status/standards of the higher stratum. Which is
more challenging? I believe the latter.
Ranga
Pallawala is the CEO of Janathakshan, Sri Lanka. He is also an ex-board member
of Climate Action Network South Asia and a member of National Expert Committee
on Climate Change Adaptation in Sri Lanka. Follow him on twitter @Janathakshan
@Rangaslk
