MOGADISHU UNIVERSITY

Topic: Sustainable development goals

Program: Master of Public Law

Group Members

1. Abdinasir Ahmed Ali

2. Hussein Mohamed Iyaye
3. Fartun Abdirahman Mohamed
4. Yusro Osman Sharif
5. Dahir Sh. Hamud Mohamed
6. Aisha Ahmed Mohamed
7. Hafsa Suleiman Osman
8. Nur Hassan Nur
Introduction

At the onset of the 21st century, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to
develop a cohesive approach targeted at addressing poverty in its many dimensions.
The implementation of this effort led to the establishment of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), a collection of eight objectives specifically formulated to
tackle pressing societal concerns including poverty, hunger, disease, gender disparity,
and environmental sustainability. The MDGs functioned as a worldwide structure to
increase consciousness, promote political responsibility, and rally resources in order to
accomplish quantifiable goals by 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had a profound impact on global policy
and development initiatives, resulting in considerable advancements in two key areas:
the eradication of extreme poverty and the enhancement of primary school enrolment.
Nevertheless, the advancement was inconsistent among various locations and
countries, underscoring the necessity for ongoing and focused endeavours to reach the
most susceptible individuals1.

The completion of the MDGs in 2015 facilitated the emergence of a more extensive
and ambitious collection of objectives referred to as the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) span a wider array of goals,
tackling not just the remaining obstacles from the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) but also integrating emerging concerns such as climate change, economic
disparity, innovation, and sustainable consumerism. An developing view of

1
Sachs, J. D. (2012). From millennium development goals to sustainable development
goals. The lancet, 379(9832), 2206-2211.

2
development is shown in the shift from MDGs to SDGs, which emphasises a more
integrated approach to global issues.

From Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals

At the onset of the new century, global leaders convened at the United Nations to
formulate a comprehensive strategy to combat poverty in its many aspects. The
aforementioned concept was transformed into eight Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent a significant and efficient
framework for worldwide mobilisation to accomplish a collection of crucial social
objectives. They articulate deep-seated public apprehension around poverty, hunger,
disease, inadequate education, gender disparity, and environmental deterioration.
Organising these principles into a clear and concise set of eight goals, and setting
quantifiable and time-limited targets, the MDGs contribute to fostering worldwide
consciousness, political responsibility, enhanced measurements, social input, and public
demands. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been characterised by
Bill Gates as a global assessment tool for combating poverty throughout the period of
15 years including 2000 to 20152.

Developing nations have made significant strides in attaining the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs), while the level of development varies greatly among
different goals, countries, and regions. In large part due to the remarkable economic
expansion in China, emerging nations together have reduced the poverty rate by 50%

2
Fehling, M., Nelson, B. D., & Venkatapuram, S. (2013). Limitations of the
Millennium Development Goals: a literature review. Global public health, 8(10), 1109-
1122.

3
from 1990 to 2010. While some countries will attain most or all of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), others will only reach a small number. By 2015, the
majority of countries will have achieved significant advancements towards the broad
majority of the objectives. Furthermore, for almost ten years, the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) have continued to be a central topic of worldwide
legislative discussions and domestic policy formulation. They have got integrated into
the activities of non-governmental organisations.3.

Eight Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Extreme poverty has declined significantly over the last two decades. In 1990, nearly
half of the population in the developing world lived on less than $1.25 a day; that
proportion dropped to 14 per cent in 2015. Globally, the number of people living in
extreme poverty has declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836
million in 2015. Most progress has occurred since 2000.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

The primarNy school net enrolment rate in the developing regions has reached 91 per
cent in 2015, up from 83 per cent in 2000. The number of out-of-school children of
primary school age worldwide has fallen by almost half, to an estimated 57 million in
2015, down from 100 million in 20004.

3
Sachs, J. D. (2012). From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. The lancet, 379(9832),
2206-2211.
4
World Health Organization. (2004). Millennium development goals (No. SEA-HSD-271).
WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia.

