New sustainable dev’t goals

Ike Señeres

IT is a foregone conclusion, so to speak. The deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations (UN) is this year (2015), and there is no more time to catch up to meet the goals. As we know it already, the Republic of the Philippines has practically failed to meet most of the MDG goals, supposedly meeting only one goal, which is to establish “global partnerships for development” (Goal 8). In other words, we have failed to meet the first seven goals namely (1) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, (2) achieve universal primary education, (3) promote gender equality and empower women, (4), reduce child mortality, (5) improve material health, (6), combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and (7) ensure environmental sustainability.

As a background, it is important to note that we had 15 years to achieve the 8 MDGs, the old set of goals that was started in the year 2000. This time around, we have another 15 years to achieve the new 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the new set of goals that starts this year. Pope Francis calls this the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, because of its target date. As announced by the UN, the new goals are (1) no poverty, (2) zero hunger, (3) good health and wellbeing, (4) quality education, (5) gender equality, (6) clean water and sanitation, (7) affordable and clean energy, (8) decent work and economic growth, (9) industry, innovation and infrastructure, (10) reduced inequalities, (11) sustainable cities and communities, (12) responsible consumption and production, (13) climate action, (14) life below water, (15) life on land, (16) peace, justice and strong institutions and (17) partnerships for the goals.

Since the UN did not really make it clear how to determine whether its member nations are able to meet these 17 goals or not, we could just presume that the determination whether these member nations have complied or not, a simple exercise that could be answered by a yes or no. Perhaps due to the diversity of national and local practices, the UN might have chosen to set general or generic goals, some of which may not be statistically measurable. It would seem however that it would be up to the member nations to set their own metrics or measures, depending on their national or local practices. It is clear however that the top four goals are covered by the Human Development Index (HDI), a metric of the UN that neither has a timeframe nor a deadline. To be specific about it, goals 1 and 2 could be under the metric of living standards (versus high poverty rate), goal 3 could be under the metric of longevity (versus high mortality rate) and goal 4 could be under the metric of literacy (versus high illiteracy rate).

The UN did also did not make it clear how to measure the achievement of goal 1, but in all likelihood, it will adopt the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) that was developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Since the HDI and the MPI both originated from the UN, it is no wonder that the MPI also identifies overlapping deprivations at the household level in terms of living standards, health and education. Putting it another way, the MPI measures the poverty rate, the mortality rate and the illiteracy rate. In order to be considered “multi-dimensionally poor”, a household should be considered deprived of multiple indicators at the same time. For the sake of brevity, I have grouped these indicators into six, namely Floor (not mud, sand or dung), Assets (such as radio, television or bicycle), Cooking fuel (not wood or charcoal), Electricity, Toilets and Safe water or Facets for short.

In his speech before the UN Assembly on the occasion of its 70th Anniversary, Pope Francis said that “above and beyond our plans and programmes, we are dealing with real men and women, who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights. To enable these real men and women to escape from extreme poverty, we must allow them to be dignified agents of their own destiny. Integral human development and the full exercise of human dignity cannot be imposed. They must be built up and allowed to unfold for each individual, for every family, in communion with others, and in a right relationship with all those areas in which human social life develops – friends, communities, towns and cities, schools, businesses and unions, provinces, nations, etc”.

In the same speech, Pope Francis also said that “government leaders must do everything possible to ensure that all can have the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity and to create and support a family, which is the primary cell of any social development. In practical terms, this absolute minimum has three names: lodging, labour, and land; and one spiritual name: spiritual freedom, which includes religious freedom, the right to education and other civil rights”. Still touching on the SDGs, the Pope also said that “the simplest and best measure and indicator of the implementation of the new Agenda for development will be effective, practical and immediate access, on the part of all, to essential material and spiritual goods: housing, dignified and properly remunerated employment, adequate food and drinking water; religious freedom and, more generally, spiritual freedom and education. These pillars of integral human development have a common foundation, which is the right to life and, more generally, what we could call the right to existence of human nature itself”.

In order to make sure that this time around, we will not fail to achieve the SDGs on or before 2030, we should make clear which agencies of the government should be responsible for each goal. Due to the lack of space, we could only discuss the goals that are directly covered by both the HDI and the MPI. While it is obvious that the goal of longevity belongs to the Department of Health (DOH) and the goal of literacy belongs to the Department of Education (DEPED), it is clear on the other hand that the goal of upgrading our standards of living belongs to many agencies across the entire government. Having mentioned the towns and cities, it is very clear that the Pope would like development to go down all the way to the Local Government Units (LGUs). By the way, I believe that it is now time for us to use “municipalities” to refer to both the towns and the cities.

I do not know how the government will organize itself to achieve the SDGs, but if we are going to use Facets as a frame of reference, “Floor” would belong to the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), “Assets” would belong to the Department of Trade (DTI), “Cooking fuel” would belong to either the DTI or the Department of Energy (DOE), “Electricity” would also belong to the DOE, “Toilets” would belong to either the HUDCC or the Department of Public Works (DPWH) and “Safe water” would also belong to the DPWH. It’s a long story, but the implementation of the SDGs at the LGU level should belong to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) through the Local Development Councils (LDCs). On top of that, the monitoring and reporting should belong to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

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