Sustainable Development Goals

The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development marked a defining moment in the history of the United Nations and the creation of an unprecedented development paradigm bringing together the social, environmental, and economic development strands into one comprehensive, ambitious, and balanced framework. With seventeen interdependent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, the Agenda replaces the narrower and more limited Millennium Development Goals, and has two important features: universality (applicable to all countries and populations); and a commitment to “leaving no one behind”—irrespective of population characteristics or place on the development-humanitarian continuum. SDG 3 (the “health goal”) is supported by nine substantive targets across a broad spectrum of health issues, and four means of implementation targets covering issues such as financing, human resources, and research and development. Given that the social determinants of health (e.g., education, employment, gender-equality) are the focus of other SDGs and the Agenda’s architects conceptualize the goals and targets as interdependent with cross-cutting approaches as well as intersectoral collaboration, in practice at least eleven goals and many more targets are health-related (see World Health Organization 2017, cited under Health-Related Goals, Targets, and Indicators in Agenda 2030). Accountability is key, and many countries have reoriented their national development strategies around the SDGs and have been enthusiastic in presenting Voluntary National Reviews to the annual UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. Nonetheless, the SDGs have been critiqued for their omissions (from social mobilization to global health security) as well as their perceived failure to disrupt deep economic and structural injustices which are harmful to people and planet. In our review of the English language literature, we identified over fifty papers addressing some aspect of the SDGs and health. We are reluctant to conceptualize these as a single literature on the broad, diverse, and complex nature of sustainable development as it relates to human health, particularly since a significant proportion are commentaries rather than primary studies or new theoretical/conceptual ideas. We have grouped the papers into six areas: the genesis and significance of Agenda 2030 and its relationship to health; goals, targets, and indicators; projections of progress and financing implications; goal interdependence and intersectoral collaboration; human rights, participation, and the principle of leaving no one behind; critiques and criticisms. If any topic dominates, it is on universal health coverage, one of the thirteen targets in SDG3; conversely the literature tends to lack a detailed prescriptive guidance on how to move from analysis to action. Given the Agenda was only agreed upon in the past few years we are hopeful that policy- and practice-relevant literature on how to implement action and activities to reach the Goals will be forthcoming in the near future. The views contained herein do not necessarily reflect those of UNAIDS.