4
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Many more girls are now in school compared to 15 years ago. The developing regions
as a whole have achieved the target to eliminate gender disparity in primary, secondary
and tertiary education. In Southern Asia, only 74 girls were enrolled in primary school
for every 100 boys in 1990. But in 2015, 103 girls are enrolled for every 100 boys.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

The global under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half, dropping from 90
to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015. Despite population growth
in the developing regions, the number of deaths of children under five has declined
from 12.7 million in 1990 to almost 6 million in 2015 globally.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio has declined by 45 per cent worldwide, and
most of the reduction has occurred since 2000. In Southern Asia, the maternal mortality
ratio declined by 64 per cent between 1990 and 2013, and in sub-Saharan Africa it fell
by 49 per cent.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

New HIV infections fell by approximately 40 per cent between 2000 and 2013, from
an estimated 3.5 million cases to 2.1 million. By June 2014, 13.6 million people living
with HIV were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) globally, an immense increase
from just 800,000 in 2003. ART averted 7.6 million deaths from AIDS between 1995
and 2013.

5
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Ozone-depleting substances have been virtually eliminated since 1990, and the ozone
layer is expected to recover by the middle of this century. Terrestrial and marine
protected areas in many regions have increased substantially since 1990. In Latin
America and the Caribbean, coverage of terrestrial protected areas rose from 8.8 per
cent to 23.4 per cent between 1990 and 2014.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

Official development assistance from developed countries increased by 66 per cent in

real terms between 2000 and 2014, reaching $135.2 billion. In 2014, Denmark,
Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom continued to exceed the
United Nations official development assistance target of 0.7 per cent of gross national
income.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by over 50 per cent since 1990.
Addressing the unabated rise in greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting likely
impacts of climate change, such as altered ecosystems, weather extremes and risks to
society, remains an urgent, critical challenge for the global community. An estimated
5.2 million hectares of forest were lost in 2010, an area about the size of Costa Rica.
Overexploitation of marine fish stocks led to declines in the percentage of stocks within
safe biological limits, down from 90 per cent in 1974 to 71 per cent in 2011. Species are
declining overall in numbers and distribution. This means they are increasingly
threatened with extinction. Water scarcity affects 40 per cent of people in the world and
is projected to increase. Poor people’s livelihoods are more directly tied to natural

6
resources, and as they often live in the most vulnerable areas, they suffer the most from
environmental degradation5.

Strengths of the MDGs

The MDGs are the result of a process that started in 1990. It aims at making aid more
effective and focusing it more on poverty reduction. In addition, it started taking
poverty as a multi-dimensional phenomenon rather than simply a lack of income. In a
number of world conferences long lists of goals in the areas of education, food, child
development and more were adopted. The most important of these goals were
consolidated in the UN’s Millennium Declaration. The time had come, eleven years
after the end of the cold war and before the emergence of possible new international
conflicts, and so it was possible to define clear value targets and a target year to a
number of the goals in the Millennium Declaration and present them to the UN General
Assembly as the MDGs in 2001. The strength of the MDGs is that they constitute a
manageable number of straightforward goals that are easy to understand and measure,
with a clear deadline. This made it possible to re-kindle the interest in development
issues in the countries of the North and strengthen willingness to put more resources
into aid. Further, the MDGs have increased the accountability of all relevant actors (in
both the North and the South), which contributed to greater results orientation and
effectiveness of development policy. Proponents of the MDGs argue that, to be as
successful, a new international agenda beyond 2015 should also be straightforward and
realistic. They accuse those who try to push goals from other policy areas onto the
agenda of using the MDGs to their own ends, and profiteering from their success and
popularity. This would cause the original MDGs to be sidelined and their essence
watered down.

5
Hák, T., Janoušková, S., & Moldan, B. (2016). Sustainable Development Goals: A
need for relevant indicators. Ecological indicators, 60, 565-573.
7
Weaknesses of the MDGs

Meanwhile, the critics of the MDGs point out that they also have a number of
weaknesses:

❖ First, they constitute an incomplete agenda. They originated in the Millennium

Declaration, but only cover the chapters 'Development and poverty eradication'
as well as parts of 'Protecting our common environment', completely leaving out
'Peace, security and disarmament' as well as 'Human rights, democracy and good
governance'. Equally, they cover only some dimensions of multidimensional
poverty.
❖ Second, the MDGs neglect distributive issues. For instance, when a particular
country lowers its child mortality rate, then MDG does not capture whether this
is due to improvements in the health of the most disadvantaged, i.e. with the
highest probability of their children dying before age 5 or others that are better
off in terms of child survival. For policy makers it may be cheaper and hence
more attractive to invest in the health of the latter rather than those at the bottom
of the pyramid.
❖ Third, some MDGs measure outputs or inputs rather than outcomes or impacts
of development. MDG2, for example measures only the intake of education,
regardless of its quality or relevance for economic, social and political life.
❖ Fourth, some MDGs cannot even be measured – either because no indicators or
targets were set, or because for certain indicators no data is available.
❖ Fifth, the MDGs cannot easily be transformed into national objectives. They
were originally formulated as global goals, but without modification they were
increasingly seen as national objectives in order to create national accountability.

