Social Development and the Sustainable Development Goals in South Asia

This book assesses the roadmap for the implementation of the SDGs in South Asia, focusing in particular on the areas of poverty reduction, inequality, health/well-being and water and sanitation. South Asia is amongst the fastest growing regions in the world, with an aggregate GDP in excess of two trillion US dollars, but at the same time it has significant deficits in human development, with 37 per cent of the world's poor and nearly half of the world's malnourished children. For South Asia, the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a constructive opportunity to end many of the region's deprivations in a time-bound and systematic manner.

Starting with the legacy of the Millennium Development Goals, the book goes on to provide a country-by-country overview of strategies for addressing the problems of poverty, health, water and sanitation. South-South Cooperation and in particular the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are discussed and, finally, the editors present a summary of policy priorities for social development.

This book aims to be a useful resource for researchers, policy influencers, planners, implementers, students, and activists aiming to push to achieve the SDGs.

Nitya Mohan Khemka is an Affiliate Lecturer at the Centre of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow Commoner at Clare Hall College. She is also Senior Advisor to the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and is Director at the Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation where she heads up the Foundation’s initiative on "The Indian Welfare State in the 21st century".

Suraj Kumar is SDG Advisor to the State Government of Chhattisgarh and Tripura and the UN in India and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He has pioneered the state Human Development Reports for 23 states in India, beginning with the Madhya Pradesh HDR in 1995. He is currently Senior Advisor at the KISS Bhubaneswar and visiting fellow at universities in India and the United States.