SDGs Implementation: Realities, Expectations and Trade offs- Where are the Balance?
SDGs Implementation: Realities, Expectations and Tradeoffs- Where are the Balance? Felix Dodds and Thomas Jenkins T he set of 17 SDGs and 169 targets adopted in September 2015 is one of the potentially transformative innovations by the global community in recent past. Crafted in a manner that integrates economic prosperity and social development while moving towards restoring and preserving environmental viability, the SDGs offers, for the first time, a bold collective move to address the root causes of poverty, social injustices and environmental degradation. The starting point for the Goals is the acknowledgement that poverty eradication is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. The other is that efforts at combating poverty have always promoted degradation of the environmental although as an unintended outcome. Whichever way one looks at it, economic prosperity and increased social wellbeing have a tendency to leave serious environmental footprin...