Impact of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals on Human Development in India and South Africa

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides the opportunity to its member countries to identify their challenges, build the targets and indicators according to local needs, converge the local targets with Global Agenda-2030. The accomplishment of SDGs depends on the identification of goals with maximum synergy. Several studies have pointed out that reduction of poverty (SDG 1) is positively associated with maximum goals. Poverty is a multidimensional issue and can be resolved only through multiple approaches. The success of SDGs depends on eradication of poverty in all forms. Data shows that a significant proportion of people in India and South Africa still lives in abject poverty. This chapter explores the causality between SDGs and GDP growth as proxy for well-being in India and South Africa. It has identified the targets of human development and their respective indicators in relation to long term development vison of India and South Africa. Using multiple regression analysis to predict GDP growth of India and South Africa by quantifying the impact of selected variables, the result shows that health followed by education have significant impact on GDP growth rate. The result is significant for policy makers to identify the challenges of economy in the local preview and employ asymmetric approach to maximize the synergy, in contrast to the axiom that SDGs are indivisible. Indeed, economic growth and progress are important but other things are equally significant and deserve attention.