The unlikely journey to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Over the last three to four years I have had the luck and privilege of being around at the United
Nations just as this often derided septuagenarian global body took on the greatest challenge of
our time: negotiating a new set of shared global goals to eliminate poverty and secure a more
peaceful and healthy planet for coming generations. The objective couldn’t have been more
necessary, nor more ambitious and difficult. Last September in New York, Heads of State and
Government from 193 Member States signed off on the result, with the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) at the center, built on the success of the eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) but going much beyond them in scope and ambition. It’s a
remarkable accomplishment. It’s an historic reset. If taken seriously, these goals will change the
world for the better. However, when the effort was officially set in motion, at the Rio+20
Summit in the summer of 2012, it was a difficult birth.
Far from being an inspired and inspiring moment, the decision to develop SDGs was reached in
the small hours of the night, in overtime, in an atmosphere of distrust, tension and bickering.
Many participants had grave doubts about the decision; doubts about expanding on the
poverty and social sector focus of the MDGs by bringing in environmental sustainability and
economic development, or doubts that the endeavor could ever succeed, that the effort was
almost doomed to drown in the quick sands of yet another complex process of negotiations at
the UN. Just the thought of politically negotiating the next set of global goals and targets among
193 governments seemed exhausting, perilous, even naïve. After all, the MDGs, which just
about everybody now agreed had been a success as a mobilizing framework for action, had
been designed by experts before being announced by the then Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
This, according to many, had produced a focused agenda, around which governments, agencies
and civil society could coalesce. Why couldn’t UN Member States entrust the Secretary General
and his experts to repeat the success of the MDG process, or at least develop a proposal that
the membership could then consider and fine-tune?
Making matters even more complicated, the decision all but ignored the SG’s initiative taken
before Rio+20 to establish a “High Level Panel of Eminent Persons” to develop a proposal for
the successors to the MDGs, or the “post-2015” agenda. There was now a real risk that two
separate processes would unfold, both with very uncertain and possibly very different
outcomes. In short, it looked to many like another UN recipe for failure.
And yet, here we are, with a new set of global goals, a bit unwieldy in scope but brimming with
ambition. How did we get here? Many could give an interesting account of it, filled with some
solid doses of blood, sweat and tears, a few moments of euphoria and countless, endless
meetings that seemingly went nowhere. Each story would be distinct from the next. Here's
mine and it is long. I'm starting way back..
..in 2001, when I couldn't have cared less
I served as State Secretary of International Development in Norway when Secretary General
Kofi Annan announced the MDGs. Honestly, I didn't have much time for them. They seemed to
me an overly simplistic approach to something as complex as development, at the expense of
serious policy making and complex reforms. I viewed them as a smart move communications
wise, but that was it for me.
But by 2005, things had changed
By then I could see the difference that a set of shared goals was now making. I joined UNDP
that same year, an organization that played a central role in grounding the MDGs in countries
around the globe. The goals were forcing stronger political attention to critical poverty and
health deprivations causing misery for billions of people. They had helped reverse the decline in
ODA that we saw in the 1990s. They were starting to seep into national development strategies
and budgets, and international partners were using them to guide priority setting. Global
partnerships were being formed or revitalized to support stronger action. As a “common
currency” they were making aid coordination a bit easier. I could see that there wasn't an
either/or between a set of shared, morally compelling goals and more “brainy” development
policy. At the same time, I and others worried about the MDGs’ lack of attention to governance,
conflict and violence, and the cursory treatment of job creation and environmental challenges.
By 2008, I was on the barricades
The global financial crisis in 2008-9 nearly killed off global commitment to the MDGs. I
witnessed several conversations with policy makers where it was suggested that it was time to
move on, to redefine the agenda. People were tired of yesterday’s concepts. With the arrival
and leadership of Helen Clark as UNDP Administrator, we and other partners launched a big
counter offensive, mobilizing developing countries to tell their stories about the difference the
goals were making. It worked. The MDG Summit in 2010 took stock of the encouraging progress
being made around the world, renewed commitments despite the overall gloomy economic
picture, and ushered in a major acceleration program led by UNDP to zoom in on gaps and
bottlenecks country by country.
