The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals Explained

[Music] [Applause] [Music] extreme poverty refers to people who live without being able to address their basic needs and that includes access to water access to sanitation access to food 836 million people today live on less than 1. 25 dollars a day but if you look at a slightly bigger catchment if you like for poverty people are living on less than $2 a day that figure rises to 2. 2 billion people and if you take a slightly bigger figure yet again use the figure of 8 people living on less than $8 a day and we have half the world's population we've made remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty on this planet in 1990 the number of people living in extreme poverty that's people living on less than 1.

25 dollars a day was 1. 9 billion people today it's 836 million people and think about it the world population is increased since 1990 it was 5. 2 billion people in 1990 and today it's seven point four billion hitting 7.

5 billion so we have made progress and I think we should we should acknowledge that progress because going forward we need to do more but the past shows us that where we have a vision where we have a will where we agreed to work together as one global community through the United Nations we can make a difference well our figures show us that globally and the greatest contributor to reduction in extreme poverty has been growth as some 70% of poverty reduction can be attributed to growth itself now growth is necessary but we are facing some serious challenges in sustaining growth we have a planet which is reaching a number of boundaries whether it be climate change whether it be loss of biodiversity we depend on Natural Resources we depend on environment for our survival and when the environment is degraded we face consequences which will have an impact in terms of growth what the sustainable development goals do is it looks at the challenges that we face on the planet whether it be poverty whether it be inequality whether it be environment and basically resolves to address all of them together and the reason why that's important is because any of those issues cannot be addressed by looking at the issue in silos [Music] end hunger achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture did you know hunger and malnutrition prevents people from improving their life means it's like a spiral that goes round and round with no any more over climate change reduces the resources that we depend on to feed ourselves today more than 800 million people suffer from hunger in the world to end this by 2030 we must start today an inspiring and real example john van Hengel this retired citizen from Phoenix met a mother of nine that managed to supply themselves with the food leftover from supermarkets and he organized a food collection through some of them founding the first food bank in the 1960s with some volunteers and an empty space they are now crucial across the whole planet your skills aren't different to John's where can we start one adopt a healthy and balanced diet keeping healthy does not consist of eating a lot but doing it correct to buy fruits and vegetables that aren't inadequate due to their imperfect state [Music] three plan very well you're shopping before your products expire or when ordering food in restaurants for organize and collaborate in food collections and give donations to schools and education projects that offer students full daily meals five promote in your cafeteria the wonderful initiative of pending coffee you pay for yours and one extra just in case someone needs it in countries like Italy many people with no resources enjoy a warm cup ending with hunger starts with you and continues with your loved ones shall we start [Music] it requires government to do many things first don't mince most in verses for health so that there are health workers close to people they must also invest in a social protection floor so that people who want services can buy services it's not good enough to have services when they cannot afford it and the final point is supply chains management system so so if you are going to provide services you are also provide supplies so when they need drugs or they need supplies for to provide health that were there to do it I think it's important for us to be able to provide good nutritional advice to young people so they eat well-balanced that they eat enough fruits they eat you know vegetables and they have a balanced diet with micronutrients I think it's important so those are things that we can do and young people need to know about their body so comprehend sexuality education and access to services so we can prevent many things and I'll give you an example today the highest incidence of HIV occurs in the adults and girls in Africa they are the ones who suffer most so if we can prevent that and we can give them the information the knowledge and services to prevent it all are done a great thing I think we government if governments put their mind to it yes because most of the things we are talking about here are things we are doing at this point in time so governments civil society the private sector just need to be a lot more organized and it's not expensive it's just the fact that we need motivation and we need leadership and we need political will to put resources where it does matter and if we do it we'll get them think about why we have education anyway a lot of the reasons we have education is because we think it will help us get good jobs it also helps people be healthier it helps society be more peaceful and it is that it helps countries be more secure have less fighting but all of those good reasons are magnified they're much bigger if education reaches it's important and at the moment it's not reaching everybody it's not reaching children in emergencies and it's not reaching disabled children in many countries it doesn't reach girls so in the last 15 years the world has got a hundred and ten million more children into primary school which is a really great achievement and we should be celebrating that but we should also recognize like I said earlier that we haven't quite reached everybody yet in news sustainable development go on education is much bigger it's much more expensive it doesn't just talk about crime in education it talks about early childhood and pre-prime in education which is really important for brain development it talks about second rinche and roots to get skills and better jobs in the future reality is for many people that they learn throughout the whole of their lives and they often need opportunities to retrain for example if you're an illiterate woman maybe you need an opportunity to learn literacy because it will be useful for your family or for your employment if you dropped out of school perhaps you need some other way of getting back into school or training that's slightly different if you lose your job maybe you need to retrain with a different skill so the idea that education just stops at a particular point and that's it we're trying to challenge them actually is kind of like foundation in my