II.

Understanding the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

A. Explanation of the 17 SDGs and their significance

The 17 goals are to end poverty; end hunger by improving food security and nutrition, ensure

healthy lives, ensure equal access to education with lifelong skills, empower women and

girls, ensure that everyone has access to water, ensure that there is energy, promote economic

growth by providing employment opportunities, build infrastructure, reduce inequality, make

safe cities, ensure sustainable consumption, take action against climate change, conserve

marine resources and protect the sea, protect and restore forests for sustainable use and

prevent degradation, promote equal access to justice for all and finally, strengthen

partnerships and alliances in terms of using resources for sustainable development.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations, provides a shared

blueprint for peace and prosperity, now and for the future, taking into consideration of the

fact that humans have a lot of issues to deal with to make the world a better place for all

(StudySmarter, n.d.). It is hoped that the goals will be met by the year 2030. The whole idea

of adopting SDGs is to create aims and targets that will allow people to live peacefully in

times to come and being consistent in gaining a network of international cooperation and

peace. The main characteristic are indicators that are used to see how much progress is being

made by each target of the goal. The goals in themselves are specific with several targets and

series of sub-goals which make a statement. Achievement is measured using a number to

which the UN aspires to gain by 2030. In addition, SDGs are an improved adaptation to the

Millennium Development Goals of year 2000 with the shared universal vision of

development being more of a safer sustainable space for all mankind (Leal Filho et al., 2018,

p.4) and where all countries and communities are responsible to play their part in achieving

that vision.
The challenge in dealing with SDGs is attributed to the notion that it is not a legal document

but a declaration of statements that one hundred and ninety-one countries had agreed to

inculcate the 17 goals into their national development plans and frameworks. The goal

achievement will depend largely on how reliable and accountable the quality of data is

collected with review and follow up to see the successes. All the 17 SDGs goals influence

each other and are closely linked. Consecutively, for them to succeed, access to information

is important. That information would be provided by libraries and information professionals.