Giving Compass' Take:

• Canada's rapid development will be a factor in addressing global challenges in tandem with the SDGs. This will require community-driven solutions and innovation.

• What is the role of philanthropy in Canada to tackle the SDGs?

• Read more about Canada and its SDG progress.

At the turn of the century, world leaders and the international community adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, uniting around a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty by 2015. Among other actions, the Declaration committed “developing” countries to eight ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) focused on areas that had what they determined was the greatest potential to make significant progress toward achieving the overarching objective.

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted in 2015 and set goals for 2030, marked another bold leap forward in the fight to address poverty and protect the planet. These goals apply to all countries equally and focus more deeply than the MDGs on the root causes that hinder or prevent sustainable progress. We know from past experience that to be most effective, SDG solutions will need to be collaborative, holistic, and contextualized to specific countries, geographies, cultures, and social norms.

As Canada begins to set its own national goals and to contribute more broadly to the global SDGs, the country is at an interesting point in its own development.

In the next 20 years, Canada’s demographic makeup will change significantly. By 2036, Statistics Canada, the country’s national statistical agency, forecasts that 30 percent of all residents will have been born outside of the country. Canada’s urban centers will also become larger, younger, and more diverse, with an increasing mix of visible minorities, Indigenous people, and newcomers. These shifts are not isolated but rather reflective of a more globalized world that is changing at a rapid pace.

And if these trends continue, as they are likely to, it’s safe to assume that the future will be even more complex than it is today, and that any hope of tackling global challenges connected to the SDGs will in turn require more innovative and community-driven solutions at home.

Read the full article about Canada and SDG's by Andrew Chunilall & Ajmal Sataar at Stanford Social Innovation Review.