“We cannot be mere consumers of good governance, we must be participants; we must be co-creators.” – Rohini Nilekani
We believe that there are 5 key pillars we should focus on to guide us towards creating a Regenerative Culture: Governance is our 3rd Pillar.
Why Good Governance Matters
Lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals.
In September 2000, the United Nations Millennium Declaration was signed at the United Nations Millennium Summit. Following the Summit, eight international development goals, known as the Millennium Development Goals, were established to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women by 2015.
Although many people feel that the MDGs were unsuccessful, research shows that 21 million lives were saved.
Reflecting on the lack of progress of the MDGs, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, highlighted the ‘unmet commitments, inadequate resources, lack of focus and accountability, and insufficient interest in sustainable development’ as the main causes.
From 8 MDGs to 17 SDGs
Following on from the MDGs, the United Nations introduced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 to be achieved by the year 2030.
This time around, we need member states to acknowledge that achieving the SDGs requires strong political institutions and processes. Governments have to align national policies with the breadth and complexity of the SDGs and must involve public and private parties in policy creation and implementation.
In other words, the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is heavily dependent on effective governance by governments.
The goals need to be integrated into every governments’ national sustainability and development plans and approached from the top-down and the bottom-up.
Learnings from COVID
COVID-19 set back progress across all the SDGs. The impact of COVID-19 on SDG16, which is aimed at fostering peace, justice and inclusion, is of particular importance. Without progress on SDG16, we cannot hope to achieve the other SDGs because effective, transparent and responsive governance is inextricably linked to the progress of every other goal.
The COVID-19 crisis highlighted this further, as governance failures have resulted in increasing inequalities, deteriorating trust in public institutions and significant obstacles to accessible services, including health services. An effective recovery from COVID-19 requires that the different dimensions of SDG16 be at the core of the recovery processes.
Good governance will help by fostering an environment for collective action, ensuring that the actors involved are held accountable and dealing with emerging complex trade-offs between the goals.
“With proper governance, life will improve for all.”
– Benigno Aquino III
