Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável • IBGE Explica

Hello! Welcome to the IBGE Explains Special Series about Sustainable Development Goals, also known as SDGs! We could say the SDGs are the heirs of the MDGs, the Millennium Development Goals.

The UN released the latter in the year 2000 in the Millennium Declaration. In it, Nations made a commitment to reduce extreme poverty within 15 years by means of 8 goals, such as to lessen poverty, to universalize basic education and to diminish infant mortality. After all, when we establish goals and set targets, we tend to make a greater effort to accomplish them rather than simply “letting go”.

There is also the ‘collective pressure’ factor: many people can't study by themselves due to lack of willpower, but when they go to the library or study rooms, they feel motivated - or under pressure - to study more, because they see the others and fear being left behind. Well, with countries, it's the same. And efforts paid off!

Within those 15 years, around the world, the number of people living in extreme poverty diminished by more than half; The proportion of undernourished people in developing regions was almost halved; The enrollment rates of basic education in developing areas reached 91%, and more girls are now in school in comparison with data of 15 years ago; Significant gains were also seen in the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis; Mortality rate among children aged below five diminished by more than half, and maternal mortality fell by 45 per cent in the world; The goal set to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to drinking water has also been reached. Although results are quite significant, there is still a lot to be done! As the deadline to fulfill the millennium goals was over on December 31, 2015, 193 world leaders approved, on September 25 2015, the 2030 Agenda.

It consists of a collaborative action plan, even more ambitious than its predecessor, aiming at eradication of extreme poverty, fighting against inequality and injustice, and stopping climate changes. In order to make the agenda work, 17 goals were set, the Sustainable Development Goals. These goals comprise 169 targets.

This way governments can plan, implement, monitor and control public policies to fulfill the targets in a systematized and standardized way, in order to allow, by means of indicators, the comparison of results and time analyses. The efforts are not restricted to decisions made by leaders and top bureaucrats. It also involves NGOs, private businesses and you.

Society is quite important, acting to corroborate the goals and watching its representatives so that the commitments made with the 2030 Agenda can be put into practice! Only when we act in convergence will we be able to fulfill such ambitious goals. Stay tuned!

We, the team of IBGE Explains, are preparing a series of 17 videos, one for each goal, detailing each one of them! Wanna know everything on the theme? Take a chance to watch our video on Sustainable Development Indicators and understand once for all what Sustainable Development is.

Check out also UNDP great videos about the SDGs! That's all! Let's call it a day!

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