Localizing SDGs: early lessons from India

As home to one sixth of humanity, a significant share of the world’s developmental challenges
and opportunities by scale, and some of the world’s largest and most ambitious developmental and social inclusion schemes and programmes, India’s lessons can provide a useful
lens for the localisation of SDGs in other parts of the world.
India is the sixth largest economy and remains a global engine of growth and is projected to
be the fastest growing major economy in 2019-20. 271 million people moved out of poverty,
halving the incidence of multidimensional poverty between 2005-6 and 2015-16. The poorest
groups across States, social categories, religions, and ages had the biggest reductions in
multidimensional poverty, showing that they have been catching up, though they still experience high rates of poverty. In recognition of these and other challenges and to further improve
the policy ecosystem, the Government of India has unfurled the, ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’,
that is aligned to SDGs and aims to propel India towards a US$ 5 trillion economy by 2024.
The Government of India is fully committed to the 2030 Agenda, including the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). There is a convergence of India’s national development goals
and agenda of, ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ or ‘Collective Efforts, Inclusive Growth,’ with the
SDGs. The goals substantially reflect the development agenda of India, as the Hon’ble Prime
Minister Shri Narendra Modi himself noted in his speech at the United Nations Sustainable
Development Summit in September 2015, ‘Much of India’s development agenda is mirrored
in the Sustainable Development Goals. Our national plans are ambitious and purposeful;
Sustainable development of one-sixth of humanity will be of great consequence to the world
and our beautiful planet’.