The SDGs seem to me to be antithetical to effective altruism. The SDGs :
Are in part ‘kinky’ development goals that place an arbitrary low bar on development goals, such as eradicating $1.90 per day poverty.
Don’t prioritise among competing goals, such as climate change, growth, and education.
EAs should be focused on the question of how governments can most cost-effectively increase social welfare (broadly conceived) in their own countries. If we do this, we will meet all of the arbitrary “low bar” goals anyway. For discussion of national development vs kinky development, see some of Lant Pritchett’s blogs.
This criticism of the SDGs makes sense to me on its face. However, I noticed that Lant Pritchett writes the following on the website you link to, which seems in tension to that criticism:
I argue the new SDGs, while derided by many for being overambitious were the developing world’s reaction and rejection of the “low bar” kinky vision of development represented by the MDGs.
This is true, but they do contain low bar elements, such as $1.90 per day poverty. He also clearly thinks they are a bad way to think about development. I think it would be better if economists and EAs focused on an expanded GDP metric that includes income growth as well as other important contributors to wellbeing
The SDGs seem to me to be antithetical to effective altruism. The SDGs :
Are in part ‘kinky’ development goals that place an arbitrary low bar on development goals, such as eradicating $1.90 per day poverty.
Don’t prioritise among competing goals, such as climate change, growth, and education.
EAs should be focused on the question of how governments can most cost-effectively increase social welfare (broadly conceived) in their own countries. If we do this, we will meet all of the arbitrary “low bar” goals anyway. For discussion of national development vs kinky development, see some of Lant Pritchett’s blogs.
This criticism of the SDGs makes sense to me on its face. However, I noticed that Lant Pritchett writes the following on the website you link to, which seems in tension to that criticism:
This is true, but they do contain low bar elements, such as $1.90 per day poverty. He also clearly thinks they are a bad way to think about development. I think it would be better if economists and EAs focused on an expanded GDP metric that includes income growth as well as other important contributors to wellbeing