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).
Highlights
Paper for the Human Development Report.Keep, H., & Midgley, R. (2007)
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were a follow-up of the millennium development goals that ended in 2015
The Bhutanese policies of Gross National Happiness go against conventional economic thinking rooted in GNP (Gross National Product) (B2; Ura et al 2012; Ura 2004), as it is based on concepts of broader well-being, embodied in a GNH index
Summary
The SDGs were a follow-up of the millennium development goals that ended in 2015. Compared to the MDGs, the SDGs are new in (a) content (mainstreaming sustainability), (b) scope (adding new goals covering economic growth, infrastructure, industry, cities, inequality, energy, oceans and seas, consumption and production, climate change, peace and security, access to justice, etc. and adding means of implementation and partnerships) and (c) process in which they were established (multilateral, consultative) (S1). Set against criticism of the MDGs, the SDGs score much better than the MDGs, though not satisfying radical critics [like Pogge (2010), Antrobus (2005), Saith (2006), Eyden and Clemens in Hulme (2009), Easterly (2009), but in line with optimists like Jeffrey Sachs of the Millennium Villages Project, Pronk (2005), Vandemoortele (2009), Fukuda-Parr (2014), Jolly (2003)] They were consultative in process, apply to all countries, put sustainability at the heart, make cross-references (interlinking different goals), refer to broader declarations (e.g. regarding gender the Beijing Platform for Action), pay attention to (re)distribution, name target groups (such as people with disabilities; Elwan 1999), use (some) ‘rights’ language (S5, S4, S14), and include many of the previously lacking themes (Van Norren 2017). The methods for this study consisted of (a) a literature review; (b) content analysis of policy/legal documents and judgments; (c) case studies with interviews; (d) comparative analysis; (e) synthesis of the data
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