At this summit, conversations were heard for the first time about “post-2015”. What do we do
after the MDG deadline? The SG wisely announced that focus had to remain on finishing the
MDG job, but that he would initiate an “inclusive and transparent” dialogue on what should
happen next. That got me and others thinking.
"We the People of the United Nations"
It seemed obvious to me and many colleagues that “pulling a quick one” like Kofi Annan did in
2000-1 by simply announcing goals and targets formulated by experts, would be both totally
wrong and politically impossible this time around. There would have to be some kind of open
and inclusive process, in order to build support and legitimacy. Everybody now knew how
powerful the MDGs had become. There was no way different countries and other
constituencies would simply sit back and await the wisdom of experts at the UN or anywhere
else. At a minimum, governments around the world would take a huge interest in debating
what the focus of the next goals should be. We also saw a huge opportunity: unlike at the
beginning of the millennium, it was now possible – due to advances in computer-mediated and
mobile communications and the growth in bottom-up civil society policy networks – to create a
virtual global conversation, to bring millions into a UN-led effort to define “the world we want”.
I felt this was an opportunity that the UN could not afford to miss, a way to breathe life into the
opening words of the UN Charter: “We, the people of the United Nations”. As “co-chair” of the
“MDG Task Force” which brought together representatives from all UN development agencies, I
introduced a proposal, developed by UNDP colleagues Paul Ladd and Jose Dallo, for that global
conversation. It laid out a plan for unprecedented national consultations in scores of countries
around the world, multiple thematic consultations with experts and practitioners at the global
level, and an on-line engagement platform audaciously named worldwewant2015. Later, Paul
Ladd (UNDP) and Claire Melamed (ODI) proposed a massive on and off-line survey to capture
the priorities of people everywhere, MyWorld2015. Over the course of late 2011 and early
2012 we built support for the whole package, revised it several times, and got it approved and
then funded by several partners. By mid-2012 we were ready to roll, but awaiting what would
come out of the Rio+20 Conference.
I also found myself co-chairing a UN system-wide “Post-2015 Task Team” that the Secretary
General set up to prepare an initial, “stage setting” report aimed at providing strategic
recommendations on the issues that a new agenda and new goals would need to grapple with.
Some 60 UN agencies and offices around the world signed up to take part in it. Many were the
times I was told what a hopeless task we had, that this project was doomed to fail. Apparently
there was no way that 60 specialized entities could ever agree on a shared vision. We brushed
that aside while making it clear to colleagues in the Task Team that we all had to rise to the
occasion, above narrow agency mandates, to prove the skeptics wrong. This was our chance
within the UN to shape the direction of the agenda. If we ended up with what many expected -a "Christmas tree" sprinkled with each entity's favorite decorations -- all of us and the UN as a
whole would look incapable and silly. Meanwhile, at UNDP we cleared an entire floor to host a
UN-wide secretariat tasked to promote a coherent effort across the system.
Paula from Colombia stops by to talk
One day in mid-2011, a former UNDP colleague and now Foreign Ministry official from
Colombia, Paula Caballero, stopped by in my office. The conversation had a profound impact on
how I viewed the scope, direction and ambition of the post-2015 agenda. Paula told me that
Colombia would go all out for a new framing of the global development agenda. Colombia, she
said, wanted renewed, global commitment to sustainable development, given the urgent
economic, social and environmental challenges we were now facing. In short, Colombia—and
Paula especially—wanted Sustainable Development Goals. And they wanted them agreed at
the Rio+20 Summit the following year, or at least get an agreement to develop such goals.
These SDGs, she said, should apply universally, to all countries, North and South. I asked her if
she thought she could get sufficient political support from other countries. She looked at me
and said: “Yes, but we need your help. Can you, and can UNDP, help us?”
Conflicting thoughts ran through my head. On the one hand, I was deeply moved and excited.
