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09:53

Challenges and Opportunities of Oil, Gas, and Mining

Jeffrey Sachs notes that it is, on the whole, good to have mineral resources or coal, oil, or gas resources as major inputs to the economy; major inputs to economic development to countries that are bereft of these resources have major challenges of producing other goods that they can export in order to be able to import these vital commodities. But natural resource wealth can also lead to issues. First: extractive resources are finite. Second: the resource curse or the paradox that…

09:26

Introduction: The Oceans and Sustainable Development

The global ocean connects us all and provides our livelihoods, the oxygen we breathe, and transportation, among other things. The ocean is included in SDG 14. This course will try to provide a deeper understanding of the complex understanding of the ocean, environment, and climate system. Humans receive resources from the ocean, as well as risks. There will be weekly lectures on different topics, including the basic physics of ocean circulation, the ocean ecosystem, how the deep ocean works,…

05:00

Project Tujenge: Solar-powered water purification

In 2022, the University of Pretoria's "Team Tujenge" earned second place in the international student competition “Universities for Goal 13” for their small-scale, solar-powered water purification system using plasma technology. The competition is an annual partnership between SDSN and SIEMENS Gamesa. Team Tujenge (meaning “Let’s build” in Swahili) worked under the supervision of Dr Samuel Iwarere, Head of the UP Plasma Research Unit and Senior…

10:45

The Rights to Health, Education, and Decent Work

In this chapter, Professor Jeffrey Sachs gives an overview of health, education, and labor rights, tying each one to the overall goals of sustainable development. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

05:58

Ideas of Poverty and Wellbeing

Poverty has been an important part of the development agenda since the 1990s, but the way that we measure poverty has changed drastically over the years. Inequality is still not a mainstream measure, although measures such as the Gini coefficient are gaining prominence. Poverty is measured in terms of the poverty line, which is considered to be extreme poverty at under US $1.00 a day and poverty at US $2.00 a day. Who decides what is a basic good and what belongs in the basket of basic goods?…

10:58

Corruption and Politics Today

All of our aspirations for sustainable development depend on good governance. Good governance is vital so that government provides the public investments and the public services that underpin economic development, that ensure that no one is left behind, that ensure high-quality public services-- healthcare or an education or in infrastructure. We need our governments to behave, and the evidence is quite overwhelming that when governments are corrupt--and many, many are--two phenomena very…

18:10

Consumption and Diets

This chapter discusses the current state of our diets and the dietary trends around the world. There are four things that are happening globally: people are consuming too many calories, those calories are of poor quality, diets are not very affordable, and they’re not sustainable. People are consuming more than they need to on average, but what they consumer is of poor quality, or “junk food.” Sugar consumption is on the rise, particularly with processed foods. Our diets cost…

07:52

The Role of Global Partnerships for Sustainable Development

The international context of achieving the sustainable development goals. Agenda 2030 puts a big emphasis on global partnerships and SDG 17 is about global partnerships. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

16:28

Financing Sustainable Development

How are resources mobilized to achieve sustainable development? This question is addressed in this video about financing the SDGs. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.