SDG Mondays: Exploring The Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development goals (or SDGs) in a summit meeting in September that will replace the previous eight Millennium Development  Goals that were the world's former road map for eliminating extreme poverty and which expire in 2015.  The new Sustainable Development Goals are goals to guide us, the people of Earth, in improving the lives of people all over our world.  They include 169 targets, most to be met by 2030 but some sooner, that provide concrete ways of achieving the seventeen goals.

Here is a brief list of the seventeen SDGs from the United Nations website:

"1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all

9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation

10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development."

For the next few weeks, when possible for me, Mondays will be SDG Mondays and will each feature an SDG and its targets.  Discussion in the comments thread in these features is welcome, always depending on the quality of the discussion.