Tag: SDG

Sustainable Development Goals SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Blueprint for a Better Future

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations in 2015, provide a global framework to address the world’s most pressing challenges by 2030. These 17 goals, built on the foundation of the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aim to eradicate poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. The SDGs emphasize interconnectedness, recognizing that economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability are interdependent.

1. No Poverty

Goal 1 seeks to end poverty in all its forms by 2030. Despite progress, more than 700 million people still live in extreme poverty. The SDGs advocate for inclusive economic growth and social protection systems, ensuring that the most vulnerable are not left behind.

2. Zero Hunger

Goal 2 focuses on achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture. With hunger and malnutrition affecting millions, the SDGs aim to ensure access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food while promoting sustainable farming practices and supporting small-scale farmers.

3. Good Health and Well-being

Health is central to sustainable development. Goal 3 aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Key targets include reducing maternal and infant mortality, ending epidemics of diseases like HIV/AIDS, and promoting mental health.

4. Quality Education

Education is a powerful driver of change. Goal 4 seeks to ensure inclusive, equitable, and quality education for all. This includes ensuring free primary and secondary education, equal access to technical and vocational education, and lifelong learning opportunities.

5. Gender Equality

Achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls is essential for global development. Goal 5 aims to eliminate discrimination, violence, and harmful practices against women, and ensure equal participation in leadership and decision-making.

6. Clean Water and Sanitation

Access to clean water and sanitation is a basic human right. Goal 6 seeks to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by improving water quality, reducing pollution, and investing in infrastructure.

7. Affordable and Clean Energy

Goal 7 focuses on ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy. It aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix and enhance energy efficiency, recognizing energy’s pivotal role in combating climate change.

8. Decent Work and Economic Growth

Promoting sustained, inclusive economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all is at the core of Goal 8. The SDGs advocate for policies that stimulate entrepreneurship, job creation, and improved labor conditions, especially for young people and marginalized communities.

9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

Goal 9 underscores the importance of building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation. This includes expanding access to financial services, technology, and the internet, particularly in developing countries.

10. Reduced Inequality

Goal 10 seeks to reduce inequality within and among countries by empowering and promoting the social, economic, and political inclusion of all, regardless of age, gender, disability, race, or income. It also calls for improved financial regulation to ensure fairer outcomes globally.

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities

With more than half of the world’s population living in urban areas, Goal 11 aims to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. This includes improving housing, public transport, and urban planning, while reducing the environmental impact of cities.

12. Responsible Consumption and Production

Goal 12 encourages sustainable consumption and production patterns. It calls for reducing waste, improving resource efficiency, and promoting sustainable lifestyles, which are essential for decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.

13. Climate Action

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Goal 13 urges immediate action to combat climate change and its impacts, through both mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation (increasing resilience to climate impacts).

14. Life Below Water

Goal 14 focuses on conserving and sustainably using oceans, seas, and marine resources. It targets overfishing, marine pollution, and ocean acidification, while promoting the sustainable management of fisheries and marine ecosystems.

15. Life on Land

Goal 15 addresses the protection, restoration, and promotion of sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, forests, and biodiversity. It seeks to halt deforestation, combat desertification, and prevent the extinction of threatened species.

16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

Goal 16 promotes peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all, and the building of effective, accountable institutions. It addresses issues like corruption, human trafficking, and violence, aiming to create more just and equitable societies.

17. Partnerships for the Goals

Recognizing that achieving the SDGs requires strong partnerships, Goal 17 focuses on enhancing global cooperation, financial support, and the exchange of knowledge, technology, and innovations. It emphasizes the need for collaboration across governments, civil society, and the private sector.

The Road Ahead

The SDGs represent an ambitious agenda that calls for transformative change. Governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals must work together to drive progress. While the goals are global, they require local action tailored to specific challenges. Meeting the 2030 deadline will require political will, investment, and an unwavering commitment to sustainable development for all.

The SDGs offer a shared vision for humanity’s future—one where no one is left behind, the environment is protected, and prosperity is within reach for everyone.

