联合国可持续发展目标引争议 Experts divided over value of UN sustainable development goals
When world leaders gather in New York this month at the UN General Assembly, they are set to endorse an ambitious package of global economic, social and environmental objectives for the coming 15 years.
当世界各国领导人本月齐聚纽约参加联合国大会(UN General Assembly)时，他们将支持一套面向未来15年的雄心勃勃的全球经济、社会与环境目标。
The aims include ending poverty in all its forms everywhere; providing inclusive and equitable quality education for all; achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls; taking urgent action to combat climate change; conserving and sustainably using the oceans; and ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all.
这些目标包括：消除全球一切形式的贫困；向所有人提供包容、公平的素质教育；实现性别平等、赋予所有妇女和女童权利；采取紧急行动应对气候变化；保护和可持续利用海洋；确保健康生活和促进全人类福祉。
These sustainable development goals (SDGs) sound bold, perhaps even naively idealistic, but there is a precedent: the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ratified by their predecessors at the start of the century, which spanned poverty, hunger, education, health and the environment.
这些可持续发展目标(SDGs)听起来很大胆，甚至有些幼稚的理想主义色彩，但我们已有先例：当今世界各国领导人的前任们在21世纪初签署了8项千年发展目标(MDGs)，涉及贫困、饥饿、教育、健康及环境等领域。
Since then, radical changes in thinking, evolutions within countries and political shifts in governance have overhauled the process of selecting — and the underlying substance — of the international agenda. Yet experts remain divided on the value of the MDGs in the past, and whether the SDGs will have any greater impact in the future.
自那以后，思维的剧变、各国内部演变以及治理方面的政治转变，已经彻底改变了国际议程的选择过程（及其内在实质）。然而，对于千年发展目标过往的价值，对于可持续发展目标是否会在未来产生更大的影响，专家们仍各持己见。
Ban Ki-moon, the UN’s secretary-general, summed up the effects of the eight MDGs in a final evaluation report this year as “the most successful anti-poverty movement in history”. On paper, at least as far as the data can be relied upon, there has indeed been significant progress in achieving the goals endorsed in 2000. Extreme poverty in developing countries has fallen from 47 per cent in 1990 to 14 per cent this year, while annual global deaths of children under five have halved to 6m.
在今年公布的一份最终评估报告中，联合国秘书长潘基文(Ban ki-moon)将八项千年发展目标的效果总结为“历史上最成功的反贫困运动”。理论上，至少就可依靠的数据而言，在实现2000年确定的目标方面，我们的确取得了巨大的进步。发展中国家的极端贫困人口占比已从1990年的47%降至今年的14%，而全球5岁以下儿童每年死亡人数已经减少了一半，至600万。
Yet even on their own terms, the achievements have fallen short of the goals. Despite the positive spin in the UN evaluation report, on current trends it will take another decade for child mortality to fall by the target of two-thirds, for instance. Many of those most in need of the MDGs — the poorest and those living in fragile, conflict-torn states — benefited least.
然而，即使是按照这些目标本身的标准，目前取得的成绩也未达到预期目标。虽然联合国的评估报告往积极的方向说，但以婴儿死亡率为例，按目前趋势，还需10年时间才能实现使其降低三分之二的目标。许多最需要千年发展目标的群体（最贫困以及生活在脆弱、饱受战乱国家的人群）获益最少。
Just as important is how far the MDGs themselves have influenced what successes have been achieved. Most notably, if the single-greatest driver of declining global poverty since the turn of the millennium was the remarkable internal economic growth of China, then the MDGs had next to no influencing role.
同样重要的是，千年发展目标自身在多大程度上推动了实际取得的成就？尤其是，如果自世纪之交以来全球减贫最大的单一驱动力是中国国内举世瞩目的经济增长，那么千年发展目标就没起到什么影响作用。
An analysis by the economist Howard Friedman in 2013 concluded that there was no global acceleration towards most of the development goals after 2000. And among a subset that did progress, the acceleration had generally occurred in the 1990s, before the MDGs were even launched.
2013年，经济学家霍华德弗里德曼(Howard Friedman)的一项分析得出结论：2000年之后，大多数发展目标的推进并未在全球范围出现加速。而在确实取得进展的那些国家中，加速也主要发生在上世纪90年代（即千年发展目标被提出之前）。
However, Mr Friedman pointed out that the goals could have crystallised existing development beliefs and practices, and some individual countries and regions may have achieved accelerated progress after 2000 because of their influence.
但弗里德曼指出，这些目标可能明确表述了原有的发展理念和实践，一些国家乃至地区可能在它们的影响下在2000年后实现了加速进展。
For Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a US think-tank, even any marginal gains attributable to the MDGs should not be dismissed. “At the global level, such change can still amount to millions of lives saved or improved,” he argues.
对于美国智库——全球发展中心(Center for Global Development)高级研究员查尔斯肯尼(Charles Kenny)来说，千年发展目标带来的任何微小成绩都不应被忽视。“在全球层面，这种变化仍可能相当于拯救数百万人的生命，改善数百万人的生活，”他说。
In some areas, the MDGs were at least a corollary of a broader trend. They reflected, if not determined, policy and funding shifts by richer donors and poorer recipient countries alike. In health, for instance, international development assistance more than trebled after 2000, with the creation of new multilateral agencies and bilateral funding commitments to maternal and child health and infectious diseases.