opinion there's a loss of the other goals so a more educated society and a more equitably educated society so there isn't such a big gap between who has education and who doesn't have education if we can try and close those gaps and actually what we know is that we have more peaceful societies likewise if we have better educated societies particularly better educated girls we also have healthier societies because those girls have fewer babies their babies are more likely to survive their babies are more likely to go to school when they reach the age of four and five and the mothers are more likely to seek health care for those children and they get ill so there's a lots and lots of benefits to education that relate to some of the other goals [Applause] [Music] the goal takes the international community to commit to achieving not just promoting but achieving gender equality and women's empowerment by 2030 for all women and girls whether they are in villages they are in cities whether they are of a particular race or community all women and girls must be empowered must get equal treatment for the first time you have a recognition that the target of ending violence against women is set and that it matters for sustainable development the fact that harmful practices and forms of discrimination like child marriage and female genital mutilation must end that unpaid care work which particularly young girls and young women are victims of in many ways because it deprives them of opportunities must be recognized reduced redistributed and provided for by socially or by the state and the fact that sexual and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights must be guaranteed and also decent work equal wages for equal work and then last but not least the right for women and girls to have equal participation and leadership [Music] it is mission entirely possible and it has happened progress has happened in so many countries but that's why the goal setting is important that's why holding to account the follow-up and monitoring is important that even in the more difficult countries this will drive change and action and political will as never before can you imagine waking up and not being able to go to a tap and turn it on and take a drink you don't have a toilet you don't have anywhere to relieve yourself this is the situation for millions billions of people around the world they do not have infrastructure in these places to deliver water to people's homes so people have to leave their homes walk long distances fetch water from perhaps a well or a lake carry it all the way back to their homes so that is definitely a part of the problem another part of the problem is pollution water bodies are being increasingly polluted by human waste by industrial wastes and this means that the water that people might have access to is not safe for drinking it could be in the in the billion range for people that don't have access to safe water when it comes to sanitation the sanitation crisis is huge we have made some progress but there's still so far to go we're looking at approximately 2. 4 billion people lacking access to safe sanitation really positive things about the new sustainable development goal on water and sanitation is that it isn't just about developing countries these are targets that are important for people in every country in the world we produce a lot of waste water on a daily basis and we need better technology to really clean this wastewater so that we could even potentially reuse this wastewater for other applications think about the way you use water try to be more efficient with the way you use water and it's important to remember that everything you put down the drain has an impact on your water quality so it's important to think about these things and I and I hope that this new sustainable development goal will open people's eyes to these to these issues ensure access to affordable reliable sustainable and modern energy for all did you know that until 1850 cooking is done by scrubbing two stones together it's not that long ago nowadays we can't imagine our daily lives without electricity but more than 1. 2 billion people live without most of them in Africa and Asia without electricity clinics can't work students can't study and entrepreneurs can't direct they're competitive companies we can all contribute at our own scale saving electricity and aiming for energetic renewable resources adopting technologies infrastructures and non polluting transplants we should all learn from Sam Goldman and Ned tous they are 32 years old they're from San Francisco and their project has helped more than 30 million people in 60 countries they're solar lamps give 12 hours of light without using and dangerous kerosene and they save up money as well as reduce the risk of science it's accessible clean mobile energy for homes are you aware of all the possibilities you have of contributing by saving energy one connect devices to power strips to disconnect all their activity cover the pots when cooking and you'll reduce up to 75% of energy read the instructions of household appliances to maximize their performance and energetic efficiency to conduct an energy counseling at home a little investment will allow you some savings in your bills and mostly a reduction of your consumption 3 save energy also entrace public transport saves 4 times more energy than the car and the savings you can achieve by walking or going by bike are 100% for in winter try to have an efficient heating system at home remove furniture and objects that block radiators revised the boiler and remember that every extra degree means a 7% increase of consumption 5 inform yourself of renewable energy uses share your knowledge and support sustainable energy projects for schools and houses use your energy use your power promote sustained inclusive and sustainable economic growth full and productive employment and decent work for all choose a job that you like and you won't have to work ever again despite the improvement of the work conditions 800 million people more than the whole of Europe still receive $2 a day in salary that isn't a job that is injustice the sustainable and inclusive economic growth that benefits everybody and doesn't damage the environment can only be achieved by creating decent employment and investing in technology and most importantly of all end forced child labor it's in our hands do you want to know how to use it Muhammad Yunus wanted to change things and he did it was him that invented and developed the microcredits in Bangladesh lending money that many entrepreneurs needed that that didn't have the capacity to initiate a business their project was a key way of breaking the vicious circle of poverty and the exit of extreme law he has inspired similar efforts in approximately 100 developing countries he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 do you know where to start to get that far won each opportunity that comes up higher with responsibility and support companies that respect decent and sustainable practices which don't hardly in to promote take your child to work day so that the youngest of the family learn what a healthy work environment is 3 do you think that the young are heard enough in the work environment give them the voice you can learn from their energy their tendencies and their capacity to innovate 4 if you are looking for a job volunteering can also be a strategy improving the life of others developing competences to develop professionally widen your frontiers and your capacities 5 support and promote the use of microcredits be trustworthy institutions and empower the young belong term unemployed and women so that they can turn into entrepreneurs let's encourage it let's promote it more decent jobs more future well I think science technology and innovation go together and they're essential for all three pillars of sustainable built whether it's economic growth social inclusion or environmental balance science technology and innovative products and services come that come from science and technology are essential for us to achieve the the sustainable development goals and amongst the science and technologies that are available information and communication technologies are probably the most important ICTs generally the internet specifically is really a global shared utility it's like water transportation and power it's what may be power was in the last century and the least developed countries have been at the forefront of demanding access to this shared utility it underpins so much of what we do today and these are people that are living on less than a dollar a day who are are seeing the potential of technology and information communication technologies specifically they've already elevated ICT networks to being on par with water transportation and energy because they know that even the whole you can't eat a cell phone you it's a tool of empowerment and enables you to get the information you need to create the knowledge you need to make them wise decision that you must make in today's society whether it's what crops to grow when to take those crops to market when not to drink those crops to market and the more our economies are tied together the more important the technologies are once you give people the tools of communication technology they'll create their own solutions to their own problems and I think the best example of that is what's called an Paso or mobile money in Africa Africans were disenfranchised from the financial system they either didn't trust banks or didn't have access to them but they did trust their their mobile phone so once they had connectivity or people had connectivity they created a program called M Casa mobile money which allowed them to exchange money pay through their cell phone I gave them a confidence that they never had in the financial system before and so it's brought millions of people into the economic finance banking system that they were excluded from before so this was an African technology created by Africans to solve an African problem and basically what we did was provide them with the connectivity that gave them the the tools of communication that allowed them to generate the innovative solutions that they need to solve their own problems [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's definitely talking about monetary inequality but if it was only an issue of money things would be much easier to solve it's about the different inequalities that people face because of their gender disability status because they're from a different ethnic or racial group because they're from a sexual minority group etc and what is particularly troublesome with inequalities is that a lot of these mutually reinforce and they create a huge barrier to people being able to fulfill their full potential I think the goal is very much about everyone's starting with the same types of opportunities to be able to forge their way through life so it's it's very much about making sure that people have access to quality education nutritious food clean water inequalities cut across essentially all of the sustainable development goals in order to have robust and sustainable economic growth you need to have investment in the people that live in your country and that investment starts when people are born when they're children and it starts with their nutrition and their health it follows through to their education for youth being able to have a voice and find jobs and that's how you get to the point where you then have societies that are growing quickly that have innovators that have business leaders that are making progress on different things [Music] if you look at people who are living in rural poverty what did they say about why they move to urban areas they need job opportunities they are looking for a chance to be part of the global conversation they want Internet connectivity they want a chance if they were not successful at school for example another chance to build human capital that's about jobs and if you look through the history of the world where people have moved into cities you see an expansion of the economies so economic growth and development has very very often in history moved with urbanization urbanization is positive for development well who moves to urban areas is important and it tends to be young people young healthy people move into urban areas so anticipate that the modern modernizing urban space is also a young space and that has both advantages for people and for cities but it also has risks so young people are not with their families they lack in many cases the social networks that offer protection for them and so there are risks of exploitation of underemployment of violence of lack of access in urban slums to the very health systems or educational opportunities that they had hoped to find there can be a lack of those I think part of what we have to anticipate is this clustering of young people in informal areas and start thinking about service structures and infrastructure that respond to them in really creative and innovative ways so we do need transport so that young people can move into the city center for work and opportunity we need health systems and new educational and training opportunities that don't cluster exclusively in the urban center but in fact reach out into these informal areas we need to get creative housing absolutely we need to think about protection in the context of housing both for young and older people can we recreate communities in some way in innovative ways in urban areas I mean looking at a goal that's on location and where people go is an opportunity to look at all the goals and so to work on urbanization and create healthy cities gives you all these multiplier effects across all the other goals absolutely because to create safety is to touch empowerment is to touch employment is to touch human capital and what's happening young people are moving to cities because it's their chance to raise and increase their human capital to be part of society in the next 10 15 20 years [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] if we don't address climate change we the chances are that we'll roll back many of the development gains that we have achieved