8
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

September 25, 2015, was the day when world leaders set us on a new course by adopting
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). The first test of the SDGs came a few weeks after the
September UN Summit, when the world gathered in Paris at COP21. SDG commits all
the world’s governments to combat and curb human-induced climate change.
Consistent with that commitment, the same governments adopted the Paris Climate
Agreement establishing the central objective of keeping global warming to well below
2°C. The Paris Agreement marks the most important agreement on climate change
since the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
at the Rio Earth Summit in 19926.

Getting to Know the SDGs

The idea of adopting Sustainable Development Goals came in the Rio+20 Summit in
June 2012. June 2012 was the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit. Major
conferences such as the Earth Summit are typically marked by anniversary conferences.
In fact, the Rio Earth Summit itself was the 20th anniversary of the UN Conference on
Environment and Development in Stockholm in 1972. Then came the 1992 Rio Earth
Summit, followed by the Rio+20 Summit in June 2012. The 2012 event was in its way
a somber gathering because the high aspirations of the Rio Earth Summit had not been
fulfilled. The Rio Summit had adopted the concept of Sustainable Development as the
centerpiece for global cooperation.

The outcome of the 1992 Rio summit was the adoption of three major Multilateral
Environmental Agreements (MEAs): The UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD), and the

6
Katila, P., Colfer, C. J. P., De Jong, W., Galloway, G., Pacheco, P., & Winkel, G. (Eds.). (2019). Sustainable
development goals. Cambridge University Press.

9
UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). By June 2012, twenty years after
the adoption of the three treaties, it had become painfully clear that they were not
delivering the needed results. In 2012, the UN member states asked themselves: “Why
are these treaties falling so far short?”, and they looked over their shoulders at the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They knew that the MDGs were quite
different. The Millennium Development Goals were not a multilateral treaty. They were
a non-binding and non-legal moral or aspirational commitment of the UN member
states. They were addressed not mainly to governments but to a public mobilization of
interest and awareness in the fight against extreme poverty. They were also time-bound:
15 years, for the period 2000-2015.

UN Climate Change Conferences

Every year, countries who have joined the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet to measure progress and negotiate multilateral
responses to climate change. Today there are 198 Parties to the Convention7.

The UNFCCC is a multilateral treaty adopted in 1992 – shortly after the first assessment
report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990 – to stabilize
greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
(human-induced) interference with the climate system.”

Since entering into force in 1994, the UNFCCC has provided the basis for international
climate negotiations, including landmark agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997)
and the Paris Agreement (2015)8.

7
Banerjee, S. B. (2012). A climate for change? Critical reflections on the Durban United Nations climate
change conference. Organization Studies, 33(12), 1761-1786.
8
Dimitrov, R. S. (2010). Inside UN climate change negotiations: The Copenhagen conference. Review of
policy research, 27(6), 795-821.

10
The first Conference of the Parties (COP) was held in Berlin, Germany, in 1995. 28th
COP was held at the end of 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It included the
first Global Stocktake, where States assessed the progress made towards the goals set
in the Paris Agreement and charted a course of action. COP29 will be held in Baku,
Azerbaijan, in November 2024.

The host country of the COP normally rotates among the five United Nations regional
groups (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean, and
Western European and Others), with regional group members determining which
country from their region will make an offer to host the conference9.

COPs have created global milestones for the climate movement, setting standards and
advancing action, including on reducing carbon emissions, accelerating a global energy
transition, and helping countries adapt and build resilience to compounding climate
issues. COPs are crucial in bringing governments together while also mobilizing the
private sector, civil society, industry and individuals to tackle the climate crisis10.

Kyoto Protocol

The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol took place on 11 December 1997. Having
undergone a complicated ratification procedure, it became effective on 16 February
2005. At present, the Kyoto Protocol has 192 ratifying parties. In essence, the Kyoto
Protocol implements the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
by obligating industrialized nations and transitioning economies to restrict and decrease
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions based on mutually agreed specific goals. The
Convention alone requires any countries to implement policies and procedures on
mitigation and to provide regular reports.

