Labour can kickstart a more serious approach to engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals
4 min read
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals has been slow and uneven. The UK should lead the way in their implementation, both at home and abroad, writes Stephen Twigg MP
It is more than four years since the world first agreed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The 17 goals and 169 associated targets cover the greatest challenges facing the modern world – including poverty, inequality and climate change. They include ambitious aims such as eradicating poverty in all its forms everywhere, reducing inequality within and among countries, and taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
The goals are universal, so they apply as much to us here in the UK as to the rest of the world. This means that the government should be doing all it can to ensure the UK achieves the goals domestically while also working towards achieving the SDGs internationally.
Yet despite nearly a third of the allotted time for achieving the goals having passed, the world remains woefully off track to achieving them. Not a single country is currently on course to meet the SDGs.
Take, for instance, the UK; we’re the fifth richest country in the world, yet 14 million people – a fifth of the population – live in poverty and more than 2 million people are severely food-insecure.
Globally, progress remains too slow and uneven. The latest annual sustainable development report, which assesses global and national data across all 193 UN member states, concluded that poverty, hunger and disease remain “concentrated in the poorest and most vulnerable groups of people and countries,” and inequality is increasing among and within countries.
The report predicts that, at current rates, 6% of the world’s population will still live in extreme poverty by 2030. Meanwhile global hunger is increasing and education outcomes among the most marginalised have stagnated, or even reversed, in many countries.
The annual report concludes with the rallying cry that a “much deeper, faster and more ambitious response is needed to unleash the economic and social transformation necessary to achieve the SDGs”.
The UK should be at the forefront of that response, but so far UK leadership and engagement with the goals has been wholly inadequate. Last month the UK presented its first Voluntary National Review (VNR) of progress towards the SDGs to the UN, which coincided with the release of the International Development Committee’s report into the UK’s VNR process.
The committee found both the preparation and presentation of the VNR to be gravely flawed. Crucially, we fear that the priority and resources committed to the VNR process – and the whole SDGs agenda – reflect a lack of engagement and understanding at the heart of, and throughout, the UK Government.
The VNR does, however, provide us with an opportunity to kickstart a more serious approach to engagement with the SDGs both at home and abroad. Meeting the goals will require strong leadership, a comprehensive implementation plan and the engagement of all government departments. That is why it’s so crucial that the SDGs are prioritised and embedded across Labour’s transformative agenda for government.
This must be accompanied by a renewed focus and leadership on delivering the goals globally with “leave no one behind” at the very heart of a well-resourced and independent Department for International Development.
We must not lose sight that, globally, we are in the midst of the greatest displacement crisis on record. Over 70 million people around the world are displaced from their home – more than the entire population of the UK. They are among the most vulnerable persons anywhere in the world, and most at risk of being left behind as the world strives to achieve the SDGs.
The increasing complexity of many humanitarian crises also poses challenges for delivering the SDGs. Yemen remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis; 24 million Yemenis – about 80% of the population – are in need of humanitarian assistance. As ‘penholder’ in the UN Security Council on Yemen, the UK has a unique role to play in bringing about the peace and stability that is required to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people. This must be at the very top of our agenda.
Stephen Twigg is Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby and chair of the International Development Committee
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