Sustainable Population in the Background of Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted on 25th September, 2015 aimed to end hunger, assure gender equity, and build a life of dignity for all over the world. It gave a clarion call of a new framework of “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. The SDGs composed of 17 goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. The SDGs are indeed visionary in character and an ideal framework in which all nations need to work out its actionable plans. Because of varying inter-country deficit on actionable areas of sovereign nations, SDGs have not gone into country-specific road-map for action. It is for this reason that SDGs did not mention any constraints in its overall approach to realise its visionary goals. However, constraints do exist in achieving SDGs just as it had existed under MDGs. Two of the top most goals under SDGs is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere (Goal 1) and end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition (Goal 2). SDGs also aim at promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all (Goal 8). An under-populated country can proceed to reach these goals easily; a country having stable population or optimum population can also move in that direction rather comfortably. But for a country, like India, where TFR is less than replacement level, where there is alarming high order density of population and high quotient of BPL population, where there exits shocking levels of unemployment, under-employment and adverse nutritional standard and relatively poor HDI, the quantum jump at on go to a SDGs level destination is rather a very difficult task. The huge size population and its incremental addition is responsible for this sordid state of affairs. It will be a gigantic task to implement the Goal 12 to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns for a runaway population of more than 1.21 billion population for such over-populated country.