9
https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/un-climate-conferences
10
Hák, T., Janoušková, S., & Moldan, B. (2016). Sustainable Development Goals: A need for relevant
indicators. Ecological indicators, 60, 565-573.

11
The Kyoto Protocol is based on the principles and provisions of the Convention and
follows its annex-based structure. It only binds developed countries, and places a
heavier burden on them under the principle of “common but differentiated
responsibility and respective capabilities”, because it recognizes that they are largely
responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere. In
its Annex B, the Kyoto Protocol sets binding emission reduction targets for
37 industrialized countries and economies in transition and the European Union.
Overall, these targets add up to an average 5 per cent emission reduction compared to
1990 levels over the five year period 2008–2012 (the first commitment period)11.

The Paris Agreement

In international law, the Paris Agreement is a legally enforceable accord on climate

change. On 12 December 2015, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris,
France, concluded with the adoption of the agreement by 196 Parties. The agreement
became effective on 4 November 2016. Its primary objective is to suppress the rise in
the global average temperature to a level well below 2°C over pre-industrial levels and
strive to restrict the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Recent
years have seen world leaders emphasising the urgency of restricting global warming to
1.5°C by the end of the current century. According to the UN's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, beyond the 1.5°C threshold poses a significant danger of
triggering more severe climate change effects, such as more frequent and intense
droughts, heatwaves, and rains. Efforts to restrict global warming to 1.5°C require
greenhouse gas emissions to reach their highest point no later than 2025 and then

11
https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwtZK1BhDuARIsAAy2VzvZ9gt26Z8-
tiNk2sNppkq7aQQwjO78MAl9RJmnko-kbMolKH63mIMaAkzBEALw_wcB

12
decrease by 43% by 2030. The Paris Agreement represents a significant milestone in
the international efforts to address climate change.12

Essential Elements of the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement, adopted through Decision COP.21, addresses crucial areas
necessary to combat climate change. Some of the key aspects of the agreement are set
out below:

• Long-term temperature goal (Art. 2) – The Paris Agreement, in seeking to

strengthen the global response to climate change, reaffirms the goal of limiting
global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing
efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.
• Global peaking (Art. 4) –To achieve this temperature goal, Parties aim to reach
global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, recognizing
peaking will take longer for developing country Parties, so as to achieve a balance
between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of
greenhouse gases in the second half of the century.
• Mitigation (Art. 4) – The Paris Agreement establishes binding commitments by
all Parties to prepare, communicate and maintain a nationally determined
contribution (NDC) and to pursue domestic measures to achieve them. It also
prescribes that Parties shall communicate their NDCs every 5 years and provide
information necessary for clarity and transparency.
• Sinks and reservoirs (Art.5) –The Paris Agreement also encourages Parties to
conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases
as referred to in Article 4, paragraph 1(d) of the Convention, including forests.

12
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris
agreement?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw74e1BhBnEiwAbqOAjIvDub5beAm-
S2CS_J_gPxrbCZbBbQ8Uo5a0uTTDNPFDzhzaQk5ILxoCKtkQAvD_BwE

13
• Market and non-markets (Art. 6) – The Paris Agreement establishes a mechanism
to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and support
sustainable development, as well as defining a framework for non-market
approaches to sustainable development.
• Adaptation (Art. 7) – The Paris Agreement establishes a global goal to
significantly strengthen national adaptation efforts – enhancing adaptive
capacity, strengthening resilience and reduction of vulnerability to climate change
– through support and international cooperation.
• Loss and damage (Art. 8) – The Paris Agreement significantly enhances the
Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, which will develop
approaches to help vulnerable countries cope with the adverse effects of climate
change, including extreme weather events and slow-onset events such as sea-
level rise.
• Support (Art. 9, 10 and 11) – The Paris Agreement reaffirms the obligations of
developed countries to support the efforts of developing country Parties to build
clean, climate-resilient futures, while for the first time encouraging voluntary
contributions by other Parties.
• Transparency (Art. 13) – The Paris Agreement relies on a robust transparency
and accounting system to provide clarity on action and support by Parties, with
flexibility for their differing capabilities. In addition to reporting information on
mitigation, adaptation and support, the agreement requires that the information
submitted by each Party undergoes international review.
• Global Stocktake (Art. 14) – A “global stocktake”, to take place in 2023 and every
5 years thereafter, will assess collective progress toward meeting the purpose of
the Agreement in a comprehensive and facilitative manner. Its outcomes will
inform Parties in updating and enhancing their actions and support and
enhancing international cooperation.

