I came up with 21 Alleem sustainable development goals three months after the recent oil price collapse, although the ideas of these goals had been in my mind for a long time. The stunning slump in oil prices, dropping from a peak of $115 per barrel in June 2014 to below $35 by the end of February 2016, gave me considerable worry because I knew it would delay most of the development programs in underdeveloped and developing countries. The challenge is still big—about 1 billion people still live with less than $1.25 a day (the World Bank’s measure of poverty), and more than 800 million people do not have enough food to eat. Women are still fighting for their rights, and millions of women still die during childbirth.
I am a big supporter of the UN’s 17 global goals released on September 25, 2015, and I am fully committed to them. The SDGs are a universal set of goals, targets, and indicators that UN member states are expected to use to frame their agendas and political policies over the next 15 years. The SDGs follow and expand on the millennium development goals (MDGs), which governments across the globe agreed upon in 2001.
In my opinion, the 17 SDGs missed a number of very important goals. The goals made no mention of children’s rights, tolerance, and happiness, while the Alleem Sustainable Development Goals did specifically address inclusive growth. Therefore, I came up with 21 goals, most of which are included in the 17 SDGs. I came up with the rest of the goals, which fit into my bold mission: to work with individuals and innovative organizations to improve social, economic, and environmental living conditions worldwide to improve the quality of life for the hundreds of millions who have not yet seen the benefits of sustainable development and inclusive growth.
These goals are unlike the SDGs. As for the SDGs, the UN conducted the largest consultation program in its history to gauge opinion on what the SDGs should include.
Being passionate about sustainability and its principles, I followed the first Rio summit in 1992, and the outcome of the Rio+20 summit in 2012, which mandated the creation of an open working group to come up with a draft agenda.
The open working group, with representatives from 70 countries, had its first meeting in March 2013, and published its final draft, with its 17 suggestions, in July 2014. The draft was presented to the UN General Assembly in September 2014. Member-state negotiations followed, and the final wordings of the goals and targets, as well as the preamble and the declaration that came with them, were agreed in August 2015.
Alongside the open working group discussions, the UN conducted a series of “global conversations,” which included 11 thematic and 83 national consultations and door-to-door surveys. The UN also launched an online survey entitled “My World,” which asked people to prioritize the areas they would like to see addressed in the goals. The results of the consultations were fed into the working group’s discussions.
Problems are not confined to one country, nor can they be tackled in isolation. The UN is the prime organization with the reach, remit, and legitimacy to forge solutions. They work with experts and practitioners to find new ways to tackle the challenges we face.
Because some issues associated with most of the goals are so severe and very complicated and can never be achieved by individuals or organizations in a short time, the world must come together as one to solve them; otherwise, this endeavor would be both a waste of time and resources.
