UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions

Peace among nations will remain a dream as long as there is racism, economic exclusion, and the balance of power between men and women is not yet achieved. Climate change and environmental protection are other big issues that are separating us as people. Wars have left the planet devastated and the results are felt throughout the world through climate change. The rich are responsible for the destruction of the environment for capital gains and the poor continue to suffer the consequences. If justice is regarded as the ethical, philosophical idea that people are to be treated impartially, fairly, properly, and reasonably by the law and by the arbiters of the law. Justice has been watered down to suit only those who understand Western culture, religion, and economic systems. Any other method is not welcomed.

Introduction

The United Nations' sustainable development goal 16 states that its main objective is to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels (UNDP, 2021). In this essay, the goal is to interrogate the topic of the state of the world on this goal and present my educated opinions with a focus on South Africa as my country of origin since it also has its share of challenges pertaining to this goal. I further make suggestions as to the role that education can play and other interventions to promote peace, and justice and establish strong institutions.

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According to the Worldometer website, the world population in 2023 is standing at 8 billion people, with most people concentrated in Asia (India, China) and Africa, with over a billion people each. Africa as a continent, accounts for approximately one-fifth of the population (Worldometer, 2021). The densely populated countries seem to be the ones with the most conflicts. They have been identified as Middle East, West, and Central Africa, North Korea, etc. But protests have been observed globally and some have turned out to be violent and people have lost their lives in the process.

The sources of conflict that have disturbed the peace in these countries have been identified as fighting over resources meaning economic activity, religious conflicts, territorial gain, revenge revolutionary war, defensive war, etc.

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Considering the above statement, it is imperative to understand the correlation between population and the disturbance of peace. Countries where deposits of minerals and oil are found have a tendency of experiencing wars and violence due to these resources. The main question remains, are the people in those densely populated areas the ones who are fighting over resources or outside forces? Out of the above population 84.7 million people have been displaced from their own countries of origin or internally displaced because of civil war, religious differences, or territorial war (UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency, 2021).

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Most of the migration in African countries is due to economic reasons or tribal factions and civil wars. But other countries have a high prevalence of violence like my country, South Africa, the mother city Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, and Pretoria are ranked in the top 20 across the globe in 2021. They are dominantly violent whether it's xenophobia attacks, violent crime or gender-based violence, or children being kidnapped trafficked and raped, or used for cults purposes. The main reason behind this is the high population versus the police ratio and the police stations are under-resourced. (Armormax, 2021)

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According to (UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency, 2021) refugee agency 84.7 million people have been displaced. Unfortunately, there are no policies and laws to regulate these displaced people each and every country has its own way of dealing with refugees entering their countries.

The very same immigrants who are running away from wars or civil wars or economic problems from their own countries find themselves becoming violent or resort to crime due to unemployment and lack of citizenship papers. ?

Peace in the Oxford dictionary is defined as stability within oneself. So peace starts with one person as an individual and a peaceful individual can lead to a peaceful family. If the other members of the family are also peaceful and if a family is peaceful then it can expand into a peaceful community and a peaceful community would lead to a peaceful country. Therefore, in the definition of peace, it needs to be regulated by a certain kind of living which we can refer to it as cultural values and belief systems. Education of the children to uphold human rights and peace education within the community are all the facets of things that can lead to a peaceful atmosphere. But should it happen that a peaceful encounter has been ruined by the members of communities there needs to be justice in place affordable and accessible to all.

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?For the purposes of this essay justice will be simply defined as the ability to justify one's actions and give a probable cause in terms of punishing the perpetrator. Justice needs to be practiced globally under the supervision of strong institutions. Due to slavery and colonialism, modern courts are not trusted by indigenous groups as they have predominately judged matters using principles from Western Systems.?

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1.???Why is the UN’s goal of taking responsible action for Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions important, in your opinion?

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In my opinion, taking responsible action for peace justice, and strong institutions is important because no country can operate in a vacuum or in isolation without the assistance of other countries for resources. Globalization is something that has been forced into each and every country whether you like it or not.

