In October 2016, the Habitat III Cities Conference saw the creation of the New Urban Agenda, the outcome document that will guide the efforts of global urbanization for the next 20 years. This document is essentially supporting and reinforcing the idea that sustainable development and urbanization are interrelated, doing so by including aspects that accomplish both of these concepts simultaneously while at the same time promoting social agenda items. The New Urban Agenda includes concepts that touch on all aspects of the spectrum, from participatory communities to gender equality to disaster risk reduction. All of this is done in a sustainable and eco-friendly manner and in the name of the “vision of future cities”. Although this initiative is a phenomenal effort in striving for global development while simultaneously striving for sustainability, there are many flaws within it that make it undesirably accountable. For instance, it is a non-binding agreement and therefore does not include clearly stated measurements to strive for, making it very difficult to rely on.

A good example of this can be observed in 11.A where it’s main goal is to “support positive economic, social, and environmental links between urban, per-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning.” The indicator that is associated with this aspect of the New Urban Agenda is problematic because it does not account for areas outside of the cities. This is a large problem because there is a constant form of communication between urban and rural areas, even if a minute one at that. The indicator states refers to the “proportion of population living in cities” and nobody else, intrinsically limiting the overall scope and reach of this protocol.

According to World Bank data, between the years 2015 and 2020, the population of people living within cities will grow at a rate of 1.84% per year, an incredibly fast pace given the fact that already 54% of the world population resides within urban areas. This factor coupled with the fact that 15% of the world’s population is made up of persons with disabilities, modern urban agendas for sustainable development around the world have increasingly been making efforts to include this part of the population. Because of this, international policies have begun to include access to cities for persons with disabilities. This can be found within countless parts of the Sustainable Development Goals. The crux of this is SDG 11, “Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable”, which directly references persons with disabilities and seems to put an intense amount of emphasis on their access to public spaces and transport systems. Although this and other efforts are being made to include persons with disabilities in the agendas, there is still room to grow due to the fact that in many cases they do not have direct access to the discussion table. It should be a requirement that those who are being directly affected by these measures be allowed direct access to the decision-making processes and initiatives. A solution to this problem is found in different collaboratives such as the Disability Inclusive Development (DID) Policy Collaboratory that allows persons with disabilities to participate in governmental processes. It is a seemingly simple solution to a very important issue. Policies and initiatives can’t expect to be in full support of the global population if they exclude such a large, important portion of the population.

Two large appendages of the United Nations that are making intense movements towards inclusive sustainable development are The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and the High Level Political Forum (HLPF). Building on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDG’s were adopted on January 1, 2016 and include 17 separate agendas for the efforts towards sustainable development, including things such as no poverty, good health and well-being, quality education, clean water and sanitation, etc. Within each of these 17 goals are a farrago of targets and indicators that grant each goal a more attainable sense of purpose, equalling to 230 individual indicators to monitor the 17 goals and 169 targets of all 17 SDGs. These new Goals universally apply to all and will be enacted throughout the next fifteen years in an overall effort to promote prosperity while simultaneously protecting the planet.

Formally established in July 2013, the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) is the main platform of the United Nations that deals with sustainable development. Within the HLPF is a group of 12 objectives that include targets in achieving said sustainable development, targets such as providing political leadership, enhancing integration at all levels, encouraging high-level system-wide participation of UN agencies, etc. Within the topic of achieving sustainable development is the Major Groups system, which came about from Agenda 21 and identifies nine different sectors of society as the main channels through which “broad participation would be facilitated in UN activities related to sustainable development”. These Major Groups include, amongst others, women, children and youth, indigenous peoples, local authorities, farmers, etc. The importance of engaging these nine sectors within society is continuously reaffirmed through the efforts of both the High Level Political Forum as well as the Sustainable Development Goals.

In regards to people with disabilities (PWDs), there has been a long history of unequal access to these many efforts towards bettering the development of the world. As Amartya Sen states in his book Development As Freedom, the rate and form of globalization is decided by the very people that are found within a community (240-242). When Sen exclaims this, he is talking about every part of the community and population. According to the World Report on Disability by the World Health Organization, about 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, making PWDs not only an important group to make use of but also an incredibly large amount of people.

Within his book Social Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, Rimmerman outlines a religious and genetic rationalization for this longstanding prejudice and stigmatization against PWDs, citing things such as the Bible and the Qur’an. Between the two religious texts, he points out that both see PWDs as burdensome, the bible referring to them as “sinners” and the Qur’an as people that should be excluded from certain aspects of society (12-13). As religion plays a gargantuan role in the lives of so many people throughout the world, it is easy to see how religion can be used as reason for this stigmatization against this marginalized group of people.

