Gender equity and the sustainability of farming improved vegetable varieties: An analysis of tomato and African eggplant production in southern Mali

To Achieve a Sustainable Blue Future, Progress Assessments Must Include Interdependencies between the Sustainable Development Goals

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa: Call for a Paradigm Shift.

BackgroundThe YOURS- Youth for Road Safety organisation has established the ‘SDG Champions,’ a youth-led structure designed to empower dedicated youth advocates and researchers. This project focuses on crafting policy briefs...

Rapid urbanization has brought many problems, including housing shortages, traffic congestion, air pollution, and lack of public space. To solve these problems, the United Nations proposed “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which contains 17 Sustainable Development Goals covering three dimensions: economy, society, and environment. Among them, Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11), “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, can be measured at the city level. So far SDG11 still lacks three-quarters of the data required to accurately assess progress towards the goal. In this paper, we localized the indicators of SDG11 and collected Earth observation data, statistical data, and monitoring data at the city and county levels to build a better urban sustainable development assessment framework. Overall, we found that Haikou and Sanya were close to achieving sustainable development goals, while other cities were still some distance away. In Hainan Province, there was a spatial distribution pattern of high development levels in the north and south, but low levels in the middle and west. Through the Moran’s I Index of Hainan Province, we found that the sustainable development of Hainan Province did not yet form part of integrated development planning. The sustainable development assessment framework and localization methods proposed in this paper at the city and county levels provide references for the sustainable development of Hainan. At the same time, it also provides a reference for the evaluation of county-level sustainable development goals in cities in China and even the world.

Purpose Achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) including gender equality, reducing maternal, neonatal, and under 5 mortality rates are still considered a major global challenge. This study was performed with the aim of investigating the relationship between global gender equality and maternal as well as neonatal, and under 5 children health indicators. Materials and Methods The present study is an ecological study performed through credible secondary data published in 2017 for each country. Then, the Gender Equality Index along with its four areas, maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, and under 5 mortality rates were extracted. Data analysis was performed by SPSS 24 via descriptive-analytical statistics and linear regression. Results There was a significant and direct correlation between all of the three variables of maternal mortality, neonatal, as well as under 5 mortality and Gender Equality Index. Correlation analysis between the above-mentioned indicators and the areas of Gender Equality Index showed that there is no significant correlation between the “economic opportunities and participation” index and none of the maternal, neonatal, and under 5 mortality indicators. The “educational attainment” index had an inverse significant correlation with the above-mentioned variables. The “survival and health” index had only an inverse significant correlation with neonatal mortality, and “political empowerment” had such a correlation with neonatal and under 5 mortality rates. Conclusions Panning and policymaking for reducing gender equality barriers should be among the top priorities of primary healthcare in order to achieve maternal, neonatal, and under 5 health universally.

Working Together: Human Rights, the Sustainable Development Goals and Gender Equality

The <scp>SDGs</scp>: A change agenda shaping the future of business and humanity at large

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a landmark agreement negotiated and approved by the 193 Member States of the United Nations. Comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 targets and 332 indicators, it aims to address the economic, social, environmental and political dimensions of sustainable development in a comprehensive and integrated way. The SDG Agenda is clear that achieving gender equality is not only an important goal in and of itself but also a catalyst for achieving a sustainable future for all. Progress on gender equality has been highly uneven across the different dimensions of the SDG Agenda. In some areas, such as girls’ access to education, global improvement is undeniable yet insufficient, often leaving behind women and girls in the poorest households (SDG 4). In areas such as labour force participation (SDG 8) and innovation and knowledge creation (SDG 9), significant gender gaps remain and progress has been minimal. In other cases, such as maternal mortality (SDG 3), progress is too slow and uneven to achieve SDG Target 3.1 by 2030. Similarly, while progress has been made towards eliminating the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) (SDG 5), this is not enough to keep up with population growth, meaning the number of women and girls undergoing FGM is likely to rise over the next 15 years. Unless progress on gender equality is accelerated, the global community will not only fail to achieve SDG 5, it will also forgo the catalytic effect that gender equality can have for the achievement of the SDG Agenda more broadly. This paper shows that across countries and regions, women and girls face tremendous structural barriers that impact all aspects of their lives. Eliminating gender-specific constraints, as well as other forms of discrimination with which they intersect, is hence critical.

