At the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) summit in September of 2019, world leaders in attendance came to a sobering realization — they were falling very far short of accomplishing some of these goals. 

The 2020 SDG report by UN Secretary-General António Gutteres points to some progress in 2019, just four years after all 193 UN member-states adopted the SDGs. Global poverty and child mortality rates were dropping. More of the world’s population now has access to electricity. Countries were developing sustainable development policies and signing environmental protection agreements. 

“In other areas, however, progress had either stalled or been reversed;” Gutteres’ report continues, “the number of people suffering from hunger was on the rise; climate change was occurring much faster than anticipated; and inequality continued to increase within and among countries.” And now, in 2021, COVID-19, described by Gutteres as “the worst human and economic crisis of our lifetimes,” will impact every single one of the SDGs.

How can Canada commit to resolving the SDGs during a period of incredible catastrophe? Perhaps more importantly, how can Canadian governments, civil society organizations, businesses, and citizens keep each other accountable? The SDGs are not legally binding. If Canada does not meet its targets, it will not face legal or financial penalties. Focusing on transparency and unpacking the effects accomplishing the SDGs could have on Canadian communities are among the best ways for civil society organizations to push governments — and each other — to make progress, experts say. 

Tracking Canada’s SDG progress

Underpinning the 17 SDGs are 169 targets and 231 unique indicators used to translate high-level development goals into concrete action. SDG 1 — End poverty in all its forms everywhere — includes the goal of eradicating extreme poverty, defined as people living on less than $1.25 U.S. a day. It also calls on countries to reduce by at least 50 per cent the proportion of everyone living in poverty according to national definitions. These targets and indicators do narrow the focus of the SDGs somewhat, but they are also highly subjective. What constitutes poverty? The answer to that question varies by country, or even in regions within a specific country. 

Sarah Kambites, acting president of the United Nations Association in Canada, doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Canada’s metrics for feeding its population in a climate defined by harsh winters and short summers have to be different from those of Uganda, she says, a country known for lots of sunshine. “To be fair,” Kambites says of the SDG targets and indicators, “they’re broad because the planet is broad.” Each country is supposed to adjust the SDG indicators to their own realities. 

Canada is already assembling its own framework for analyzing SDG data. At the Government of Canada Sustainable Development Goals Data Hub, users can click on icons of all 17 SDGs and track Canada’s progress indicator-by-indicator. But scroll through the columns and users will notice plenty of gaps in the data. On SDG 1, Statistics Canada does use a Market Basket Measure — a method of calculating low income based on the cost of a specific group of essential goods like food, clothing, and rent — to calculate the percentage of Canadians living in poverty, but offers no data on the proportion of disabled Canadians who receive benefits. Nor does it have figures on the proportion of Canadians who live in households with access to basic services. There are still plenty of gaps in Canada’s analysis of its own SDG progress, even within analysis of progress on a single SDG. 

SDG indicators aren’t easy to quantify. What qualifies as a basic service? Does internet access count? Many would argue that in 2021, it should. How about access to nutritious food in particular? As previously stated, different countries will have different realistic benchmarks for all of the 17 SDGs, but agreeing on these definitions within a national context can be tricky. Add to that the SDG deadline in 2030 — just nine years away — and Canada is facing a very steep climb. 

And then there’s the question of accountability. Measuring SDG progress is an important step in that process, but governments, corporations, non-profits, and civil society at large must also take these indicators seriously. The federal government has already presented a Voluntary National Review to the UN that suggests Canada is making good progress on the SDGs, and is expected to present a second one before 2030. But can Canada and its civil society do more to remain committed to achieving the SDGs and accountable to its promises?

Making it personal

To many Canadians, the SDGs may seem very grandiose. ‘Ending hunger’, ‘life below water’, or ‘decent work and economic growth’ are serious challenges that may seem insurmountable or simply irrelevant to them. But in Taloyoak, a Nunavut community of just over a thousand people near the proposed Aviqtuuq Inuit Protected and Conserved Area, the consequences of not ending food insecurity, not boosting local employment, and living unsustainably are very real. 

