South Asia Group Questions: Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change and is warming at higher rates than many other regions in the world. As droughts occur more often it is likely that finding water will be much more difficult, and could take longer than 30 minutes, setting back progress towards this SDG. As global warming continues to become more of a pressing issue, how do you think this is going to play a role in SDG 6? This article alludes to the fact that foreign aid can have a positive impact on food and nutrition security (largely if strong institutions in the receiving nation are in place). OECD countries pledged less than 1% of their income to help developing nations, like those in Sub-Saharan Africa, with achieving these SDGs. However, very few of these countries have actually met this target. How can we hold high-income and more developed countries accountable? Strong institutions and good governance clearly play a significant role in the development of a nation, as seen with nutrition and food security in this article. How do these developing nations go about strengthening their institutions and lowering the levels of corruption in the government? What role do developed nations play, if any, in facilitating that? The second article notes that progress on sanitation in Sub-Saharan is lagging progress on access to clean water. Based on both articles and the region overview, what strategies should be employed to bridge this gap? What other SDG’s may be impeded if “WASH” goals are not met? In regions like Africa, where many people’s basic needs are not being met, how should we prioritize meeting each of these needs? For example, in situations where we have to make trade-offs between investments in things like nutrition versus clean water, how should governments and NGOs go about divvying up these limited resources? Are the effects of food insecurity typically spread fairly evenly within a population, or do certain groups tend to be disproportionately affected by these issues? In countries with low levels of development, like many Sub-Saharan nations, does it make more sense to prioritize meeting the needs of specific groups who might disproportionately suffer from food insecurity, or to instead focus on lifting entire communities to greater levels of food security?

South Asia Group Questions: Historically, many Caribbean countries have not been given the same opportunities to participate in global governance compared to more highly developed countries. How important is it to include developing nations in global governance? What are the impacts of not including these countries? How do the high levels of diversity in the Caribbean impact the way we think about development in the region? Does this facilitate or impede the region’s ability to work collaboratively to improve sustainability in the Caribbean? What were the most important impacts of the Millennium Development Goals in the Caribbean? Where did the MDGs fail to meet the needs of the region? How have these successes and failures impacted the effectiveness of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Caribbean? It's very interesting to me to see how trade has such enormous effects on the economies of different countries, and, in turn, can lead to environmental issues. China has an extremely strong demand for pork, and the pigs that they are raising need soybeans for food. As a result, Brazil in particular exports tons of soy to China, and this is causing high levels of deforestation in the country. LAC countries' economies clearly rely on exports like these. What could be done to combat the deforestation and environmental degradation that is taking place without hurting the export-oriented economies. South Asia has severe levels of water scarcity, and, as a result, conflict has arisen within and between nations in the region. What role does the water stress in Latin America and the Caribbean play in tensions/conflict between and within nations? Has LAC seen increasing trends of migration because of this? Given that overuse and exploitation of natural resources in the Caribbean predominantly stems from Western colonization, is there a moral imperative for these nations to contribute resources and money to help the Caribbean reach the SDG’s? Given that Caribbean nations are at particular risk to the rise in natural disasters that result from climate change, how should these nations balance allocating resources towards new physical capital versus reinforcing existing structures?