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How to Achieve the SDGs In September 2015, the leaders of 193 countries agreed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the most ambitious plan ever to promote human development – by 2030. Nearly two years into the process, there are plenty of reasons for concern: the amount of financing raised so far is unlikely to be sufficient, and not all countries have adequate data to measure progress on the ground. It is enough to test even the most diehard optimist.  But there is still plenty of reason for hope. I recently visited Colombia, which, at long last, is leaving behind its decades-long civil conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and setting itself up for SDG success.  In any country, achieving the SDGs will require government, business, aid agencies, multilateral banks, and civil society to work together, adopt flexible approaches, share knowledge, measure progress effectively, and recognize that the various targets are interconnecte...

Poverty drives child soldiers into Afghanistan's endless war The rescue this summer of dozens of Afghan youths destined to be trained as Taliban fighters has spotlighted how entrenched poverty is fuelling a renewable supply of child soldiers to endlessly replenish the insurgents' ranks.  Afghan forces freed almost 40 children during multiple raids near the Pakistani border. Officials said traffickers working with the Taliban had recruited the boys, some as young as four, from poor families by promising to provide them with a religious education.  In reality they were set to be indoctrinated by hardline mullahs in Pakistan and receive military training to carry out attacks inside war-torn Afghanistan, authorities said. "Our parents always wanted us to learn Islamic studies but we didn't know that we would be fooled and brainwashed to become suicide bombers," nine-year-old Shafiullah told AFP after being rescued by police.  The use of child soldiers by all side...