17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations
In 2015, the United Nations accepted 17 sustainable development goals as a global aid and action plan to be achieved by the year 2030. These goals are called SDGs and their ultimate goals are erasing hunger, diseases, and poverty in the world. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seek to be applicable to all poor, rich, and middle-income countries to increase growth while conserving the environment and dealing with climate change. They place a heavy emphasis on promoting equality to satisfy the needs of women, children, and disadvantaged people in general, ensuring that “no one is left behind.” It is highly valuable for Koç University Global Aid to acknowledge and follow these goals since we are looking for sustainable solutions to the current problems of the world. To do so, these goals adopted by United Nations play a guiding role for us.
The first sustainable development goal was to eradicate poverty or at least reduce it by fifty percent among women, men, and children in all age groups. The second SDG is to fight world hunger since, in correlation with the rapidly increasing World population, more effort and ingenuity will be required to sustainably expand agricultural production, strengthen the global supply chain, reduce food losses, and waste, and ensure that all people who are hungry or malnourished have access to healthy food. Thirdly, Covid-19 Pandemic has proven that the health of the individuals and society is highly significant for the economic, and social well-being of the countries, thereupon ensuring healthy lives is one of the keystones of the development and achieving other SDGs. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, progress had been made in many areas of health, including improving maternal and child health, boosting vaccination coverage, and lowering the prevalence of infectious illnesses, though still not quickly enough to fulfill the 2030 Goal 3 objectives. The pandemic’s disruption has put a stop to development and even reversed certain advances. These goals are accepted in 2015 and in 2020 with the arise of the COVID 19 Pandemic, more people than in previous years have pushed back to extreme poverty and the progress has slowed or even fallen back. However, all 17 goals have multiple steps action plans, and subgoals and their effectiveness might arise with the decrease in the impact of the pandemic. Being flexible and adaptable against uncertainties is the only way to move forward as we witnessed.
All 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are listed below.
1.“End poverty in all its forms everywhere”
2.“End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”
3.“Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”
4.“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”
5. “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”
6. “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”
7. “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”
8. “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”
9. “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”
10. “Reduce inequality within and among countries”
11. “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”
12. “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”
13. “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”
14. “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”
15. “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”
16. “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all level”
17. “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development”
These 17 goals are not to be considered separately from each other; instead, developing one of the goals is critical to supporting and evolving the others. For instance, by ensuring quality and inclusive education for the next generations environmental awareness can arise among them; therefore, other environmental sustainability goals are also to be carried out. We, as KUGA, going through a design thinking process right now to establish new sustainability projects, set a target, and detect problems these SDGs were inspiring. When starting a business, project, or volunteering these goals are to be taken into consideration to have a long-term solution in partnership with others and for a common cause.
References
D. (2020, September 19). Take Action for the Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations Sustainable Development. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development. (2022). United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/goals
Written by Neris Tiken
