The world in numbers
8/10 Europeans think that it is important to help people in developing countries Source: ODI
3,200,000,000
1990
people were connected to the internet by the end of 2015, of which 2 billion are from developing countries
2015
Source: UNDP
Fertility
€ 68 BILLION Over half of the world’s development aid comes from the EU and its member states
www.worldsbestnews.org | www.ec.europa.eu/europeaid
September 2016
Source: EC
What is World’s Best News?
Data: World Bank | Illustration: Malte Kristiansen
DEFUSING THE ’POPULATION BOMB’ The world population increased rapidly during the 1970s, and many people were concerned that global overpopulation would lead to starvation. But since then, population growth has slowed down. At the peak
in 1964, each woman in the world had an average of 5.1 children during her lifetime. Today, the fertility rate has dropped to 2.5 children per woman. Sub-Saharan Africa is still the region where women
have the most children, but the fertility rate has also decreased there – from 6.8 to five children on average. The map shows the progress made in each country since 1990. / tgj
Fertility rate (children per woman) Less than 2 Between 2 and 3 Between 3 and 4 Between 4 and 5 Between 5 and 6 Between 6 and 7 More than 7
FUELLING CHANGE WITH THE POWER OF DESIGN
By Hjalte Zacharewicz World’s Best News
“The world isn’t going to solve these challenges if no one understands what they’re about,” says Trollbäck.
How does one turn what might be the most comprehensive and ambitious plan in human history, into something that people all around the world will actually understand and care about? It’s not a simple challenge, when the goals are laid out in long, wordy, and somewhat impenetrable documents. And yet, that was exactly what designer Jakob Trollbäck was asked to do: make the Global Goals a brand that is relatable to ordinary people.
Short and simple The first step was giving each goal a short, simple and positive name. For instance the mouthful “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development” became Life Below Water. Then each goal got a bold, colourful icon, arranged in an easy-to-read grid. “It is like a periodic table for change. I wish someone was filming the first time we showed the new names and icons to the UN,
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Photo: CC BY-NC-ND Save the Children
Everything starts in school
Photo: CC BY-NC-ND UNICEF Ethiopia 2014/Ose
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Defusing the ‘population bomb’
” Jakob Trollbäck is the creator of the Global Goals icons and colours Photo © Trollbäck+Company
it was such a revelation,” Trollbäck says. “You know everybody is so involved and tangled up in all the complexities of the whole thing, that it all seems insurmountable sometimes, and suddenly there was just this moment where everybody
seemed to realise: yes, we can actually do this. That’s the power of design, of simplifying and finding the essential. It made the Global Goals seem clear, manageable and doable”. Everyone can help Jakob Trollbäck wanted to
“I mean, everybody has a favourite goal. Take me, I care about them all, but personally Goal 13: Climate Action is the most important to me. But to solve that you need Goal 4: Education, and for Education you need Goal 5: Gender Equality, so you see I am making up my own story for change, and everybody can do that. And everyone can help to change the world”.
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A history of partnerships Editorial
We’re in this together
”
This paper was made by: Journalist Hjalte Zacharewicz Journalist Thomas Gringer Jakobsen Layout Malte Kristiansen Managing Editor Sophie Rytter Editor-in-chief Thomas Ravn-Pedersen
The world isn’t going to solve these challenges if no one understands what they’re about
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natural world that is the reason we are able to be alive at all. For this reason, many of the goals are about protecting life on land and in the oceans, making our production sus-
The scale and ambition of the Global Goals calls for solutions that are more radical than business as usual
make the 17 existing goals relatable to everyone – to give people an entry point to global change and a sense of agency.
