Our cities hold the key to a sustainable future — United Nations goals

China’s successes in advancing the MDGs can provide important lessons for others, especially in developing countries, as the world turns after this week’s SDG summit to implementation of the SDGs. It is in this way that we will maximise well-being for all rather than continue the unsustainable path of trading off social and environmental needs for economic growth.

The opening ceremony of the Summit will start at 10:50am EDT (GMT-4) on 25 September, with the film screening, “The Earth from Space”, followed by musical performances by UN Goodwill Ambassadors Shakira and Angelique Kidjo, as well as a call to action by Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai along with youth representatives as torch bearers to a sustainable future. This leadership could include the experimentation with different approaches to delivering improved outcomes for children, but also ensuring that no child gets left behind in spite of the very real challenges that uneven economic development present to national policy makers. “And a welcome gift to a world beset by war and humanitarian crises, sectarianism and violent extremism, by poverty and inequalities, by climate change and environmental degradation”.

Ghana has formally launched the final Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report in Accra on Tuesday.

Over 150 heads of state, NGOs from around the globe, Nobel Prize winners and media crew are going to descend on the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday for the landmark Sustainable Development Summit that coincides with the 70th anniversary of the UN General Assembly.

But what are the goals exactly?

He said that we can be the first generation to eradicate extreme poverty and the last that can avert catastrophic climate change.

However, some Pacific Islanders warn that the United Nations community is taking on a new set of goals without any serious reflection on what went wrong with the earlier ones.

The Social Good Summit is being organized by people in over 65 countries around the world to launch the SDGs locally and take part in the global discussion about how communities are using the digital tools of today to build a brighter future.

Qin Guoying, vice-president and secretary-general of the CWDF, as a witness of the World Conference on Women held in Beijing, shared her own opinions about the changes and improvement of women’s public welfare that the conference brought to people and the core values of the event. But what are the global goals anyway and why should you care? But while the jury remains out on whether these are achievable and realistic, whether the lack of clarity on monitoring and accountability makes it an exercise in spelling out truisms and platitudes, the fact that this is a political undertaking is important.

Make it your business: Engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals is released before the SDGs are due to be ratified this weekend by the UN.

The goals build on the Millennium Development Goals, which were effective in focusing world attention and national planning on the need to reduce extreme poverty and improve education and health in developing countries. Who will finance this agenda is also far from clear.

Second, they encourage actions by Australia that will contribute to global sustainable development.

Various stakeholders were involved, mainly civil society and academics.

That said, not everyone agrees with the goals.

If it’s adopted today, what next?

The new agenda is people-centered, universal, transformative and integrated. The UN Statistical Commission will finalise these markers or indicators, which will naturally demand capacity-building on data collection in countries, by March 2016.