1.

0 INTRODUCTION

The Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs), or Global Goals, were goals that
adopted by all United Nations Member States. The SDGs is set by the United Nations
General Assembly in 2015. It is considered as a universal call to the countries to take
action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy prosperity
and peace by the year 2030. The SDGs also consider as the blueprint to achieve a
better and more sustainable future for all. The SDGs consists of 17 goals. That
include: no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being quality education,
gender equality, clear water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work
and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reduce inequality,
sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate
action, life below water, life on land, peace, justice and strong institutions and
partnerships for the goals. All 17 goals are interconnected, which mean no one goals
to be leave behind because all goals needed to achieve to end poverty, protect the
planet and ensure that all people enjoy prosperity and peace by the year 2030.

The achievement of SDGs is important because the purpose of all 17 goals is

to help combat the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges that faced
by the world. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), SDGs are
explicitly call on all business to apply their innovation and creativity to settle the
sustainable development challenges. One of the beauties of the SDGs is that everyone
will be able to contribute whether the contribution is big or small. The contribution
from all part will make an impact to our world. The adoption of SDGs will help a
country to urbanize. According to ICLEI, the number of urban dwellers globally
exceeded the number of their rural counterparts. As the urban population continue
growing, the inurbane area is expected to be urbanize.

The World Bank adapted the SDGs at the year those goals were released
which is 2015. The World Bank Groups and the United Nation (UN) has a treaty-
based relationship that bring us back to its founding. Through the relationship
between both parties, they work to build a partnership that helps the Member States
and preserve the distinct mandates of each industries while contribute effective
development outcomes. The collaboration between the World Bank Group and UN
has deepened since the adoption of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Now,
the Un and World Bank Groups continue their collaboration with the SDGs. World
Banks Groups also adopted the SDGs because the 17 goals are targeted in multiple
areas such as health, gender, jobs, and poverty reduction. These goals are
comprehensive global agenda to end poverty in one generation. The SDGs are
formulated with strong participation of the World Bank Groups are fully consists of
the World Bank Groups twin goals which are to end poverty and build a shared
prosperity society in a sustainable manner.

2.0 DISCUSSION

2.1 No Poverty

No poverty is the first goal in the SDGs list. The aim of this goal is to end
poverty in all forms everywhere. In economics terms, poverty is considered as a
state or condition in which a person or community are facing the lack of financial
resources and essentials for a minimum standard of living. Poverty is considered
as one of the major economic problems in the world. The world always faced
poverty but the situation had been reduced throughout the years and the increase
of world productivity also reduced the poverty of the world. According to World
Bank, the most recent estimates in 2015 shows that 10% of the world population
or equivalent to 734 million people lived on less than 1.90 international dollars in
a day. Even though it shown the decrease from nearly 36% or 1.9 billion people
in 1990 but the number of people still facing poverty is still high. Moreover, the
appearance of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the decrease of oil
price, the trend would most probably to be reverse in 2020. It is important for a
country to reduce the poverty rate because poverty comes with disadvantage and
negative effect to a country. According to Confronting Poverty Discussion Guide,
poverty cause shortens life expectancy among the citizen. The death rate of
poverty-stricken that aged between 25 years old to 64 years old were three times
higher than the affluent within the same age.

The existent of poverty also affects the society in many ways. The
condition of poverty is the direct cause and exacerbate the numbers of crime,
access to the affordability of health care, race relations, and worker productivity.
According to Centre for American Progress Action Fund, poverty is highly costs
for the economy of a country. They mention that high poverty rate is affecting
everyone because it strips limited resources from the government that could use
to invest in other areas to promote economic growth. The US economy estimate
had loss $500 billion annually with just child poverty in loss of productivity,
increased health care costs, and higher criminal-justice expenditures. The
achievement of this SDGs will improve the living standard of people and improve
the economics of a country.

Bangladesh is a country of South Asia, located in the delta of Padma river

and Jamuna river in the northeaster part of the India subcontinent. The country
become independent from Pakistan in the year of 1971, with its capital Dhaka.
Bangladesh is the eighth most populated country in world with approximately
184 million people. Poverty had been an alarming issue for many developing
countries including Bangladesh.

