What is SDG Lab?

SDG Lab is an organized initiative to bring youths across the globe in a platform to gather and discuss the SDGs. This group is committed to generating and disseminate knowledge on SDGs with a view to helping national and international communities to attain the goals. It encourages out-of-box thinking toward critical evaluation of local, national and global development policies. Through discussions, SDG Lab wants to en-sure that these policies are coherent with the SDG and vice-versa. Read More

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG is the master plan to improve the global living standard as well environment quality for all and everywhere, devised by the global leaders. It comprises of 17 Goals and 169 targets. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force on 1 January 2016 by a historic UN Summit with a view to mobilizing efforts to end all forms of poverty, inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the SDGs are universal as they call for action by all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. However, though the SDGs are not legally binding, the governments are expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for its plan of actions, follow-up, and review of the progress made in implementing the Goals. Read More

SDG Thought

July 23, 2019

Promoting FDI and SDGs through judicial development

Sekander Zulker Nayeen Sustainable development and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are somehow strongly connected which is widely recognised by a large number of policy instruments. For example, the Rio Earth Summit 1992 affirmed that investment is critical to the ability of developing countries to achieve needed economic growth to improve the welfare of their population and to meet their basic needs in a sustainable manner. The Monterrey Consensus and World Summit on Sustainable Development (2000) also recognised that mobilising FDI is important to achieve the goals of eradicating poverty, effectuating economic growth and promoting sustainable development. Goal 17.5 of the […]

July 23, 2019

The role of civil justice in achieving SDGs

Sekander Zulker Nayeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force by a historic UN Summit with a view to mobilising efforts to end all forms of poverty, inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. The goals are interconnected and often the key to success on one will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another. Issues related with civil justice like equal rights to economic resources, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance etc. (goals 1, 5), equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs for agro-based and small-scale […]

March 21, 2019

Three dimensions of access to justice for achieving SDGs

Goal sixteen of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pledges ‘ensuring access to justice for all’ as a target to be achieved. The principle of rule of law requires that any person with a bona fide reasonable legal claim must have an effective means of having that claim considered. To have any claim considered people must have an easy access to justice services. Whether any country is providing access to justice is determined through the procedures of reaching the justice mechanisms by the common people. In our country, justice-seekers tussle with some economic, social and institutional barriers in accessing formal judicial system. […]

December 16, 2018

Seventy years of UDHR: The fight for human dignity

Mohammad Golam Sarwar This year, Human rights day will mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948), the core human rights instrument which is also considered the mother document of human rights. UDHR laid down the foundation of human rights by asserting inalienable rights which every human being is inherently entitled to, regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. The underlying philosophy of UDHR is to ensure human dignity while fulfilling the mandates of human rights principles and standards. Over the years, […]

September 15, 2017

Options of litigation funding in serving the interests of society: a critical evaluation from the viewpoint of access to justice

Sekander Zulker Nayeen Litigation funding, over the years, has run reverse from champerty and maintenance and been established as an integral part of mainstream civil justice system with a view to facilitating access to justice. Admittedly, its present standard in the United Kingdom has been impacting considerably on the objective of ensuring access to justice. But how far are the funding options serving the interests of the society is still a matter of debate. In this study, some hypotheses have been drawn to assess how far the options of litigation funding are facilitating the litigants’ satisfaction as to access to […]

September 13, 2017

To introduce the principle of finality: An urge of a judge

Sekander Zulker Nayeen Recently on 17 January, a serious concern has been expressed in the daily Prothom Alo regarding an estimation of the case backlog to five million by the year of 2020. Among others, prominent journalist Mr. Mizanur Rahman Khan suggested to increase the number of judges in order to curb this terrific situation. However, increasing the number of judges is not possible overnight while the number of cases is bouncing thousands to thousands every day. Bangladesh Judicial Service Commission (BJSC) cannot appoint as many judges as they want unless the Law Ministry sends requisition for it. The Law […]

April 25, 2017

How Do We Know that We Are Develop

Rezwan Siddiqui In the era of sustainable development goal (SDG), one of the debatable questions is, how do we know if we are develop, or at least our country is in the right track toward development? This question is triggering research, discussions and debate for long, and there is no chance that it will end soon. Luckily, there are several indices to compare and monitor national, regional and global development (like World Development Indicator, World Governance Indicator, SDG Indicators, Index for Risk Management and etc). Governments and international development partners often focus on the process and techniques to improve these […]

Our Events

Embracing SDG: Perspective Bangladesh and Beyond on May 20, 2017 at University of Asia Pacific

A day-long workshop titled “Embracing SDG: Perspective Bangladesh and Beyond” was jointly organised by SDG Lab and the University of Asia Pacific (UAP) on May 20, 2017, at UAP. SDG Lab is an initiative of some Chevening Scholars with a mission of youth empowerment and policy advocacy to align development initiatives with the SDGs. Through debate and discussion, SDG Lab works to generate and disseminate knowledge, especially among youths. The aim of this interactive programme was to share ideas and thoughts around SDGs in order to create an aware and informed young generation in Bangladesh. H.E. David Ashley, Deputy High Commissioner, British High Commission, Dhaka was the Chief guest at the concluding session of the workshop while Professor Dr. Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, Vice-Chancellor, University of Asia Pacific, presided over the session.

To learn more about the event

Embracing SDG: Sustainable Consumption and Production held on November 25, 2017 at Eastern University

SDG Lab organized its second workshop in collaboration with Eastern University on 'Embracing SDGs: Sustainable Consumption and Production' on November 25, 2017, at Eastern University, Dhaka. 40 students from different universities and young professionals participated in this daylong workshop. Debra Efroymson, Co-founder and Acting Executive Director of Institute of Wellbeing (IWB) and Md Obaidul Haque, Associate Professor Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka presented two thematic papers addressing the Goal 12 of SDGs. In her paper on “Achieving Goal 12 of the SDGs: Let's Aim High", Debra discussed about the conceptual framework of Sustainable consumption along with few practical approaches in achieving the Goal 12. Md. Obaidul Haque emphasized on the lazy person's guide prepared by United Nations in order to attain the targets of SDGs.