Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. The challenge of humanity
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The United Nations Organization (UN) has included in its 2030 agenda the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals ( Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs). A challenge for humanity, which nevertheless postulates commitments that still lack concrete signs.
UN Agenda 2030, the 17 SDGs
The General Assembly of the United Nations, with the resolution 25.9.15 no. 70/1, adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By effectively transferring the Millennium Goals (Millennium Development Goals, MDGs) miserably failed in the year 2000. (1) Which have been declined into 17 macro-Sustainable Development Goals ( Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs), with 169 specifications:
1) put an end to poverty,
2) stop the fame,
3) guarantee health and well-being,
4) ensure quality education,
5) ensure gender equality,
6) guarantee availability and management of drinking water and sanitation facilities
7) guarantee clean and reliable energy,
8) ensure fair working conditions and economic growth,
9) promote sustainable and equitable infrastructures, innovation, industrialization,
10) reduce the inequalities,
11) make cities and communities sustainable and resilient, (2)
12) guarantee sustainable food production and consumption,
13) counter the climate change (3)
14) protect aquatic life,
15) protect life on earth,
16) promote peace and justice, establish reliable and effective institutions,
17) strengthen international partnerships and cooperation.
SDGs, the governance that is missing
A model of 'governance through objectives', in theory, should inspire the path towards the Sustainable Development Goals. In other words, a plurality of actors - international and local institutions, the private sector and civil society, academia and scientific communities - should participate in the realization of the common good. Also through awareness raising and dissemination, with a mutualistic and solidarity approach. Not only in the most industrialized countries, but also in low- and middle-income ones (Low-Medium Income Countries).
From words to deeds. The actual achievement of objectives is hampered - to put it mildly - by the absence of target binding on the Member States. As well as the dependence on weak institutional structures, unable to implement long-term oriented policies. Furthermore, the obsolete logic of North-South aid must be overcome. And leave room for trilateral cooperation through South-South reciprocal relations. With contributions from technical know-how and relations matured by the countries of the North, which, however, must be freed from the neo-colonial legacies. (4)
Who does What, How and When
The failure of the MDGs seems destined to repeat itself with i Sustainable Development Goals. For one simple reason, the blatant disinterest of 'those who turn the wheels of the world'(cit. Murakami) towards the theme of inequalities. These continue to worsen, rather than shrink, as current data on income distribution, access to food, drinking water and health services demonstrate.
The declination of the 17 SDGs in 169 specific objectives it therefore remains an exercise in style, without defining the Who does What, How and When. It's a gap analysis of modern society, as articulated as it is vacant, to the extent that its execution is left to the broadest discretion of the member states of the United Nations.
The speranza she is always the last to die. However, she must be fed, together with those 1,3 billion people still afflicted by hunger and chronic malnutrition. (5)
Dario Dongo and Giulia Caddeo
Note
(1) The People's Republic of China was the only one of the 193 member states of the United Nations to have achieved the first of the Millennium Goals. The most populous country on the planet has in fact managed, within a few years, to eradicate extreme poverty
(2) The Sendai Framework Convention on the reduction of the risk of disasters denotes the unanimous awareness of the priorities to be addressed at a global level.
(3) In this direction we also point out theParis Agreement on Climate Change. Agreement still widely disregarded by its signatories, as noted
(4) Overcoming neo-colonialism means first of all promoting the ratification and concrete implementation of the two FAO Guidelines and the UN declaration which follows:
- Committee on World Food Security (CFS, FAO), 'The Voluntary Guidelines on the Tenure of Land Fisheries and Forests', 9.3.12,
- Committee on World Food Security (CFS, FAO), 'Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems', 15.10.14
- UN, 'United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas', 17.11.18.
See the articles https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/progresso/fao-la-cina-al-comando, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/progresso/diritti-dei-contadini-dichiarazione-onu
(5) FAO. (2019). 'Global Report on Food Crisis'. See https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/buona-pasqua-per-pochi-rapporti-fao-wfp-oms
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
