Assignment #2: Sustainable Development Goals Overview: This is a 2 page paper designed to make you think about how your nation fits into the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015, which have become so important to the UN’s public image since the Millenium Development Goals were set 15 years ago. Page 2 includes information on the Goals to supplement the guiding-questions on page 1.

Assignment Prompt: ● In 2 pages, explore how your Nation relates to the International effort to achieve the

Sustainable Development Goals. ● Prepare for an in-class session (the thing we get into the horse-shoe for) over the

Sustainable Development Goals on February 23. In this session, we will be aiming to come up with a shortened list to mimic the SDG that will be published this year, so we expect you to argue for not only your delegation’s interest, but to debate toward the assembly’s interests as well.

● List sources at bottom of page

Overly-specific guiding questions: (most of these questions are simply suggestions in how you can relate your Nation to the development goals. Get creative!)

● **Required: Which Development Goals are most important/relevant to your Nation? ○ **Requirement 1: Develop an argument as to why your nation would

emphasize a specific goal over others○ **Requirement 2: Research + mention one current event in your nation that

connects you to a specific development goal****○ How do your nation’s priorities reflect its overall state of development?

● What is your Nation’s official policy toward each goal? Does it oppose any? ○ How does your Nation officially argue against goals?○ How do Cultural values within your Nation conflict with certain development

goals?● Are some nations more in the position to address these issues than others?

○ Does your nation have a firm enough economic footing to focus attention on Social goals (i.e. are fundamentals such as food security or infant mortality still at loose ends)?

● What political/social/economic challenges does your nation face in progressing toward the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015?

● Are the goals realistically attainable?

Resources: (List sources at bottom of page, in-text citations not needed)

● https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ ← All of the general information and statistics you could ever need, about every nation on the globe

● UN News Centre: http://www.un.org/News/● UN Global Issues: http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/● UN Global Impact: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/newsandevents/

● UN Peacekeeping News: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/news/

New York Times UN section: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/

●What are the UN’s Development goals

The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals are the successor to the UN’s first set of

Development Goals, the Millenium Development Goals established 2000. Each set of goals

serves as a beacon to guide nations as they progress in various areas of development. Nations

vastly differ in which goals they focus on, regarding national identity and progress in

development. And of course, disparities in this overall progress generate international

controversy over issues such as, say, how to motivate a country with long-standing food

security problems to decrease its carbon footprint.

Is progress possible? Are the goals too lofty?

Despite the inherent challenges, in the last 15 years a good amount of progress has been

made toward achieving the original Millenium goals:

“The world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990

and 2002 average overall incomes increased by approximately 21 percent. The number

of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million 1. Child mortality rates

fell from 103 deaths per 1,000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63

years to nearly 65 years. An additional 8 percent of the developing world's people

received access to water. And an additional 15 percent acquired access to improved

sanitation services.” http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/

What determines how quickly a Nation can develop?

So good progress has been made. But for a variety of economic, political, and climate-

related reasons, every region of the globe has faced its own challenges with its own unique

subset of the goals:

“Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of crisis, with continuing food insecurity, a rise of

extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality, and large numbers of

people living in slums, and a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs. Asia is the

region with the fastest progress, but even there hundreds of millions of people remain in

extreme poverty, and even fast-growing countries fail to achieve some of the non-

income Goals. Other regions have mixed records, notably Latin America, the transition

economies, and the Middle East and North Africa, often with slow or no progress on

some of the Goals and persistent inequalities undermining progress on others.”

http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/