The are several issues and challenges that faced by Bangladesh

government to reduce poverty and achieve the first SDGs. The reduction of
poverty is considered as a comprehensive issue that required a whole-of-
government approach to address the issue. According to the mapping of
Ministries for various SDGs targets, 44 ministries or division were participant in
the realization of the goal. Therefore, effective coordination is the prerequisite for
the success. Second, Bangladesh also faced challenges in resources mobilization.
The implementation of SDGs required a huge amount of resources to implement.
Traditional funding sources are insufficient to implement the SDGs. Innovative
ways are needed for the implementation. In facing adverse impact of climate
change, Bangladesh is considered as one of the most vulnerable countries in the
world for this issue. Bangladesh have to faced with floods, droughts, cyclones
and other natural disasters frequently. These natural disasters had caused the
implementation of SDG 1 quite challenging especially in the coastal area.
Capacity building also needed for Bangladesh to work as national statistical
organization to track the progress of SDG 1.

Government of Bangladesh realise the multi-dimensional character of

poverty and the necessity to address the issue by embracing appropriate policies
and strategies. Development strategies and policies revolve around achieving the
overall goal of pro-poor growth. For the past eight years, the economy of
Bangladesh had enjoyed an annual growth rate persistently around 6.5%.
sustained growth for the past 10 years has been influential in reducing poverty in
Bangladesh. Building a disaster resilience is crucial to eliminate poverty. In order
to achieve this goal, Sendai Framework suggest the promotion and development
of social safety nets linked with livelihood enhancement programme to ensure the
resistance of families and communities to disasters. Bangladesh Prime Minister
had formulated a comprehensive National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) to
merge all safety net programmes to help the people who need help the most.
According to NSSS, victims especially women, children, the elderly and disable
should be priories. The net coverage that cover by social safety net is 27.8%. the
allocation had increased from 1.9% of GDP in Financial Year (FY) 2009 to 2.1%
in FY17. The allocation of Annual Development Programme (ADP), the main
public investment window to reduce poverty was 2.8% of GDP in FY09 and
increased to 5.7% of GDP in FY17. Furthermore, 50% of the total budget is used
for poverty reduction for the last 8 financial years.

Figure 1: Social Protection Spending (crore TK), % of GDP

Source: Voluntary National Review (VNR), 2017

Multiple strategy also implements to reduce poverty to achieve

Sustainable Development for all. Government of Bangladesh realise the need of
faster growth in reduce poverty. The 7th Five-Years Plan (FYP) is aimed to
gradually increased the GDP growth from 7.1% in FY 2016 to 8% in FY20, with
an average annual growth rate of 7.4% during the plan period. In addition to the
strategy to achieve rapid economic growth, the 7 th FYP also ensure the
development of complementary strategies and policies to make the path of
growth inclusive, responsive, and be able to adapt to the in-progress
transformation. The implement of 7th FYP also guarantee the growth is
sustainable and resists to climate change. The government also pay extra attention
to people who living below the lower poverty line by taking special measures for
the weakest population. Several projects are release such as electricity generation,
transmission and distribution project, One House One Farm project had generated
numerous numbers of employment opportunities to the public to reduce the
unemployment rate. The reduction of unemployment will help to decrease the
poverty rate.

The effort of Bangladesh government had shown some significant result

through the years implement the strategies to achieve SDG 1. The
implementation of FYP is mainly focused to decreased the poverty of Bangladesh
in both upper and Lower poverty line. The implementation of the strategy had
successfully decreased the poverty rate for both Upper and Lower poverty line.
The Upper poverty lines had decreased 7.2% from 31.5% in 2010 to 24.3% in
2016. The lower poverty line or extreme poverty also shown the sign of decrease
by 4.7% from 17.6% in 2010 to 12.9% in 2016.

Figure 2: Long term Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh

Nepal also is a South Asia country that mainly located in the Himalayas.
Nepal is a landlocked country that located between India and Tibet Autonomous
Region of China. The country capital is located at Kathmandu. The country
population is approximately 29 million people which is the 49th most populated
country in the world. In the year of 2015, Nepal had encounter with earthquake
with magnitude of 7.8. the earthquake reoccurred after 17 days after the first
earthquake struck. The disasters had increased the extreme poverty rate of the
country.
 Several challenges faced by Nepal government to reduce poverty. First, the
government is facing problem on making the SDGs into the mainstream of
provincial and local planning and budgeting systems. The Nepal government only
started the SDGs mainstreaming at the central level. This is not enough because
the government needed cascaded the SDGs at provincial and local rural or unban
municipality levels to cover all of them. This is considered as a major challenge
because state restructuring is currently taking place and the 7 Provinces and 744
Metropolis, Sub-metropolis, Municipalities and Rural Municipalities have not
established integrated planning and budgeting mechanism. Second, Nepal
government also faced problem with investment for increasing employment. One
of the reason people facing poverty is because the lack of jobs opportunities for
people to earn income. Huge investments are needed to create large number of
new jobs opportunities in the off-farm sector as that are needed to increased
income per capita to achieve the SDGs.

