This document provides an assignment prompt for a 2-page paper on how a student's nation relates to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals established in 2015. Students are asked to argue which goals are most important/relevant to their nation, discuss one current event connecting their nation to a goal, and consider their nation's development priorities and challenges in achieving the goals. Resources on each nation and the goals are provided to aid research. Progress has been made on the predecessor Millennium Development Goals, but nations differ widely in their development levels and ability to achieve the goals due to economic, political and environmental factors.

1. Assignment #2: Sustainable Development Goals
Overview:This is a 2 page paper designed to make you think about how your nation fits into
the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015, which have become so important to the UN’s
public image since the Millenium Development Goals were set 15 years ago. Page 2 includes
information on the Goals to supplement the guiding-questions on page 1.
Assignment Prompt:
● In 2 pages, explore how your Nation relates to the International effort to achieve the
Sustainable Development Goals.
● Prepare for an in-class session (the thing we get into the horse-shoe for) over the
Sustainable Development Goals on February 23. In this session, we will be aiming to
come up with a shortened list to mimic the SDG that will be published this year, so we
expect you to argue for not only your delegation’s interest, but to debate toward the
assembly’s interests as well.
● List sources at bottom of page
Overly-specific guiding questions: (most of these questions are simply suggestions in how
you can relate your Nation to the development goals. Get creative!)
● **Required:Which Development Goals are most important/relevant to your Nation?
○ **Requirement 1: Develop an argument as to why your nation would
emphasize a specific goal over others
○ **Requirement 2: Research + mention one current event in your nation that
connects you to a specific development goal****
○ How do your nation’s priorities reflect its overall state of development?
● What is your Nation’s official policy toward each goal? Does it oppose any?
○ How does your Nation officially argue against goals?
○ How do Cultural values within your Nation conflict with certain development
goals?
● Are some nations more in the position to address these issues than others?
○ Does your nation have a firm enough economic footing to focus attention on
Social goals (i.e. are fundamentals such as food security or infant mortality still at
loose ends)?
● What political/social/economic challenges does your nation face in progressing toward
the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015?
● Are the goals realistically attainable?
Resources: (List sources at bottom of page, in-text citations not needed)
● https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ ← All of the general
information and statistics you could ever need, about every nation on the globe
● UN News Centre: http://www.un.org/News/
● UN Global Issues: http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/
● UN Global Impact: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/newsandevents/
● UN Peacekeeping News: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/news/

2. New York Times UN section:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/
●
What are the UN’s Development goals
The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals are the successor to the UN’s first set of
Development Goals, the Millenium Development Goals established 2000. Each set of goals
serves as a beacon to guide nations as they progress in various areas of development. Nations
vastly differ in which goals they focus on, regarding national identity and progress in
development. And of course, disparities in this overall progress generate international
controversy over issues such as, say, how to motivate a country with long-standing food
security problems to decrease its carbon footprint.
Is progress possible? Are the goals too lofty?
Despite the inherent challenges, in the last 15 years a good amount of progress has been
made toward achieving the original Millenium goals:
“The world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990
and 2002 average overall incomes increased by approximately 21 percent. The number
of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million 1. Child mortality rates
fell from 103 deaths per 1,000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63
years to nearly 65 years. An additional 8 percent of the developing world's people
received access to water. And an additional 15 percent acquired access to improved
sanitation services.” http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/
What determines how quickly a Nation can develop?
So good progress has been made. But for a variety of economic, political, and climate-
related reasons, every region of the globe has faced its own challenges with its own unique
subset of the goals:
“Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of crisis, with continuing food insecurity, a rise of
extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality, and large numbers of
people living in slums, and a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs. Asia is the
region with the fastest progress, but even there hundreds of millions of people remain in
extreme poverty, and even fast-growing countries fail to achieve some of the non-
income Goals. Other regions have mixed records, notably Latin America, the transition
economies, and the Middle East and North Africa, often with slow or no progress on

3. some of the Goals and persistent inequalities undermining progress on others.”
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/