The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) is a firm proponent of sustainability as defined by the United Nations in their adoption by the General Assembly of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building on the principle of “leaving no one behind”the goals seeks to create and maintain a holistic approach to achieving sustainable development for all.
Each of the 17 goals are constructs that are intertwined in the objectives and implementation to achieve sustainability. Many countries are in various stages of implementation and noticeable progress has been observed, however a lot more needs to be done as it applies to poverty, education, gender, water, energy, economic growth, infrastructure climate action, peace and partnerships, especially as it applies to South Africa. This article seeks to explore the opportunity to consider aggregating the goals into our country level strategy called the National Development Plan. Both the SDG’s and the South African NDP have a 2030 horizon for achieving significant progress towards realizing thosegoals. Also, there is a 74% correlation of the SDG’s. Our progress has been hampered by a lack of prioritization of SDG’s in the recent past as evidenced by low GDP growth in comparison with our African counterparts. The lack of focus has been amplified by the onset and persistent SARS-CoV-2pandemic, where we find shortcomings in infrastructure, gender abuse, increase in poverty, lack of water supply and sanitation, contracted GDP, severe job losses, poverty and increase in inequality. As the pandemic has affected the world over, the symptoms are similar, but it is resilience to such risk events that has allowed many countries to bounce back faster thanothers. It is becoming clearer that resilience is key to ensuring that any country, community, or individual will be able to withstand risk events in addition to SDG’s not being achieved.
A focus on any of one of the goals tends to draw along initiatives that would ordinarily reside as an initiative to other goals. As it applies to South Africa, we have identified that the provision of infrastructure, SDG goal number 9 (#9) to assist with poverty (#1).
As it applies to adopting a relevant and long-term view, we have global issues intertwined with local consequences. For example, regarding climate change as a risk event, we as South Africans we are not the main contributor to greenhouse gasses (GHG) however we do invest in coal mining, coal production and coal consumption. We perpetuate contribution toGHG’s on the back of our trading partners processing fossil fuels exports. Further we have invested in the world’s largest coal fired power stations where we in our own right are directly contributing to the quantum of GHG in the earth’s atmosphere. As a country we are faced with a conundrum in that mining serves our economy and we do not have a post mining economic solution.
We have dissonant energy strategies with government defending coal and green energy. We have not succeeded in developing renewable energy solutions that are cost effective and affordable to mitigate our dependence on coal.
Should we wish to progress with the concerted effort to achieve such goals in the interests of society and the world at large, we need to do a few things differently as we reset our economy on the correct trajectory. Government has to unite beyond the politics and become open to serving society. We have to balance requirements of a healthy earth, a healthy society with ‘fit for purpose’ technology and economics with geo-politics embedded within our implementation initiatives.
For many years this has not been the case and it cannot continue that politics define all decision making. We have to allow academia, professional bodies and other lobby groups to become part of the solution. Private sector has to commit to working with government in offering solutions that don’t exploit opportunity motivated by greed and unreasonable profiteering. We need to develop solutions to serve our own supply,through our own projects (#12 and #17). Whilst we have the capacity,we need to educate our young citizensfrom school to tertiary level (#4). In supporting the new growth path (#5 and #10) we need to underpin and capacitate our execution methodology. Inevitably in our economy the build program (#9) will lead to achieving decent work and economic growth (#8). Ultimately, we will see progress in reduction of poverty(#1, #2 and #3).
We have not yet moved to fundamentally enhance trade within our region (#17). We have spoken about regional integration for far too long and not moved forward significantly perhaps due to a lack of will and ability. This must change for us to be able to manage global phenomenon such as urbanization. The one opportunity provided by the pandemic is to create a greater sense of urgency for decision makers to act nowin the interests of society, failing which risk obsolescence and be exposed to increased risks.
In conclusion the technology and solutions are all available for us to choose and implement. We need to muster the will, put past issues aside, become selfless servants of humanity and lead effectively. Leadership has to be balanced betweencare andrespect for the earth, its people, technology, economics and geo-politics,if we expect tohave a chance at sustainability.