United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC 2022)

 Students from 18 schools across the country presented new ideas on how geospatial technologies can be embedded to address local challenges like protecting the heritage, soil fertility, crop diversity, clean city, water management, women empowerment, waste management, digital India, clean energy, climate change and so on to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Teams from 18 urban and rural schools across India showcased the use of geospatial information and technology in understanding local issues and its use in planning and implementing at a special event titled ‘Geo-enabling the global village with Generation Z and Alpha’ of the Second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress today (UNWGIC).

Efforts in mapping chemical fertilizer use in farms, as well as their production against organic fertilizer usage along with their production, were showcased. Students also highlighted initiatives of mapping rural biodiversity loss over time, as well as mapping of local recyclable products to source them effectively and increase their usage.

The young teams focused on SDGs of zero hunger, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, and life on land. The event could show the way to localize the implementation of the SDGs through geospatial thinking.

In his address, Stefan Schweinfest, Director UN Statistics Division, said that SDGs is not just a document but it is a proper action plan to engage with each other, work together and bring solutions for a better world. “All the projects are truly incredible and great examples for localising the SDGs. Rather than competition, the purpose of this session is to interact with each other, make friends and discuss how to take the ideas forward in the future so that you can be a UN representative for SDGs,” he added.

 Dr. Subha Pandey, Scientist, Department of Science and Technology (DST), who chaired the session, elaborated on the DSTs activities and emphasized on geospatial technology use at school and community levels to localize SDGs.

The Second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC 2022) is being held at Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), India, from 10 to 14 October 2022 with the theme ‘Geo-Enabling the Global Village: No one should be left behind. It has been convened by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) and organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations and hosted by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) – Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

 

SNC/RR

India and Quality Education – SDG 4

Education is an integral part for the mental development of a human being. Not just education on paper but ‘Quality Education’ which in turn allows the beings to add to the well-being of themselves as well as others without comprising anyone’s needs. Given the importance of quality education in ensuring sustainable growth of the world, one of the sustainable development goals is “Ensure Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education and Promote Lifelong Learning Opportunities for All” (SDG 4).

Around 11 indicators have been decided by UNDP to ensure Quality Education across countries, which are:

  1. Free Primary and Secondary Education
  2. Equal Access to Quality Pre-Primary Education
  3. Equal Access to Affordable Technical, Vocational and Higher Education
  4. Increase the number of people with relevant skills for financial success
  5. Eliminate all discrimination in education
  6. Universal literacy and numeracy
  7. Education for sustainable development and global citizenship
  8. Build and upgrade inclusive and safe schools – in terms of electricity, toilets (including gender neutral toilets), apt infrastructure for disables, gender inclusive.
  9. Expand higher education scholarships for developing countries – by ensuring the sufficient volume of ‘Official Development Assistance’ flows for scholarships.
  10. Increase the supply of qualified teachers in developing schools
  11. Custodian agencies such as UNDP

The article attempts to throw light on the performance of India in the sphere of Education based on NSSO Education data. It is with no doubt that India has made great strides in this particular aspect but the challenges are always present – which will be taken up in the later section of the article.

As per the data, in 2014, total urban literacy rate stood at 86% (male: 91%; female: 81%) while total rural literacy rate was 71% (male: 80%; female: 61%). The difference between rural and urban male and female literacy rate is quite large. The reasons among many can be lack of initiatives; income-deficit; ingrained favoritism; lack of safe and inclusive schooling etc.

To better understand the Gender-gap/parity, data on Gender-Parity Index (GPI) based on Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER). It has been defined as “the ratio of GER of female students enrolled at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Levels of education to the corresponding ratio of male students at that level” (ESAG, 2018). During 2015-16, the gender parity stood at 1.03 (Primary); 1.05 (Elementary); 1.01 (Senior-Secondary) to 0.92 (Higher Education). While up to +2 level, gender parity favors females but when it comes to higher education, it favors males. Interestingly, if we focus on the annual dropout rate in school education, 2014-15, it will come to notice that boys dropout percentage is higher in secondary (17.21%) than girls (16.88%).

To get a better grasp of gender equation, the article looks into the teaching section. The data for percentage of teachers who are females, 2014 speaks that the percentage is less than 50 at all levels – with dropping percentage as we move from Primary (49.49%), Secondary (43.21%) to Tertiary (39.03%).