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Citizens of various nations want to find themselves benefiting from technology or the fourth industrial revolution and the resources are exported from other countries. Therefore trade agreements for the exchange of products and services are more important as well. We also want to explore and travel across the world to learn new skills to acquire new knowledge.

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How we can creatively or innovatively run our own countries, it's very hard to reach a maximum civilization if you are working in isolation. Taking into consideration the latter statements, people have different cultures, religions, belief systems, and even economic systems that impede on achieving SDG 16. ?

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Therefore, because of the above reasons various nations need to understand the importance of keeping peace in their countries because when it's combined with justice it can set the norms for the safety and security of children and for primary health care and promote an end to poverty and violence. Children are the future, when the right values are inculcated to the children, the world will be a better place.

2. How is the state of Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions in the world?

The power struggle between superpower countries has always been at the core of conflict therefore disturbing peace for many nations subsequently those who are connected by trade agreements, economic systems, or even territorial wars. It would be an oversight not to give the background of the various conflict origins and motivations if the cold war is not discussed.

At the end of the Second World War, the Cold War had begun the world had been divided between two great superpowers the United States and the Soviet Union. This was not a conventional war because the two sides were never directly fighting instead it was an ideological battle between communism and capitalism. This has been the struggle among nations promoting one system over the other or be it democracy versus autocracy and other governing systems.

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The East against the West and the resulting struggle for ideological influence. The power struggle has been seen throughout the world. The occurrences of small regional conflicts being turned into proxy wars. The two sides with back opposing groups to advance their own agendas both sides stockpiled nuclear weapons. Having questions over how to use control and eliminate them becoming central to the conflict propaganda espionage and psychological warfare would become the norm with a rivalry for technological superiority culminating in the space race from Starling to Reagan, from the CIA to the KGB, from the Berlin Wall to Hiroshima and Chernobyl. Highlighting the above is important to clarify the sources of the conflicts that we found ourselves in today. ?The following are the major conflicts that are happening around the world at the moment. It is important to mention them since they are happening in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic which has affected countries around the world. Due to the pandemic conflict decreased slightly in 2019-2020.?Conflict is expected to increase significantly in 2021 due to the aftermath of the pandemic like unemployment, and protests.

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The war in Afghanistan can be dated back to 1978 on and off. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 should signal the end of the conflict but the war between Taliban and other factions is expected to continue. Afghanistan’s half of population is in need of humanitarian assistance, 18 million people generally speaking some kind of magical protections assistance, ?14 million need food, 9 million need access to water 600,000 have been internally displaced in 2021 alone and 5 million people remained displacement centers (UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency, 2021).

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The civil war in Ethiopia escalated in November 2020, because of the clashes between political parties. This violence has been seen to spill over to neighboring countries like Sudan and Somalia. The drug war in Mexico has been estimated to have caused the deaths of 350 000 people. This is between the Mexican government and multiple powerful and violent drug trafficking cartels.?Yemen civil war has been going on since 2014 and has seen over 140 000 fatalities. Terrorist insurgency in countries like Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Libya, Mali, and Mozambique are also still going on in 2021.

The Rohingya people are the largest stateless population in the world refugee camp housing 750 000 in Bangladesh.?Their civil war started in 2012 since then the Rohingya people fled mass killings, rapes, and persecution by the army and security forces from Myanmar. The camp was established in 2017 have been ravished by violence and recent elephant attacks where 13 people died. The Rohingya people are facing the most gruesome challenges as they have no identity, no ethnicity, no country and nobody wants them. Their children cannot plan for their future (UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency, 2021). ??

3.???What changes need to happen to achieve Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions?

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The amount of money spent on arms should be an indication of how much warfare is instigated and planned.?According to (Worldometer, 2021) world military spending was almost $2 billion in 2020 and Reuters suggests that 10% of the world military spending could knock off poverty.