Everyone can help to change the world, and the Global Goals design might have brought us a little closer to doing just that. ICONIC ICONS
World’s Best News is an international journalistic awareness campaign and media, founded in Denmark. We publish news about progress and development solutions in collaboration with the UN, EU, governmental institutions, NGOs, and private sector companies. Read more at www.worldsbestnews.org
Boy flying a kite in Manila, Philippines Photo: CC BY-NC-ND Asian Development Bank
WE HAVE A PLAN – TO SAVE THE WORLD
It’s a much bigger challenge than going to the Moon. The United Nations have set the course for all of us to arrive at a sustainable Planet Earth in 2030. THE GLOBAL GOALS By Thomas Gringer Jakobsen World’s Best News
Late last year, it finally happened. All the countries of the world agreed on a huge plan to solve many of mankind’s worst problems. The plan is called the ‘Global Goals’: 17 ambitions for what we, the people of the world, want to achieve before 2030.
The goals include ending poverty and hunger, providing quality education for all, and much more. In short, it’s about making it possible for everyone to live a good life now, while making sure our children will be able to do the same. One of the world’s leading experts on global development, senior fellow Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution, believes these Global Goals could indeed change the world:
“There is now a common framework linking various pieces of development cooperation – security, environment, human rights, humanitarian aid – all of these are currently operating separately. Through the Global Goals they are being brought together. This can be truly transformative,” says Mr. Kharas. Total change Making life better for people should not make us forget the
tainable, and stopping global warming. But one thing is agreeing on such goals, another is to achieve them. “The scale and ambition of the Global Goals calls for solutions that are more radical than business as usual,” says Kharas. Poverty already halved The success of the previous Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) give some reason for optimism. Extreme poverty has already been halved since 1990, partly thanks to those goals, according to Homi Kharas. “Leaders are more ambitious when they know others are also acting, and when they are being compared to their peers… no one wants to be last!”
Photo: CC BY Vlada Republike Hrvatske By Neven Mimica,
EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development
What kind of world do we want our children to inherit? That is basically the question answered by world leaders from all UN member states exactly one year ago, when they committed to the biggest plan ever to save our planet’s future: The Global Goals. Affecting billions of people, the goals were agreed after years of open discussions between governments, organisations, and private sector companies, while taking in feedback from millions of involved citizens all over the world. We all now have a shared responsibility to deliver on this shared vision, so that we can pass a liveable planet on to the next generation – leaving no one behind.
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WORLD’S BEST NEWS
WORLD’S BEST NEWS
GLOBAL GOALS
few examples of the progress made.
for Sustainable development It may sound like a song by John Lennon, but these lyrics have the whole world singing along. Every country in the world has signed this vision of the world in 2030.
Everything starts in school Education will be a key to ending world poverty. By Thomas Gringer Jakobsen World’s Best News
The 17 Global Goals are so ambitious that it can seem overwhelming to achieve all those big, important, and interconnected goals. Where to start? According to professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, a renowned expert on sustainable development, there’s one of the goals that could be the key to unlocking the rest: “Of all of the investments needed to achieve sustainable development, none is more important than Goal 4: Quality Education,” says Mr Sachs. “If we can guarantee that every child in the world will be able to start in kindergarten and then go at least all the way through a quality secondary education, that would mean a breakthrough for the world in well-being, and in the ability to meet all of the other 16 SDGs [Global Goals]. It would enable the end of poverty and empower people to achieve good health and decent work, and to be good active participants in democracy”. All in all, the world has made big progress towards education for everyone. Today, more than nine out of every 10 children are in school, and there are now just as many girls as boys in the classrooms. However, as many of the last children out of school live in conflict areas, more efforts to create peace and stability will also be needed to reach the goal of educating all children before 2030.
Imagine a world where there is NO POVERTY and ZERO HUNGER We have GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING,
QUALITY EDUCATION, and full GENDER EQUALITY everywhere There is CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION for everyone AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY has helped to create DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
Young boys playing volleyball in Ethiopia Photo: CC BY-NC-ND UNICEF Ethiopia 2014 / Ose
A SHORT LONG HISTORY OF HANDSHAKES AND HOPE
Our prosperity is fueled by investments in
INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE and that has helped us to REDUCE INEQUALITIES
The Global Goals have arrived. They have a long journey ahead, but they are not alone; they stand on the shoulders of decades of international partnerships for change.