Purpose: The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has decisively adopted the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for its electronic ticketing machines (ETMs), revolutionizing the ticket purchasing process. KSRTC is an independent corporation established under Section 3 of the Road Transport Corporation Act of 1950, with operations commencing on August 1, 1961. On average, the corporation serves 35.43 lakh passengers each day, generating approximately ₹1,346.75 lakh in traffic revenue per day. Passengers can now buy tickets easily using QR codes and debit or credit cards, ensuring a seamless and convenient experience that aligns with several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including gender equality (SDG 5), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9), sustainable cities (SDG 11), peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG 16), and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17). This initiative also contributes to the growth of a cashless digital economy. As of October 2024, UPI has achieved remarkable milestones, processing a staggering value of ₹23.49 lakh crore and reaching a transaction volume of 16.58 crore. Its implementation across seven countries showcases its global impact and capacity to stimulate growth in various sectors, including B2B and B2C markets. KSRTC is leading the way by introducing a UPI-based ticketing system in collaboration with Ebix Cash Ltd. across four key divisions: KSRTC, NWKRTC, KKRTC, and BMTC. In the NWKRTC Belagavi division alone, passengers have completed 10.59 lakh payments, demonstrating the system's widespread acceptance. As a state-owned pioneer in transport, KSRTC is among the first corporations in India to implement advanced digital payment solutions in partnership with the FinTech sector. This initiative firmly positions Karnataka at the forefront of the digital economy, driving social progress and advancing towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Design/methodology/approach: The research paper decisively examines both theoretical and empirical studies focused on a case study that highlights the significant impact of UPI digital payment services within the Karnataka State Road Transportation Corporation. It also emphasizes the vital role these services play in promoting sustainability. The analysis of UPI-based ticketing in KSRTC is conducted through the ABCD framework. Social Implications: The research decisively focuses on raising awareness and promoting inclusivity for passengers in both urban and rural areas through the implementation of the UPI digital payment system. Type of Paper: Exploratory Research Paper

Open educational resources (OER) and some of the United Nations sustainable development goals

The Sustainable Development Goals emerged as universal goals aiming to promote more inclusive societies, fighting inequalities and recognizing the importance of cooperation. Based on a human rights approach, the idea is to pursue sustainable development along with human development, stressing the importance of each of the 17 goals set by the 2030 Agenda and how interconnected they all are. At the same time, Education for Sustainable Development is pursuing similar goals, including gender equality, health promotion and climate change action. The main purpose of this paper is to understand how Education for Sustainable Development can assist in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to a literature review, a discussion is conducted from the presentation of each Sustainable Development Goal and how they can be explored through education. As a safe environment, Education Institutions are a platform that should be used for debates, especially the ones related to the challenges society has to face in the future. In this context, Education for Sustainable Development carries important tools to enable the learners not only to be prepared for what their lives and career will require, but also to contribute for a more sustainable development and to take conscious decisions. To address the challenges within the Sustainable Development Goals requires only the willingness of education leaders and stakeholders to adjust their curricula and engage the teaching body towards the change our world demands.