Paula had laid out a vision that coincided with my own thoughts. I totally agreed that we
needed a new framing, and that sustainable development and universality had to be key
ingredients. But I was worried too. There would be staunch opposition. A lot of people saw no
need to go much beyond an upgrading of the MDGs, with continued focus mainly on addressing
poverty in poor countries. Even though sustainable development had been embraced by the
world almost 20 years earlier as a balancing act across economic, social and environmental
priorities, a lot of people saw sustainable development as nothing more or less than a
euphemism for environmentalism and wanted to leave the entire concept behind. Very few
were excited about the Rio+20 conference. Many were surprised that Brazil even wanted to
bother with another Rio summit. Bringing the discussion to Rio could also derail and politicize
the post-2015 process as we had been contemplating it within the UN system. And, what sort
of clout could Colombia have anyway? But, I knew that Paula had the right vision and I threw
doubts and caution to the side. “Yes,” I said, “I'm with you.” I also told her that getting the
actual goals agreed in Rio would not be wise nor possible. Much more time would be needed in
order to allow for an inclusive and open process, and for the political proceedings that would
be needed. Besides, we had until the end of 2015 to work it all out.
June 2012: A near-death experience in Rio
By Rio+20 in June, Colombia had done an incredible job mobilizing support for SDGs. A “hard
core” of several Latin American and European countries were working near-seamlessly to build
support for the idea. The host nation Brazil was engaged with strong ideas of their own while
ceaselessly reading the political landscape looking for ways to find common ground. This was
critically important, as there was plenty of opposition at several levels. Some didn't like the idea
of SDGs at all, while others fought against having a decision that would unleash a political
negotiation process to determine the goals. It was becoming increasingly clear that developing
countries were quite united behind a demand for negotiations. Their “nothing about us without
us” argument was hard to argue against.
In the months prior to Rio I had been busy on two fronts: First, together with colleagues I had
been using the run-up to build support in UNDP and the wider UN system for a broader framing
of the agenda than we had contemplated so far. The UN Task Team’s report became a
particularly important tool for widening understanding and support for embracing sustainable
development and universality, and we went beyond that to making the case for tackling
inequality, conflict and violence, and governance. It was issued after Rio, but it's thinking (and
advanced drafts) was already in circulation. Secondly, we invested in dialogue with a wide
range of governments and civil society actors to build greater appreciation for the imperative of
a more integrated, less siloed approach to development and how sustainable development as a
concept and SDGs as shared commitments could be instrumental. In a nutshell, we felt that the
real challenge before us was to once and for all bring together two rather entrenched
communities, with largely separate worldviews and even separate governing bodies: One
dedicated to (economic and social) development and the other to (mainly environmentally)
sustainable development. However, many saw it differently. A number of governments did not
see “post-MDGs” and SDGs as necessarily one and the same. Some felt that a successor
framework to the MDGs would be needed to maintain commitments to development
cooperation and to finishing the job of eradicating poverty, while the SDGs would address
other, more global challenges. The host country Brazil was the lead proponent of this view,
while at the same time skillfully searching for a consensus formula. With the risk of two
separate post-2015 tracks growing almost by the day, we were working extra hard to argue for
one consolidated effort, while preparing for the possibility of having to support two separate
tracks. A forum of Member States in New York regularly convened by Japan became particularly
important during this period, preparing the grounds for what was to come.
Only weeks before the opening of Rio, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he would
be leading a High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda, to be established by the Secretary
General. The news deepened tensions and distrust in the already difficult negotiations ahead of
Rio, which were then in the final rounds. Many developing countries saw the panel as an
attempt to “override” what they saw as an imperative to be confirmed in Rio: an
intergovernmental process, led by Member States themselves. On the other hand, many
developed countries felt that a proposal had to be developed first, before entering
negotiations. Otherwise, it would be extremely difficult to produce a meaningful result. They
saw the panel as a way to achieve this.
During tense days and nights in Rio I found myself in the corridors and negotiation rooms,
trying to be helpful. I realized that any agreement reached would have to include a decision to
undertake an intergovernmental process to define the goals, otherwise the SDGs as a viable
concept would die right in Rio. On the other hand, developed countries could not support such
an approach without language that would somehow connect the SDGs to the post-2015
development agenda, and they were also adamant that in addition to the economic, social and
environmental dimensions, issues related to peace, democracy and governance also had to be
part of the deal. Many pointed out that the new agenda was not only about the legacy of the
Sustainable Development Summits; the iconic Millennium Declaration from 2000 also had to be
honored, which among other things emphasized the importance of democratic governance.
From our side in the UN system, we were working for language that would authorize us to
support the negotiations and to bring in the voices of people around the world. For me and my
UNDP colleagues, the work of the UN Task Team and the consultations that we were ready to
unleash, were hanging in the balance.
