The growing environmental risks posed by worsening air pollution has generated considerable media attention and resulting citizen anger in recent years, particularly in some of the world’s biggest economies. It is estimated that polluted air contributes to 7 million premature deaths every year.
Access to, and the affordability of, medicines is now attracting increased global attention. Some of this is the result of SDG 3 – ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages – which includes a specific target (3.8): “Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.”
If you have not heard about it already, here is some good news. Africa will soon be officially declared to be free of polio – a highly infectious viral disease.
Over the past 10 days, I have been traveling across India giving a set of public lectures on sustainable development. During this visit I have had the privilege of interacting with a wide range of individuals – politicians, civil servants, fellow academics and the common man on the street. We have discussed and debated the numerous successes the country has achieved in the past five decades as well as the challenges it currently faces.
In a recent report, Philip Alston – the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights – points to the flip side of human progress. He argues that the impact of climate will be greatest on the people living in poverty and that climate disruption will threaten democracy and human rights in large parts of the world.
A blog by the Oslo SDG Initiative.