Just eight years from now, in 2030, the world will once again review our progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a bold set of 17 interconnected goals with 169 targets, agreed upon by the 191 United Nations (UN) members, centered around creating a more equitable world for all. The SDGs were originally published in 2015 on the seventieth anniversary of the UN to set out a “supremely ambitious and transformational vision…a world free of poverty, hunger, disease and want, where all life can thrive” [1]. The SDGs were developed with a full recognition that humanity’s needs are deeply connected and not siloed. Despite this recognition, we continue to approach humanity’s needs in ways that belie the interconnectedness of those needs; we continue to work in ways that do not fully acknowledge that basic development needs such as housing, water, food, gender equality, food insecurity, poverty alleviation, and the environment are interconnected. We believe this is unacceptable because it fragments the discourse around the fullness of what humanity itself needs to thrive.The world of research is just as fragmented as the world of programs and policies around the SDGs. Development aid and government investments in sectoral programs are normally examined for their impacts on narrow outcomes. For example, few programs in nonhealth sectors are assessed for their influence on human health outcomes. While annual global development aid reached $161.2 billion in 2020 [2], economic and agricultural development programs rarely evaluate their health impacts [3, 4]. More importantly, most poverty alleviation and food security programs are not developed with improving health or health equity as a key objective, and as a result, improvements in health are not optimized with traditional development approaches. Additional research examining the linkage between poverty alleviation, improved food security, gender equality, planetary health, and human health could further encourage large global health and development actors to invest in more interdisciplinary approaches.Systemic racism as well as ethnic, gender, and other forms of discrimination negatively affect progress toward achieving the SDGs. Minoritized racial and ethnic groups are generally further behind advantaged racial and ethnic groups in poverty, economic growth, and access to clean water and food, all of which adversely affect health and well-being. Those who live in poverty typically have less access to food, less access to clean water and sanitation, and more exposure to pollution than those who have a higher income [5]. Physical and psychological health disparities are further exacerbated by racial disparities related to environmental injustice and climate change [6]. Despite a call by several UN human rights groups, the SDGs are silent on the eradication of systemic racism and racial, ethnic, and many other forms of discrimination, which constitute global barriers to human development and the fulfillment of human rights throughout the life span.Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the world had made substantial progress toward ending poverty in all its forms (SDG 1). While 36% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty in 1990, by 2015 this had fallen to 10%. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it is estimated that an additional half a billion people have been pushed or pushed further into poverty [7]. The effects of infectious diseases like COVID-19 on economic outcomes serve as yet another illustration of the strong positive correlation established between health and wealth over decades of economics research. Moreover, a vibrant literature in economics has demonstrated a strong bidirectional relationship between health and economic outcomes in both low- and high-income countries [8]. This research has demonstrated that there are large returns to investing in health and that programs that protect or improve economic outcomes—such as social protection programs—result in significant health improvements as well. Moreover, in the field of economics, the past two decades have witnessed a revolution in scientific methods for learning how to end poverty and improve well-being in low- and middle-income countries. Randomized trials of interventions and policies have become far more common and have opened new possibilities for understanding how to achieve SDG 1, and also with important impacts on SDG 3 (“Good health and well-being”) [9]. However, most of the economic research on poverty alleviation and health in low- and middle-income countries typically appears in journals that are not widely read by health scientists or by stakeholders in the countries where the research takes place. Through the section on SDG 1, Advances in Global Health aims to provide new opportunities for dissemination of research on the linkages between poverty and health.Food insecurity and poor diets (SDG 2) compromise nutrition and health outcomes in profound ways. Global and national models suggest that malnutrition and poor diets are the leading contributors to the burden of disease around the world [10]. These impacts operate through multiple pathways. For instance, maternal and child undernutrition contribute to almost half of all child deaths each year in the developing world, and 11% of the global burden of disease, including noncommunicable disease, is linked to poor diets [11]. These poor health outcomes, in turn, can affect other SDGs through increased health expenditures, loss of wages when people are too sick to work, or care burdens that often fall disproportionately on women. The connections between food insecurity, diets, nutrition, and health are strong, mutually reinforcing, and rooted in social and economic inequities. Often, the intergenerational transmission of food insecurity and poor nutrition prevents families and communities from escaping these vicious cycles. And yet too much research on food security and nutrition is out of the view of those working on achieving health goals, because it sits in literatures in agriculture, food policy, nutrition, and economics, and lacks a transdisciplinary and trans-SDG emphasis.Gender issues and global health challenges are diverse, emanating out of a complex global context, including a multiplicity of social and cultural contexts. SDG 5 is committed to gender equality, with several targets geared toward ending discrimination against women and improving their opportunities, especially in economics, leadership, and reproductive health. Gender equality is important to advancing global health for several reasons [12, 13]. Without attention to gender equality, females will continue to suffer from reproductive health challenges such as high rates of teenage pregnancies, infertility, and maternal mortality and increased risk of sexually transmitted infections including HIV. Beyond reproductive health, gender matters in the field of gender-based violence, access to health-care services, gender-disaggregated data, and much more [14, 15, 16]. These, in turn, invite us to interrogate the gender-biased norms and gender responsiveness of health policies, financing, and the entire political economy. Engendered by different crises and challenges, these matters play out differently in unique cultural and social environments.Since the 1950s and 1960s, humans have been transforming and disrupting most of our planet’s natural systems at a much-accelerated pace, from the deep oceans to the upper atmosphere, causing loss of biodiversity, overexploitation of fisheries, rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, acidification of oceans, and loss of tropical forests. Those disruptions interact with each other in complex ways to alter the fundamental conditions for human health and well-being and, ultimately, affect nearly every dimension of human health [17]. Planetary health focuses on understanding and quantifying the human health impacts of these global environmental disruptions and on developing solutions that will allow humanity and the natural systems we depend on to thrive now and in the future [18]. Our vision is to encourage the preservation and sustainability of natural systems for the benefit of human health (SDG 3), aligned with SDGs 13 (Climate Action), 14 (Life below Water), and 15 (Life on Land) through the study and characterization of the