President Paul Kagame yesterday joined world leaders in endorsing the the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a new United Nations development framework that will shape the global development discourse for the next 15 years.

The SDGs pick up from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which guided development transformation from 2000 until this year after 15 years of implementation with Rwanda distinguishing itself as one of the few countries to have achieved nearly all goals.

"MDGs had only eight goals and 18 targes but SDGs have 17 goals and 169 targets. These are quite many but that’s because all the other sectors of development such as trade, infrastructure, ICT… have been included,” said Finance and Economic Planning minister Claver Gatete, who joined the President in New York, US, where global leaders are meeting to launch SDGs.

Eradication of poverty and hunger was arguably the most pressing of the eight goals, in 2000, when leaders committed to achieving the MDGs, which had 18 targets and 50 indicators and gave themselves a 15-year deadline within which to have delivered results.

How Rwanda fared

In a recent presentation Dr Uzziel Ndagijimana, the state minister in charge of economic planning, made at the launch of the fourth Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV4), he said Rwanda has achieved nearly all MDGs at the goals level.

"All MDGs have been met, except the ones on poverty, stunting and waged women employment. Extreme poverty and some health targets have even been exceeded,” said Ndagijimana.

There were five indicators on the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, including reducing the percentage of the Rwandan population living below the national poverty line which was estimated to be 60.4 per cent at the time MDGs were launched in 2000.

The MDG target was to reduce the population living below the poverty line to 30.2 per cent by 2015; according to findings of the EICV4 report, that rate stood at 39.1 per cent as of 2014, from 44 per cent in 2011.

Of the 60.4 per cent of the Rwandan population living below the poverty line in 2000, at least 40 per cent were extremely poor. Under MDGs, that rate was to be reduced to 20 per cent.

But the EICV4 findings indicate that extreme poverty level has since dropped to 16.3 per cent, meaning that Rwanda has not only met but also surpassed the MDG target on reducing the number of people living below the extreme poverty line.

Poverty vs. extreme poverty

Rwanda’s EICV surveys (1-4) use an international standard that analyses household consumption expenditures capacities to estimate the monetary poverty levels based on purchases and consumption from other sources, including own production and payments received in kind.

Economists regard the Rwandan model of poverty measurement as a better indicator of the resources available to people at a household level.

Based on that formula, an adult Rwandan should be able to consume at least 2,500 calories per day; the monetary value of those calories forms Rwanda’s food poverty line, also regarded as extreme poverty line.

In other words, an adult who can’t afford 2,500 calories per day is regarded as extremely poor and, according to the EICV4 report, that number stands at 16.3 per cent out of the 39.1 per cent of all Rwandans living below the poverty line.

It means that while 39.1 per cent of the Rwandan population lives below poverty line, majority of them can at least afford 2500 calories in a day, unlike their 16.3 percent extremely poor Rwandans who can’t afford them.

Rwanda’s 2,500 calories a day are slightly higher than the average 2000 calories recommended for an active adult person by dietitians based on the Institute of Medicine equation published in September 2002.

From MDGs to SDGs

Reflecting on the last 15 years of MDGs and bracing for another 15 for SDGs, Minister Gatete noted that in spite not having the resources, Rwanda had done extremely well with the help of development partners and intends to do more under SDGs.

"We embraced the millennium development goals because they were in line with our Vision 2020 as well as the medium plans (like the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy), which made it easier to implement,” Gatete said.

The minister said Rwanda is ready for the SDG regime after negotiation and discussions on how the new ambitious goals are going to be pursued.

Prior to this week’s launch of the SDGs in New York, world leaders assembled in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July where they discussed financing for development strategies and climaxed with the ‘Addis Ababa Action Agenda.’

Dubbed "a critical step forward” by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda is expected to provide a foundation for implementing the global SDGs agenda.

What next after endorsement?

Like the outgoing MDGs, each UN member state will have their own strategy of how to implement SDGs and, according to Gatete, Rwanda already has a plan.

"We will integrate SDGs in our own planning process and see how we can implement them. That way, they will have become part and parcel of our planning process because they complement what we are already doing,” Gatete said.

In a recent commentary on what the SDGs mean, Lamin Manneh, the UN resident coordinator, said they constitute another important global compact to galvanise the international community to collectively tackle development challenges.

The SDGs, Manneh said, are focused on, "the need to end poverty in all its manifestation, reduce debasing inequalities, accelerate transformation, render growth and development processes more sustainable and ensure durable stability and conflict prevent across the world.”

Although the end results of a successful implementation of SDGs are promising, researchers such as John Rwirahira of Rwanda Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, say challenges experienced in the implementation of MDGs should be lessons for the 2015-2030 development phase.

"There are lessons to draw from of Africa’s performance on the MDGs, there has been an issue of limited investment in social infrastructure, agricultural productivity and value addition, social services particularly, health education and sanitation,” Rwirahira said.

But Minister Gatete noted that having belief in the SDGs as being a value addition to national development aspirations is the starting point of a successful implementation.

"We endorsed and we believe in them so you will be seeing them in almost all our programmes in the years to come,” Gatete said.

The SDGs, observers say, also require regular assessments to track progress of their implementation.