在某些领域，千年发展目标至少是整体趋势的必然结果。它们反映（如果不是决定的话）富裕捐赠国和贫穷受援国双方在政策和资金提供方面的变化。例如，在医疗卫生领域，2000年以来，国际发展援助增加了3倍多，创立了新的多边机构，出现了针对母婴健康及传染病的双边出资承诺。
Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, minister of health and social development in Mali at the start of the millennium and now head of the Roll Back Malaria partnership, says: “At first the MDGs created a lot of anxieties, with people thinking they were too ambitious. But they became excited, countries advocated better and mobilised their parliamentarians. If you look at what has been achieved, it’s because of the focus of the UN on bringing all partners on board and really agreeing on goals.”
新千年伊始时曾担任马里卫生与社会发展部部长、现为“遏制疟疾伙伴关系”(Roll Back Malaria partnership)负责人的Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré表示：“一开始，千年发展目标带来了很多焦虑，人们认为它们过于雄心勃勃。但他们变得激动起来，各国更好地进行宣传，并动员起立法者。如果你看一看已经取得的成绩，这应归功于联合国专注于让所有各方参与进来，就目标达成真正的共识。”
However, William Easterly, professor of economics at New York University, remains sceptical. “The MDGs communicated a very wrong idea about how development happens: technocratic, patronising and magically free of politics,” he says. “It’s not about western saviours but homegrown efforts linked to a gradual extension of political freedom.”
然而，纽约大学(New York University)经济学教授威廉伊斯特利(William Easterly)仍持怀疑态度。“千年发展目标传递了关于如何实现发展的一种非常错误的观念：技术官僚的、居高临下的、神奇般的脱离政治，”他说，“这里的关键与其说是西方救世主，不如说是与逐渐扩大政治自由相关的本土努力。”
There was at least some attempt to reflect such concerns in the drafting of the SDGs, which involved a far more extensive consultation and debate over many months, and ensured a larger voice for developing countries.
至少已有一些尝试将这些关切反映在新起草的可持续发展目标中，后者涉及持续多月的、范围大得多的磋商和辩论，并确保发展中国家拥有更大的发言权。
Yet the result has been an explosion in the number of overall goals from eight to 17, and of specific targets from 18 to 169. Some fear that whatever benefits the MDGs had will be diluted and further progress on them set back. Mr Easterly says: “The SDGs are a mushy collection of platitudes that will fail on every dimension. They make me feel quite nostalgic for the MDGs.”
然而，这一切的结果是总体目标数量从8个增至17个，而具体目标从18个暴增至169个。有人担心，千年发展目标带来的成就将被稀释，而未来的进展也将会受挫。纽约大学的伊斯特利说：“可持续发展目标是众多陈词滥调的杂乱集合，它们在每一个层面都将失败。它们让我怀念千年发展目标。”
In a recent evaluation, the International Council for Science and the International Social Science Council argued that less than a third of the SDG goals were “well developed”, with some objectives not quantified and many containing contradictory trade-offs and unintended consequences.
在最近一次评估中，国际科学理事会(ICSU)与国际社会科学理事会(ISSC)认为，只有不到三分之一的可持续发展目标“拟定有方”，有些目标没有得到量化，还有不少目标相互矛盾，或者会带来并非出于本意的后果。
Jamie Drummond, head of One, a development advocacy group, argues that much greater emphasis on data is needed: swiftly collecting, using and sharing reliable and high-quality information using technology to monitor and assess progress and hold policymakers to account.
发展倡导组织One的负责人杰米德拉蒙德(Jamie Drummond)认为，需要更加注重数据：利用科技迅速收集、利用并分享可靠、高质量的信息，以监测和评估进展，让政策制定者承担起责任。
There are wider concerns about implementation. Derek Yach, chief health officer of the Vitality Institute, an insurance company, worries that while the involvement of the private sector will be essential to delivering the SDGs, it is struggling to find a voice in the process. “Ownership of the SDGs has to be well beyond government, but there is not a mechanism in the UN for non-state partners,” he says.
对于这些目标的实施存在着更广泛的担忧。保险公司Vitality Institute首席医疗官德雷克騠什(Derek Yach)担心，虽然私营部门的参与对于实现可持续发展目标不可或缺，但它们很难在这一进程中发出自己的声音。“政府不应该垄断所有可持续发展目标，但联合国没有面向非国家合作伙伴的机制，”他说。
So far, against a backdrop of slower global growth and disparate national interests, governments have been slow to signal there is an appetite to fund the SDGs. There were strong words but few additional resources pledged this summer at the UN Financing for Development meeting in Addis Ababa, for instance. And there are also mixed views on the likely progress that may be made at the Paris climate change conference in December.
到目前为止，在全球经济增长放缓以及国家利益各不相同的背景下，各国政府都迟迟不愿表现出有意为可持续发展目标出资。例如，在今年夏天亚的斯亚贝巴召开的联合国发展筹资会议上，虽然有不少豪言壮语，但没有多少提供额外资源的承诺。对于12月的巴黎气候变化会议有望取得什么进展，各方也看法不一。
US economist Jeffrey Sachs, a longstanding advocate of the MDGs, concedes that the new goals will not be easy to implement. But he argues: “The SDGs are a very broad and complex agenda. Whether it can work out is an open question. But there is now an amazing amount of discussion. There is a sense that this is a sensible framework. I’m not saying a new dawn has broken, but at least governments are saying we need to try.”
千年发展目标的长期倡导者、美国经济学家杰弗里萨克斯(Jeffrey Sachs)承认，新的目标不易实施。但他认为：“可持续发展目标一项非常广泛而复杂的议程。能否顺利推进还是个未知数。但现在有大量讨论。大家的感觉是，这一个明智的框架。我并没有说一个新的黎明已经破晓，但至少各国政府在说我们需要试一试。”
