Are the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) Fit for Purpose?

Of all the competing goals world leaders could have agreed on for the year 2030, reducing inequality and addressing sustainability should have come first. They make all other goals so much harder to achieve, if not impossible. However, the SDGs dodge the twin challenge of our time. As with the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), they represent a global deal rather than a universal agenda. Moreover, most verifiable SDG targets are not dissimilar from the MDGs, e.g. poverty, hunger and child mortality. A distinct aspect is that their level of ambition is inversely related to the level of specificity: the goals are bold but their scope is greatly diminished by the fuzziness of the targets and the poor choice of indicators. In short, the SDGs are not fit for purpose. Sustainable development remains, in the realm of current multilateralism, an idea whose time has not yet come.Paper presented at the Academic Opening Session held on 27 October 2016. Text received on 17 January 2017 and submitted to peer review. Final version approved by the reviewers received on 27 April 201