You don’t like the SDGs? Look what else is on offer

By Lauchlan T. Munro

My friends on the left generally don’t like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I am told the SDGs are neoliberal, incoherent, (neo-)colonial; the SDGs omit too many important issues: democracy, climate justice, human rights, intersectionality, power. While I agree that the SDGs are imperfect, I must ask, however, what other policy options are on the table? My sad answer is that the available alternatives to the SDGs are much worse, unless you like patriarchy, environmental destruction and national security states.

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Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

By Arief Anshory Yusuf, Zuzy Anna, Ahmad Komarulzaman and Andy Sumner

Two days ago was the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related SDGs, specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation. Our analysis then looks forward, making projections on the state of global progress over the coming years, up to the 2030 deadline for meeting the SDGs.

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Domestic politics and global development. What to expect from Spain in the construction of the post-2030 Agenda

By Iliana Olivié / Part of the European Development Policy Outlook Series

The recent SDG Summit held in New York centered around a much-discussed mid-term review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), given that eight years have now passed since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for achieving the SDGs and that there are only seven more years to go.

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Food transformations and (un)sustainable diets: Taking consumption seriously in development research

By Arve Hansen

The world is in dire need of more sustainable and healthy food systems. The development field has much to say on the topic but has historically had a clear focus on either food supply or food deprivation. The potential benefits and positive spill-over effects of eating healthier and more sustainably have, however, led to increasing and wider attention to the demand side of food. Recent research suggests that the sustainability potential of dietary change is considerably larger than that of improving production. If we could just change what people eat, and at the same time avoid some of the ongoing nutrition transitions in low- and middle-income countries, it would have a massive ripple effect in entire food systems.

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It is time to abandon “development” goals and demand a post-2030 Utopia

By Julia Schöneberg and Mia Kristin Häckl

These are troubled times. Times of multiple, interrelated crises that bring to the fore the injustices, inequalities, and racisms that are not new, but continue to persist and become increasingly hard to ignore.

The SDGs started off ambitiously and claimed to set a mark for a new era in which all countries would be unified in a universal – shared but differentiated – quest to develop. Much has been critiqued in terms of how the goals are formulated and implemented. Continue reading “It is time to abandon “development” goals and demand a post-2030 Utopia”