Sustainable Development Goal 16

Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16 or Global Goal 16) is about "peace, justice and strong institutions." One of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015, the official wording is: "Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels". The Goal has 12 targets to be achieved by 2030. Progress towards targets will be measured by 23 indicators.
The goal has ten "outcome targets": Reduce violence; protect children from abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence; promote the rule of law and ensure equal access to justice; combat organized crime and illicit financial and arms flows, substantially reduce corruption and bribery; develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions; ensure responsive, inclusive and representative decision-making; strengthen the participation in global governance; provide universal legal identity; ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms. There are also two "means of achieving targets": Strengthen national institutions to prevent violence and combat crime and terrorism; promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies.
Reducing violent crime, sex trafficking, forced labor, and child abuse are clear global goals. The International Community values peace and justice and calls for stronger judicial systems that will enforce laws and work toward a more peaceful and just society. 
Background.
The Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations. The broad goals are interrelated though each has its own targets to achieve. The SDGs cover a broad range of social and economic development issues. These include poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, gender equality, Water supply, sanitation, energy, urbanization, environment and social justice. The SDGs include an emphasis on the importance of achieving progress on peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice and rule of law, and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.
Targets, indicators and progress.
SDG 16 has twelve targets and 24 indicators. Two of the targets specify their end year (by 2030) while the others do not have a specific end year. Below is the list of all the targets with a short version and a long version of the titles.
No data is available yet for the following indicators: 16.4.1, 16.4.2, 16.6.2, 16.7.1, 16.7.2, 16.b.1. For all the other indicators, data and world maps are available to visualize progress.
Target 16.1: Reduce violence everywhere.
Long title: "Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere."
This target has four indicators:
Target 16.2: Protect children from abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence.
Long title: "End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children."
This target has three indicators:
One target is to see the end to sex trafficking, forced labor, and all forms of violence against and torture of children. However, reliance on the indicator of "crimes reported" makes monitoring and achieving this goal challenging. For instance, 84 percent of countries have no or insufficient data on violent punishment of children. Of the data available, it is clear that violence against children by their caregivers remains pervasive: Nearly 8 in 10 children aged 1 to 14 are subjected to violent discipline on a regular basis (regardless of income), and no country is on track to eliminate violent discipline by 2030.
By 2017, the UN could report progress on detecting victims of trafficking. More women and girls than men and boys were victimized, yet the share of women and girls has slowly declined (see also violence against women). In 2004, 84 percent of victims were females and by 2014 that number had dropped to 71 percent. Sexual exploitation numbers have declined, but forced labor has increased.
Target 16.3: Promote the rule of law and ensure equal access to justice.
The full text of Target 16.3: "Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all."
This target has three indicators:
Target 16.4: Combat organized crime and illicit financial and arms flows.
The full text of Target 16.4: "By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime."
The target has two indicators:
Target 16.5: Substantially reduce corruption and bribery.
The full text of Target 16.5: "Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms."
The target has two indicators:
With regards to bribery: Data from 38 countries over the past decade suggest that high-income countries have the lowest prevalence of bribery (an average of 3.7 per cent), while lower-income countries have high levels of bribery when accessing public services (22.3 per cent).
Target 16.6: Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions.
The full text of Target 16.6: "Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels."
The target has two indicators:
Target 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive and representative decision-making.
The full text of Target 16.7: "Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels."
The target has two indicators:
Target 16.8: Strengthen the participation in global governance.
The full text of Target 16.8: "Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance.". The target has a single indicator
Indicator 16.8.1 is the "Proportion of members and voting rights of developing countries in international organizations".
Target 16.9: Provide universal legal identity.
The full text of Target 16.9: "By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.". It has one indicator:
Indicator 16.9.1 is the "Proportion of children under 5 years of age whose births have been registered with a civil authority, by age".
Target 16.9 also targets universal legal identity and birth registration, ensuring the right to a name and nationality, civil rights, recognition before the law, and access to justice and social services. With more than a quarter of children under 5 unregistered worldwide as of 2015, about 1 in 5 countries will need to accelerate progress to achieve universal birth registration by 2030.
Target 16.10: Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms.
The full text of Target 16.10: "Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements."
The target has two indicators:
Target 16.a: Strengthen national institutions to prevent violence and combat crime and terrorism.
The full text of Target 16.a: "Strengthen relevant national institutions, including through international cooperation, for building capacity at all levels, in particular in developing countries, to prevent violence and combat terrorism and crime." It has one indicator
Indicator 16.a.1 is the "Existence of independent national human rights institutions in compliance with the Paris Principles".
Target 16.b: Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies.
The full text of Target 16.b: "Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development." It has one indicator
Indicator 16.b.1 is the "Proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the previous 12 months on the basis of a ground of discrimination prohibited under international human rights law".
Custodian agencies.
Custodian agencies are responsible for monitoring and reporting of indicators:
Monitoring and progress.
High-level progress reports for all the SDGs are published in the form of reports by the United Nations Secretary General. The most recent one is from April 2020.
The International Programme for the Development of Communication is responsible for the follow-up of the SDG 16 through indicators 16.10.1 and 16.10.2. Every two years, a report containing information from the Member States on the status of judicial inquiries on each of the killings condemned by UNESCO is submitted to the IPDC Council by UNESCO's Director-General. The journalists safety indicators is a tool developed by UNESCO which, according to UNESCO's website, aims on mapping the key features that can help assess the safety of journalists, and help determine whether adequate follow-up is given to crimes committed against them. The IPDC Talks also allow the Programme to raise awareness on the importance of access to information. The IPDC also monitors and reports on access to information laws around the world through the United Nations Secretary-General global report on follow-up to SDGs.
Challenges.
Impact of Covid-19 pandemic.
The global COVID-19 pandemic is predicted to increase the frequency of conflicts as countries blame others for their situation. Its also expected that global peace and security will be threatened with over 60% countries risking the spread of COVID-19 in prisons due to overcrowding.
Links with other SDGs.
The Sustainable Development Goals are not taken as being completely independent one from the other, but rather as being closely linked. In this way, media development enhances freedom of speech, peace, but also contributes to sustainability, poverty eradication and human rights. Fostering peace and inclusive societies can help reduce inequalities (SDG10) and help economies prosper (SDG8). The 2012 outcome document of the United Nations Summit on the 2030 Agenda considers that sustainable development can not be achieved without building peaceful, just and inclusive societies and addressing issues of corruption, poor governance, insecurity and injustice.
Organizations.
UN organizations.
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations global development network which is concerned with SDG 16. Hence, the Program focuses on democratic governance and peace building. The UNDP also works on conflict prevention by empowering youth, especially women. Also, they aim at supporting the frameworks and structure and by acting as mediators.
UNESCO has revealed diverse contributions to improve the scope of SDG 16 including: