Synthesis of Voluntary National Reviews 2018 Prepared with inputs from

This policy brief provides recommendations for governments on improving their follow-up and review (FUR) frameworks for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based on an analysis of 2021 Voluntary National Reviews submitted by 40 countries, it advocates a multi-level, integrated approach that extends beyond measuring progress to examine policy and evaluate implementation. Recommendations: (i) integrate SDG FUR principles in the national FUR framework; (ii) develop an integrated FUR framework that informs planning and monitoring cycles; (iii) direct investments and reaffirm commitments to improve statistical capacity and the data ecosystem; and (iv) promote multi-stakeholder participation and coordination of approaches.

2019

SDGs: transforming our world, 2019

Agenda 2030 is in trouble. The rare political consensus that led to the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) four years ago has become fractured. In many countries, even when the state has the capacity to implement the Goals, political will has fallen behind the commitments made in 2015. In other contexts, nationalist leaderships openly attack multilateralism – including the United Nations – as irrelevant, or even worse as a threat to national sovereignty. Across a wide spectrum of countries, protection systems are being weakened rather than reinforced, levels of wellbeing are falling, and inequalities are rising. Where action by national governments on SDG implementation is lacking, can others fill the void?

Sustainability Science

Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, 2015

On 26 September, the United Nations will adopt the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, which includes 17 ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). These Goals will replace the Millennium Development Goals and are meant to make international development transformative and sustainable. This ambition is reflected in their thematic scope which covers fundamental aspects of the social, the economic and the environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In addition, the SDGs are truly universal in nature, i.e. they constitute a challenge for all countries, including the most developed ones. Implementation of the 2030 Agenda will thus involve domestic policymakers as well as international cooperation and go beyond development policy. The list of indicators that is needed for making the goals and targets operational is expected for March 2016. Indicators will be fundamental for implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation. Therefore, a group of experts from the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) have prepared detailed comments on all goals and the indicators that are currently under discussion. The result is an update of a draft version circulated earlier this year. The comments show how difficult it is to identify adequate indicators for all the goals in the new agenda. Some of them can be measured more easily while others are rather qualitative in nature so that it is difficult to measure progress in quantitative terms. In addition, some of the indicators under discussion are very complex with the effect that there is a risk that only experts are able to understand and remember them. Also, some goals lack specifications or a dead-line for achievement, or they are not yet measurable with the available data. And finally, some indicators cover just a small segment of what the respective goal is meant to achieve. With this review, we aim at providing an input for the debate on indicators and for the process of designing national strategies to implement the 2030 Agenda. The monitoring and review processes at the global, regional and national levels will be fundamental for measuring progress, and for adjusting policies. The introduction of the volume summarizes the achievements made by the adoption of a new agenda for sustainable development. It shows the advantages of the SDGs in comparison with the MDGs. The chapter after the introduction focusses on how the UN system can contribute to implementation, monitoring and review of the 2030 Agenda, and reflects on the possible shape of an accountability framework. The core of the discussion paper are chapters that review every SDG, its subordinate targets and its proposed indicators.

Ambio

Discover Sustainability

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceived at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 (Rio + 20), and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. They are part of a larger framework, namely the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Since then, many countries round the world have been engaging in respect of their implementation. The slow progress seen in the implementation of the SDGs, is in contrast with the many negative implications of not implementing them. This paper outlines the relevance of the SDGs, the barriers currently seen in respect of their implementation and outlines what is at stake, if they are not duly implemented. To accomplish this, a thorough literature review of contributions published in the field of SDGs in English between the years 2012–2020 was performed.

Routledge, 2024

This book redefines modern Indian literature from a cosmopolitan comparative perspective inclusive of literature in English from India and the diaspora, in native languages, and works by non‑Indians. It shows how, since the mid‑19th century, Indian literary modernity pursued the conjunction of the sensuous and ethical/spiritual that characterized its three traditions (Sanskritik, Persian, and folk culture) while the encounter, both receptive and oppositional, with “the West” vastly expanded the Indian literary sphere. Aesthetics and ethics are not antithetical in the Indian cultural space, but the quest for an exclusive Indian identity versus universalist approaches offsets concerns for social justice as well as enjoyable embodied communication. The literary constellation, in many languages, now formed in and around India can be better apprehended as a virtual Cosmopolis, a commonwealth of elaborate emotions. The versatile figure of Hanuman metaphorically flies across this Ocean of Stories to make us discover new worlds of experience.

Segula, 2024

Today, many Haredi leaders who oppose secular studies in the ultra-Orthodox education system for boys claim that in the past Orthodox boys were never exposed to secular studies and that this tradition should be maintained in our generation as well. This article proves that this assertion is incorrect.