during the last 20 30 years climate changes an impact on all the other goals whether it's education whether it's achievement of health climate change will have an impact on the way we produce food the way we have our forests and if you don't address climate change it will be either more difficult to achieve these goals or actually impossible to achieve them there are increasing studies but also increasing experience in many parts of the world which demonstrate that economic growth and addressing climate change do not need to be antagonistic to each other there are countries like Denmark that have grown enormously while in kept their emissions below of what they had before yes there is time it is getting increasingly difficult but it is still possible to reach the overall goal of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees but we have to ask very fast and we have to put in place all the emission reduction possibilities that we have looked at and do that as soon as possible there are 12 goals that have very strong climate change-related targets whether its food security energy efficiency transport urban renewal all of those have impacts on climate change and with the negotiators see that in fact countries are willing to do all that they will be more positively inclined to having to agreeing to ambitious targets and that's what we need to have all actions have an impact we sometimes you know just myself searching of my lights may not make a big difference in terms of the number of power plants it needs to supply that electricity but if 10 billion people are switch the lights off it makes a huge difference but at the same time we also need to look at the big picture and make sure that we vote we are engaged in the political process and we look for solutions at the local level at our own level but also at the global political level so the oceans face five major challenges globally these include overfishing loss of coastal ocean and coastal habitats like coral reefs and mangroves invasive species species that are often carried and shipped ballast water and on their hulls that can create havoc and ecosystems when they're introduced pollution particularly pollution from nutrients farms off wastewater and also from plastic the growing issue is marine plastics and lastly the major issue linked to climate change is called ocean acidification where a lot of the co2 that's building up in the atmosphere from anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are causing the oceans to acidify perhaps at the fastest rate in at least 35 million years what's needed is much stronger institutions at the national level at the regional ocean to manage fisheries bringing in good science to know we know how many fish is safe to keep catch while not impacting the overall ecosystem and better a better enforcement of regulations laws regarding fishing there's a big problem with iuu which is illegal unreported and unregulated fishing so much as twenty percent or so of fish are caught in the ocean illegally so all of these issues have to be addressed if we're going to take a comprehensive approach we've done some recent analysis that show that taking some of the key sectoral changes and reforms that are needed to sustain the oceans would probably in most cases create net new jobs so whether it's improving recycling programs for plastics which will create jobs to better management of fertilizer and other new pollution sources on farms - how ships deal with the issue of how they clean up their ballast water from invasive species all of these new and additional steps that the world needs to take would very likely be net job creators and in some cases quite substantial ones and with what job creation comes economic growth right so what can the average citizen in any country do well certainly obvious ones come up relating to the seriously rapidly becoming more serious issue of ocean plastics obviously not throwing things away in a way that they might find their way into rivers into waterways into beaches to reduce the burden overfishing there's a number of very good organizations around the world that have helped to certify various fisheries as being fish sustainably and so a consumer can educate themselves about what these organizations are and even often have labels on fish sold in some supermarkets in the world where you can be fairly well insured that that fish was caught more sustainably [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so a peaceful society society where people can live free from fear free from violence free from intimidation free from arbitrary action either front by governments or by powerful corporations and this of course regardless of race ethnicity sex national or social origin the peaceful society cannot exist where there is oppression or where there is systematic denial of rights and liberties so a peaceful society also needs to be a just society a just society is a society that respects the internationally agreed human rights and freedoms but it just society to me is also society that abides by ethical principles that's that promotes the principle of integrity and that is also why the goal 16 has specific targets on fighting corruption use your right to vote every vote should count when it comes to creating more accountable just inclusive and peaceful societies engage as much as possible also through social media and various mechanisms that have been created by various groups to claim accountability to make sure that there is less corruption in society I would also say that at the local communities as a citizen in your communities engage in various activities that can lead for example to cleaner environments to better participation of young people and disabled people and finally I would say act as a global citizen there is a lot of information available so be aware of what is going on globally but also in other countries so that that comparative information that you have will help you to better claim also accountability and action from your governments at national [Music] it's important to have a goal in partnerships because realizing the the agenda we want the agenda 2030 involves all sectors of society it's it's a job for everyone not just for governments and this is the idea behind partnerships [Music] one partnership that our department is very much involved in is the higher education sustainability initiative it's what can universities do to bring about a better world in the year 2030 and this is what this partnership is about they can do that through greening their own campuses teaching sustainability environmental management they can also reach out to their communities and over 300 campuses have signed up the world around the world so it's it can't be measured in money terms but it will affect a whole new generation of decision-makers as it goes forward certainly there are indicators for this goal for example the percentage of national income devoted to foreign aid there is an objective among countries that 0.

7 percent of national income there should be devoted to to foreign aid we are very far from that where the average is about between 0.