The Importance of International Governance for Developing Countries

In this era globalization, there are some countries that are still live without peace, stability, and justice. Without all these things, we cannot achieve sustainable development. In fact, we live in a world that is increasingly divided. Some regions enjoy sustained peace while others seemingly have a lack of access to peace and justice means that conflicts remain unresolved and they cannot obtain protection. As has been highlighted in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 16, it is significantly aimed for peace, justice, and strong institution.

All these elements are important to ensure a sustainable country's development. Armed violence and insecurity does not give any benefits towards the country but unfortunately have a destructive impact that will bring to death and damage. In addition, peace itself means freedom from a war which is a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended, free from violence and disturbance; tranquility. While justice is fairness in the protection of rights and punishment of wrongs. Thus, goal 16 in Sustainable Development Goals is very important to ensure people everywhere are free of fear from all forms of violence and feel safe as they go about their lives whatever their ethnicity, faith or sexual orientation and get their right to education.

First of all, in peace perspective, goal 16 in Sustainable Development Goal is very important because everyone deserves to enjoy their peaceful life. The first target for goal 16 in Sustainable Development Goals has mentioned reducing violence everywhere. It means that they significantly want to reduce all forms of violence and related death everywhere. This 16 sdgs also aim to promote peaceful societies at the national level, as well as the role of cooperation at the international level, across countries by 2030.

In recent times, there is an increase in violence at local, state and national levels. If people continue to live in the violence zone, it may plagues many communities, leaving some people wallowing in darkness and despair. In term of violence, it also may cause the development for the country to become slow and influence administration objectives that they want to achieve in a particular time. As an example, the incident that happened in Sierra Leone is an eye-opener for us to fight for justice and peace is crucial. “Somebody being shot in front of you or yourself shooting somebody became just like drinking a glass of water”, said Ishmael Beah, a child soldier during Sierra Leonean civil war. Beah is a teenager that became separated from his family at 12 years old when his town was attacked.

His family was killed in the country's vicious civil war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002. Beah wandered the countryside with a group of other children who had lost their families in similar circumstances because he was so desperate for help at that time. Beah shares so many experiences that he saw by his own eyes during the war. He saw a man carrying his son that had been shot dead, but his trying to save his son’s life by running to the hospital. Beah also saw a woman running with a baby that was tied on her back. She'd been running away from the fighting and the bullet had struck the baby and the baby had been killed but she didn't know. Beah expresses his feeling that he was so angry, very destructive until he destroyed the center where he was staying at and burned some things up. In short, peace and justice is for all and at all level without leaves no one behind.

Besides, goal 16 in Sustainable Development Goal also important in order to ensure equal access to justice. Basically, why justice is important and why everyone deserves it? This is because limited access to justice disempowers individuals and communities from claiming their rights and defending themselves from injustice. In fact, in a democratic country, they have the right to voice out and select their leader through an election. In addition, equal access to justice also may influence economic growth which can spur economic growth by enabling the level playing field for economic stakeholders. Growth of an economy is not only on economic factors but also on the citizen’s trust. Of course, to achieve economic growth is not easy without the legal and judicial system plays by a prominent role even though in a developed country because all countries may have some issues that can lead the country to become a trouble.

In addition, to ensure security and protection for all people, the government should ensure that their countries have effective, fair, and accessible law and justice systems. It is also important to avoid any criminal and also civil wrongdoing. Let’s take an example which is at Kono district in Sierra Leone was significantly affected by 10 years of conflict. Due to the deep pits dug activity in the search for diamonds was effect citizen’s health risks and cause a serious environmental issue. It is also caused limited of safe drinking water resources for them. In fact, water is a limited resource whose amount on the planet is constant. If the water supply is not in good quality and people drink it, it may cause people to suffer sickness.

