Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the member states of the United Nations agreed on a shared to-do list for the planet. They adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, described as a blueprint for peace and prosperity, for people and the planet.

That agenda names 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — covering poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean water, climate and more, right through to partnerships to achieve the other 16.

For India's social sector, the SDGs are not just an international talking point. The workbook cites a 2019 Bain & Company report showing India carries a large share of the world's remaining gap on these goals, and treats the sector, alongside government, as a partner needed to close it.

The 17 goals, as the workbook lists them: No Poverty; Zero Hunger; Good Health and Well-being; Quality Education; Gender Equality; Clean Water and Sanitation; Affordable and Clean Energy; Decent Work and Economic Growth; Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; Reduced Inequalities; Sustainable Cities and Communities; Responsible Consumption and Production; Climate Action; Life Below Water; Life on Land; Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions; Partnerships for the Goals.

India's performance gap (Bain & Company, 2019, cited in Chapter 1): India accounts for more than 20% of the world's performance gap in 10 of the 17 SDGs, and more than 10% of the gap in the remaining goals. This translates into a funding gap of about ₹4.2 lakh crore annually, just to meet 5 of the 17 SDGs by 2030.

Where SDGs surface elsewhere in the paper. Chapter 6 notes the 2011 National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct were revised in 2015 specifically to align with the SDGs. The same chapter's IRIS+ system builds its core metric sets aligned to the SDGs, since most impact investors focus on them. The UN Global Compact separately guides its member companies towards achieving the SDGs.

A workbook naming slip to watch for. Chapter 3's own eligibility test for a social enterprise refers to establishing primacy of social intent "as per the 17 Social Development Goals (SDG)" — the correct name is Sustainable Development Goals, and this is a labelling slip in the workbook's own text, not a second, different set of 17 goals.

Illustrative NPO; figures are the workbook's own where cited.

Jal Nirmal Foundation runs a clean-water and sanitation project in rural Odisha, which it maps in its Annual Impact Report to SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).

Its assessor notes that this single goal sits inside a much larger national shortfall: the workbook's cited ₹4.2 lakh crore annual funding gap covers only 5 of the 17 SDGs, and clean water is one of the areas where the gap is widest. A single ₹40 lakh project cannot close a ₹4.2 lakh crore national gap — but the report frames Jal Nirmal's work as a small, mapped contribution to one specific goal in that shortfall, which is exactly the alignment donors and impact investors look for under frameworks like IRIS+.

By 2030, the deadline the 2030 Agenda sets, Jal Nirmal's board wants a clear answer to how much of its own district's SDG 6 gap its projects have actually closed — not just how many boreholes it has drilled.

Chapter 1 (Introduction to Social Sector Ecosystem), section 1.2, lists all 17 SDGs and cites the Bain & Company performance and funding gap figures. Chapter 6 covers how the NGRBC, IRIS+ and the UN Global Compact each align to the SDGs. Chapter 3's eligibility criteria refer back to the SDGs by their workbook-slipped name. Expect a question asking for the year the 2030 Agenda was adopted (2015), the number of goals (17), or the size of India's cited performance or funding gap.

• Adopted in 2015; the deadline is 2030 — do not swap these two years.
• 17 goals, not 18. Regulation 292E's list of eligible social-enterprise activities has 18 items; the SDGs have 17. The workbook itself blurs this in one clause (Chapter 3) by calling the 18-activity eligibility test an "SDG" test.
• The ₹4.2 lakh crore funding gap covers only 5 of the 17 SDGs — it is not the estimated cost of meeting all 17.
• India's gap is over 20% of the world total in 10 SDGs, and over 10% in the rest — both figures matter; do not report only the larger one as if it applied everywhere.