Problems One conceptual problem with the SDGs is that all 17 goals stand side-by-side. They neither take account of overlaps, and much more importantly, of trade- offs between them. For instance, pursuing the goal of combating climate change (SDG 13) may entail, in specific cases, the destruction of employment opportunities in polluting industries (SDG 8); or the goal to achieve food security (SDG 2) may increase global warming (SDG 13) or endanger sustainable agriculture (SDG 15). It is the task for policy-makers to manage such tradeoffs. Another problem with SDGs is that failure to achieve the targets does not call forth sanctions. While there is adequate monitoring of progress (always an important agenda item at the annual "COP" UN Climate Change Conferences), the most severe sanction lies in the publication of the monitoring reports and a potential “naming and shaming”. What happens in reality is that individual countries and international financial institutions, like the World Bank and some regional development
banks, pursue individual SDGs. As an indicative framework, the SDG process is by far superior to the so-called “Washington Consensus” pursued previously by the Bretton Woods Institutions 5 , with a heavy bias towards privatization, deregulation and external competitiveness as enhancing GDP growth. This model, fashioned after the
post-war experience of industrialized countries, proved to be a positive role model only in very exceptional cases. It prematurely forced developing countries into world trade, caused high external indebtedness and a number of the specific problems which the eventual switch towards the SDGs is trying to remedy.
5. These are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, both created at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, designed to create a new world governance order after the end of World War II.
CONCLUSION The SDG concept is a major step forward as a development framework for all countries of the world. It lays out a much wider umbrella of development and well-being targets than narrow economic metrics like GDP or GDP per capita can describe. In this way, while statistically cumbersome and difficult to communicate because of its high degree of differentiation, it is able to represent the multiple facets of real life around the world. Problems with tradeoffs between targets or overlaps need to be worked out individually when country policies are implemented. It is a matter of concern that after nearly uninterrupted progress with many SDGs until the COVID-19 crisis, there has been a severe reversal since. The Ukraine war has exacerbated these reversals. Once more, it is the most vulnerable countries and within them the most vulnerable people who are most heavily affected.
One conceptual problem with the SDGs is that all 17 goals stand side-by-side. They neither take account of overlaps and much more importantly, of tradeoffs between them.
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