Throughout the year, Nepal government had constructed the 14 th plan that is
compatible with the SDGs. The plan consists of 5 major compartment which are
infrastructure, social, economic, governance and cross-cutting. The aim of the
plan is to build a prosperous and independent country, ensure the access of people
to social services and provide sufficient food, health, energy and job security
while moving toward to achieve the SDGs. Nepal government also partnered with
public sector, cooperative, civil society organization and in order to achieve the
SDGs. The collaboration with private sector is to mobilize domestic resources.
The partnership will increase the investment, job creation, social security in the
country. Increase job opportunities will reduce the poverty rate of the country.
The partnership with cooperative and civil society is crucial because it would be
the sources of finance from the member to invest in production and employment.
The government line ministries also implement 49 poverty alleviation
programmes. Nepal government had implemented Bisheshwar with the Poor
programme since 2000, the Poverty Alleviation Fund since 2003 and the Youth
Self Employment Programme since 2008. Separate ministry of Cooperatives and
Poverty Alleviation department was created in the year of 2012.

Nepal has made impressive progress in the implementation to achieve SDG 1.

The implementation of strategy and policies had improved the living quality of
people in Nepal. The number of people living under the national poverty line
decreased from 38% in the year 2000 to 21.6% in the year 2015. That an average
decrease of 1.1% point in a year. The number of people living in less than $1 per
day was 16.4%.

2.2 Zero Hunger

Next, zero hunger is the second SDGs among the 17 SDGs. The aim of
zero hunger is to end all form of hunger and malnutrition by the year of 2030.
Hunger is defined as a condition in which a person is unable to consume
sufficient food to meet basic nutrition needs for a sustained period while
malnutrition is defined as not having enough energy or nutrients to live a physical
active life that allows for optimal health. Malnutrition also known as a situation
where people have an inadequate intake of protein, energy and micronutrition.
Chronic hunger and malnutrition could cause health problem by caught common
infection such as measles or diarrhoeas or even death. The number of
undernourished people shown the sign of decrease from 2005 until 2014 but the
number started to increase in 2015. In 2017, 821 million people are estimated to
be chronically undernourished and over 90 million children under five-year olds
are dangerously underweight. According to European Parliament, its shows that
undernutrition is the largest killer among children under five years old. A total of
3.1 million children under five died each year which is equivalent to 45% of total
under 5-years old death. In 2013, 52 million of children were suffer with
malnourishment where they mostly are underweighted for their height.
Figure 3: Number of undernourished people in the world, 2005-2017. (In million)

The present of hunger and malnutrition had also caused many negative side
effects to the society and economics of the world. Chronic malnutrition can have
serious and often life-threatening, health consequences especially for children.
Undernutrition can lead to physical and cognitive stunting and make children
more vulnerable to infectious diseases while micronutrient deficiencies can cause
severe illness and physical impairments such as anaemia, mental retardation,
blindness, and spinal and brain birth defects. Malnutrition also caused effect
people by keeping them from reaching their full potential. Malnourished children
unable to perform in school and limited their future job opportunities while
malnourished adults are less able to work compare to nourished adults which
cause them unable to contribute more to the local economics, and provide care to
their families. Malnourished mother had a high possibility to have an
underweight child, who will more likely to be physical and cognitive impairment.

Both poverty and hunger issue are direct corelated because poverty reduce the
purchasing power of households. The lack of purchasing power cause the poor
unable to purchase food that needed to fulfil the daily nutrition needs. Household
with financial resources to escape from extreme poverty are most likely do not
suffer with chronic hunger while poor households suffer with chronic hunger,
they also are at the most risk when food shortage and famines struck the country.
Food security also one of the factors that needed to be consider while eliminate
hunger because food insecurity is one of the reason people faced with hunger or
starvation. Bangladesh is not a food secure country and the probable challenges
may make the situation more critical. Climate change is considered as one of the
challenges for food security. The agriculture sector in Bangladesh are easily
influenced with climate change. The irregular pattern of hazards and natural
disaster such as irregular rainfalls, uneven temperature fluctuation, salinity rise,
drought, river erosion, and floods had made Bangladesh much vulnerable to food
insecurity in the future. Second, the increase conversion rate of agriculture land to
non-agriculture land could have adverse impacts on food security. The rapid
urbanization and the increase used of land for infrastructure development had
caused 1% of agriculture land loss annually. The demand of labour in agriculture
sector is seasonal, during the slack season, landless farmer would be unemployed
and they have virtually had no saving to maintain their family. Most of the poor
would have to eat very less of starve throughout the days.

