“With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper… [and] a child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over…
A few years back, I was involved in designing a health promotion and education campaign to help diabetes and hypertension patients take better control of their health in the Caribbean and Latin America. In Jamaica, I asked my audience a series of questions about their body mass index (BMI) and their blood pressure. In the…
As Eileen Hoffman observed in last week’s blog post on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1, the seventeen SDGs are interconnected and must be pursued concurrently. Poverty alleviation, food security, sustainable economic growth, gender equality — each goal contains ambitious targets, but it is the commitment to resilience and inclusivity enshrined across all the goals that weaves them…
We are officially in the “urban century,” where more people in our world live in cities than in rural areas. Fittingly, for the first time, the United Nations (UN) has proposed an urban-specific Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) that focuses on cities and human settlements, Goal 11. The journey to establishing Goal 11 has been long,…
This post was originally published by the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and is cross-posted with permission. “It’s hard… I lost many things because of this violence. We lost so much in this crisis. I apologize to the Wè and Malinke youth, and strangers, too, so we can avoid another crisis in Duékoué. Let’s make peace, let’s…
The very first proposed goal of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is simply this: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere.” This is an incredibly bold statement. A commitment to END POVERTY. In ALL ITS FORMS. EVERYWHERE. I usually avoid writing in all caps, but in this case, I feel the need to emphasize…
For months we have been talking about and planning for the “post-2015 era.” Now it is just around the corner, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ready to be adopted in September. While discussion thus far has been oriented on the agreement and its parameters, focus is now shifting to the means of implementation. With the…
September marks a key step in global development’s future. U.N. member states will convene the Sustainable Development Summit this September to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — a set of 17 newly proposed goals to guide the global development community in improving the lives of the poor and eradicating poverty. The SDGs expand on and refine the Millennium Development…
This post was originally published by the Global Harvest Initiative, and is cross-posted with permission. Nigeria has a powerful potential for productive agriculture with linkages to growing consumer demand. Living in Abuja and working in the field of agriculture, I witness this potential of agriculture to help improve the lives of farmers, not only in…
With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set to expire at the end of this year, the United Nations General Assembly will be meeting in September to discuss the next phase of the MDGs. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a compilation of 17 goals and 169 targets, are set to replace the MDGs. This presents an…
Proposed Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 is to “promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” For those who are familiar with the existing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), this language may sound familiar. Under Goal 1 of the MDGs, the second target is, “achieve full and productive…
“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all…