The Sustainable Development Goals are a set of 17 goals that each United Nations member state differs in achieving, due to the influence of several national and international factors. In the countries of the global South, there are countries that have made more progress than others. Listening to the bodcast of Indonesia and Egypt, I noticed the importance of these two factors, for example, among the national factors that helped Indonesia to make significant progress in goals 5, 13 and 16, there is the political stability and social policies that it has pursued in recent years, in addition to the reduction of corruption, which I believe is the most important factor that affects the achievement of SDGs. The same is true for Egypt, after the overthrow of the democratically elected president in a military coup, the army took control of the joints of the state, and the country has stabilized economically and administratively, moreover the Egyptian economy is based on agriculture and tourism, which has posed a challenge to the achievement of development goals. Therefore, Egypt is seeking to diversify the economy and improve the quality of drinking water and provide it to the largest percentage of the population.

At the international level, international and regional organizations represent a strong incentive for countries in the global south to achieve the SDGs. For example, Indonesia is one of the founders of ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) , which aims to strengthen economic and security cooperation among its members, and is chairing it this year under the slogan of “ASEAN’s Importance: A Center for Growth,” since East Asian countries are among the fastest growing regions in the world. Egypt is also a member of the African Union, which seeks to promote the economic and social development of the African continent, and perhaps Egypt will push to achieve many of the SDGs.

The example of Egypt and Indonesia shows that national and international factors greatly influence the percentage of achievement of the SDGs. Therefore, the UN member states should strive to develop and focus on them. I also noticed that East Asian countries have made much faster progress than other countries, which is due to these two factors. We also need to work on Goal 16, because most countries are making very slow progress on this goal.