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n Friday, 193 nations, including Indonesia, adopted the 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), introduced to replace the previous eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that expire this year. The nation'€™s representative at the UN summit in New York, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, said Indonesia had integrated the 17 SDGs into its national planning framework.

As the goals and programs will be sharpened further by the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), for now citizens will likely only care about what all this means on the ground.

For instance, will we see an increase in the number of midwives to help pregnant women get regular examinations, a safe delivery and antenatal care? If the answer is yes, then this will be a vital step in correcting our previous failures regarding one of the MDGs, i.e. to reduce the number of women who die during pregnancy, labor or in the weeks after giving birth.

The country'€™s former MDG envoy, Health Minister Nila Djuwita Anfasa Moeloek, said that '€œmore medical workers such as midwives, surgeons, internists, anesthetists and pediatricians will be distributed to regions to help patch the imbalances of medical services between cities and rural areas'€.

Improved health, sanitation, education and reduced poverty were among the MDGs. Indonesia is among the nations that have succeeded in halving the percentage of its poorest people since signing up to the MDGs in 2000. However, as Minister Nila has reminded, we still have wide disparities.

Indonesia'€™s stake and commitment to the SDGs is reflected in former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono being one of chairpersons of the high-level panel that formulated the SDGs, along with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

One important addition to global targets is the last, 17th goal: to '€œrevitalize the global partnership for sustainable development'€ between governments, private businesses and civil society. This partnership is vital to reaching the other 16 wide-ranging goals that aim to '€œend poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all'€ by 2030.

It'€™s surely a tall order to reach in less than a generation. In New York the leaders of advanced countries even had to reassert a very basic pledge: to earmark 0.7 percent of gross national income for foreign assistance, particularly for poor nations.

It is the aspect of financing that was hardest to bargain for. Many developed countries have yet to recover from the economic downturn and have not even come to terms with the still unfolding migrant crisis that they will have to bear together.

Indonesia thus has abundant work to complete itself, with no time to point fingers at nations that have not yet realized their pledges. There is no way to reach the latest goals without involving business, said Helen Clark, the administrator of the UN Development Program, which means ensuring stability and good governance to attract the private sector.

As this also includes the basic rule of law, the millions in our region striving even to breathe, for instance, is evidence of inadequate law enforcement against reckless parties involved in unsustainable, dangerous land clearing.