“Aviqtuuq is our home, our traditional lands,” says Jimmy Oleekatalik, the manager of Spence Bay Hunter & Trapper Association, in a statement. “It has provided us with what we have needed to survive and thrive here for generations. We want to see the lands and resources here protected from industrial development because the area is sacred to us and has everything we need to prosper.” The act of stewarding these traditional lands and thriving off their bounty is not abstract to Taloyoak, or Oleekatalik.

The association manager is also the leader of Niqihaqut, “our food” in Inuktitut: a food sovereignty project that includes establishing a cut-and-wrap facility to process locally caught meat using Inuit traditions. The project would also employ local people to hunt, prepare, and distribute food to the local community. Brandon Laforest, senior Arctic species specialist with the World Wildlife Fund, who assists Niqihaqut, says the project has its own built-in accountability measures. “It’s a project led by the community and for the betterment of the community,” he says. “The only people that stand to suffer if this project is unsustainable are the community members themselves.”

Contextualizing the SDGs within the experiences of a community is an important way to not only explain these globally-oriented goals, but also give locals a chance to come up with their own solutions. This is how the Equality Fund thinks about the SDGs and accountability when it supports feminist organizations around the world. “We would hold ourselves accountable to the communities and to the constituency-led groups that we support, not to the SDGs themselves,” says Melinda Wells, strategic partnerships lead at the Equality Fund. 

Companies can also try and incorporate the SDGs into their vision and purpose, a strategy Leor Rotchild, the executive director of Canadian Business for Social Responsibility says is much more powerful than simply finding a reporting framework and calculating the results. “Starting with this idea of a corporate purpose is really powerful,” he says. Working out a deliberate SDG strategy in advance can help a company figure out how to hit its sustainable goals, Rotchild says, and tell its story in an authentic way. 

Niqihaqut was not inspired by the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda, but its accountability to the community of Taloyoak, and its application of local Inuit knowledge to tackle food insecurity and sustainability, is a lesson for any organization trying to implement the SDGs. This accountability doesn’t just come out of respect for the community, but also an awareness of how important sustainability is to life in Taloyoak. “I’ll be sad if we lose a caribou herd, but my life will go on,” Laforest says. “But if you’re an Inuit community who’s depended on this herd for time immemorial…there’s so much more at stake for the management of that herd.” 

Leading by example

Between now and 2030, each signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda is encouraged to submit Voluntary National Reviews, long reports detailing a country’s progress on implementing the SDGs. The UN Secretary-General also compiles their own report on the SDGs every year, although it focuses on broader SDG accomplishments around the globe rather than the progress of a single country. On top of these reports, Statistics Canada is publishing data on Canada’s progress on all SDG indicators for the public to see. Is this enough transparency?

When Baker McKenzie, a global law firm, decided it would join the UN Global Compact, a voluntary organization of CEOs around the world focused on sustainability principles, it chose to tackle two SDGs in particular—SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 16 (peace, justice, and strong institutions). They’re working on a framework around strengthening the rule of law with major companies like Nestle and L’Oreal. And internally, Baker McKenzie launched a program two years ago to ensure that a minimum of 40 percent of all leadership roles are filled by women, with another 20 percent open to all genders. “The business of law, historically, has been a laggard in gender equality, particularly in leadership roles” says Kevin Coon, a partner at Baker McKenzie. “Sixty percent of the new entrants to the law firm are women, but at the leadership levels, it’s less than 10 percent—and that applies across the globe.”

To ensure they carried this program out, Baker McKenzie appointed a global director focused on sustainability. “That accountability flows right up to our executive committee,” Coon says. Sustainability is now baked into the firm’s agenda, with the SDGs now one of the strategic pillars of the company itself, Coon says, and progress is reported annually both within the firm and to the UN Global Compact. “From an accountability standpoint…you couldn’t get any higher than that,” Coon says. 