14
 • Decision 1/CP.21 also sets out a number of measures to enhance action prior to
2020, including strengthening the technical examination process, enhancement
of provision of urgent finance, technology and support and measures to
strengthen high-level engagement.

Conclusion

The shift from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) represents a substantial paradigm shift in the worldwide
strategy to tackle pressing concerns including poverty, health, education, and
environmental sustainability. Over the course of their 15-year existence, the MDGs,
with their precise and quantifiable objectives, acted as a groundbreaking framework for
worldwide action, producing significant progress and awareness. Furthermore, they
emphasised the intricate and interrelated nature of worldwide issues, therefore exposing
the want for a more all-encompassing and inclusive array of objectives.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), introduced in 2015, build upon the
groundwork established by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but broaden
the focus to encompass additional domains such as climate change, economic disparity,
innovation, and sustainable consumption. This expanded perspective seeks to tackle
not just the remaining problems resulting from the MDGs but also the developing
worldwide difficulties, with a particular emphasis on sustainability and inclusiveness.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a comprehensive and ambitious

plan, which reflects a changing paradigm of development aiming to harmonise
economic progress with social fairness and environmental preservation.
The lessons acquired from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), together with
the fresh commitment expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), offer
a blueprint for a more sustainable and equitable future as the world continues to work

15
towards these objectives. Successful attainment of these goals by the global community
will rely on ongoing collaboration, creativity, and commitment to surmounting the
forthcoming obstacles.

Reference

Fehling, M., Nelson, B. D., & Venkatapuram, S. (2013). Limitations of the Millennium
Development Goals: a literature review. Global public health, 8(10), 1109-1122.

Sachs, J. D. (2012). From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. The
lancet, 379(9832), 2206-2211

Loewe, M. (2012). Post 2015: How to reconcile the millennium development goals (MDGs) and
the sustainable development goals (SDGs)? (No. 18/2012). Briefing paper.

Equality, P. G., Women, E., & SUSTAINABILITY, E. E. (2017). Millennium

Development Goals.

Sachs, J. D. (2015). Achieving the sustainable development goals. Journal of International

Business Ethics, 8(2), 53-62.

Hák, T., Janoušková, S., & Moldan, B. (2016). Sustainable Development Goals: A need
for relevant indicators. Ecological indicators, 60, 565-573.

Sachs, J. D. (2012). From millennium development goals to sustainable development

goals. The lancet, 379(9832), 2206-2211.

Fehling, M., Nelson, B. D., & Venkatapuram, S. (2013). Limitations of the Millennium
Development Goals: a literature review. Global public health, 8(10), 1109-1122.

World Health Organization. (2004). Millennium development goals (No. SEA-HSD-271).

WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia.

16
Hák, T., Janoušková, S., & Moldan, B. (2016). Sustainable Development Goals: A
need for relevant indicators. Ecological indicators, 60, 565-573.

Sachs, J. D., Schmidt-Traub, G., Mazzucato, M., Messner, D., Nakicenovic, N., &
Rockström, J. (2019). Six transformations to achieve the sustainable development
goals. Nature sustainability, 2(9), 805-814.

Delbeke, J., Runge-Metzger, A., Slingenberg, Y., & Werksman, J. (2019). The paris
agreement. In Towards a climate-neutral Europe (pp. 24-45). Routledge.

Falkner, R. (2016). The Paris Agreement and the new logic of international climate
politics. International Affairs, 92(5), 1107-1125.

Bodansky, D. (2016). The legal character of the Paris Agreement. Review of European,
Comparative & International Environmental Law, 25(2), 142-150.

Rogelj, J., Den Elzen, M., Höhne, N., Fransen, T., Fekete, H., Winkler, H., ... &
Meinshausen, M. (2016). Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep
warming well below 2 C. Nature, 534(7609), 631-639.

Protocol, K. (1997). Kyoto protocol. UNFCCC Website. Available online: http://unfccc.

int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830. php (accessed on 1 January 2011), 230-240.

Dimitrov, R. S. (2010). Inside UN climate change negotiations: The Copenhagen

conference. Review of policy research, 27(6), 795-821.

Gele, A. (2020). Challenges facing the health system in Somalia and implications for
achieving the SDGs. European Journal of Public Health, 30(Supplement_5), ckaa165-
1147.

17