The Sustainable Development Goals viewed through Gross National Happiness, Ubuntu, and Buen Vivir

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a normative (non-binding) global international environmental agreement (IEA)—claim to be universal as they were multilaterally negotiated between UN member states. However, is giving the Global South a seat at the table truly inclusive development? This article looks at a cross-cultural comparison of the African philosophy of Ubuntu (specifically in South Africa), the Buddhist Gross National Happiness (Bhutan) and the native American idea of Buen Vivir (e.g. Ecuador) and how they view the SDGs, how they view ‘development’, ‘sustainability’, goals and indicators, the implicit value underpinnings of the SDGs, prioritization of goals, and missing links, and leadership. Viewed through the lens of the three cosmovisions of the Global, the SDGs do not effectively address the human–nature–well-being interrelationship. Other cosmovisions have an inherent biocentric value orientation that is often ignored in academic and diplomatic circles. These claim to be more promising than continuing green development approaches, based in modernism. On the positive side, the SDGs contain language of all three worldviews. However, the SDGs are not biocentric aiming to respect nature for nature’s sake, enabling reciprocity with nature. They embody linear growth/results thinking which requires unlimited resource exploitation, and not cyclical thinking replacing growth with well-being (of all beings). They represent individualism and exclude private sector responsibility. They do not represent collective agency and sharing, implying that there is a need for ‘development as service’, to one another and to the Earth. Including these perspectives may lead to abolishing the word ‘development’ within the SDGs, replacing it by inter-relationship; replacing end-result-oriented ‘goals’ with process thinking; and thinking in cyclical nature, and earth governance, instead of static ‘sustainability’. The glass can be viewed as half full or half empty, but the analysis shows that Western ‘modernism’ is still a strong underpinning of the SDGs. Bridges can be built between Happiness, Ubuntu and Buen Vivir in re-interpreting goal frameworks, global governance and the globalization process. This article is largely based on Van Norren 2017 (Development as service, a Happiness, Ubuntu, and Buen Vivir interdisciplinary view of the Sustainable Development Goals. Doctoral dissertation, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 2017). Interview findings are numbered with A (Africa); B (Bhutan); E (Ecuador); S (SDGs).