Sustainable Development Goals

Published on 17 Feb 2025

The Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the UN in 2015 as a universal call to end poverty, protect the planet and to ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. These are non legally binding 17 goals and 169 targets specified to be achieved by 2030.

India’s progress towards prominent SDG

✔     Off target-indicators: Lancet study indicates that India is not on-target for 19 of the 33 indicators, with critical off-target indicators being anaemia among women, wasting, child marriage, partner violence, tobacco use and modern contraceptives.

✔     On-target indicators: As per Lancet, Indicator on adolescent pregnancy has already been achieved and India is on-target to meet 13 indicators including internet use, women having bank account, multidimensional poverty, electricity access, under 5 mortality rate etc.

✔     Poverty: As per National Multidimensional Poverty Index, poverty headcount ratio has declined from 24.85% in 2015-16 to 14.96% in 2019-21 and 13.5 crore people moved out of multidimensional poverty between this period.

✔     Hunger: India’s score in the Global Hunger Index increased marginally from 29.2 in 2015 to 28.7. Prevalence of undernourishment declined from 17.3% in 2004-06 to 14% in 2017-19.

✔     Health: According to NFHS-5, stunting and wasting reduced from 38.4% and 21% in 2015-16 to 35.5% and 19.3% respectively in 2019-21.

✔     Education: AISHE survey indicates that overall gross enrolment ratio in higher education in the age group of 18 to 23 years increased from 23.7% in 2014-15 to 28.4% in 2021-22. Also, GER among SC and ST increased by around 2% and female GER increased by around 3.5%.

✔     Gender equality: As per NFHS-5, Sex ratio at birth increased from 918 in 2014-15 to 933 in 2022-23. India moved 8 places forward to reach 127th in the Gender Gap Report.

✔     State-wise performance: According to SDG India Index, Kerala is the best performer followed by Tamil Nadu and Haryana. On the other hand, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam are the worst performing states.

Challenges associated with India’s policies in addressing SDG

✔     Financing SDGs: Targets like zero hunger, poverty etc. would require massive public spending as India has a significant number of people with poor socio-economic background.

●      Example: As per Ministry of Consumer Affairs, India has already spent over 18.5 lakh crore as food subsidy over the past 9 years and still has a lot to cover on eliminating hunger.

✔     Implementation gap: There is shortage of manpower and technological resources for the covering and monitoring of all these indicators in a holistic manner. In the absence of monitoring, there  would be corruption and fund diversion.

✔     Regional disparity as a barrier: The socio-economic profile of states in India are quite diverse and hence there exist difficulty in bridging this gap in a small time frame.

●      Example: The dimensions of health, education, gender etc. in Kerala and Bihar are quite different. More decentralised planning needs to be accommodated to address this gap.

✔     Socio-cultural barriers: Discrimination in the name of caste and gender is still integral to Indian society, which prevents the attainment of many indicators.

●      Example: Social stereotypes and impositions must be removed for achieving indicators on child marriage, partner violence etc.

✔     Lack of public participation: Awareness among the communities on many of these indicators are pretty low, which prevents coordinated efforts at bringing success.

Way forward

✔     Cultural sensitivity and community outreach: Programmes to address social stereotypes and changes to some traditional practices are necessary for attaining many social and environmental targets.

✔     Data driven approach: Policies need to be monitored based on quantifiable data and should be revamped to minimise leakage of resources.

✔     Technology driven governance: To reduce flaws in beneficiary identification and benefit distribution through technology driven surveillance.

✔     Decentralised and inclusive policy making: Programmes should cater to the demands and social conditions prevalent in the region and it shall be accessible to all sections of the society.

Thus, SDG facilitates a better social, economic, political and environmental condition for all people and hence it's the priority of any nation. Since India is projecting itself as the leader of the third world, attaining them not only improves the well-being of the people but also enhances India’s stature at the global level.

Tags:
Social Justice

Keywords:
Sustainable Development Goals Development SDG

Syllabus:
General Studies Paper 2

Topics:
Social Justice