Role of Pluralism in advancing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

Many of the global challenges outlined in the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are either rooted in or related to diversity, inclusion or lack of pluralism-particularly inequality and exclusion driven by ethnic, cultural, religious or gender-based differences. This lack of pluralism permeates economic and healthcare space, to the social, political and every aspect of human capital.

The SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) number 4 speaks to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promotion of life-long learning opportunities for all. In particular its target, education for sustainable development and global citizenship.

What that means is, providing the knowledge, skills and values required by citizens to lead productive lives, make informed decisions and take active participation in resolving local and global challenges. For which global citizenship education-peace and human rights education, intercultural understanding and cross-cultural education is crucial.

We know that societies are more peaceful and prosperous when they are pluralist. Inclusive to economic, cultural and human diversity, as well as human capital.

Building such a pluralist society requires systemic institutional response as well as individual behavioral changes that ensure that every person is recognized and feels they belong.

SDG measures the indicators for sustainable development and global citizenships in three ways (1) national education policies, (2) curriculum development, (3) educator education, (4) student education.

Project Pluralist is dedicated to both systemic and individual behavior change, predominantly by developing curriculum and building competencies of students and providing resources for educators. The program is built on the belief that engaging directly with the future generation will have a long-term impact on the society and is fundamental to building a pluralist society.

Originally published at https://www.projectpluralist.com on February 26, 2020.