While in a discussion with other fellows within one of the GHC retreats, I thought about the first impression people had on the similarities or the differences between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Here is my first impression and my thoughts about it:

The SDGs framework is becoming more in depth than the MDG framework.

The SDGs framework might have more goals than the MDG framework but it is because now other sectors are invited to participate in addressing overall global health issues which will allow the root cause to be tackled in a more productive way.

The SDG framework has around seventeen goals compared to the eight goals for the MDG framework, but at the same time the eight goals of the MDGs seem to show a global issue that might be possible (and/or easy) to address; yet after fifteen years of its implementation, the outcome of MDGs is not really satisfying at a global scale.

A group of countries designed the MDGs but forgot at the same time that other important issues also need to be addressed in order to attain the development goals. Now that other countries were invited in the drafting of the SDGs, it showed how the MDGs project was quite not a “success” in itself

I found that people’s first impression at the sight of the SDGs would be “this is way too difficult to understand” or “Why are health-related articles no longer as many and visible as they were in the MDGs?” or even “why this SDGs document seem to be a longer, hard/difficult and broader document than the MDGs document?”

The fact that the SDGs framework is longer, that the goals are developed, and that most of articles don’t only talk about health issues, doesn’t mean the SDGs are not better than the MDGs at all.

The objective stayed the same but goals had to be redrafted in another way, maybe in a more detailed and broad manner, in order to reach the objectives the MDGs were supposed to have reached a dozen years after.

I believe that looking at an image is actually noticing and identifying all the components of it but looking deep inside of the image allows to understand more its components and then to see the “bigger” picture behind the simple image.

I recall when I am looking at job adverts, in newspapers, website, etc. Much like everyone else, I always read a job advert from its beginning to its end, from the title, passing by the tasks, the qualifications and ending by the application deadline. However some jobs are giving more details by enumerating dozens of tasks. Honestly for this kind, I always read the qualifications part first and if I see I might be qualified for the job, I then take time to read all the tasks and the responsibilities; but if on the other hand I am not qualified for the job, I don’t even bother to go through all those tasks.

I agree that it is easier to draft a clear and relatively short document, but sometimes one needs to clarify and to detail the information in order to show how each and every component of it is important in itself and that in fact all the components are participating with each other to the understanding of the whole document and of its implementation.

SDGs are emphasizing and promoting a cross-sectoral participation in the poverty eradication where MDGs are tackling global issues. It seems to ignore links between issues and this in turn constitutes another considerable issue to deal with.

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