Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in an Era of Rapid Urbanization, Climate Change and Malnutrition
A new era has emerged as we move on from the Millennium Development Goals and initiate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the SDGs are very comprehensive, inclusive and ambitious, they do not give enough urgency to the critical theme of urbanization and urban settings, where two-thirds of people will live by 2050. Although SDG11 highlights how the world needs to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, the linkages of urban development with the other 16 SDGs are not addressed in the other global goals, nor is the need to pre-emptively plan for the unprecedented rapid urbanization occurring mainly in low and middle income countries in Asia and Africa.
We must not let the expanding urban poor remain the forgotten people. City inhabitants have on average higher incomes than their rural counterparts and this has led to many national and international policies and social protection programmes to focus mainly on rural areas. However, recent statistical findings on the great depth of inequality within cities and the rising slum populations nearing 1 billion people have shown that the urban poor are substantial and must not be ignored. We have an opportunity with the new SDGs to change policy, but more work must be done to build a comprehensive strategy.
Looking at the other pressing trend of our era, climate change, it is clear these urban poor are becoming even more vulnerable. Their shack dwellings are often increasing in density and are built in frequent flood zones. Cities in Asia and Africa that house the majority of the urban poor are also some of the most disaster prone areas. Slum dwellers are at particular risk as their houses, livelihood assets, and sanitation and water systems are more likely to become deteriorated. Cities are also responsible for 70% of greenhouse gasses globally. Considering demographic shifts and the hoped economic growth still to come in low and middle income countries, this effect of cities may only become worse. Cities will be where change will need to happen quickly and where both the majority of climate mitigation and a significant amount of climate adaption will fall. If we want the cities to grow inclusively, moderating their effect on climate change, we must support the urban poor in low and middle income countries.
Of particular importance is the issue of urban nutrition. El Nino weather events will cause 9 million people living in cities in southern Africa to need food assistance in the next year. Demographic trends of people shifting from rural to urban areas and the risks associated with climate change indicate that these occurrences and magnitudes are likely to increase. Urban undernutrition rates are already as high as 24%. Furthermore, there is a growing epidemic of obesity in cities. This epidemic has caused a large shift, even in low and middle income countries, towards non-communicable diseases such as Type II diabetes. By 2040, 642 million people with have diabetes, most will be in emerging countries and two-thirds of people living with diabetes live in cities. Most major cities in Africa and Asia are already struggling to cope with the double burden of malnutrition: undernutrition alongside overweight and obesity.
Malnutrition has severe health and economic costs. Urban children from the poorest quintile are twice as likely to die and three times as likely to be stunted than children from the richest quintile. Furthermore, if children do not get the right amount of proteins, vitamins and minerals in the first 1000 days of their life (from conception to their second birthday) they are at risk of reduced cognitive development, lower productivity and are less likely to earn as much as their non-stunted counterparts. Up to 10% of a country’s GDP is lost due to all forms of malnutrition; when associated diseases are added, this can reach 20% of health budgets.
Achieving nutrition security (SDG2) is also vital for achieving many other SDGs. Nutrition helps achieve good health and wellbeing (SDG3), reduce inequalities (SDG10), attain quality education (SDG4) and decent work in order to stimulate economic growth (SDG8) and eliminate poverty (SDG1). As the poor are most likely to be malnourished, preventing stunting allows children to do better at school, be more likely to find decent employment and escape poverty. Furthermore, food insecurity and inequality, especially in urban areas, is often a catalyst of political unrest, thus improving nutrition and food security can help promote peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG16).
We need to anchor this in a broader vision around SDG2, which would build a platform that can address food and nutrition security issues in a more comprehensive manner, including hunger and malnutrition, improving productivity and addressing climate change. Building sustainable and nutritious urban food systems should be a major priority here. The urban global goal (SDG11) within its sub targets does address the importance of housing, transport, waste management and reducing environmental damage, public spaces, rural-urban linkages, disaster risk reduction and supporting poorer nations. However, food and nutrition security is not mentioned. More work must be done to address the linkages between the global goals in order to achieve improved urban nutrition.
Improving urban nutrition should also be at the top of the agenda for Habitat III, the international conference that will set the New Urban Agenda in October. Megacities with overflowing slum populations like Lagos could double in size in the next 15 years. These cities cannot cope if urgent action is not taken. Furthermore, there are many rising small and medium size cities in low and middle income countries, where if we grab the opportunity today, we can design and shape them to more efficiently improve urban nutrition as well as to meet many other SDG goals.