Multiple strategies and policies were implemented by Bangladesh government

to achieve SDG 2. In order to secure the food security of a country, a country
should not only rely on imported goods. A country should have the ability to
produce their own food to maintain the food security. The ability of produce food
will improve the income of the country, increase the jobs opportunities to its
citizen, and will be able to maintain it food security. Bangladesh were plan to
prevent, mitigate, and reducing the disaster and climate risks. In order to achieve
those objective, Bangladesh government focused on sustainable productive
agriculture systems, including farm technology and crop diversification to adjust
to new temperature and precipitation patterns, changing livestock breeding
practices, and shifting grazing patterns, develop and manage climate resilient
food productions systems and develop and use drought, saline, flood tolerant crop
varieties. The country needed to tackle a number of challenges to ensure the food
security for the country growing population, to meet the citizen nutritional
requirement, and ensure a balance diet for the country population.

The implementation of strategies and policies had been success. The

Bangladesh agriculture sector had achieved for security for 160 million in the
country. The country had increased the rice production in the country to about
34.9 million tonnes in FY15. With the development and adoption of improved
rice varieties through R&D, usage of good quality seeds, stress-tolerant crop
varieties, and hybrid rice had improved the rice production. The improvement of
rice production had improved the food security in Bangladesh.

Next, Nepal also faced several challenges in reducing hunger and malnutrition
in the country. Firstly, the database and statistic of Nepal did not update to the
latest data. Nepal database of development information is limited and available
statistic are insufficiently disaggregated. Some of the SDG indicator lack of base
year statistic, which require the researcher to carry out new baseline surveys,
primarily on the intra-household national status, poverty, and more. The lack of
database and statistic had dragged the progress of implementation of achieving
SDG 2 because the lack of latest data and statistic delay the time of government
taking action. Government will need time to collect new data and statistic and
think up of strategies and policies to improve the process of achieving SDG 2.
Secondly, the lack of social sector development also challenges faced by Nepal to
reduce hunger and malnutrition in Nepal. Currently, Nepal agriculture production
is considered low. It would be a big challenge for Nepal to reduce hunger and
malnutrition especially among children since food consumption habits and within
household food allocation priorities.

The Zero Hunger Challenge National Action Plan (2016-2025) were

implemented to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutritional status
of Nepal citizen. The Zero Hunger Challenge Nation Action Plan is aim to
eliminate starvation by enlarge the development efforts with the vision of
eliminate hunger into reality. The Agriculture Development Strategy calls for a
change from subsistence farming to commercial farming, achieve self-sufficient
in food grain, increase the agriculture land productivity from $1,804 per hector in
the year 2010 to $4,787 per hectors in 2030 and increase the agriculture annual
growth rate from 5% in 2010 to 6% in 2030. The Ministry of Health in Nepal
collaborate with United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to
implement “The Golden 1000 Days Campaign” to raise awareness among parents
and pregnant women to improve the nutritional status of pregnant women and
children aged under 2-year olds.
 The effort of Nepal government also shown some positive outcomes. The
implementation of policies and strategies. Under the policies and strategies, the
number of children aged under 5 that are underweight decreased to 27% in 2016
from 29% in 2015. Nepal is targeted to reduce 3% more in 2030. The nutritional
status of children in Nepal also shown improvement. The percentage of stunted
children declined by 5% from 41% in 2011 to 36%.

3.0 Conclusion

The achievement of all SDGs is very important. This is because the achievement of
all SDGs will make a better and more sustainable future for all human being. All the
goals address the challenges that faced by every country including poverty, inequality,
climate change, environmental change environmental degradation, peace and justice.
Poverty, hunger and malnutrition is a problem faced by many countries but
Bangladesh and Nepal are the countries that faced the problem with much serious
condition. The undeveloped agriculture sector and unstable climate change and
disasters and cause the production of food and jobs opportunities of both countries are
unstable and it been causing negative effect to the citizen of both countries. Strategies
and policies are implemented by governments and ministry of both countries and both
countries show some significant result with the action and policies that they
implement. Both Bangladesh and Nepal should try harder to reduce poverty and
hunger in the country because even though both countries shown improvement but the
situation statistic of poverty and hunger still consider high among other countries.
With the achievement of SDGs will make the world a better place to live in for human
being.
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