Taken as a whole, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals represent a framework for equitable global prosperity. Since the United Nations began considering development on a worldwide scale, our understanding of the interrelatedness of all their component parts has evolved considerably.
It is now more clearly understood, for example, that the eradication of poverty is not only intricately connected to universal human rights and human security. It is just as much connected to all the other goals, including ending hunger, ensuring health and wellbeing for all ages, ensuring quality education for all, achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, and reducing inequality within and among countries. Each and every one is essential to achieving a peaceful, inclusive, and just global society. They all require strong and enduring global cooperation and partnerships to ensure the realization of any of them.
In its effort to eradicate poverty, along with all its other interconnected challenges, humanity is experiencing the birth pangs of an emerging global civilization. The SDGs represent an international agenda, a common endeavor, for bringing into being a global ethic, for regenerating the fabric of society, and for weaving a web of unity throughout the world.
This holistic perspective is explored in detail in The Story of Our Time: From Duality to Interconnectedness to Oneness (www.robertatkinson.net).
Feature Image: In addition to being lead editor for the Source of Synergy Foundation’s Evolutionary Leader’s 2020 book Our Moment of Choice: Evolutionary Visions and Hope for the Future, SDG TL Circle member Dr. Robert Atkinson founded the annual One World Peace Forums.
