Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Human Rights and Health Equity

Dear Colleagues,

At the World Government Summit in Dubai in February 2019, the United Nations (UN) Deputy Director General signaled that the UN Executive Committee’s central focus at the high-level sustainable development goal (SDG) Summit in New York in September 2019 will challenge an existing lack of political will and a genuine uptake of governance, policy, and planning initiatives for SDG achievement by 2030. If health equity is to be truly advanced in SDG implementation in the coming decade, then strong governance for goals will be required that, ideally, will take an integrated, participatory, multi-sectoral, and inter-disciplinary systems thinking and planning approach that respects, protects, and promotes human rights. However, the adoption of strong governance models by countries and other SDG actors is one of seven key means of implementation (MOI) for maximizing SDG achievement—finance, partnerships, data and monitoring, capacity building, technology, and trade are critical, too.[1] Monitoring that countries and their development partners integrate rights-based approaches into all facets of SDG MOI will be crucial.

Certainly, some health and human rights practitioners are examining issues at the broader SDG MOI nexus that will surely impact the achievement of health equity and health rights downstream. Others, alternatively, are honing their efforts on tracking SDG 3 achievement and/or the achievement of SDG 3’s nine targets and four means of implementation, or co-efficiencies between SDG 3 achievement and achievement of other goals. Meanwhile, others are investigating or working toward the achievement of the underlying determinants of health found throughout the broader SDG metrics framework—that is, the 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 individual indicators. However, health and human rights practitioners can be hampered in their efforts by the lack of adequate and overt inclusion of human rights language in SDG metrics. For example, the framing of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs) was diluted in the final SDG text: SDG 3.7 proscribes that countries ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services by 2030 (but not SRHR per se); SDG 5.6 proscribes that UN Member States ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (again, not SRHR explicitly).

The purpose of this Special Issue is to take stock of what research and action is progressing in the SDG and health equity and rights space, whether that be at global, regional, national, or subnational levels, or for certain population segments. How are health and human rights practitioners, or civil society and social justice organizations, meaningfully engaging in MOI activities for SDG achievement, whether to advance health and human rights agendas or other inter-related rights agendas, interests, and issues? What are the partnerships, levers, mechanisms, and opportunities that are enabling this to occur? What are the challenges rights practitioners or advocates are experiencing specifically around SDG 3 implementation, or in progressing the underlying determinants of health in the broader SDG context? How do health and human rights scholars strategically engage in results-based management, ‘governance by indicators’, and metrics speak in the SDG era, yet reconcile or frame their engagement in this complex space, wherein the power of data shapes norms and knowledge but the express language of rights is limited?^[2]

[1]     Stafford-Smith M, Griggs D, Gaffney O, Ullah F, Reyers B, Kanie B, Stigson B, Shrivastava P, Leach M, O’Connell D. 2017. Integration: the key to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability Science 12(6):911-919.

[2]     Fukuda-Parr S, McNeill D. 2019. Knowledge and Politics in Setting and Measuring the SDGs: Introduction to Special Issue. Global Policy 10(Suppl 1): 5-15.

Dr. Claire Brolan
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainable development goals
• SDGs
• SDG 3
• human rights
• right to health
• health and human rights
• health equity
• determinants of health
• policy
• governance