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Story Maps and Sustainable Development Goals

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Moving on from the Millennium Development Goals, the UN's first Sustainable Development Goal is to end poverty in all forms everywhere, an aim which is at the heart of all Five Talents does.

UN's Millenium Development Goals

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were agreed on by world leaders at a UN summit in 2000 and set targets to:

to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

to achieve universal primary education;

to promote gender equality and empower women;

to reduce child mortality;

to improve maternal health;

to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;

to ensure environmental sustainability; and

to develop a global partnership for development.

15 years after they were created they reached their expiration date and the UN created the Sustainable Development Goals to focus their attention on over the next 15 years.

Meet the sustainable development goals

From the Millennium Development Goals progress has been made across the board, from combatting poverty, to improving education and health, and reducing hunger, but there is still a long way to go.

Shockingly, surveys found that in September 2015 only 4% of the UK public had heard of the MDGs. These international agreements have the potential to change the lives of millions of the world's poorest. It's important to know about them and the set of 17 goals that the UN will be focusing on for the next 15 years: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What they mean in practice

Five Talents works in East Africa to promote goals 1, 5, 8, and 16; we believe that public understanding of these big-picture development goals is of the greatest importance. In order to make informed decisions about how you can support the goals, you need to know what they are.

This page focuses largely on the goals themselves, but you can follow these links to find out more about how the Five Talents hybrid microfinance model is pitched at long-term development, how we work via a community of Tanzanian and Kenyan partners, or to meet some of our members.

Alternatively, read our latest Impact Report to find out how we think about long-term change.

The sustainable development goals (SDGS):

17 Steps to a better world

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

It's a powerful set of goals, and one that builds upon the successes and setbacks of the Millennium Development Goals. And it's not just academic! At Five Talents UK, we're focused on goals 1, 5, 8, and 16. If you're interested in the practical application of these goals, feel free to read about how our model is designed to promote sustainable development or even how you can get involved!

Five Talents and the SDGS

At Five Talents we are delighted to see that the SDGs narrow the broad aims of the MDGs, add a greater level of specificity, and include points which focus on gender inequality and the root causes of poverty.

For obvious reasons we are particularly keen on points 1, 5, 8 and 16 each of which tackle the issues which we spend our time combatting. Below you'll find a more detailed breakdown of what these three goals mean in practice and how they relate to Five Talents' work.

Who created the goals?

The Millennium Development Goals were famously created in a closed environment. Because this was a point of criticism, the SDGs were created with the help of the largest consultation programme the UN has ever undertaken; citizens, civil society, academia, the private sector, and local and regional governments all provided input.

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

In 1990, 47% of the world lived on less than $1.25 per day. The MDGs set out to reduce this proportion to 23.5% (and actually ended up achieving 22% in 2010). The SDGs take this goal to the logical conclusion by aiming to reduce the percentage of people living in extreme poverty to zero by 2030. The UN recognises that without access to financial services, many are unable to increase their incomes at all. Access to economic services such as microfinance is therefore included within a clause of this goal.

Five Talents believes that an increased income is vital, not as a goal in itself, but to give people dignity and choice in how they support themselves. For many in our programmes, this may be as simple as being able to invest in their child's education, build a well to access safe water or visit the doctor when they are sick. In Kenya, for example, over the past ten years our donors have allowed thousands of rural entrepreneurs to pool savings of nearly £2.9m. In communities living below the poverty line, this represents a significant safety net.

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

The inclusion of a point relating to gender equality in the SDGs has been widely welcomed by the development community. By 2030, the UN hopes to have eliminated all discrimination, violence, and all 'harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations'.

The vast majority of our clients in Uganda, Tanzania, DR Congo and Kenya (and, indeed, internationally, across all of the Five Talents projects) are female.

Once a woman earns an income, her decision-making power at home and in the wider community increases. This means she is no longer forced to depend on her husband and her children are more likely to go to school and to receive nutritious and regular meals.

In some areas where Five Talents works there are particular issues facing women such as female genital mutilation or gender-based violence. Here our partners work closely with the whole community to teach about the positive role women can play and to teach women about their rights.

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

One clause of this goal contains a reference to the need for 'formalisation and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises including through access to financial services'. Five Talents is keenly aware of the need for development at this end of the enterprise scale. We also understand the important role that access to basic financial services play.

Our microfinance strategy is a powerful tool in the struggle for sustained and sustainable economic growth. Using country-specific social impact surveys, we ensure that we are targeting the most needy and excluded within communities.

Some of those that we work with have been dependent on food aid for many years - reliant on these handouts but with no hope of feeding their own families. We pride ourselves in being a 'compassionate banker' and providing our East African members with a hand up, not a handout. Changing mindsets and showing communities that they can use the skills, trust and small pockets of money they already have to increase their incomes is a big part of our work.