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Peace, justice, and strong institutions cannot be achieved if these goals are not implemented at the grassroots level. Education needs to be simple starting at the personal development level. We need to teach our children simple lessons about how to live with yourself and then other people. According to Save the Children Report 2021, conflict around the world is affecting 426 million children. If each individual were to be taught how to create a peaceful, loving, and joyful world each day this would lead to the coordination and integration of all human energies.??

The opportunity to understand how the system of strong institutions works and how it was established. The foundation level of schooling would be the ideal place to start preparing our children just like princes and princesses are prepared at an early stage to govern. This should not be a privilege of the few but everyone.

This is where All SGSs should be taught at the community level, in our churches and community policing forums. This is where the culture of educating about new legislation or processes can be implemented. Various cultures and religions are not taken into consideration when strong institutions are being formulated, that is the reason why a lot of African people do not want to participate in some of these institutions because the Western culture is more accommodated than the African culture.

Before colonization, African people had systems in place, on how to manage a home, how to manage a community, or the marriage and practices. They also had systems in place on how they grow their children.

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Decolonization has been introduced as one of the interventions that could make a difference in bringing peace and building strong organizations. Ken Wilber's (2009) integral theory attempts to place a wide diversity of theories and thinkers into one single framework. It is portrayed as a "theory of everything" trying "to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of approaches that are mutually enriching." Integral theory is a school of philosophy that seeks to integrate all of the human wisdom into a new, emergent worldview that is able to accommodate the gifts of all previous worldviews, including those which have been historically at odds: science and religion, eastern and western, and pre-modern, modern and post-modern.

In the African context, one of the oldest saying emphasizes the importance of working together by teaching that human beings exist with the help of others. Consequently, cooperating with each other in the community is a recipe for success.

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??The introduction of cooperatives in the judicial system could speed up the process of giving justice to people. These cooperatives would be established in each community and all people will be regarded as equals. Justice delayed is justice denied, justice is not affordable to poor people, the language spoken in these institutions is English and the legislation is also written in English. This is a disadvantage to up to 80% of the population in African countries where English is not their mother tongue.

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Leadership in all spheres not just politicians should be at the forefront for transforming the world. There is usually a disconnect between the leaders and what people on the ground want. Politicians are using the top-down approach because they have hidden agendas on how to keep power for the next elections. Five years seem not to be enough to make effective changes, therefore leadership at the bottom layers should not be changed with each election. There is no sustainability in most projects because when the previous party leave, they leave with the information and there is no sustainability and proper succession plans in place. ?

4.???Do you think it is possible to achieve Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions??Why or Why not?

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To answer this question, we may have to ask the question can we ever think of any age in a time when the whole world was in total peace and harmony, where there were no wars, violence, and also economic hardships? These are key elements that make people lose their peace. People have always been fighting over land and resources, making other people slaves or discriminating against others. Influential individuals with strong ideologies who are not at peace with themselves will always find ways to disturb the peace.?

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Everything starts at a personal level and spreads to other people. Secret Societies, Religious institutions, and Political Organizations have all been formed to try and gather people with the same values and beliefs so they can take control. But in the end, people cannot agree on everything therefore, they find themselves having to establish disciplinary measures in place which leads to harming other human beings or even sacrificing their lives.?

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Once we establish social indicators that take gender equality into consideration, we will be able to be in a position to say whether we can have a peaceful community or not. Countries that claim to be at peace have more ammunition than those who are at war. Their children are dying of gun violence and police brutality is at the forefront of their problems. We may not achieve a peaceful environment and justice but we can create and develop communities with high levels of tolerance. ?

5.???How can education lead to a world with Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions?

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The injustices of the past have led to unpeaceful environments, most of the people in the world find themselves discriminating against each other one way or the other. Discrimination along the lines of race, gender, culture, class, religion, and so forth has been seen to be the source of conflict.?Our children from all races may be educated in the same environments, segregation has been at the core of divide and rule. This made people ignorant of each other and believe any propaganda made against other races, cultures, and religions.

