3 - The Sustainable Development Goals

Summary

Designed as a follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which guided international development policies from 2000 to 2015, the 2030 Agenda proposed a new development road map for the subsequent fifteen-year period. The most iconic SDGs deal with the eradication of poverty and hunger, the fight against climate change, and the creation of a global partnership for sustainable development. The chapter shows that the SDGs’ script was not written in advance for the UN supertanker does not follow a predetermined route. The 2030 Agenda is also a useful reminder that for every global public policy adopted, alternative courses of action that were once part of the conversation are discarded along the way. Our analysis illuminates not only the experimental nature of the SDGs’ creation but also the power relations and the political choices that the SDGs reflected. Among other things, the 2030 Agenda was also profoundly marked by a set of practices related to goal-setting. In addition, convergence around sustainable development can be seen as the silver bullet of the 2030 Agenda, together with the idea that global poverty must be eradicated and that in this process, no one should be left behind.