The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 by the United Nations and its member states as an ambitious programme “to promote shared prosperity and well-being for all over the next 15 years”. Two new reports, on food security and education, cast serious doubt on their capacity to meet their goals, just four years into delivery. More fundamentally, they raise questions about the development process that the Global Goals represent. This debate goes right to the heart of contemporary international development delivery. Does it remain a largely technical, managerial and depoliticised discourse on aid? Or does the development sector need to start agitating for systemic change and political influence addressing the root causes of economic inequality?
I’d argue that the latter, transformative approach is urgently needed to achieve poverty eradication. Central to this approach is the need to start seriously tackling the question of our broken, neoliberal economy which has concentrated unprecedented levels of wealth in fewer hands. For the poorest half of humanity, neoliberalism has brought stagnating wages, deepening gender inequality, faltering public services and growing levels of public alienation with the political process. The Global Goals and overseas aid, for all their good intentions, are neither equipped nor designed to alter this reality. Here’s why.
1. Failing on food security
820 million people worldwide are still going hungry and reaching the SDG target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”, a new report on food security from a UN multi-agency taskforce has found. SDG 2 aims to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” but the report finds that “The pace of progress in halving the number of children who are stunted and in reducing the number of babies born with low birth weight is too slow”. Moreover, the number of children overweight and obese – indicators of malnourishment - continues “to increase in all regions, particularly among school-age children and adults”. The report adds that “The chances of being food insecure are higher for women than men in every continent”.
