Sustainable Development Goals and Pakistan
- Global Progress on SDGs: The 2023 SDG report highlights insufficient progress on over 50% of goals, with reversals in 30%, driven by financial inequities and outdated global financial systems.
- Pakistan's Struggles: Pakistan faces significant challenges in achieving SDGs due to political instability, poor governance, economic crises, and underinvestment in education, health, and infrastructure.
- Need for Reforms: Achieving SDGs requires proactive national measures, global cooperation, increased funding, and a focus on good governance and digital transformation, especially in developing nations like Pakistan.
Adopted in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals that provide a blueprint for achieving equality, reducing poverty, and seeking universal human rights for all by 2030. All the 193 UN member states have agreed to achieve 169 goals by 2030. Although the purposefully ambitious SDGs have achieved some success, there is a high risk that most of the goals designed for people’s prosperity, peace, harmony, and partnerships will remain unfulfilled.
The goals were set nine years ago, in 2015, to address the pressing environmental, political, and economic challenges facing our planet in dire straits. For instance, Pakistan, which is mired in low economic growth, high inflation and unemployment, declining investment, excessive fiscal deficits, and a deteriorating external balance, will plunge the country into a deeper crisis if it fails to meet its targets.
The Sustainable Development Agenda was supposed to be met by 2030. However, the 2023 SDGs report shows that progress on more than 50 percent of the goals is insufficient, while it has reversed for 30 percent. The most important reason cited is the neoliberal fiscal and monetary policy environment created by the outdated, dysfunctional, and inequitable international financial architecture of the Bretton Woods institutions in the 1940s. Inequalities between rich and poor countries are widening, and the gap between North and South is widening. According to the report, the SDGs are at risk; their failure could be devastating for the planet.
In addition, centuries of colonization and exploitation have left the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries. Persistent inequities through institutional monetary and policy instruments play a major role in the lack of progress towards the SDGs. The pledge to increase official development assistance by developed countries towards achieving the SDGs has not been kept, and climate change targets have not been met with success, not least because the financial contribution of US$100 billion per year has been ignored.
At the same time, governments of developing countries cannot abdicate their responsibility to eradicate poverty and provide education, health, access, and employment opportunities to their people. In the 2023 Human Development Index, Pakistan ranks below Togo and Rwanda with an average of 4.4 years of education (SDG-4), while India and Bangladesh (seven years) are in the medium development index and Iran and Sri Lanka (11 years) in the high index development. The Planning Commission’s 2021 Status of Sustainable Development Report admits that Pakistan’s progress in education has been dismal and poor in terms of economic growth and employment.
Furthermore, “Pakistan has failed to provide literacy to 38 percent of its population,” according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2023-2024. In addition, its primary and secondary health care systems are deteriorating due to low budget allocations and unbridled population growth; poverty is rising; its infrastructure of roads, railways, and air transport is collapsing; business growth is constrained by high interest rates, chronic energy deficits, rentier capitalism, and elite capture; and its ranking on global indicators of poverty alleviation, economic opportunity, per capita productivity, human rights, security, gender equality, disability inclusion, and almost everything else remained very low. Hence, so far, Pakistan has been unable to meet the SDGs goals.
A decisive component of development in general and the achievement of sustainable development goals in particular is good governance, oversight, and accountability of governments and public institutions. Governance in Pakistan has deteriorated alarmingly, with the bureaucracy and state institutions becoming partisan, self-serving, and greedy. Political dynasties have ruled in the name of democracy for more than 40 years, avoiding public accountability, weakening domestic institutions, and compromising national interests through ad hoc policy decisions. Sustainable development goals have thus been sidelined. These challenges demand inclusive, rational, and comprehensive reforms through strong political as well as economic institutions, leading to good governance.
Similarly, The UN chief said achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a “seismic shift” that will require “bridging digital divides, increasing investment in education, critical thinking, and information literacy, as well as addressing gender bias in the technology industry and encouraging young people to expand their digital solution.” It means that promoting a knowledge economy is inevitable, particularly in boosting digital literacy, which aims to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. “As artificial intelligence reshapes the world, young people must also be front and center in shaping digital policies and institutions,” Guterres said. Indeed, artificial intelligence is the most emerging technology; it has revolutionized the world; therefore, the digital economy should be transformed through pragmatic reforms.
To conclude, it is stated that Sustainable Development Goals comprise the basic needs for society, including no poverty, quality education, zero hunger, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, climate action, and many more. Nevertheless, the world is still unable to achieve SDGs due to a lack of diplomatic coordination, financial funding, and political support among various stakeholders, both regionally and globally. Furthermore, Pakistan has been facing several challenges, such as political instability, economic crisis, and social issues, posing different hurdles to attaining SDGs for a developing country like Pakistan. However, these challenges should be addressed through proactive measures both nationally as well as internationally; otherwise, the hope of a bright and glorious future will remain as a wish.
The author is a student of BS Economics at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
