SDGs & IDGs

Global Development (UN SDGs): The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals are potentially laudable in intent, yet illustrate the peril of tidy frameworks. Seventeen goals with quantitative targets create an illusion that we can map global progress on a dashboard. But reality doesn't silo neatly into boxes; progress on one goal can undermine another, and local context can't be averaged out globally.  It creates a comforting illusion of global progress (“see, we have Goals and yearly reports!”) while obscuring the deeper structural issues and power imbalances that underlie poverty and environmental destruction. The danger is that SDGs embody a checklist morality: as long as we're coloring inside the lines of the SDG boxes, we can forget larger questions of justice or the voices of those not at the table. It's a prime example of legibility masquerading as transformation – the world as a dashboard that looks ever greener, even as real forests burn and real inequalities persist. By flattening development into a set of universal indicators, well-meaning institutions neglect the very  unmeasurable cultural, historical, and ecological nuances that determine whether Dimensional Re-Expansion actually takes root. Instead, we have another situation where the Map Overtakes the Territory.  The SDGs create a comforting illusion of global progress (“see, we have Goals and yearly reports!”) while obscuring the deeper structural issues and power imbalances that underlie poverty and environmental destruction. The danger is that SDGs become a checklist morality: as long as we're coloring inside the lines of the SDG boxes, we can forget larger questions of justice or the voices of those not at the table. It's a prime example of legibility masquerading as transformation – the world as a dashboard that looks ever greener, even as real forests burn and real inequalities persist.

Inner Development Goals (IDGs): The IDGs were introduced to complement the SDGs by focusing on personal growth (mindfulness, empathy, resilience) under the premise that we need inner change to effect outer change. A beautiful idea, yes? Who could oppose inner growth? And yet, predictably, the IDGs swiftly became another framework, with its own summits, toolkits, corporate partners, and yes, metrics for measuring “awakening”.  Here again we see the pattern: something infinitely complex (the human psyche, consciousness, cultural evolution) is put into a neat container with bullet-point skills and attractive metaphors. It becomes legible, teachable, sellable – but at the cost of embodied connection. The map of inner growth inadvertently discourages the real, messy inner work – the kind that doesn't show up on a survey but involve crisis, doubt, and unquantifiable breakthrough. In embracing the IDGs uncritically, organizations claim the mantle of transformation while actually avoiding transformation's discomforts.