February 4, 2020
Nadimul Haque makes a Special Mention on reassessing India’s SDG targets
The Sustainable Development Goals are a globally accepted set of targets that countries should strive to achieve to ensure a sustainable future. While India improved upon her composite score on the SDG index as compared to 2018, we have failed to achieve some crucial targets. Firstly, with regards to SDG 2 of ‘No Hunger’, India’s score fell by 13 points as compared to 2018. More people have suffered from hunger and fallen into poverty in the last two years than before.
With regards to SDG 10 dealing with ‘income inequality’, India’s performance dipped compared to 2018 pointing to increasing inequality in the country. All of these are worrying signs as more young workers are entering the formal job markets today. Furthermore, India’s performance on the latest Global Hunger Index has also been a source of concern as our rank has fallen compared to previous years. Moreover, India was worse off in other crucial indicators including SFG 16 of “Upholding peace, justice and crucial institutions”.
There is an urgent need for the Government to take cognizance of these important indicators in order to completely fulfill these goals in the next decade. Effective stimulus must be injected into rural India, which has been seeing low consumption demand for the last few months. Schemes like MGNREGA should be allocated more funds than what has been seen in the Budgets of 2019 and 2020. I urge the government to aim for sustainable and inclusive development for all.