It all came down to the wire. On overtime and in the wee hours of the night, there was finally a
deal, along lines put forward by Brazil as a take it or leave it offer. It implied a distinct process
to elaborate SDGs, but it was articulated in such a way that it pointed towards “post-2015” as
destination, and it did call for an open and inclusive process and for the UN to provide
substantive support. On the other hand, the High Level Panel wasn’t mentioned. Instead, the
outcome document mandated the establishment of an “Open Working Group” to be made up
of experts from 30 Member States selected from within the UN regional groupings. This group,
the OWG, was tasked to develop a proposal to the UN General Assembly, guided by the Rio
Outcome Document itself. The mood wasn’t good. Nobody was particularly happy with the
outcome, some were incensed, some thought and said “this can never work”. I thought to
myself: It has to work. Our job is to make it work.
The morning after, I ran into Amina Mohammed, the recently appointed “Special Advisor to the
Secretary General on Post-2015 Planning”. We had reached the same conclusion: if we organize
ourselves well, we can help make it come together. We returned to New York and went to
work.
The world we want: the global conversation takes off
As summer turned to fall, our ambitious consultation project gathered steam. We were in a
great hurry. We knew we had to be able to not only run national and thematic consultations
around the globe and get the global MyWorld survey underway, we had to manage to make
sense of the results and present consolidated reports in time for the results to be available for
the High Level Panel and the OWG. The panel represented the greatest challenge timing wise. It
went to work in July with a condensed meeting schedule and aiming to have a report ready by
June 2013. We knew we had to be able to present at least early results by late winter of 2013,
and a final report ahead of the General Assembly in September. But UN country teams
responded to the challenge with speed and agility. They were staging and facilitating national
consultations around the world, bringing a vast array of people and constituencies into the
expanding post-2015 loop: women’s organizations, youth groups, farmers, big and small
business, labor organizations, slum dwellers, people with disabilities, indigenous people, ethnic
and sexual minorities, and more. In parallel, UN agencies took the lead in organizing the global
thematic consultations, bringing experts and interest groups together into large virtual loops
combined with meetings hosted by countries with a particular interest in a given theme. The
consultations covered the MDG areas, but also stretched out into the controversial areas that
would become the SDGs: governance, security and disasters, inequalities, population dynamics
(migration, age), and of course environmental sustainability. In a way they circumscribed the
topics and gave the initial trajectory to the SDGs. The UN Millennium Campaign under the
leadership of Corinne Woods, had designed MyWorld2015 as a UN-Civil Society-Private Sector
partnership, and it was quickly gathering votes from around the world. In parallel the UN Global
Compact was mobilizing interest in the private sector, producing a report capturing business
perspectives and recommendations. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia
University and the SG’s Special Advisor on the MDGs, launched the Sustainable Development
Solutions Network, dedicated to generating contributions and recommendations from the
academic and scientific communities.
By early 2013, the global conversation was unfolding. The www.worldwewant2015.org web
portal captured it all as it happened. The name had been a leap of faith: we had been far from
certain that involving millions in the process would produce any clear patterns and priorities. As
a matter of fact, many had criticized the effort on the grounds that we would get millions of
views but fail to make sense of the result, risking to disappoint both the High Level Panel and
the OWG, but more importantly letting down everybody we had brought in on the promise of
being heard. However, now we found ourselves marveling at the emerging results: there were
clear patterns emerging. It turned out that people around the world had a fairly clear idea
about the world they wanted to live in, there were clear recurrent concerns and wishes
coalescing into commonly held priorities. We were able to present results to the HLP as it
drafted and finalized its impressive report. We were able to share them with governments in
capitals around the world, and at the UN just as the OWG finally got underway in March 2013.
Perhaps most important, the results revealed that both North and South in important respects
had been right in Rio: In essence, the world people wanted was one where we would both build
new goals that would meet the bar of sustainable development, but also honor and build on
the MDGs and capture key elements from the Millennium Declaration that had been left out of
the MDGs, especially freedom from violence and fear, and responsible governance. They
certainly in many respects validated the vision that Paula and Colombia had first put forward.
Finally, the consultations left no doubt about one thing: People around the globe absolutely
wanted shared, global goals.
The High Level Panel delivers but who will listen?