16. Promote peaceful & inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Several of the sub-clauses within point 16 align directly with Five Talents' operating philosophy, namely ensuring 'responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels,' developing institutions of good 'governance' and promoting 'non-discriminatory...policies for sustainable development'.

Our partners ensure these principles are put into practice through the owner-managed Trust Groups which form the basic building blocks of all our programmes. This is particularly critical when dealing with marginalised communities which have traditionally lacked empowerment, are dependant on aid, and have little or no history of democratic leadership.

OK - Now I know About the SDGs, What Next?

> Find out more about our strategy, and how we use a unique programme of savings and credit based microfinance combined with financial tech infrastructure.

> Whether you're an individual, company, or a church, you can help us move towards the SDGs.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals - Five Talents UK

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Moving on from the Millennium Development Goals, the UN's first Sustainable Development Goal is to end poverty in all forms everywhere, an aim which is at the heart of all Five Talents does.

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About the journal of environmental sustainability

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About the journal of environmental sustainability

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Improve your IELTS vocabulary score by learn useful tips for paraphrasing in IELTS. You need to learn to paraphrase correctly and avoid errors to get a good score in all skills, particularly IELTS writing. Knowing which words to repeat and which words to paraphrase is essential.
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Improve your vocabulary by learning the exact meaning of words and how to use them correctly. These lessons are either words lists or lessons which focus on how to use a particular word correctly. For students aiming to reduce the number of errors in their writing and speaking, these lessons are essential.

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Vocabulary for IELTS: Word Lists, Exercises & Pronunciation

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IELTS vocabulary lessons with word lists, practice exercises and pronunciation. Learn word lists for common topics and how to pronounce words correctly in English. Vocabulary is 25% of your marks for IELTS writing and speaking and also plays a key role in listening and reading.

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Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. Many of us bought our beloved "pets" at pet shops and kept beautiful birds in cages. We wore wool and silk, ate McDonald's burgers, and fished. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?
In his book Animal Liberation, Peter Singer states that the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. This is an important distinction when talking about animal rights. People often ask if animals should have rights, and quite simply, the answer is "Yes!" Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when deciding on a being's rights, "The question is not 'Can they reason?' nor 'Can they talk?' but 'Can they suffer?'" In that passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account.

Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth-a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal rights is not just a philosophy-it is a social movement that challenges society's traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, "When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife." Watch a video with Ingrid Newkirk from the 2015 Animal Rights National Conference here.

Only prejudice allows us to deny others the rights that we expect to have for ourselves. Whether it's based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or species, prejudice is morally unacceptable. If you wouldn't eat a dog, why eat a pig? Dogs and pigs have the same capacity to feel pain, but it is prejudice based on species that allows us to think of one animal as a companion and the other as dinner.

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Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos.

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The case against animal rights

A number of arguments are put forward against the idea that animals have rights.

Animals don't think

Animals are not really conscious

Animals were put on earth to serve human beings

Animals don't have souls

Animals don't behave morally

Animals are not members of the 'moral community'

Animals lack the capacity for free moral judgment

Animals don't think

St Thomas Aquinas taught that animals acted purely on instinct while human beings engaged in rational thought.

This distinction provided the frontier between human beings and animals, and was regarded as a suitable criterion for assessing a being's moral status.

Animals are not really conscious

The French philosopher Rene Descartes, and many others, taught that animals were no more than complicated biological robots.

This meant that animals were not the sort of thing that was entitled to have any rights - or indeed any moral consideration at all.

Animals were put on earth to serve human beings

This view comes originally from the Bible, but probably reflects a basic human attitude towards other species.

Christian theologians developed this idea - St Augustine taught that "by a most just ordinance of the Creator, both their [animals'] life and their death are subject to our use."

St Thomas Aquinas taught that the universe was constructed as a hierarchy in which beings at a lower level were there to serve those above them.

As human beings were above animals in this hierarchy they were entitled to use animals in any way they wanted.

However, as C.S. Lewis pointed out:

Animals don't have souls

Christian theologians used to teach that only beings with souls deserved ethical consideration.

Animals did not have souls and therefore did not have any moral rights.

This argument is no longer regarded as useful, because the idea of the soul is very controversial and unclear, even among religious people. Furthermore it is not possible to establish the existence of the soul (human or animal) in a valid experimental way.

This also makes it difficult to argue, as some theologians have done, that animals should have rights because they do have souls.

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This article discusses whether non-human animals have rights, and what is meant by animal rights.

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Animal rights means that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation. Animal welfare allows these uses as long as “humane” guidelines are followed.

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Animals have the right to live free from exploitation and suffering.

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Animal rights is based on ethical and moral philosophy.

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Useful articles and videos (to generate ideas)

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Useful articles and videos (to generate ideas)

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Equally
Animal welfare
Conservation
No experiments
Endangered species
Ivory trade
Safari park
Poaching
Wildlife reserve
Jungle
tusks
Wild animals
marine animal
endangered
pet