You are on page 1of 5

The sustainable development goals are very important to secure a better future for everyone.

There are some challenges that these goals are facing to get completed. United Nations
sustainable development program is taking place to address these sustainable development
goals. The United Nations is targeting to achieve these goals by 2030. These goals are
described below one by one as:
1. Extreme poverty:
The first and foremost goal of the UN sustainable development program is to eliminate
poverty from the society. Although the rates of poverty have already gone down over the
years but still one in ten people are living their lives below the standard of poverty line,
which is that they earn $1.90 a day. Over the recent years, a lot of progress for reduction of
poverty has been made in Asia and other countries. But still in Sub-Sahara Africa around
42% of the population is living their lives below the poverty line. The rate of extreme poverty
has fallen down at a higher rate in the year 2013 (Rosen, M. 2017).
According to this program, we have to rethink about the way the food is produced, shared
among the society and consumed. The shortage of food in the world is due to various factors
that may include the degradation of our soils, ocean and forests. Also an increase in the
proportion of population in comparison to the food is available is increasing. If the rate of
food shortage would stay the same, by 2050 the world would have many people dying due to
hunger. In the United Nation poverty elimination program, the plan has been made upon the
control of extreme poverty UN. (2013). ECOS. A lot of progress has already been made so
far upon the completion of this goal. However, still a lot of work is left to do in the near
future. This might be due to the people who suffered from a natural disaster and lost
everything in it like hurricanes in the United States of America and several other Caribbean.
2. High inequality:
In order to have peace and prosperity in the world, it is very important to provide equal rights
to both the genders in the society. Both male and females should be provided equal
opportunities, whether they are in employment or education sector. In the village areas,
mostly women are not given any importance and they are experiencing domestic or sexual
violence. In the recent years this rate has reduced to 30% but still it requires a lot of work for
the provision of equal rights to both groups (Halisçelik, E. and Soytas, M. 2019).
Similarly, the inequality exists between the two groups in the world. One of the group is the
landlords which is rich and upper class, while the second group is the poor people who are
not able to satisfy even their basic needs of life (Fuchs, C. 2017). Due to the unequal
distribution of wealth, the rich people are becoming more and more rich while the poor
people are becoming more and more poor. It is actually the income inequality that persists
between the countries and within the countries.
The records show that in the years between 2010 and 2016, the incomes of the poor people
have increased at a faster level. This has also resulted in the elimination of poverty from the
society because their average income per day has increased above the 1.90. It was also seen
in the developing markets in the years 2016 to onwards, the rate of duty on the exports of
products has also decreased. These are the efforts that are made by various countries in the
world for reducing the income inequality within the countries and between the countries by
reducing the tariffs at a fast rate (Le Blanc, D. 2015).
3. Severe environmental deterioration:
The changes in the world climate are effecting the whole world in every city and every
country. The lives of people are disturbed due to these problems. These changes include the
rise in the sea level and an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. This has made the world more and more warmer than it was earlier
(Bhattacharya, P. and Bundschuh, J. 2015). The world’s temperature has been increasing at a
great rate. Climate change is a global issue that is faced by the whole world. In order to deal
with this issue, Paris agreement has been made in November 2016 in Paris. In this agreement,
all the countries agreed to work for reducing the global temperature up to 2 degrees Celsius.
There were about 175 parties to this agreement and 10 developing countries were also part of
this agreement. The 175 countries have also submitted their reactions towards the safety of
environment on April 2018. The average temperatures of the earth have increased to 0.85
degree Celsius and each year this temperature has been increasing due to the accumulation of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Mills, C. 2018). Due to this increase of global temperature,
the sea level has also raised and the oceans have become warmed. Moreover, the glaciers are
also melting and increasing the water in the oceans. The main causes of this increase in the
greenhouse gases are the activities of human. They are using various household appliances
like Air conditioners and refrigerators that emit the gases like chloroflouro carbons which go
higher in the atmosphere and react with the ozone layer resulting in the diminishing of ozone
layer (Bundschuh, J. 2015). A huge hole has been found in the region of Antarctic continent.
Various measures are taken by the world agencies working on the environmental issues to
deal with this problem and hence, now the size of this hole has been reduced as compared to
it was in the 2010.
Moreover, various steps can be taken to reduce the global temperature on individual basis
also by the people.
4. Terror and Injustice:
The threats related to the terror and injustice have also resulted in the world becoming a non-
safe place for living. The terrorist’s activities have increased to a greater extent over the years
and the injustice in the societies is resulting the occurrence of various types of crimes like
violence against children, human trafficking and sexual violence (Fuchs, C. 2017). There are
huge number of people who are at the risk of attempting murder due to these problems
especially in the countries like Latin America, Sub-Sahara Africa and Asia.
In order to deal with these issues, it is more important to build the societies more peaceful
and maintain the law and order situation in the world. Any suspicious activity must be
reported to the relevant authorities when found. The relevant authorities like department of
Police should be able to take the initial steps to deal with such issues and play their role in
minimizing them (Griffiths, J. 2018). Most of the departments of governmental organizations
are corrupt because they are not given enough remuneration due to which there is a greater
element of greed that stays within the individuals. When they are shown money to get a work
done, they do so within minutes. This corrupt system should be removed from the societies
by paying the government officers the sufficient salaries (Le Blanc, D. 2015).
The bribery, theft and corruption costs about $ 1.26 trillion to the nations, this money should
be used for the development of the countries. The money could be used for providing the
sufficient resources to the poor people, who do not have enough resources for satisfying even
their basic needs. The registration of births also does not take place in the countries like Sub-
Sahara Africa, where there are 46% of people have their births registered. Due to these
problems, it is easy for the terrorists to carryout their terrorist activities. They target such
people who are in need and use their children for carrying out their illegal activities that may
include the suicidal attacks by the young children (Mills, C. 2018). They try to brain wash
these children and give them the wrong concepts of having paradise after death.
In the sustainable development program, UN is trying to address these issues and reduce the
rate of terrorist activities and injustice in the world. They have the plans to increase the birth
registration rates up to at least 80% due to which they would be able to control these terrorist
activities.
Conclusion and recommendations:
Hence, it has been found that United Nations has been trying to deal with various issues for
the sustainable development. However, this study had focused the four main Sustainable
development goals SDGs which are the elimination of poverty, high inequality,
environmental degradation issues and the terror and injustice. In order to reach these goals,
United Nations government have taken various measures and they have achieved these goals
up to a certain extent. It is still working on achieving these goals and much work is on the list
to do. In order to minimize the issue of Poverty, it would be recommended that the pay rate
of the poor class should be increased, so that they are able to filfull their basic needs. Also,
the issue of high inequality among the countries can be reduced by increasing the import and
export business and reducing the tax rates. Whereas, the issue of environmental degradation
and changing climate can be resolved by collectively working in reducing the emission of
greenhouse gases. Finally, the goal of terror and justice can be reached by monitoring the
suspicious activities and making our security departments free from corruption.

