Creating Actionable Sustainable Development Goals that Make Sense
Most people may be unaware of the existence of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which in our opinion is as significant as the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence in the United States. This document is what most Sustainable Development Goals should be based on. The UDHR states that a mother in Uganda has the same right to health as any woman in a first world country. Currently, we are not meeting that standard of health worldwide and could do more to take action around the globe. There are still many places within developed nations where vast improvements are needed.
Currently, the problem with Sustainable Development Goals is that how to achieve them is not clear or measurable. The language of these SDG’s seems vague, instead of actionable text for countries and their healthcare providers to follow and measure results by. This makes it even harder for countries receiving aid to ensure that the supplies and money they are receiving are actually going to good use and are creating progress for their people and the countries they represent. On the other side, donors who want to give resources and make progress towards the SDG’s are unable to determine how to best use their money and supplies to make a difference.
How can RGH Help?
Without rights based approaches with actionable, and measurable SDG-focused interventions, we’ll be unable to have the progress we are looking for in battling not just diseases, but also providing and sustaining better quality healthcare to the world. Having a healthy life is not a privilege, it’s a basic human right as the international community has already stated. Realizing Global Health has proposed better worded and actionable global health in the past, and will continue to do so until the impact we need for an effective global health strategy is achieved. As the Guardian recently stated, “The vision of a world in which human rights are respected is still an inspiration to read, almost 70 years since it was first put on paper.” RGH will continue to urge the international community to create actionable goals that make sense, that build on the lessons of the MDGs, and that are measurable from now and beyond 2030 because as the UDHR has stated, health care is not a privilege for those that can afford it- it’s a human right.
WWRGHD is a blog series from RGH where we look at events in the news and share our take on what could be done, or done differently, to improve universal coverage to healthcare in the United States and around the world.
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Photo Credit: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Attribution: Robert Yates / Department for International Development