In addition to religious texts, history itself has played a large role in the current treatment and involvement within development amongst PWDs. In the United States itself, PWDs were not allowed basic civil and human rights until the late 20th century, a phenomenal change from just a century earlier when the country forced the euthanasia of what they referred to as “defective babies” (18-19). These stigmas, although diluted by a more modern way of thinking, are still very prevalent in the culture of many countries involved. Rimmerman and other scholarly authors consistently point out the fact that these newfound global initiatives such as the SDGs and the HLPF must make an extreme effort to incorporate PWD in order to eradicate these prejudices and stigmatization from the theme of international sustainable development. There is no globalization unless all that are being affected by the problems at hand are included in the solution.

Development can be described in three different ways according to authors Andy Sumner and Michael Tribe in their book International Development Studies. Development can either be a long-term process of structural transformation, a short-to-medium term outcome of targets, or a western discourse. In addition to this three-pronged definition of development, countless other scholars have weighed in and created differing definitions in terms of other theoretical understandings. For example, Amartya Sen, in his book Development as Freedom, defines development as the expansion of five freedoms. Another example is in the well-know book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, where they describe development as inclusive political and economic institutions. There is a plethora of definitions and explanations as to what development truly is on a foundational and theoretical level, but this ever-changing definition seems to be relevant to whichever kind of development it is referring to. For instance, in the book Why Nations Fail, the authors discuss and compare the United States and the Mexican side of Nogales, Arizona. The disparity between the two allows us to realize and ponder that a lot must be taken into account when discussing the universal definition of development.

It is pertinent that we understand the many global crises that are affecting our world today in order to understand the many different forms of development. We must be able to look at the disparities between the different areas of Nogales and be able to analyze them for the sake of deciding which definition of development would be best suited for that particular problem. Another good example is the nutritional poverty trap and famine that Amartya Sen discusses in his book. He explains that famine is the result of a state’s economy and society, proving that food must be earned. This poses itself as a horrible, cyclical problem due to what is referred to as the nutritional poverty trap; a concept that states that because the poor are malnourished and unable acquire food as easily as some, they are unable to work as productively as they should and therefore leads to scarcity in income and other commodities that are necessary for a healthy life. It’s a vicious cycle of lack of resources and malnourishment that is very hard to break out of, and it affects a very large portion of the developing populations. This leads to the overall weakening of countless economies and therefore is seen as a very intense and relevant development issue.

The concept of “Grand Challenges” emerges from a very important and iconic speech that was given by former President of the United States, John F. Kennedy: “We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people….We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” This speech was given to Rice University on September 12th, 1962 and in less than seven years time, humans landed on the moon. This kind of thinking came to be known as “moonshot thinking” being defined as ambitious, aspiring, and determined ways of thought that pushes us a human race to strive for all that is achievable and possible.

“Grand Challenges” embodies this style of thinking in the field of development. The term, coined by David Hilbert, originally was meant to focus on technology and sciences of the sort but grew to encapsulate socially-focused projects such as global sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals act as a quintessential example of such “Grand Challenges” because they are, according to the United Nations Development Programme, “a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity”, which is not an easy feat. The Sustainable Development Goals emerged out of the Millennium Development Goals, exemplifying the fact that we are striving for more ambitious goals and changing our aims of development as times change the need for specific protocols. In addition to the SDGs, the framework of these “Grand Challenges” is being used by countless other organizations such as USAID, something that can be seen through their projects such as All Children Reading and Combating Zika and Future Threats.

The Sustainable Development Goals are the “Grand Challenge” of our time as they embody an ambitious grouping of 17 diverse goals for the global community in a minute 15-year time span. These goals are aided by their targets and indicators which act as sub-goals and key points to focus on when striving to accomplish them. Another reason as to why these goals are so phenomenal in their goals is because they are increasingly inclusive in compared to their predecessors. For instance, there are eleven explicit references to persons with disabilities throughout the 17 SDGs, something that is practically unheard of in past protocols for global development. Not only is it refreshing to see this level of inclusivity within something that is so monumentally positive for our global development, but it is also necessary. It may not be as extraordinary as landing on the moon, but the inclusion of everybody, especially a group of people such as disabled persons that take up around 15% of the entire earth’s population, is a feat in itself that certainly should be considered a “Grand Challenge”. There is no global development unless everybody is involved, and that is exactly what the SDGs and countless other development protocols are striving to do.