Evaluation of reasons for dropout among both males and females as per NSSO brings out – for males, engagement in economic activities has been vetoed as the major reason while for females, reasons such as engagement in domestic activities followed by marriage stand out. The distance between home and school has also been one of the reasons of dropout among females.

Another set of data released by UNESCO as part of the realization of SDG 4 – ‘State of the Education Report: No Teacher, No Class’ for India, 2021 can be used as reference to right the wrongs, fill in the holes in the education scenario of the country. The report points out that there is shortage of 11.6 lakh teachers and about 1.2 lakh are single-teacher school, with 89% being in rural areas. However, in the private sector, the pupil teacher ratio increased from 21% in 2013-14 to 35% in 2018-19. With variation among states, the national average for percentage of females employed stands at 50.

The pandemic has only thrown obstacles testing the efficiency of the country in this sphere. As the world and its works shifted online, this country and sector did too. The shifting to online classes has led to many dropouts, leading to a break in the education of many pupils. When it comes to teaching, the country has faced certain inadequacy in the percentage of trained government school teacher – to use and teach using electronical devises. The Hindu (2021) reports that only 15% of government school teachers were trained and about 31% in private school.

However, when the world was still in offline mode and so the sector – various government schemes had benefitted the children. In this era of everything being online – government need to come up with new schemes focusing towards digital India, co-operating with various grassroot levels can be quite helpful in percolating the benefits to lower levels.

Image Credit: Google

The Abled Wings

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination”
–Jimmy Dean
Whenever we hear the word disability, we automatically think of an image of a person , of a human being , but who lacks certain “ abilities” of a human being Which is the reason why they are not even treated with the same dignity and respect as fellow human beings. Anybody who has faced such indignation or knows someone who has, can resonate with the pain. “The look” they get is enough to convey that you feel nothing but pity or sympathy for them; which is something they most certainly don’t need.


According to WHO :

Disability is part of being human. Almost everyone will temporarily or permanently experience disability at some point in their life. Over one billion people – about 15% of the global population- live with some form of disability and this number is increasing.
Disability results from the interaction between individuals with a health condition such as cerebral palsy, down syndrome and depression as well as personal and environmental factors including negative attitudes , inaccessible transportation and public buildings and limited social support.
As per census 2011, in India , out of total population of 121 crore, about 2.68 cr persons are disabled.


The most important aspect of being a human being is the quality of being able to understand other’s pain and to do one’s best to help them out. SDG goal no. 10 mentions about the reduction in inequality within and among countries by empowering and promoting the social, economic and political inclusion of all, including persons with disabilities.
People suffering from certain disability face a lot of discrimination and also fail to achieve equitable representation in normal walks of life. Be it in any professional field, or because of lack of facilities in many colleges and schools fail to provide a pleasant and comfortable environment to them. As simple as constructing a ramp sounds , still very difficult for many public and private places to implement.
Negative attitudes held by the families of the disabled, and often the disabled themselves , hinder them from taking an active part in the family. Even though many disabled adults are capable of productive work, disabled adults have far Lower employment rates than the general population. Inclusion of children with mild to moderate disabilities in regular schools has remained a major challenge.

Disability is diversity, not detriment: – The Ranger


The health sector especially in rural India has failed to react proactively to disability . Further there are lack of affordable access to proper health care, aids and appliances. Healthcare facilities and poorly trained health workers in rehabilitation centers is another concern.
Some steps taken by government to provide a better living environment for the disabled:


1.Accessible India Campaign : creation of accessible environment for PwDs
2.Deendayal disabled rehabilitation scheme
3.Assistance to disabled persons for purchase of aids and appliances
4.National fellowship for students with disabilities


Many NGOs and schools have came forward to help provide people with disabilities a fair chance at life , which is all they need. I remember my school, has special arrangements for children facing disabilities, having qualified teachers and staff and a very friendly environment for them to grow. We often used to play together during our PT periods feeling no difference between us ,for there was indeed no difference between us.The experience and the lessons those years taught us in school helped me to have a different and more humane perspective towards life and all the people in it.


Let no disability hinder or stop your dreams. Your dreams need wings, and thankfully every human is born with them.