Those SDGs...
My daughter's choices for undergraduate options crystallised my long-term misgivings about the SDGs.
Last week daughter #2 asked me to help her select options for her second year undergraduate courses.
One option was development focused, and was framed by the SDGs.
As well as the other options being more interesting and exciting (I am a late onset superfan of non human primate research) I could not help but advise her that the SDGs might rapidly become yesterday’s framework.
SDGs and me
I was never much of a fan - the SDGs were kind of worthy but complicated, looking like they were clunkily drafted by committee1, and often risked becoming an end in themselves (achieve the SDGs by working on the SDGs by having an event structured around the SDGs), not merely a tool or organising framework.
I’ve met very confident people that had almost no experience or track record in real world change but were extremely competent in the SDGs.
From where I sit (a back room in rural Oxfordshire with a view of my sweet peas and the railway), I also imagine that the SDGs played some part in the over-development, over-reach, sub-division, mission creep, and duplication within the UN system, now imploding as funds run abruptly short. I’m some years out of the UN funding game, but can show you the emotional scars of trying to fund two UN organisations in one overarching bilateral aid programme but them refusing to collaborate, and of UN projects that…
OK time for me to stop bleating. Much better informed people than me have criticised the SDGs - the targets and the process. They were regarded as underfunded even before 2025’s bilateral crunch.
This is all extremely painful and damaging. The UN does things that no-one else will, and there is a risk of lots of (metaphorical) babies being thrown out with the bathwater, but still… (checking definition of hubris) there were too many SDGs and sub components, and too many separate UN bath tubs and relative oceans of bathwater.
Even more importantly - do any countries build success from the SDGs2?
Ken Opalo superbly articulated the queasy SDG misgivings that I (and many?) have felt for some years. Ken wrote “Africa’s elites cannot outsource their countries’ developmental ambitions” and then:
Regular readers know of my running critiques of the low-ambition approaches to development policymaking across the Continent — as illustrated by policy extraversion; reflexive embrace of common-denominator approaches to development “goals” (like SDGs); uncritical mimicry of global “best practices”; and the general notion of muddling through developmentalism without serious attention to outcomes.
When I had proper jobs in development I had to know all about (checks notes) SDG 16 as my various employers had endorsed this as a good thing. The SDGs had to be mentioned in the litany of overarching policy references.
However, since slipping the leash and becoming a free range public policy problem solver/nuisance, I keep forgetting which numbered SDG is the governancy one. I was caught out last week when guesting on the (excellent!) Flywheel Economics podcast and I tried to refer to the correct SDG but could no longer remember the right number (in my defence, I can remember that it features a malevolent pigeon armed with a hammer).
So, bad jokes apart - I don’t think much about the SDGs in my work, and I won’t be missing them if they expire. I am still committed to delivering the good stuff, but without the obsession with a global framework and generic goals.
SDG 16
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Always thought provoking! Perhaps your daughter could explore whether (how) the SDGs lost their small ‘p’ political convening value? I wonder if the UK still reports on its own progress against the SDGs?