Sustainable Development Goals - Status and Roadmap: 2016-2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals envisions building a just and prosperous Nepal by 2030. The year 2030 coincides with the end date of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While all the 17 SDGs and 169 targets are legitimate development objectives seen through a global lens, a resource-strapped country like Nepal needs to prioritize, localize and motivate a bottom-up path towards greater progress. Nepal needs a home-grown roadmap that is consistent with the SDGs, yet rooted in quintessentially Nepali events and milestones (pag. 1).
There are several issues related to the goals, targets and indicators of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for Nepal. First, the targets are highly ambitious for several goals and have to be negotiated to make them more realistic. Examples include ending poverty, hunger and malnutrition, ending preventable newborns and under five child mortality, ending all forms of gender discrimination, and ending deprivation in basic services like safe water, sanitation and modern energy. Unlike MDGs which were non-negotiable, there exists some room for adapting the targets of SDGs to the country context. Some SDG targets are less relevant for Nepal while new and additional targets would be necessary to address country specific challenges. For instance, in SDG 5 (gender), targets related to Chhaupadi (untouchability during menstruation) would be more important than other harmful practices specified in the global list of targets (pag. 25).
Third, global targets set for some SDGs are insufficient; some are only proximate; they rely more on markets than on state interventions; and they may not work properly for LDCs like Nepal. Fourth, one of the goals related to Oceans, Seas, and Marine Resources (SDG 14) is irrelevant for Nepal while some other goals like Combating Climate Change (Goal 13) is most relevant, yet action is more dependent on other countries. Some of the goals like Sustainable Consumption and Production Pattern (Goal 12) and Reducing Inequality among Countries (part of Goal 10) concern the developed world much more. Finally, as the goals and targets overlap, one indicator may serve more than one target. Thus there is a possibility of duplication (pag. 26).
Overall, all the global SDG targets and indicators are not fully applicable to Nepal’s country condition; nor are they sufficient to depict the country specific SDG issues. Many targets and indicators would require heavy data which the country will take years to generate. However, they have to be retained for global comparison. At the same time, additional indicators have to be identified to serve the national context (pag. 26).
Disaster preparedness requires increased public awareness of the dangers and ways to mitigate them, risk mapping of the landscape, management plans and drills, dedicated quick response teams, and the dispersed stockpiling of relief supplies. The role of Nepal’s security forces must shift towards preparing for and providing quick response to disasters like landslides, floods and earthquakes (pag. 8). This implies that adequate disaster risk reduction interventions must be identified during SDGs needs assessments. The SDGs are themselves designed to reduce several of the risks and vulnerabilities. Proactive risk assessments, followed by mitigation need to be given higher priority. Instead of post-disaster coping, there ought be a proportionate allocation in pre-disaster preparations (pag. 13). Climate change related interventions include: building resilience and adaptive capacity; reducing emissions; strengthening data and monitoring of climate change; and climate-proofing technology for infrastructure (pag. 16).