The G77 and China says it remains averse to the repackaging of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“We believe that any attempt at clustering or repackaging the SDGs would militate against the interests of developing countries and risks backsliding towards a silo approach, which could easily threaten the integration of the three dimensions of sustainable development,” said South Africa’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Kingsley Mamabolo.

Mamabolo was addressing the third session of the intergovernmental process on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, on behalf of G77 and China. South Africa is currently the chair of the group.

This year marks the wrap-up of the ground breaking UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which world leaders agreed on 15 years ago.

There has been significant progress in meeting the targets. For example, global poverty has been halved well ahead of the 2015 deadline. In developing countries, 90% of children now enjoy primary education.

The number of people lacking access to improved drinking water has been halved and the fight against malaria and tuberculosis has shown results, according to the UN.

However, challenges persist and the deadline for the MDGs looms large at the end of the year. This is why the UN has proposed a new set of 17 goals and 169 targets that form the SDGs.

The new agenda will, among others, aim to address a raft of lingering and emerging challenges such as the fact that globally, 73 million young people are looking for work and many more are trapped in exploitative jobs.

But there have been calls for the clustering or repackaging of SDGs, with some saying the “too many” objectives will scare away bureaucratic policymakers and will doom the project to failure.

Mamabolo said the group maintains that the means of implementation identified under each SDG, in addition to SDG 17 on the global partnership for sustainable development, are an essential component of the SDGs.

The group views the development of global indicators as a technical process for measuring progress and the implementation of SDGs.

“Our view is that the indicators must be based on and respond directly to the goals and targets contained in the Report of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, which is an outcome of a lengthy intergovernmental process that reflects a delicate political balance,” said Mamabolo.

For this reason, the group reiterated its view that the development of indicators should not undermine or reinterpret the agreed outcomes of the SDGs and their targets.

All targets, the group believes, should be accorded the same level of importance in the process of formulating indicators.