Daily Times

The SDGs cover and require actions for almost all serious global problems, people, around the world, and the planet are facing today. Starting with ”No Poverty” as the first, ”Zero Hunger” as the second and ”Good Health and Wellbeing” as the third goal, these goals also focus on quality education, gender equality, clean water, sanitation, decent work, economic growth, industry, reducing inequalities, sustainable cities, responsible consumption, climate change, life below water and on the land, peace, and justice and partnerships for goals. The list of goals is so ambitious. Yet, so is the severity of the problems both people and the planet are facing.

The overall good purpose of these SDGs is to create a poverty-free world where people have adequate food available, access to good health, clean drinking water, education, and other such basic needs. They enjoy a peaceful, dignified and discrimination-free life. They consume the natural resources in a way that this planet is not hurt much and the share of future generations on the resources of this planet also remains protected.

Our planet has enough to meet the needs of its people but too little to meet the greed. This is the era where countries of the world are badly struggling to maintain their integrity due to their internal and border crises;

where economies are crazy for power and heavily investing for inventing new forms of colonization and modern weapons;

where economies are totally eaten away by their corrupt and incompetent system and leaders;

and where non-stop country wars are ruining economies and pushing billions of people each year towards hunger, illness, displacement, and deaths.

Pakistan cannot achieve the goals by its 2030 deadline merely by announcing structures.

The goals like SDGs in such an era are not less than a luxury for most of the economies. The level of achievement or progress towards each goal will reflect the country’s priority. It will reflect the choices the country’s leadership makes.

The UN and other agencies have established global mechanisms/dashboards to measure the country-wise progress made each year towards each goal. Although not a hundred percent true, these dashboards and annual reports adequately highlight the progress made globally towards SDGs. They give a fair idea and reflection about the set priorities as well as investments and actions taken by the countries to achieve these goals.

More any country will invest and take action for each goal; the more good ranking it will achieve globally.

The UN publishes its Sustainable Development Report (SDR) every year to highlight the progress made by countries towards SDGs. The SDR 2019 highlights that goal one i.e. ‘end poverty in all its form everywhere’ is not on the right track. About 55 percent of the world’s population still has no access to ‘Social Protection’. For goal two ‘zero hunger, ’ it is alarming that hunger has globally increased from 784 million (2015) to 821 million (2017). While for goal three ‘good health and wellbeing,’ SDR reports that under-five deaths dropped from 9.8 million (2000) to 5.4 million (2017). Vaccinations showed improvement causing measles death to drop by 80 percent between the years 2000 and 2017. It also shows a decline in Tuberculosis incidence rate by 21 percent between the years 2000 and 2017. Progress towards goal 4 ’quality education’ records 750 million illiterate adults (one-third of them are women).

617 million children and adolescents lack minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics.

One out of every five children (6-17 years age) is not attending school. Globally, women constitute 39 percent of the workforce. However, only 27 percent enjoy managerial positions. Physical and/or sexual violence from the ‘partner’ alone was experienced by 18 percent of women and girls. 200 million women and girls around the globe faced female genital mutilation, SDR reported progress towards goal 5 ‘gender equality’.

The SDG index and dashboard report 2019 (produced by SDSN-a global initiative for united nations) put Denmark on rank 1 having scored 85.2; followed by Sweden on rank 2 (score 85.0) and Finland on rank 3 (score 82.8) in the list of 162 countries pursuing the agenda of SDGs. This index shows collective performance/total scoring achieved by the country for all goals. On this index for the year 2019, Pakistan unluckily stands at rank 130 (score 55.6), just five ranks away from Ethiopia. Interestingly, instead of making progress towards SDGs, Pakistan badly declined from rank 122 (2017) to rank 130 (2019).

Time is passing fast. We are just a decade away from reaching the deadline for achieving the agenda by the year 2030. The progress made towards SDGs during the last four years has not been much satisfactory globally for most of the goals. Countries may have dozens of reasons for not progressing well towards the goals, but it is clearly the matter of choices and priorities counties make. Goals like SDGs are set to bring improvements in the conditions and status of citizens and enhance overall economic development in the country. Where perfuming well on the index brings good name to the country, it equally defames it globally if performed poorly.

Though it has placed its basic structures and mechanisms for making progress towards SDGs, Pakistan cannot achieve the goals by its 2030 deadline merely by announcing such structures. A high level of political commitment is required. For the internally unstable and politically fragile/paralyzed economy of Pakistan, the SDGs might not be on the top priority of leadership.

Heavy financial resources are needed for economies like Pakistan to meet the SDGs targets. On the other hand, Pakistan is badly struggling to manage its debts while facing the worst governance crises and corruption when it comes to the utilization of meager financial resources.

Indicators like 40.2 percent under-five children being stunted (National NS 2018) and 25.02 million children being out of school (Alif Ailaan. 2014. 25 million broken promises) depict a worrying scenario as far as achieving the agenda is concerned.

The establishment of the SDGs unit at the federal level and the establishment of provincial SDGs units by all provincial governments are appreciable actions. However, timely mobilization of much-needed financial resources from available lending venues; placement of effective fool-proof mechanisms for fair and transparent use of money meant for SDGs and letting SDG agenda to move ahead as a top national priority for the prosperity of people will still be a challenge. Being on the same page with the same national spirit regarding programs such as the Benazir Income Support Program or Ahsas Program is vital to the success of SDGs. Like this, there are several initiatives to be taken at the provincial and national levels to improve the indicators related to education, health, nutrition, employment, gender equality, and peace, etc. For such ongoing and to-be-started initiatives and programs to yield good results for the realization of SDGs, political synergy and cooperation between provincial and federal governments will be a prerequisite. In addition to several other factors, without a stable and sound economy and piece, SDGs will be an impossible dream for a country like Pakistan to achieve.

The writer is associated with the development sector in Pakistan. He writes on the subjects of social development in Pakistan, poverty and women and children.