SDGs #4, #5, #14, #15 and #17 - no SDG works alone

#4 Quality Education, #5 Gender Equality, #14 Life below Water, #15 Life on Land, #17 Partnerships for the Goals – a wide range of deeply interconnected issues

In July, the United Nations turns its focus onto education and partnerships – both vital to ensure that the Global Goals are understood and acted on in an equitable, long-lasting manner. Overall, this month features 5 SDGs denoting the complex and multi-layered actions required to ensure our society and planet prospers.

SDG#4 - Quality Education for all. This is an integral part of the solution to many societal challenges that stand in the way of environmental action, gender equality, and in turn, sustainable economic prosperity. The Covid-19 pandemic has once again spotlighted the all to obvious poor progress towards inclusive and equitable education. As home learning became the only option for many pupils, the digital divide became ever more visible: remote learning remains out of reach for at least 500 million pupils worldwide. In low-income countries this lack of access to the internet and electronic devices has translated to the school completion rate falling to just 34% in the most deprived households.

Beyond disproportionately affecting those most in need of the social mobility education can provide, unequal access to quality education is a profoundly gendered issue. School based violence, discrimination, and poor hygiene facilities keep more girls out of school than boys and in 2018, around 5.5 million more girls than boys of primary school age were out of school globally. Quality Education for all is one of the foundations for SDG#5 Gender Equality; gender equality can only start with and safe and equitable are access to education for every child, regardless of sex.

Similarly, climate change is a gendered issue. SDGs #14 and #15, Life below Water and Life on Land respectively are precious to us all but women, especially indigenous women are more affected by changing weather conditions than men - as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change. The UN has called for ‘gender sensitive’ solutions to climate change given their reliance on the natural world “coupled with unequal access to resources and to decision-making processes, limited mobility places women in rural areas in a position where they are disproportionately affected by climate change”. We are losing a record amount of arable land each minute, threatening women, men, and children with hunger and malnutrition. SDG# 17 Partnership for the Goals must then mean working together to come up with the roadmap and technology to protect the environment while ensuring that due attention is given to the needs of those reliant on nature.

What can businesses do to further gender equality, environmental conservation, and access to quality education?

We can all work together in partnerships to better our communities. Our responsibility for the society we operate in does not stop at ensuring the quality of our product. A business thrives in a healthy society and should contribute to the creation of one.

Think about how you recruit. Female employees, leaders, and entrepreneurs are disadvantaged at work and deprived of equal opportunities due to unconscious bias and being primary targets of physical and sexual abuse. According to the UN Global Compact, at the current pace of development, it would take 267 years to achieve meaningful economic gender equality. By making sure that your recruitment process is free of bias you can contribute to making the world a more equitable place – for both women, and those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Through using blind recruitment techniques where candidates are shortlisted based on the completion of a competency task rather than their CVs, you can fight the unconscious bias often inherent in first-round recruitment.

Support the principle of lifelong learning. Lifelong learning starts at childhood. Beyond supporting your own, support the generation of tomorrow. As former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it ‘…investing in education creates a generation of skilled people who will have rising incomes and demands for products and services – creating new markets and new opportunities for growth.’ Offer opportunities to both external and internal candidates – internal promotions and training will not only keep your workforce happy, but it will diversify the expertise and insights you can get from your team. Apprenticeships can help people who could not afford to study for an extended period of time to gain valuable insight, experience, and skills.

Join forces. It is no coincidence that the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are closed with SDG #17 Partnerships for the Goals. United, businesses, governments, and the public can ensure that all voices are heard, and all perspectives are considered when development plans are put forward. SMEs might be daunted by the scale and scope of the action Agenda 2030 seems to require, however, working together and forming cross-disciplinary partnerships can aid us in achieving more. Sharing best practice and joining forces with other companies, schools, or local and national governments can have the ripple effect reaching all the way to countries where gender equality seems far out of reach and tools are missing for ensuring quality education.

Make it personal – are there challenges in your immediate operational environment? Do you have trouble recruiting skilled employees at any level? Do your employees’ children have the quality education they deserve? Was anyone in your team eligible for free school meals? Are they immigrants from a country where education and gender equality are low priorities? Scope out local issues and form partnerships to act and advocate for better.

Education is a powerful tool of change that all businesses can utilise no matter how big, or small. Through ensuring access to information, new ideas, and skills training we can mould the present, and future generations into a society that understands sustainable development and all its core values, including gender equality, environmental action, and cooperation.

Our blog exploring the UN’s changing focus on the Sustainable Development Goals is published monthly - making the SDGs relevant and applicable to every day business life. Recent pieces look at the concept of peace since December 2021, the amazing, fragile world around us, and gender equality as a global necessity. For an overview of all 17 goals, click here.