South Africa is struggling to eradicate poverty.
EPA/Nic Bothma
Despite a relatively slow start, South Africa can speed up its implementation of the SDGs.
Kofi Annan in 2009.
World Economic Forum via Wikimedia Commons
While his appointment as UN Secretary-General was a huge breakthrough, Kofi Annan also led the organisation through some of its ugliest moments.
Hukou Waterfall of Yellow River, China.
Leruswing /Wikimedia
After cascading ecological catastrophes in the 90s, China spent 20 years seriously investing in sustainability. Now that effort is paying off.
Australia’s exported greenhouse emissions are higher per person than Saudi Arabia’s.
AAP Image/Richard Wainwright
A new report reveals Australia is lagging behind most wealthy nations in working towards the globally agreed goals. It’s performing particularly badly on climate and environmental indicators.
A farmer plows a dry and dusty cotton field near Phoenix, Ariz., while a drought affects the Southwest.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Desertification is a problem of global proportions. If action isn’t taken now, it will accelerate and fuel further migration and conflict.
South Africa needs to invest more in early childhood development.
US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Debbie Lockhart
South Africa has made significant progress with some of the sustainable development goal targets. But with others its lagging far behind.
AU-UN IST photo/Stuart Price
Many countries still don’t openly and comprehensively address sexual and reproductive health.
Judy van der Velden/Flickr
Australia’s business-as-usual plan will not be enough to achieve our 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Planning and design for healthy, liveable communities in the Australian tropics can involve quite different considerations from those that apply down south.
Silvia Tavares
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all plan for sustainable, healthy urban living. Urban diaries help identify what works – and doesn’t work – for tropical cities like Cairns or Townsville.
France has committed to halving the level of food waste by 2025.
Shutterstock
The case of the start-up Phenix shows that the fight to reduce food waste requires a regulatory context that encourages innovation at the level of the business ecosystem.
John Swanepoel / shutterstock
But often these new ‘forests’ have only grown thanks to increased deforestation abroad.
Former South African President Jacob Zuma at the 5th anniversary celebrations of the country’s National Development Plan.
GCIS
It’s important yet complicated to align national development plans with the SDGs. But it isn’t impossible.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, with World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, right, and Nigerian Health Minister Isaac Folorunso Adewole, at the End TB Summit in New Delhi, India, March 13, 2018.
(AP Photo)
On World TB Day 2018, eradicating TB finally looks like a goal that could be met — if political leaders can step up with cash and actions to match their political declarations.
Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Kenya’s health system is under huge pressure.
EPA-EFE/DANIEL IRUNGU
Kenya spends millions treating women who have complications after unsafe abortions.
A Turkana woman buys food from a refugee woman in Kakuma camp in north western Kenya.
Refugee Studies Centre
Refugee policy may well be a humanitarian issue. But it is also a development issue.
Better local governance can make classrooms happier and more productive.
United Nations Photo/Flickr
Local governance can have a real effect - positive or negative - on the quality of schooling.
Children’s right to play outdoors depends on them having access to safe and inclusive public spaces.
For a public space to be seen as safe, welcoming and accessible, a diverse range of people need to actively use it. That’s why any space-changing project needs to engage broadly with the community.
Reporting on the sustainable development goals should not simply be a tick box exercise for business.
www.shutterstock.com
It seems there is a gap between what companies publicly assume or state they are doing with the sustainable development goals and what they are actually doing.
A nurse weighs a baby at a clinic in Accra, Ghana.
Kate Holt/MCSP
For healthcare to be accessible, affordable and equal, policies and programmes that promote universal health coverage need to be based on evidence.
HIV cells (in red) attacking an organism.
Shutterstock
Understanding where there are high numbers of new HIV infections is important to establishing whether interventions are working or not.