Making the Sustainable Development Goals a tool for Inclusiveness and Equality

In September  2015, 192 countries signed on to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with  17 Goals and 169 targets. The UN General Assembly 2019 endorsed  the Political Declaration adopted by the Sustainable Development Goals Summit, held at its Headquarters in September.  The Summit  committed Member States to taking a myriad of actions to implement the 2030 Agenda, ranging from mobilizing adequate and well‑directed financing to investing in data and statistics for the Sustainable Development Goals.  This spread of actions was fully ventilated at the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2019 under the theme "Empowering People and Ensuring Inclusiveness and Equality".  Not only did It demonstrate the central role of SDG #10 “reduce inequality within and among countries" but also the pervasive 'inclusiveness and equality' across the 17 SDGs. See:   https://sdg.iisd.org › news › global-goals-website-creates-target-level-icons

This week we outline the global principles and some applications of the SDGs. It is our intention  to follow up in future blogs with examining the challenges and prospects for developing countries and regions, achieving  inclusiveness and equality.  
 
The background document prepared for the ECOSOC HLPF illustrated  that (10) targets within SDG #10 cast a wide net to capture multiple drivers of inequality and to ensure that no group or individual is left behind.  Four targets address inequality within countries across social, economic and political dimensions that aim to expand prosperity, inclusion, and social protection. Three targets aim to reduce inequality among countries with attention to cross-border flows of finance and people.  Three other targets focus on the means of implementation and put forward concrete steps for attaining greater equality by directing resource flows toward those most in need. High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) 2019 Convened by ECOSOC

In addition,  60 targets across the SDGs – not including those in SDG #10 –  are directly linked to reducing inequality. Equal or universal access for all to resources, services and opportunities is a recurring theme across the SDGs. For example, SDG #2 that aims at eliminating hunger calls for access to food, land and productive resources; SDG #3 on good health and well-being calls for universal access to reproductive health-care services and universal healthcare; and SDG #4 calls for equal access to quality pre-primary through tertiary education and other learning programmes.  SDG #8 on decent work and economic growth directly addresses inequality by calling for stronger growth rates in least developed countries, increasing micro, small and medium enterprises, promoting migrant workers’ rights or calling for more government spending in social protection. The list also includes access to energy, infrastructure and transport. Above all achieving equality-oriented targets in other SDG Goals promises to directly affect progress toward the targets in SDG #10.  

Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in 2015, the UN reports positive movement as measured by SDG #10 targets. In 64 per cent of the countries with data, the incomes of the poorest 40 per cent of the population grew faster than the national average. The global average cost of sending remittances has declined in recent years although rates are still more than double SDG targets.
And tariffs faced by small island developing States and least developed countries have been falling. This progress has been mixed across countries and regions. 

Some groups including those in rural areas (e.g. family farmers), women, young people, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and others have persistently clustered at the bottom of distributions. Real wage growth has constantly declined since 2015 and at the same time, a warming climate, demographic change, decent work deficits, political crises, technological change and conflict risk exacerbating inequalities. In these circumstances  actions are toward equality in both opportunities and outcomes are necessary. Inequalities can become self-perpetuating across generations, thus hindering progress towards one of the central objectives of the 2030 Agenda – that of ‘leaving no one behind’.    There is another important gap in between establishing indicators and informing inclusive policies. It revolves around tracking progress on discriminatory practices and income deprivations at the global, regional and national levels is limited.  

A set of issues from the UN SDG Summit  that can exacerbate such tendencies include rapidly changing technologies; climate related shocks, disasters and crises; the globalization of information, business, and social networks; the decreasing bargaining power of workers; conflicts and many other trends.  "But they can also open up space for new alignments and forward-looking cooperation within and among countries. At the same time, not all groups will be equally affected by these trends, with those who are already marginalized having limited resources to withstand shocks and to capitalize on emerging opportunities, which could further deepen inequalities". SDG Summit

These are global trends. They indicate some of the major indicators that should  engage the attention of countries nationally, sub-regionally and regionally. Listed here are some of the recurring suggestions from several sources some of which will be further explored in future blogs: 

Human Capital Development 

• Improve incomes at the bottom of the income distribution with a focus on growth for the poorest 40 per cent of the population.
  
• Reducing the number of people living below the poverty line .
  
• Domestic resource mobilization to target infrastructure gaps,  capacity building, human capital development, social protection and decent jobs, and eliminating child labour.
  

Growth and Development 

• Reform the tax system to generate growth. 
  
• Attract outside  investing in local business to increase economic activities and help countries to reach the investment point.  
  
• Build partnerships nationally and regionally.
  
• Leverage development AID to target SDG priorities. 
  
• Encourage blending of investment involving public-private partnership, domestic and international.  
  

Planning and Financing Development 

• Commitment in investing in  the private business. 
  

• Align business plans with the SDGs. 
  
• Secure SDG type commitments from Corporations and Banks 
  
• Greater effort of government alignment of national plans and budget to the Paris Agreement. 
  
• More proactive public sector commitment to SDG targets  
  
• De-risk private investment to attract  local and foreign enterprises  
  
• Engage in Long term investment in infrastructure assets to reduce white elephants. 
  
• Elevate credit worthiness with special reference  to the rule of law, political stability and eliminating corruption.  
  

Public Policy and Partnerships 

• Strengthen the rules of engagement for relieving  Debt distress. 
  
• Eliminate public resources used to incentivize entities that do not respect human rights, and women’s rights 
  
•  Companies should  pay enough royalties and taxes so that the countries can turn the returns into infrastructure assets,  capacity building , hospitals, schools, and early childhood education. 
  
• Recognize the positive role of Civil Society in the SDG policy space. 
  
• Stimulate the power of pubic opinion to engender change of government programmes from the electoral cycle to long term planning 
  

Conclusion

Contending ideas among of policy makers , experts and practitioners sharing experiences  around the world, and at the more recent symposia at the UN, the IMF and the World Bank, indicate that multilateralism and international cooperation are essential to overcoming the challenges facing SDG implementation. Strengthened fiscal capacity, improved tax systems, reoriented expenditure on projects with bigger development impact  and combined tax incentives with bigger returns to countries, are all priorities. The clincher for me that aptly describes the challenges to inclusiveness and equality is represented in a statement by Amanda Khozi Mukwashi, CEO, Christian AID. At the CSO session "SDGs: Making it Happen" at the IMF -World Bank Annual meetings (2019) she said: “Many mothers need to make decisions on whether to spend the money they have on a sick child who is about to die or on the food for children that are starving and hungry”.

Eddie Greene