We live in SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES and
PARTNERSHIPS FOR ACTION
RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION is healing our planet CLIMATE ACTION has capped the warming, of the planet and we have flourishing LIFE BELOW WATER and abundant, diverse LIFE ON LAND
By Hjalte Zacharewicz World’s Best News
The world has a huge plan. It is so huge that one can be forgiven for wondering if we stand a chance of ever making it. But if we take a look at
We enjoy PEACE AND JUSTICE through STRONG INSTITUTIONS
recent history, there is indeed reason for optimism. Remarkable results The predecessor to the Global Goals – the so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – were a set of time-bound targets agreed on by heads of state
and have built long term PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS NO POVERTY
AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY
CLIMATE ACTION
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ZERO HUNGER
DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
LIFE BELOW WATER
GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
LIFE ON LAND
QUALITY EDUCATION
REDUCED INEQUALITIES
PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS
GENDER EQUALITY
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION
RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS
THE GLOBAL GOALS For Sustainable Development
Text and icons by TROLLBÄCK+COMPANY
Boy reading in Vietnam. Photo: CC BY-NC-ND Asian Development Bank
The Great Green Wall is a pan-African project involving more than 20 countries Photo: © FAO/Giulio Napolitano
Africa is building a Great Green Wall The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative is an African-led project with an epic ambition: to grow an 8,000 km line of plants and trees across the entire African continent. Its goal is to provide food, jobs, and a future for the millions of people who
live in a region on the front line of climate change. Desertification and land degradation threatens the food security and livelihoods of millions of people across Africa’s drylands – in 2015, more than 20 million people in the Sahel were food insecure.
in 2000 – through 2015 they managed to unify, fuel, and expand efforts to meet some of the world’s biggest challenges. Although some of the MDGs were not fully achieved, they produced remarkable results. The global child mortality rate has declined by more
“In light of these urgent challenges, the Great Green Wall promises to be a compelling part of the solution by providing people with improved economic prospects, a cushion against climate change, a reason to stay for unemployed youth set to migrate from the region, whilst helping to restore political stability,” says Alexander Asen, Communications Officer at the Global Mechanism of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification – one of the main partners in the initiative, together with the EU and the African Union. The African Union estimates that the wall is 10–15 % complete already. Once completed it could become the largest manmade structure on Earth – and a new Wonder of the World. / hz
than half since 1990. The same almost goes for maternal mortality. In sub-Saharan Africa, primary school enrolment went up to 80 per cent in 2015 from 60 per cent in 2000, and globally the number of children out of school almost halved since 2000 – to mention just a
A joint effort Many might think of the MDGs as the UN’s goals, but the reality is that no single individual or organisation was responsible for achieving the MDGs. Instead, countless public, private, and nonprofit actors working together and independently, in developed and developing countries all around the world, have furthered them. “The world is moving towards a wider and more concerted approach reflecting a will to cooperate, share responsibilities and look at the worlds problems – and their solutions – in a more comprehensive manner, where all issues are linked and all of society must get engaged,” says Erik Lundsgaarde, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. The new journey The MDGs heralded a comprehensive approach to meeting global challenges by bringing together the development and environment agendas. They came a long way in moving the world ahead in the space of fifteen years – and brought the international community and societies closer together in the process. That should bode well for the new Global Goals and their journey towards 2030.
Observers Ildiko Kosztolni and Juan Ribó Chalmeta on EU Election Observation Mission in Tunisia. Photo: Ezequiel Scagnetti © European Union
Strengthening the ballot box Since 2000, the EU has deployed more than 120 election observation missions. Electoral assistance and election observation missions are key in strengthening democracy and helping to deter fraud, intimidation, and violence during elections. “They have become widely accepted as an instrument to build public confidence and
increase the integrity of electoral processes,” says Dr Annette Fath-Lihic, Senior Programme Manager at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Most recently the EU has deployed election observation missions to Myanmar, Haiti, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Uganda, and Peru. / hz
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