It is time to abandon “development” goals and demand a post-2030 Utopia

By Julia Schöneberg and Mia Kristin Häckl

These are troubled times. Times of multiple, interrelated crises that bring to the fore the injustices, inequalities, and racisms that are not new, but continue to persist and become increasingly hard to ignore.

The SDGs started off ambitiously and claimed to set a mark for a new era in which all countries would be unified in a universal – shared but differentiated – quest to develop. Much has been critiqued in terms of how the goals are formulated and implemented. Continue reading “It is time to abandon “development” goals and demand a post-2030 Utopia”

Learning from the grassroots: “Together we are much more than two”

Impressions from the Third Bridge 47 Iberian Knowledge Exchange Partnership Meeting

By Talia Vela-Eiden

“…
y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.”
(and in the street side by side
we are much more than two)
Te quiero, Mario Benedetti

It was not to be, meeting in Lisbon. However, coming together online to save the day, members of the Iberian Partnership in the Bridge 47 Project on Global Citizenship Education (GCE) sat down to learn about how to implement SDG4 in practice at the local level, drawing from the experience of the city of Valencia. Continue reading “Learning from the grassroots: “Together we are much more than two””

From Science to Practice: Strengthening Research Uptake to Achieve the SDGs

By Maggie Carter

Humanity is currently facing a threat against which scientific knowledge is our most powerful weapon. Researchers are racing to learn more about the invisible enemy that is Covid-19. However, at the same time, we face another threat, one that has been rearing its head in recent years, but is becoming all the more visible in this unprecedented moment: a growing skepticism of and even hostility towards science. While this is hindering global efforts to reduce the spread of Covid-19, it also has implications that go far beyond the current crisis. Continue reading “From Science to Practice: Strengthening Research Uptake to Achieve the SDGs”

The Coronavirus pandemic and the irrelevance of the SDGs

By Remco van de Pas

We are awakened to a new reality. The pandemic outbreak by an infectious pathogen comes to no surprise to the Global Health community. The World Health Organization (WHO) has prepared for pandemic scenarios and response plans since over a decade, albeit that they have been written for an influenza virus, not for the coronavirus disease (covid-19) pandemic that we currently face. What is unpresented though is how countries fall back on their own security and economic matters, and that multilateral cooperation is under severe constraints. A large part of the planet’s population is currently under some form of quarantine and travel restrictions. This is unprecedented in human history. Continue reading “The Coronavirus pandemic and the irrelevance of the SDGs”

Contending Regions? A geographical approach to the 2030 Agenda

What are the most crucial changes brought about by the SDGs? Where does the Agenda 2030 leave Latin America and Africa? What can we as researchers do? And do we need new economic perspectives such as degrowth to achieve sustainable development? 

The panel session at the recent EADI Directors’ Meeting in Cordoba raised more questions than it provided answers – which did not come unexpected, given that the SDGs are far from being implemented in any country of the world. At the same time, all discussants agreed that the world requires more than typical business-as-usual approaches. But as always, the devil is in the detail… Continue reading “Contending Regions? A geographical approach to the 2030 Agenda”