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SDGs for All

SDGs for All is a joint media project of the global news organization International Press Syndicate (INPS) and the lay Buddhist network Soka Gakkai International (SGI). It aims to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative goals and targets. It offers in-depth news and analyses of local, national, regional and global action for people, planet and prosperity. This project website is also a reference point for discussions, decisions and substantive actions related to 17 goals and 169 targets to move the world onto a sustainable and resilient path.

Children await the arrival of King Norodom Sihamoni on the streets of Siem Reap. Credit: Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

SIEM REAP/BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (IDN) - The once conflict ridden, impoverished country of Cambodia has made significant strides towards stability and progress, but it is still facing several socio-economic development challenges.

In 2016, it became a lower middle-income country after recording an annual average economic growth of seven percent over the past decade. “The country’s economy has trebled and the number of people living in poverty has halved in the last 15 years. We have to set development issues in the context of those successes,” says Nick Beresford, United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Cambodia Country Director. (P Extra)

Goal 1

Photo: Second Chittagong Hill Tracts Rural Development Project in Bangladesh. Credit. Asian Development Bank.

By Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The Asian economies are picking up speed again. After the big hit from Wall Street when the bank, Lehman Brothers, collapsed in a heap in 2008, sending shock waves everywhere, a recovery is now in the works.

How many child deaths in the Third World did these bankers cause? Another question is will future growth be like the past – fast but severely inequitable? The same growth before 2008 that reduced absolute poverty created a widening gulf between the haves and have-nots.

But isn’t that sufficient for the day, many ask? Absolute poverty must be the key mark of progress – raising incomes, giving people more money to seek education for their children or medical care or filling the coffers for the state so that it can fund bore holes in the countryside and sewers in the urban slums.

Goal 1

Photo: A conservationist holds a remote controlled drone at the Kalpitiya beach, Sri Lanka. The drone is used to study and protect Dugong, world’s only vegetarian sea mammal. Credit: Stella Paul

By Stella Paul

KALPITIYA, Sri Lanka (IDN) – As the midday sun rises higher over Gulf of Mannar, a drone hovers over the blue mass of sea water. Below, a motley crowd of fishermen gathers, straining their eyes at a drone.

A few metres from the crowd, conservationist Prasanna Weerakkody operating the drone raises it to 500 metres, before moving it slowly in different directions, allowing the device to film a large swathe of water.

One day, he believes, the roving camera of this drone will send images of one of the most elusive sea mammals in this ocean: the dugong.

Goal 13+14+15

hoto credit: Nava Nalanda Mahavih

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 11th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

RAJGIR, India (IDN) – Participants at a conference convened in this historic capital of the Magadha kingdom of the Buddha’s time by the Nava Nalanda Mahavihare (NNM) shared the view that, for humanity to survive, science, ethics and Buddhism’s mind-centric approach to understanding nature and society could help.

Funded by the Indian government, the March 17-19 conference brought together Buddhist leaders, scholars and scientists to discuss the role of Buddhism in addressing the challenges of the 21st century and, ignoring protests from China, the Indian government invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give the inaugural address and also launch NNM’s new Department of Buddhist Sciences.

Goal 16

Photo: Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury. Credit: Mitsu (Eric) Kimura, SUA Archivist.

By Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

Without peace, development is impossible, and without development, peace is not achievable, but without women, neither peace nor development is possible, writes Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations. He is an internationally recognized initiator of the UNSCR 1325 as the President of the UN Security Council in March 2000.

NEW YORK (IDN) - The biggest annual gathering of activists on women’s issues from all parts of the world converging at the United Nations ended on March 24 after its two-week meeting. That gathering is the regular sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women. This year it was the Commission’s 61st session (UN CSW 61). Many of the participants at these sessions have direct grassroots connections with their feet on the ground and understand the challenges and obstacles – physical, economic, political, societal, cultural and attitudinal – which women face on a daily basis.

Goal 5

Photo: Destruction at the World Heritage site of Palmyra in Syria (file). Credit: UNESCO

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The destruction of landmarks such as the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the Roman monuments in Palmyra, or shrines and mosques in Tikrit and Mosul are reprehensible attempts to erase history, says Yury Fedotov, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

But the destruction and looting are also generating profits for terrorists through trafficking, carried out in collusion with organized crime groups. Those profits fund further acts of terrorism, and enable yet more destruction and looting of cultural sites and archaeological treasures, Fedotov told the United Nations Security Council.

Goal 17

Photo: After examining 114 project proposals submitted by local organizations in developing countries, the 61st Meeting of the IPDC Bureau in Paris approved 45 new projects in the week beginning March 20. Credit: UNESCO

By Fackson Banda

Fackson Banda is Programme Specialist in the Bureau of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).

PARIS (IDN) - As social media expands, journalism is more special than ever: This is the conviction expressed by participants at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) colloquium, aptly titled ‘Journalism under fire: challenges of our times’.

The event took place on March 23, a day after the bureau of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) wound up its 61st meeting, having approved support for almost 50 media projects especially in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Goal 4

Photo: UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and actress Patricia Arquette join the campaign for equal pay. Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

By Shanta Roy

Women make 77 cents for every dollar men earn. Up to 90 percent of women workers are informally employed. Advancing women’s equality in total could bring a potential boost of 28 trillion dollars to global annual gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025.

NEW YORK (IDN) – The statistics unveiled at an annual meeting of women at the UN were disturbingly revealing: On a global average, women only make 77 cents for every dollar men earn.

There is still a “myriad of laws” in over 150 countries which openly discriminate against women, affecting more than three billion worldwide – and relating to virtually every aspect of women’s lives. (P Extra)

Goal 5

Image: Building knowledge societies. Credit: UNESCO

By Guy Berger

Guy Berger is Director, Division of Freedom of Expression and Media Development.

PARIS (IDN) - While global controversies around “fake news” continue unabated, UNESCO holds two events at its Paris HQ this week which will give more insight into the issues.

First up is an annual meeting on media development, held by the eight UNESCO Member States who serve on the Bureau of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).

Goal 4

Photo: Ambassador Maria Nazareth Farani Azevedo of Brazil (left in the photo) addressing launch of the Exhibition as representative of the Platform for Human Rights Education and Learning, comprising the governments of Brazil, Costa Rica, Italy, Morocco, the Philippines, Senegal, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Thailand. Credit: Kimiaki Kawai | SGI

By Ravi Kanth Devarakonda

GENEVA (IDN) - Several international civil society groups and governments have joined hands to highlight the power of human rights education in transforming lives. In commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, they launched an Exhibition on March 6 at the UN in Geneva.

The Exhibition to be displayed until March 17 "reiterates the vital role of human rights education and training in the promotion of dignity, equality and peace, and in the prevention of human rights violations and abuses" – in the face of the rising wave of xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. (P Extra) Japanese

Goal 4

  1. 2030 Agenda A Roadmap For Conflict Prevention
  2. ASEAN Chairman Duterte Pushes For Migrant Protection Treaty
  3. Amid Plenty, Billions Still Face Food Insecurity
  4. Sustainable Tourism Can Make World Cleaner and Greener
  5. Young People Drivers of UN Sustainable Development Agenda

Striving for People Planet and Peace 2017

MAPTING

 


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