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?Therefore, the education or schooling system should be a platform for the integration of all cultures. At early ages, children can be taught how they can pursue peace, through peace education, how they can resolve conflicts, instill the norms and values of respecting each other. Critical thinking has not been taught because job seekers to work industrial sites were produced instead of job creators.

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Social cohesion does not take place in many countries even when refugees are received in these countries. These children are kept in camps assuming the wars will end soon but eventually, they end up being adults with no proper education. This exacerbates the vicious cycle of poverty.

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Personal development is totally neglected in the school system as they are busy teaching about things outside not introspection. A human being is the body, mind, and spirit. The education system should be focused on the total human being. Physical intelligence, intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. Our education system should be focused on making our children global citizens and 21st-century learners.

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Getting justice is expensive sorely because of the level of ignorance among the masses. The justice system should be simplified at the moment, it is complicated and not accessible to the majority of the citizens in many countries. ?The education system does not have much in the curriculum that explains the law and the justice system.

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This can be unpacked and simplified in a language that ordinary people can understand or it can be translated to be learned in the languages that the majority of people understand. ?English-speaking people are always at an advantage because everything is done in English. Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Search Engines, and so forth. Robots do not understand African languages, recently facial recognitions application have made it impossible for Africans to find employment in other countries. Technology is adding to the gap of Inequalities among the races. Inclusion and integration should be at the core of the local governments to reduce conflict and establish strong institutions. Everyone needs to be head even people who are in the minority.?

6. What objectives, principles, and teaching techniques are used in education to achieve Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions?

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The various countries must introduce peace education programs in the world, the objective of the rule of law can never be realized if the ordinary people do not even know what is lawful and unlawful. Creating awareness and establishing human rights activists has been seen to be effective in terms of teaching people about their rights.

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Investigative journalism around the world where professional researchers are involved in getting to the root cause of corruption has been fruitful in uncovering the injustices of the past. You cannot solve the problem unless you get to the source. Various countries that have been colonized have suffered because of stolen assets, these need to be recovered and returned to the rightful owners. Equal justice is key to resolving conflicts.

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?Strong Institutions can be used by governments to implement national development goals. Most of the interventions do not seek ordinary people's input. So these institutions should be linked to schools, colleges, and universities. Experts from such institutions should have presentations quarterly about the SDG. In my country South Africa, the justice department seemed to be lacking in technology. They were unable to cope during the pandemic as they could not continue with a lot of cases. Therefore, the personnel in the judiciary system should be equipped with skilled technological skills, working online and using data science to inform their professions.

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7.???How can education improve in your community so that the next generation has the tools and mindset to achieve?Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions?

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Education can help people to have knowledge and skills and abilities to better address and manage conflict. ?The justice system in the international arena is not understood and therefore has implications for refugees. Some universities like the University of Johannesburg identified an opportunity to embark on an awareness campaign through telling positive stories about refugees. They told a story of a person rather than about the wars and being refugees. This could be achieved through a YouTube channel that will be covering a wide of topics.

The refugees share stories about food, their cultures, and language as a barrier to communication and their best memories of where they come from. People from war-torn countries could share their professions and what they would do differently when they get back to their countries. These stories aim to educate our fellow South Africans and change their mindset about refugees. Storytelling is African and more effective than written words. We hope to touch the heart for a lasting impact rather than the mind which mind is only temporary.

There are at least four ways in which educational opportunities benefit refugees:

1.??????By providing structure amid chaos;

2.??????By encouraging a sense of hope for the future through the development of new skills which lead to a greater chance of eventual employment; and

3.??????By creating an atmosphere of social support that not only affects the classroom but engages the surrounding community as well.

4.??????By demanding community involvement in the management of the schools and in the creation of an overall learning environment that leads to empowerment of the community as a whole.

In short, such education begins to restore faith, hope, and trust in its participants and their parents/guardians, principally by enabling the enhancement of control over increasing portions of their lives. The emphasis is on the refugees in the discussion above because the perception is that foreign nationals are the reasons behind the violent crimes, looting, and xenophobia attacks.?