We have been talking about the basics of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
The concept, the 17 goals,
and briefly, the history.
However, the 2030 Agenda is not a new concept.
The 2030 Agenda is
a complete and comprehensive agenda that has evolved from its predecessor,
the Millennium Development Goals.
The year 2000 has been considered a historic year.
All the people, all the leaders around the world
were just excited at the arrival of Due Millennium.
The Due Millennium was expected to show great results in all fields of society.
It was a promising year for human kind.
However, humans still face the problems in areas of health,
poverty, education, and environment.
Therefore, in September 2000,
at the United Nations Millennium Summit,
the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Millennium Declaration.
This declaration called for a global partnership to reduce extreme poverty.
Through extensive meetings and depth negotiations,
member states were able to draft this resolution that provided
the first ever global strategy with quantifiable targets.
Furthermore, this declaration was
the first ever strategy to be agreed upon by all UN member states,
and the world's leading development institutions.
Secretary General, Kofi Annan,
established eight accompanying objectives.
The eight concrete goals were agreed to cut global poverty and hunger by half,
fight climate change and disease,
tackle unsafe water and sanitation,
and expand education, and open doors of opportunity for girls and women.
The eight Millennium Development Goals were a breakthrough.
It created a blueprint for ending extreme poverty.
The MDGs defined achievable targets and timetables.
They also established a framework that all partners,
even those with different views,
were able to embrace.
In the dozen years after the Millennium Development Goals were agreed,
600 million people rose from extreme poverty,
which is a 50-percent reduction.
This was a clear indication of
record achievement reached well before the target year, 2015.
Such accomplishment was made possible owing much to
the Chinese government's efforts to lift 440 million people from poverty.
Record number of children entered primary school,
with an equal number of girls and boys for the first time.
Maternal and child mortality dropped.
Targeted investments in fighting malaria,
HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis saved millions of lives.
Africa has cut AIDS-related death by one-third.
Also, the Millennium Development Goals were a breakthrough for the group.
There are still problems occurring.
For example, there were still too many women dying from childbirth.,
even though the world had the means to save them.
Too many communities around the world lacked
basic sanitation creating a deadly threat.
Income inequalities were still growing.
In conclusion, too many people were still being left behind.
The 17 SDGs carry on the work begun by the Millennium Development Goals,
which galvanized a global campaign from
2000 to 2015 to end poverty in its various dimensions.
While the MDGs only applied to developing countries,
the SDGs apply universally to all UN member states,
and are considerably more comprehensive and ambitious than the MDGs.
MDGs are considered to be the foundation of the SDGs,
in that both the plans require continuous progress to achieve their goals.
However, the SDGs include more specific goals,
and at the same time,
a broader range of goals than the MDGs.
This helps the scope of achieving goals to be clearer and wider.
The SDGs represent the hopes of those who are
ready to take action to improve the world.
The effectiveness of the MDGs has been the subject of considerable debate.
Supporters argue that the development agenda promoted by
the MDGs has spearheaded an unprecedented
international movement against extreme poverty,
reducing it by more than 50 percent globally.
On the other hand, the inclusion of China and India
who have had extreme economic growth in the past decade,
which then also make up more than half of the population,
living under extreme poverty,
created skeptics on the success of the MDGs.
The transition from goal setting for developing nations to goal setting for
all member states has brought a much bigger range of issues to the table.
The transition from MDGs to SDGs showed that
the goals have changed so that no one is left behind.
The MDGs has been a great start for humanity.
However, the 2030 Agenda has become a better enhancement.
The transition to the sustainable development can be
summarized to the inclusion of five Ps: People,
Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership.
I'm going to explain it one by one.
The transition to the 2030 Agenda,
for Sustainable Development has enabled to
continue the international communities' focus on people.
It allowed the world to really consider the climate change issue,
and to protect the environment,
in order for our next generation to live in an eco-friendly and healthy era.
It adds its focus on prosperity in an equal manner.
The inclusion of all states,
not just in developing nations,
showed the importance of prosperity for not one particular nation or region,
but the whole world.
The fourth, the emphasis on peace is more highlighted in the SDGs,
creating a peaceful world for everyone to be educated,
work, and to prosper without external or internal conflicts.
Lastly, the 2030 Agenda allow to building a partnership even more intensive than
the MDGs due to the emerging importance of
the private sector to actively participate in the SDGs.
Ban Ki-moonDistinguished Chair Professor
