Can NGDOs contribute to the implementation of the SDGs in sub-Saharan Africa?

Proposed by the United Nations (UN) to address the current quindenium (2015-2030), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) frame a new model whose paradigm of sustainability integrates definitively political, economic, social and environmental development. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which preceded the SDGs, have already begun to connect with this idea, and, although they were considered by many to be a failure -especially in the case of regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America, where Progress was very scarce – they laid the foundations for this new path.

In this process, the role of the private sector (that which includes all types of organizations with independent capital to that of the States) is becoming especially important due to its capacity for change. One of the most criticized points of the MDGs was the secondary role that this sector represented, not being duly included or implicated in the program. Under the new guidelines set by the SDGs, actors that until now were secondary – such as private companies or non-governmental organizations for development (NGOD), whose important activities were not up to now in the line of sustainability – are called to assume a weight important in the ambitious, complex and multifaceted struggle to comply with the SDGs in the established period, at least on paper.

Uganda, country in which the MDGs could not be reached, and where the number of NGDOs has grown from 200 to 12,500 in the last 35 years, can be taken as a good example to try to answer the question we asked ourselves in Is this Part of the month, are NGDOs a viable solution to implement the SDGs in Africa? His government has shown a clear political will regarding compliance with the Sustainable Development Agenda, being one of the developed countries that has taken the lead in the adoption of the SDGs, submitting its development plans to its implementation. However, until now, the government has not translated that political commitment into practice and other actors have had to enter the scene.

The role of NGDOs as Adelante Africa in the process of implementing the SDGs seems not yet to be entirely clear. Many NGDOs are still not really aligned with the route marked by the SDGs. It is clear that, with such a broad framework, the NGDOs will promote many of the proposed objectives. However, due to the still deficient connection with the modus operandi proposed by the UN, these actors run the risk of continuing to carry out their own development projects beyond the proposed, with the risk of not fulfilling one of the fundamental pillars of this new model, that of sustainability, with special focus on the preservation of the environment and its resources.

The reasons for this disconnection are many and vary from organization to organization. However, all of them face the same obstacle, which may be an intrinsic consequence of the SDGs’ own approach: is development really possible that fosters economic progress and allows achieving a welfare state as it is known in the past? developed countries being both sustainable and respecting the environment? The reality (at least in the Ugandan territory I know) is that the prevailing has always been, is and will be development at all costs, since the situation of the people who live there is in many cases desperate and without real short alternatives.  This also derives from the lack of conviction or awareness that communities have about the need for truly sustainable development. Although the NGDOs operate with very limited economic amounts, they nevertheless offer important immediate results in most cases in pure development issues and undoubtedly have great potential in promoting and convincing the concept proposed by the SDGs if given the opportunity. .

What, then, is the way forward? NGDOs are, in many cases, aware of the problem of sustainability, but often they see themselves on their own and without support. The difficulty posed by the very concept of sustainable development, which proposes certain high-income countries as referents, which still have ecological footprints well above what would correspond, is added the need for a reflection on what paper you want give the 2030 Agenda to the private sector and, specifically, to this type of organizations. The NGDOs are perhaps the section most predisposed to promote this new model, but they need at least the provision of knowledge that large bodies such as the UN can offer.

In order to reach a greater involvement of the NGDOs in the path proposed by the 2030 Agenda, there must be a greater number of active means of communication that allow working together between those organizations that are already on the ground and the UN. Only in this way can real real collaboration be achieved and the reception and implementation of the idea of ??sustainable development by these entities. The NGDOs have already shown that they can have a great impact on improving the lives of a large number of people who would not be left unprotected. Therefore, investing resources in this type of collaboration has great potential to drive the paradigm shift towards sustainable development and should not be left unattended.