The Global Goals for sustainable development have been set; time to take action

More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990, the ratio of girls to boys in South Asia schools have shifted from 74:100 to 103:100, and 1.9 billion more people now have access to piped, clean water.

What instigated these tremendous changes? The Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The MDGs are eight goals that were set in Sept. 2000 by the United Nations. It may not have seemed possible, but we’ve made significant progress towards reaching these goals.

You can participate in the future steps towards reaching the next goals. Last month, 193 global leaders came together once again to decide on 17 new goals for the next 15 years, an initiative called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). These SDGs have been set to lead us towards three things: the termination of extreme poverty, the fight against inequality and injustice, and the rectification of climate change.

These are all very plausible and reasonable goals, but the only way that we will succeed is if everyone knows about them. If we achieve these goals, soon, nobody will be in poverty. Children born today may live in a world in which inequality is scarce and the environmental conditions are stable. And we can help by browsing the Global Goals website and printing out posters of our favorite goal or goals and displaying them everywhere; on walls, on the streets, or even on the clear outer sleeves of binders. The more people know about the goals, the better chance the world will have of achieving them.

Here are some of the goals that were set in 2000 and the results according to The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 (PDF):

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education — The rate of literacy among students ages 15-24 has increased from 83 percent to 92 percent. Half of the children who did not attend primary school now do.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality — The number of deaths of children under 5 has been reduced from 12.7 million to 6 million.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases — 12,800,000 more people now receive antiretroviral therapy, a treatment for HIV. This prevented the deaths of 7.6 million people between 1995 and 2013.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability — 98 percent of substances that diminish the ozone have been eliminated.

Although the world has done a phenomenal job on working towards these goals, we still have lots to improve upon. Progress has been uneven between rich countries and poor countries, men and women, healthy people and disabled people. These are the problems to which the UN has directed its attention in the goals for the next 15 years.

Our situation on Earth is looking up, but it will only improve if you tell everyone about our plan.