To make a better world by ending poverty, ensuring peace and prosperity among people, protecting the planet, etc. by 2030, The Sustainable Development Goals were introduced in 2015 by The United Nations and to be followed since then. Also known as the Global Goals, the SDG has a total of 17 goals in it and they are as follows:
1. No poverty.
2. Zero hunger.
3. Good health and well-being.
4. Quality education.
5. Gender equality.
6. Clean water and sanitation.
7. Affordable and clean energy.
8. Decent work and economic growth.
9. Industry, innovation, and infrastructure.
10. Reduced inequalities.
11. Sustainable cities and communities.
12. Responsible consumption and production.
13. Climate action.
14. Life below water.
15. Life on land.
16. Peace, justice, and strong institution.
17. Partnerships for the goals.
Among these, the 3rd goal, which is “Good health and well-being”, mainly indicates to ensure healthy lives and to promote well-being for all and also aspires a bold commitment to end diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other contagious diseases by 2030. For example, protecting people from getting infected by the deadly Covid-19 virus, assuring the virus doesn’t spread, providing the necessary medical facilities to every people, etc. also falls under the SDG-3.
According to UNDP, Bangladesh has taken necessary steps to reduce child mortality, improving maternal health, and also fighting AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. The “Under-five” mortality rate of children in Bangladesh is 30.8 per 1000 live births, according to UNICEF. However, according to the SNV organization of the Netherlands, the garments industry of Bangladesh has become a critical location to achieve SDGs, especially SDG 3. As 85% of the Ready-Made Garment Industry is women, who face multiple barriers to receive proper healthcare and also services related to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).
Many organizations in Bangladesh work to achieve Sustainable Development Goals throughout the country.
I am going to give some suggestions which will be helpful a little bit for Bangladesh. From my perspective Bangladesh can take these some steps to improve at SDG-3:
● Organizations can approach to spread awareness among the society about improving the mortality rate of children. As we know, one of the top targets of SDG-3 is to reduce the global maternity mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births; our country as a developing nation has to improve a lot to reach the necessary goal to achieve that feat.
● Organizations can arrange sessions with doctors to aware the mothers of different problems they might face after the child’s birth, how to take proper care of the baby after its birth, the importance of immediate and exclusive breastfeeding, etc. I think it can play a good role to educate the people about child mortality rate.
● Another thing they can do is to organize different online sessions on taking care of the mental health of teenagers and children nowadays.
● As covid-19 is still an ongoing threat, the chance of getting back to as usual normal life is still impossible. So, teenagers and children cannot go out to the school where they could meet their friends or play with them. So, staying at the house for a long period is affecting their mental health as well. To take care of their mental health different online sessions with psychologists can be made.
● As I was talking about covid-19, another important thing is about the children who live on the street. They are exposed to this deadly virus. So, organizations can take necessary steps to provide them a mask, hand-sanitizers and also educate themselves about the coronavirus. Moreover, it will be great if organizations can take the necessary steps to grab attention and inform the authorities so that the street children don’t have to stay on the street during this pandemic as they’re quite exposed to this virus.
To read more blogs click here
Swapnil Majumder
Admin & HR, Intern
YSSE