Achieve and sustain the citizens' well being and quality of life in world society and you won't need the Sustainable Development Goals anymore!

Dear All,

The above can be expressed in another way. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) shall be automatically met if you achieve and sustain the citizens' well being and quality of life in world society. 

The citizens' well being and quality of life is determined by the interaction of a multitude of interacting components including and certainly not limited to the UN SDGs. Identifying all the tangible and intangible components that together make up world society well being and quality of life is definitely a useful academic exercise but quite insufficient to achieve and sustain the citizens' well being and quality of life in world society practically. The latter is a state of mind.

The United Nations SDGs (et al) cannot be applied in their present form anyway. Why? First they are far too complex/abstract to appeal and be understood and therefore implemented by the population. Second, citizens don't believe in institutions and policymakers anymore. Suspicion prevails. Trust is lost. Anything that comes from institutions (or their representatives) that citizens don't trust anymore - however interesting may be the initiative - shall be looked upon with suspicion, not taken seriously, discarded or simply rejected. It is therefore essential before undertaking anything else to first overcome this prevailing suspicion and recover the citizens' trust. In other words, there is first a need to RE-connect with the citizens. For the moment, the strategy is upside down. We are wasting time, energy and money. As usual. 

Conclusions. To my mind the SDGs should be dropped. The international community should first concentrate on achieving and sustaining the citizens' well being and quality of life - i.e. his/her happiness - in world society thereby recovering the citizens' trust and respect. [See Post Brexit: Time For Collective Citizen Participation! What Are You Waiting For???]. Then the SDGs et al shall all quite naturally and smoothly be met without all the stress and strain that we are now witnessing worldwide.

Simple.

Best regards,

Viv