Sustainable Development Goals - Critique

MHST 631, Unit 2

Established in 2015 by the 193 nations belonging to the United Nations, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are a compilation of 17 goals striving towards health equality and equity for all nations (United Nations, 2015). In searching the internet and academic literature, there are a variety of criticisms of the SDGs from various perspectives, but the critique that stands out most to me is the difficulty to measure and quantify the outcomes.

Swain (2018) summarizes a number of reasons and examples for how the SDG lacks specific, measurable and attainable outcomes, sharing examples such as "ending poverty in its forms and dimensions" and "ending … preventable deaths before 2030" (p.7) being nearly impossible to accurately measure. I found an interesting article that attempts to quantify the SDGs through structural equation models in response to what the authors describe as the SDG's having "no clear priorities and no theory" for how nations should achieve the described goals (Bali Swain & Yang-Wallentin, 2019). Within my own review of the SDGs I observe the vagueness and ambiguity of so many ambitious goals. One of the conclusions to this article by Bali Swain & Yang-Wallentin (2019) is the recommendation that developing and developed nations focus on different pillars of the SDG to achieve their goals; developing nations should focus resourcing on economic growth and social development and developed nations focus on environmental and social factors . Nilashi et al., dives deeper into the challenges that outdated, incomplete, or inconsistent data have on achieving the SDG targets (2023). Their recommendation concludes that big data should be utilized to improve the quality of measurable of the SDGs, however, acknowledges the vast challenge to coordinate such an effort amongst nations and the resources it would require (Nilashi et al., 2023).

As I compare the SDG to the Population Health Promotion (PHP) Model, I perceive that the SDG Agenda is lacking a robust plan for "how" to the goals they ambitiously have set out. The PHP Model is a valuable framework to identify and clarify the factors necessary to consider during a health promotion initiative or program (Government of Canada, 2001).Sustainable Development Goals

Kylie

References

Bali Swain, R. (2018). A Critical Analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals. In W. Leal Filho (Ed.), Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research (pp. 341–355). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63007-6_20

Bali Swain, R., & Yang-Wallentin, F. (2020). Achieving sustainable development goals: predicaments and strategies. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 27(2), 96–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2019.1692316

Government of Canada. (2001). Population Health Promotion: An Integrated Model of Population Health and Health Promotion. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/population-health/population-health-promotion-integrated-model-population-health-health-promotion/developing-population-health-promotion-model.html

Nilashi, M., Keng Boon, O., Tan, G., Lin, B., & Abumalloh, R. (2023). Critical Data Challenges in Measuring the Performance of Sustainable Development Goals: Solutions and the Role of Big-Data Analytics. Harvard Data Science Review, 5(3). https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.545db2cf

United Nations. (2015). Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf