India’s SDG pledge and the strategy to apply ( Syllabus- GS paper 3, Inclusive growth and issues)

 Context-   The  Prime minister at the first meeting of finance ministers and central bank governor’s under the G 20 presidency expressed concern on slow progress of the sustainable development goals (SDG)

 India’s mixed progress

•   India’s sheer population size shows that its realization of the Sustainable development goals(SDGs) is intrinsically tied to  its success.India is soon  going to become the third largest economy  in the world in the next few decades . However, India’s growth  must also be translated into equal progress on social and human development as well.

 The  Sustainable development framework has 17 SDGs with 231 unique  indicators all related to  social welfare, economic development and environmental sustainability that are supposed to be met by 2030. With almost halfway  to the deadline, there is a need to assess India’s progress on these indicators.  The COVID-19  mobilization has demonstrated  the ability of India to deliver  at a large scale population that can be probably adopted to the  achievement of the SDGs.

•   Recent studies assessing India’s progress on 33 welfare indicators covering 9 SGDs provided a mixed picture of concern and positive trend.
•    A positive thing is that India is ‘ On Target ‘ to  14 out of 33 SDGs that include indicators like full vaccination, neonatal and under -five mortality, improved sanitation and  electricity access. However this does not apply equally across all districts. Like   the neonatal and under five mortality is  ‘On target ‘   for  286 and 208 districts  respectively out of 707 districts are not.

  129 districts are excluded  on their course to meet the target  on access to improved sanitation.

•  Indicators such as reduction of multidimensional poverty, elimination of adolescent pregnancy and women having bank accounts have improved across districts between 2016 and 2021.
•  Concerning areas include that despite the national policy for clean cooking fuel more than two-third of the districts are ‘Off Target’ and  278 and 415 districts are ‘Off target ‘ for handwashing facilities and water respectively.
•   The heightened areas of concern are SDGs indicators   on gender equality and women’s well being. 
•  Today no district in India has been able to eliminate  the practice of child marriage before the leagal age of 18 years. More than  three-fourths of districts  will not be able to reduce the practice of child-marriage  to the SDG target of 0.5 % by 2030.
• Other areas where india lags behind and need to escalate  them as priorties include is to track child marriage  along with other related and critical indicators such as partner violence( sexual and physical) and teenage pregancy( 15-19 years).
•   With the high overall expansion of mobile phone access in India  around 93 % of households,  only 56 % of women own a mobile phone  and 567 districts are ‘ Off target’.

 The covid response plan- a lesson to realize SDG

•   The designing and implementation of a policy  response to any pressing issue  is viewed as an ‘optimisation problem;  that relies on responsive administration, sound  data ,Political will and adequate resources.During the covid -19 India adopted the  ‘optimisation approach’  and it was provided with focus and necessary resources for its success.
•  There are some lessons India needs to learn  from its COVID-19 strategy  in order to  inform and optimize its approach to SDG targets.
•  First–  there is a need  for sustained and strong leadership  supported by responsive administration structure at all levels, i.e from district to national level.  Like the large scale vaccination programs  and rollout of relief packages was possible because of  this approach.This shall help in the creation of a similar  support to accomplish India’s district level SDGs.
•   Second-  need for large scale  digital infrastructure  and other indigenous initiatives like Cowin, India needs a coordinated public data platform  for population health management that is siloed into  a digital resource for the national policy makers, state and  district administrators.
•  Finally– a need for a targeted delivery strategy  like delivery of covid  relief packages.  The key to such  relief programmes is a mix  of spending  to provide economic support and direct – in kind, as well as measures to revitalize the economy, agriculture and small businesses.
•  Specific targets  must be made with the  aim to meet the needs of the   vulnerable and socio- economically disadvantaged group inorder  to improve their well- being.

 Conclusion:

 India needs an innovative policy in  its path to meet the aspirations of people . In successfully delivering a real time response during covid -19 India proved that its possible to  deliver at  a large scale. Hence  in order to meet SDG targets , especially in basic quality  infrastructure, health and well being and gender equality  a similar nationwide effort as that during COVID-19 is needed.

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