Federico Vazquez: "AGENDA 2030: THE NEED FOR MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT"

Federico Vázquez Martín

AGENDA 2030: THE NEED FOR MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT

Agenda 2030 includes several goals and challenges that the United Nations (UN) has defined as the most important topics that affect developing countries the most. It is expressed as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)[1]. There are 17 total Goals, some of which include: No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-Being, Quality Education, Clean Water and Sanitation, etc. The UN considers that these goals should be achieved by 2030, and that tells us were the “Agenda 2030” name comes from.

This Agenda, signed by 193 UN members, has been thoroughly analyzed, and it showcases both which goals and challenges each country must face to complete the objectives they have been given by this Agenda. Although it expresses these goals and challenges it also expresses the lacking points of multilateral aid now.[2] This is mainly because the world is still divided in developed and developing countries, and that is what the Agenda 2030 is trying to end.

This Agenda aims to change the way that the Multilateral Development System works by integrating different solutions in trying to achieve peace, development, environment, etc. while trying to achieve those 17 goals that were mentioned earlier.

The Agenda establishes clearly 5 points that will be affected by the policies that countries will make to try and achieve those goals. Those 5 points can be called the 5 P’s (People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership), and the UN establishes clearly that the 17 goals are focused on these 5 P’s, just to give a framework to work in and perhaps as a marketing strategy to make both countries and people more aligned with this project.[3]

The main commitment when this Agenda was passed was the idea of “leave no one behind”[4], and I consider that this idea is important right now and will be in a near future, as it makes policy makers consider the consequences of establishing different policies in development and how they will affect their neighboring countries and the countries that that aid is directed to.

The main challenge that stems from this policy is that eradicating extreme poverty (those who live with less than $1.90 a day[5]) will be extremely difficult. In fact, the challenge of reducing poverty is not only applicable to developing countries but to reducing poverty in developed countries[6], very present nowadays after the economic crisis that has ravaged a lot of countries for almost a decade.

The other key goal in this Agenda (for me at least) is trying to reduce world hunger. The UN offers data about this topic and numbers couldn’t be more depressing. One in nine people in the world are undernourished, and most of that people live in developing countries. Contrary to what we may think, the region of the world most affected by this problem is not Africa, but Southern Asia[7]. This is because African countries have been getting more help from NGOs throughout the last years in trying to reduce this problem than Southern Asia has. Achieving this goal should be one of the most important priorities for all the signatories of this Agenda, as having famished people through the world does not benefit anyone

This project is starting to take its first steps, as it was approved in 2015 alongside the Paris Agreement for Climate Change, but it’s an important guideline for all countries to follow, especially developed ones as they have the economic means to give this project the importance it deserves, as it will serve as a means to achieve prosperity in all of the world, not only in a select number of countries.

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[1] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

[2] Jenks and Kharas (2016) https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Toward-a-new-multilateralism.pdf

[3]https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf

[4] The reality of Aid (2016) http://www.realityofaid.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Abridged-ROA-Report-2016.pdf

[5] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/poverty/

[6] The reality of Aid (2016) http://www.realityofaid.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Abridged-ROA-Report-2016.pdf

[7] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/