It was just before midnight. I was driving home from a night out with my friends and worried that the gas in my car may not be enough for my journey up the hills of Freetown, Sierra Leone, towards my home. I pulled over, in search of the “illegal” gas that men peddle on the sides of the main road long after the gas stations are closed for the day. As soon as I turned off my engine however, a girl - no more than 16 years old, appeared from the dark, opened the passenger side door and confidently sat down.
“Where are we going?” she asked. Taken aback, I muttered, “I am going home”. “2030” she said, presuming that I fully comprehended this number’s meaning. Was this a code for something? I thought. “What is 2030?” I asked. “Twenty thousand Leones with condom, thirty thousand Leones without.” My heart sank.
For us in the field of global development, that very number – 2030 – holds profound, almost unavoidable significance. It looms over many deadlines set, it frames every global challenge we might seek to address, and it influences the content of countless workshops, conferences, projects and studies.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, nicknamed Agenda 2030, sets forth ambitious goals to end poverty, promote economic prosperity, environmental protection, and social development, all with the year 2030 as its seemingly unattainable, albeit enthusiastic, deadline. And so, the year 2030 galvanizes, provokes, depletes, and shapes us and our work. There is even a project designed to educate everyone about the new goals themselves.
And should you do a quick search in Google, you will come to realize it has a widespread effect. There are 2030 districts, Impact 2030, The 2030 Architecture Challenge, Business2030, and the list goes on. From small initiatives to large institutional collaborations, this number has come to bear on countless fields of work.
But as happens often, there’s a massive disconnect between those at the top- who debate and articulate the goals and targets- and the ones whose lives they seemingly seek to improve. There’s an even bigger disconnect between the way those at the top define, track and measure “success” and the way ordinary citizens do. And no group illuminates these gaps better than the adolescent girls in the poorest countries, like the one I encountered that night.
My heart sank for many reasons. I am of course aware that poor young girls are forced to sell their bodies for sex. But I was not prepared to be so confronted with this reality so directly, so personally. I could not get over the fact that for 4 dollars, this girl was offering her body- and for an additional 2 dollars, she would be willing to do so without a condom.
What 2030 meant to her echoed hauntingly within me long after we had parted ways. How striking was the disparity between its significance in her life and what it meant to the UN and other global representatives who had been at the forefront of it targets. Indeed, I too had been part of a movement of young people at international forums actively helping to shape what came to be known as the 2030 Agenda. But how any kind of difference is made requires us thinking critically about that girl again.
Consider this. To be a girl means to be severely disadvantaged still in many of these countries. In Sierra Leone, 12% are married by age 15, over 40% by age 18. Only 1 in ten will complete school. 1 in 3 will be pregnant or have a child by age 19. Girls often bear the primary responsibility for their families. In Sierra Leone for example, 75% of girls –if current trends continue- will become single parents at some point in their reproductive lives. In next door Liberia, 91% of girls will experience the same. The equation is simple as it is vicious. She is forced into marriage or sexually coerced, has a child, drops out of school, is forced to exchange sex for money, has another child, whom she cannot afford to send to school, endures poor health outcomes, and the cycle repeats itself over and over again. Multiply that by millions and that’s your equation not just for poverty, but predictable, even planned poverty.
It does not have to be that way. For Agenda 2030 to make a real difference, it has to have meaning in these girls’ life. Big government policies and agendas have predominantly treated adolescent girls as an after-thought, if they have been considered at all. Several governments do not have policy and distinct resources dedicated to the unique needs of adolescent girls. Indeed, the United States is one of the first countries to adopt an Adolescent Girls Strategy this year.
But, as I said at a recent launch event of the US Strategy, to truly make a difference, global and local leaders, must match the rhetoric with reality (including dedicated resources) and put girls at the heart of not merely the agenda but the action as well.
Leading up to September 2015 before the global goals were adopted, I had an opportunity to chat with Amina Mohamed – the incredible woman who was charged by the United Nations Secretary General to shepherd the Agenda 2030 global process. She agreed that the real success of the 2030 goals would only be achieved by the difference they make in the lives of the poorest and invisible in our world. For the girl who entered my car that night, 2030 still means something dangerously different. World leaders should and can give her- and girls like her- a different meaning, and a better life. It’s the only way that these goals will ever actually have real meaning.
(This piece was done with Sophie Soares, Public Health expert and Project Coordinator at the Population Council).