The second example that we can take a look is about the issue at Sungai Kim Kim, Pasir Gudang. Along 1.5 km stretch of Sungai Kim Kim became polluted with chemical waste and cause toxic pollution which was put under the national spotlight. This pollution affected the health of more than 4000 people including students and forcing government to close about 111 schools in the district. If all this happen, where’s the human right to water for sustainable living? So, in order to prevent this thing happen, the responsible organization should play their role to help improving water quality supply to ensure people can access to clean water. Like Malaysia, we have SYABAS Water Integrated Management System (SWIMS) to manage the quality of water and to change consumer perception on water quality. In addition, people have rights to water in the fundamental right to life, health, and livelihood. The imperatives to meet basic human water needs are more than just moral, they are rooted in justice and law and the responsibilities of individuals and governments. All those things totally can relate to the sixth Sustainable Development Goals which is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

Furthermore, women in Sierra Leone also experience gender-based violence and discrimination and lack access to land. They are financially dependent on men. Violence against women in Sierra Leone is a persistent problem that can limit the ability of women to contribute to society and development. According to the United Nation, nearly all Sierra Leonean women suffer some form of violence in their lifetime. In short, all those activities shows that justice is important to ensure a convenient and peaceful country. All people are free to do their activities without any restriction. Meanwhile, everyone deserves justice. So, let’s fight for justice to get a better life!

Moreover, in this globalization era, a strong institution is compulsory at all level including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations. Education is a right for everyone. It is a right for girls, just as it is for boys. It is a right for disabled children, just as it is for everyone else. Generally, education is the key to development. With education, people tend to get a better job. In today’s knowledge-driven economies, access to quality education and the chances for development are two sides of the same coin.

A strong institution is crucial to help country development. This is because the citizen is the one who will be a pillar on developing the country to achieve growth. Education is a human right. And, like other human rights, it cannot be taken for granted. Education enriches people’s understanding of themselves and the world. In addition, education in every sense is one of the fundamental factors of development. Without substantial investment in human capital, no country can achieve sustainable economic development. It improves the quality of their lives and leads to broad social benefits to individuals and society. In addition, education promotes entrepreneurship and technological advances and raises people’s creativity and productivity. Besides that, education also important to ensure all the management process going smooth with effectively and efficiently that can drive developing countries to achieve their objective in a specific time.

Governments should connect with parent and teacher associations, as well as the private sector and civil society organizations, to find the best and most constructive ways to improve the quality of education. When the management process goes smoothly, that country has their opportunity to increase economic growth. According to the increase in the economy, it helps the country to achieve full and productive employment and at the same time reduce poverty as stated in the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) to achieve no poverty by the year 2030. In short, the marginal effect of the strong institution and country development is positively related to each other. However, in order to have a quality education, the government should play a role to ensure the right of education for all level without no one is excluded.

Government personally should consider all the institution either private or public institution offers a high quality of knowledge to the learners. To add up, the government also need to subsidize education in certain form like tuition fee for the low-income family regarding the financial status, so that everyone can access to education. Besides that, the government also can provide some scholarship for those who are excellent in their studies to motivate them in their learning process.

To sum up, back to the main question given which is “Why is goal 16 in Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) important?”. Literally, there are so many reasonable reason on why goal 16 is important. Without peace, justice and strong institution, we can’t afford to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) to become a reality by the year 2030 because all 17 goals in SDGs are dependent. In brief, everyone deserve to live in peace and free from violence. War and violence doesn’t gives us any benefit but degrading to quality of life. The effects usually include destruction of land and poverty, negatively impacted to the economics and hurts the country’s citizen.

On other perspective, justice is other important things that we should consider and it deserves for all. Justice is where everyone can feel safe and life together without fear of oppression and violence. For instance, all people deserves to get clean water supply to ensure their rights and that most basic needs are met and few health concerns arise. The water required for each personal or domestic use must be safe and free from chemical substances, micro-organism, and so on. These uses ordinarily include drinking, washing, food preparation, personal sanitation and household hygiene. Bad quality of water will effect people’s health and higher risk.

In Malaysia, we have civil-society organization as guideliness for drinking-water quality that will ensure the safety of drinking water which is the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, there are some country that still can’t fulfill their citizen’s right to water. As an example, close to half of people in developing countries are suffering from health problems caused by poor water and sanitation. This problems are the world’s secong biggest killer of children. As we know, clean water and sanitation is one of the goal in Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) that want to achieve by the year 2030. In a nutshell, laws and policies must be applied without any form of discrimination. People must be able to contribute to decisions that affect their lives for a better future.