The idea of businesses practising what they preach on accountability is also very important for the SDGs. Rotchild points to research his organization has done around sustainable supply chains. In a CBSR survey of Canadian companies, 68 percent said they had a supplier code of conduct — a set of rules governing the behaviour of any companies providing them with goods or materials. But only 32 percent of companies were actually following up to ensure that their suppliers were actually following the code of conduct. “Even if there are a number of companies putting the word ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ into their supplier codes of conduct, it doesn’t necessarily mean the suppliers know what that is,” Rothschild explains.  

The Equality Fund carries out its own accountability reviews — Wells says a report based on consultations with over 1,000 feminist activists around the world on the fund’s direction is due shortly. But the fund also makes a point of reserving leadership roles on its board for feminists from the Global South. Wells says the fund has two co-chairs — one Canadian, one from the Global South. Their board also includes a reserved seat for the African Women’s Development Fund. “Within our own governance, we’re ensuring that lens of feminist activists is there evaluating our work and supporting us in getting better at what we’re doing,” Wells says. While the Equality Fund works with international feminist organizations on the SDGs, rather than those in Canada, their practice of representing the communities they support within their leadership is applicable to any civil society organization looking to remain accountable. 

One of the cooperative world’s guiding principles is the idea of ‘one member, one vote.’ “Co-ops are democratic business,” says Peter Cameron, co-op development manager at the Ontario Co-operative Association. While some major co-operatives such as the now defunct Mountain Equipment Co-op were run with corporate-style managers, the basic idea of a co-op is that its member-owners are able to keep it true to its principles. These goals, be they the implementation of the SDGs or something else entirely, can’t easily be sidetracked by a rogue investor or unresponsive CEO. 

Meeting our targets

Are all of the SDGs achievable in Canada within the next nine years? Not necessarily. Canada may be a fairly well-off country, but the ‘material footprint’ for its GDP is high thanks to a dependence on fossil fuel and ore extraction (an indicator of SDG 8) for a wealthy Global North country. By and large, Canadians consider their public sector to be competent, but the country’s access to information legislation (an indicator of SDG 16) has been criticized for years by transparency advocates as being woefully inadequate. There is a lot to do.

But Leah Ettarh, executive director of the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation, doesn’t believe missing SDG targets constitutes an overall failure. “Are all goals achievable?” she says. “You have to have a goal and you have to have a target and then you measure against that. I think even if we were to achieve… 50 percent, we’ve gotten somewhere.” Progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the predecessors to the SDGs, was slow on a number of targets, including access to basic sanitation and reducing mortality for children under 5 years old. 

Yet even these failures contain accomplishments of their own. The United Nations Development Program’s final report on the MDGs acknowledged that the world missed its goal of a 66 percent reduction in child mortality for children under the age of 5.

However, mortality did decline from 12.7 million children per year to nearly 6 million — a substantial improvement by any measure. 

All told, accomplishing every target in the SDGs is unlikely. Perhaps that’s not the point. “I’ll never tell you we are going to have it done by 2030,” Kambites says. “We shall see. But we are trying our level best.” 

In Canada, accomplishing the SDGs could be incredibly important to Indigenous communities, where centuries of institutional racism and cultural genocide have contributed to a lack of clean drinking water, basic infrastructure, and economic opportunities similar to developing countries. The federal government says its implementation plan will include the advice and guidance of Indigenous communities. 

How this consultation pans out is yet to be seen. For decades, inquiries such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples have made recommendations largely in line with the SDGs, with little progress. 

The final part of this Special Report will look at the role Indigenous communities could play in accomplishing the SDGs in Canada, how the federal government’s plan considers Indigenous peoples, and whether the very framework of the SDGs fits in with the idea of reconciliation. 

Tell us this made you smarter | Contact us | Report error