inextricably linked dependencies between human health and the health of natural systems.Inequities in the representation of scientists from low- and middle-income countries as well as minority groups in most countries has plagued academic research. For example, in a systematic review of health research in sub-Saharan Africa between 2014 and 2016, 14% of papers had no local coauthors (i.e., from the country where the research took place), and representation of local coauthors as first author was also low (23%) when the research involved researchers from the United States, Canada, or Europe [19]. This is consistent with extensive global health literature [20, 21]. Even higher rates of nonrepresentation of local coauthors are reported in economics research that takes place in low- and middle-income countries. A recent review discovered that only 23% of first authors were from the country of the study’s focus [22, 23]. Research funding and publication fees contribute to such inequities and are some of the barriers that need to be addressed to improve equity in the recognition of research. We believe that supporting the SDGs cannot be separated from addressing these significant inequities in research dissemination.Advances in Global Health is a peer-reviewed, open-access research journal that is committed to decolonizing and democratizing global health. This entails purposefully giving prominence to knowledge and knowledge production from low- and middle-income countries as well as racial and ethnic minority communities within all countries. In so doing, Advances in Global Health is committed to the following: (1) having an editorial board that is representative of relevant disciplines and inclusive of scholars from low- and middle-income countries; (2) publishing knowledge from low- and middle-income countries; (3) focusing on issues that are pertinent to low- and middle-income countries; and (4) securing representation of lead authors from low- and middle-income countries. The journal is dedicated to transdisciplinarity and inclusivity; seeks to fully engage researchers from low- and middle-income countries in all aspects of the journal; and specifically encourages contributions led by authors situated in these regions. Furthermore, we have chosen to use an open-access format to ensure that the journal content is freely available to researchers, policy makers, and the general community free of charge. For at least through the end of 2023, publication is free of charge; in subsequent years, the publication charge will be reduced or free for authors from low- and middle-income countries.Thematically, Advances in Global Health is focused on advancing health equity throughout the world by publishing research aligned with the SDGs. Advances in Global Health centers health as its focus and promotes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the bidirectional relationship between health outcomes and other key sectors—for example, ending poverty and promoting food security, gender equality, and planetary health. These sections emphasize individual disciplinary approaches to the SDGs as outlined in each section’s aims and scope, forming the core areas of research inquiry and editorial activity of the journal (Figure 1). However, the journal specifically welcomes and encourages research that is interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary in nature and that cuts across multiple SDGs, to avoid research fragmentation and generate a commonplace for integrative science. Finally, as an underlying theme of the journal connected with each of the sections, we will promote scholarly activity that addresses racism and other forms of discrimination, including the rights of Indigenous people.In summary, the Editorial Board, UC Press, and the UC Global Health Institute are firmly committed to having Advances in Global Health be a leading academic journal to share cutting-edge transdisciplinary research and commentaries aiming at improving health equity worldwide. Advances’ editorial policies will actively address research publishing inequities in low- and middle-income countries to effectively promote free sharing of knowledge around the globe.AGL is sponsored by Emerge, the Emerging Diseases Epidemiology Research Training grant D43 TW007393 awarded by the Fogarty International Center of the US National Institutes of Health.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The article examines the genesis of the concept of "sustainable development" and its influence on the sustainable development of intellectual capital. It was determined that the development of intellectual capital contributes to the realization of all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), providing the necessary knowledge, skills, innovations and opportunities to solve the world's most pressing sustainable development problems. Intellectual capital is a valuable resource for promoting economic, social and environmental progress, comprehensively balanced development of society. Intellectual capital plays a key role in achieving both individual targets and the overall SDGs by 2030. The study of the impact of intellectual capital on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is of great relevance and importance, as it provides valuable information on how human knowledge, skills and experience can be used to address complex, interconnected global challenges. Understanding this relationship allows us to develop more effective strategies and actions to promote sustainable development and create a better future for all. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the implementation of all seventeen Sustainable Development Goals depends on the influence of intellectual capital. At the same time, the so-called "spiral effect" arises, when the development of intellectual capital will contribute to the achievement of such goals as gender equality, decent work and economic growth, quality education, poverty alleviation, development of industry, innovation and infrastructure, reduction of inequality, sustainable development of cities and communities , in turn, the achievement of these goals will create favorable conditions for the growth of intellectual capital, becoming an impetus for its further development. Such an approach to the description of progressive growth not only corresponds to the principles of comprehensively balanced development, but will also allow creating a model of the influence of the components of intellectual capital on the development of an enterprise, industry, sector of the economy or the economic system as a whole..

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, “provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet” (United Nations, 2020a). The SDGs, which include gender equality, quality education, and ending poverty, are those objectives that must be met by all countries “in a global partnership” (United Nations, 2020a). With the 2030 Agenda in mind, this Virtual Exchange (VE) study reveals learners in different geographical locations who are partnered with one another via technology can benefit from the embedding of SDG content into their VE (Dooly, 2017; Forward et al., 2020). This article focuses on two parallel, but separate, Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (SCMC) six-week VEs. Teacher trainees from a university in the United States were partnered with other teacher trainees from a university in Poland and/or Colombia. In another cohort, second language (L2) learners of Spanish from a university in the United States were partnered with those from a university in Poland. In each of these groupings, participants completed SCMC sessions via Zoom and discussed the SDGs. Qualitative and quantitative data reveal that awareness of these universal objectives increased and afforded them new perspectives. By using a culturally sensitive lens, teacher trainees developed teaching strategies and L2 learners increased their intercultural competence. These results suggest that integrating SDG content into virtual exchange can support the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and can make a contribution to the field of VE.

Spatial-temporal pattern of ecosystem services and sustainable development in representative mountainous cities: A case study of Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Agglomeration