October 16 2015

SOS Children’s Villages Commits to Support the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development

On 25 September 2015, world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030. Supporting all outlined SDGs, SOS Children's Villages focuses on «SDGs for Children» - the six which directly affect children's welfare and opportunities in future.

Following the UN Millennium development declaration adopted in 2000, the world leaders outlined 8 global goals, known as Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The programme aimed at eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary school education, and reducing child mortality among other goals was implemented in the period between 2000 and 2015. The MDG brought a focus and a direction to the global community, helping to unite world’s efforts in the beginning of the century. To succeed the progress of the MDG, the world leaders and outlined a new Post-2015 UN agenda for sustainable development for the upcoming one and a half decades. The new agenda sets 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to be reached by 2030, which inherit and strengthen the focus of the Millennium programme. 
 
Over the last years, SOS Children’s Villages successfully advocated to include the world's most vulnerable children – children who have lost parental care or who are at risk of losing parental care – in the new development framework. Rodrigo, 14, a young activist of SOS Children’s Villages speaking at the UN summit in Chile summed up the organization’s outlook: “The eradication of poverty and inequality will be measured by how children live better with their families, without violence and with love.”
 
“We have tried to remind people at every step of the journey that to have a long-term impact on the world’s well-being, it is absolutely essential to invest in today’s children. To invest in global development without investing in children is like building a house on sand," said Richard Pichler, CEO of SOS Children's Villages International. “Now the hard work begins,” he added. “In fifteen short years, we all will be held accountable for the promises we make today.”
 
SOS Children’s Villages is committed to take part and actively support the SDG, focusing on the six goals, which directly impact children’s wellbeing and opportunities. The “sustainable goals for children” will underline all future programmes of the organization, helping to: end child poverty, ensure access to health, ensure quality education, provide equal job opportunities, reduce inequality within and among countries, and promote peaceful and inclusive societies.