Re-thinking the indicators of SDG, a case of urban design

In the wake of rampant globalisation, debate about Sustainable Development is increasingly making headlines, dominating academia focus, with some highlighting the need for a new approach to this issue. “Sustainability” itself is an elusive term, one that can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. Therefore, “sustainable development” became more common since it is a little easier to narrow down – largely seen as any development that moves us from less sustainable to more sustainable states. One of SD’s biggest hurdles is definitely the wide range of dimensions it has to deal with, but the focus here will be most prominent 3Ps; prosperity, people and planet, or simply put, economics, society and environment. Last year, the UN General Assembly proposed a set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which comprise 17 goals and 169 targets and a preliminary set of 330 indicators. Some SDGs build on preceding Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while others incorporate new ideas. With this and similar global policy frameworks, regular follow ups are normally made to check if they fulfill the indicators that are put forward to assess sustainable development. The challenging bit, I see, is always the practicability and quality standards for the indicators. The lens here can be a little too broad hence with blurred focus; practice users cannot often be sure how adequately the indicators measure the monitored phenomena. Consequently, there has been growing felt-need to operationalise the SDG targets and constantly keep evaluating the relevance of these indicators, lest they become ambiguous. In trying to have an effective approach to SDGs that have potential to remain relevant, there have been suggestions that ‘masters’ of SDGs should treat stakeholders as a mixite of agents on different aggregate levels of networks. They need to offer a leading example in encouraging equitable participation into sustainability, by firstly showing an appreciation for the glaring contextual differences; political, economic and cultural, as well as keep applauding the positive and peculiar gestures by the several accountable states. In questioning the various professional interventions to sustainable development, I want to start with my own field, Urban Design, that is one of the tools that help us shape our future cities through the creation of sustainable communities. Although historically the fundamental purpose of urban design was ‘city beautification’, over time, its scope and objectives have changed. It is undisputed that today urban design touches on the three dimensions of life; social (good recreational facilities), economic (good jobs) and environmental (clean air and water). Therefore, a critical look at the quality of community service they offer cannot be avoided. As a professional in this field, the biggest problem I see is that urban design seems to be largely top down. Urban planners and urban designers tend to first create visions for urban environments, culminating in what we often call city master plans or development blueprints, and it is not until the implementation stage that the target community is invited to participate. Without deep understanding of the place – the genius loci – designers tend to recommend development strategies that do not effectively link the past, present and the future of the specific urban environment. The local community’s perspective of their needs and aspirations supersedes that of professional actors, and there certainly should be chance to incorporate such quality input in our work. With superficial community involvement, often times, it becomes difficult to implement the projected visions and plans, which further makes it difficult to achieve the desired goals of our projects – the creation of sustainable environments. There is criticism that most experts in urban planning seem to dance to the tune of funding agencies, to the extent that they remain ignorant of contextually significant aspects that would otherwise be instrumental in the eventual achievement of their professional work; this way, a lot of it sits in cardboards and lockers for longer time if not forever. In urban design, therefore, the target to achieving sustainability itself will automatically provide environmental quality, economic and social benefits to the entire society that everyone would aspire for. Sustainability indicators reinforced by proper bottom-up approaches are likely to offer a better-balanced base for the creation (design and implementation) of sustainable environments. The professional actors in urban design, therefore, need to engage end-users and diagnose the contextual issues that are distinctive to each specific urban environment properly in order to bring forward design solutions, which match the needs and aspirations of the community. The writer is a lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the University of Rwanda. She is an architect and urban designer with a keen interest on the dialectical relations between Architecture and Society.

Opinions

Re-thinking the indicators of SDG, a case of urban design