References:
1. Bhattacharya, P. and Bundschuh, J. (2015). Groundwater for sustainable development
– cross cutting the UN sustainable development goals – editorial. Groundwater for
Sustainable Development, 1(1-2), pp.155-157.
2. Rosen, M. (2017). How Can We Achieve the UN Sustainable Development
Goals?. European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, 1(2), pp.1-4.
3. Wysokińska, Z. (2017). Millenium Development Goals/UN and Sustainable
Development Goals/UN as Instruments for Realising Sustainable Development
Concept in the Global Economy. Comparative Economic Research, 20(1), pp.101-
118.
4. ‘Toilet equality’ essential for sustainable development: UN. (2013). ECOS.
5. Fuchs, C. (2017). Critical Social Theory and Sustainable Development: The Role of
Class, Capitalism and Domination in a Dialectical Analysis of
Un/Sustainability. Sustainable Development, 25(5), pp.443-458.
6. Halisçelik, E. and Soytas, M. (2019). Sustainable development from millennium 2015
to Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Sustainable Development.
7. Griffiths, J. (2018). Financing the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Development.
8. Le Blanc, D. (2015). Towards Integration at Last? The Sustainable Development
Goals as a Network of Targets. Sustainable Development, 23(3), pp.176-187.
9. Wysokińska, Z. (2017). Millenium Development Goals/UN and Sustainable
Development Goals/UN as Instruments for Realising Sustainable Development
Concept in the Global Economy. Comparative Economic Research, 20(1), pp.101-
118.
10. Mills, C. (2018). From ‘Invisible Problem’ to Global Priority: The Inclusion of
Mental Health in the Sustainable Development Goals. Development and Change,
49(3), pp.843-866.

You might also like