With consultations still running at full steam, spring 2013 saw the High Level Panel entering its
final rounds of deliberations. Together with colleagues I had engaged actively to make sure the
Panel had access to the growing body of results from the consultations as it convened its
meetings in different parts of the world. Despite considerable differences across the
membership, the panel was moving towards a sustainable development framework reflecting
two key slogans: “leave nobody behind” and “people and planet”. The still confidential list of 12
proposed goals in many ways echoed and concretized the broad conceptualization of the initial
UN Task Team report and reflected many of the patterns we had detected through the
consultations.
The big question on everybody’s mind, however, was what would happen next? Would the
panel report become the proposal that UN Member States would consider through the OWG?
Or would it be considered through some kind of separate process? Or would it be largely
ignored? During this period I kept hearing UN colleagues ask themselves and others how and
when the "separate tracks" would merge. And I kept repeating that the answer was partly in
our hands. It was really up to us to work them together by working together. We needed to
reinforce the logic of one, shared, global agenda by feeding the same evidence and voices we
were now accumulating into all relevant bodies within and beyond the UN.
There were now several processes moving at different speeds, and while some trains were
coming to their destination such as the panel, others had hardly started the journey. It was only
in March 2013 that the OWG finally got underway. Meanwhile, the President of the General
Assembly was conducting large thematic sessions of his own on post-2015 with Member States
and civil society. UN Regional Commissions organized regional consultations. With all the
moving pieces, coordination was a must. Already right after Rio, the Secretary General had
constituted an informal coordination team of four senior colleagues with Amina Mohamed in
the lead, joined by John Hendra from UN-Women, Shamshad Akhtar from the Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and myself. We did what we could to encourage
collaboration and coherence.
In June the High Level Panel presented its final report. It was eloquent, ambitious and quite well
received around the world. At the UN some countries were enthusiastic, others politely
dismissive. In the OWG the developing countries made it clear that while the report had some
good suggestions, it had no formal status and it was up to individual member states to make
use of the content in the negotiations, as they saw fit. At the end, this was pretty much what
happened. The excellent report with its proposed 12 goals did not become the blueprint many
had hoped. But it was far from dead on arrival. Over the ensuing months, it worked its way into
the OWG deliberations by osmosis. It helped that quite a number of OWG delegates had also
been involved in the panel.
A very open working group
As predicted by many, the OWG proved to be tough to put together and get going. After
months of jostling within the various regional groups, the result was even messier than the Rio
outcome: instead of 30 experts from 30 countries, it ended up with 70 countries, organized in
30 small groupings of 2-3 countries, sometimes in unusual constellations (e.g., Japan, Iran and
Nepal; India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Compounding matters even more, several countries that
were not among the 70 made it clear they intended to participate actively. So for all practical
purposes, the OWG had become a “committee of the whole” of the UN, and on top of that it
had been agreed that “major groups” (civil society, labor, business) would have full access to
the proceedings. To many it looked like a train wreck. However, it would soon become
apparent that the unconventional but open and inclusive design was actually a key strength.
In March 2013 the well-chosen co-chairs of the OWG, Csaba Korösi and Macharia Kamau,
Ambassadors of Hungary and Kenya, presented a dense one-year program of work, with
monthly 3-5 day thematic discussion sessions in New York through March 2014.. This was to be
followed by deliberation of the actual OWG report between March and July 2014, through
monthly consultative sessions. During the months prior we had been quietly gearing up to
provide support to the demanding agenda, by organizing a dedicated Technical Support Group
from across the UN development system with some 40 members. Now, papers were being
drafted, reviewed, discussed and revised at feverish speed. In the first substantive OWG session
in April dedicated to poverty, I found myself on the podium, presenting key messages from our
collective work. I could draw from both the best available knowledge and evidence on the topic
from across the UN as well as portray results from the global and national consultations. I felt
as I was sitting there that we were helping bringing the famous “separate tracks” together.
I also quickly realized that something interesting was going on. This OWG was not your typical
UN committee. Despite the inevitable reading of prepared, often stale, statements by some,
there were many who reacted to presentations with thoughtful observations and questions in
real time. Members were talking among themselves about the issues, as opposed to sticking to
traditional positions. It turned out that the unusual combination of countries into small groups
was conducive to a more open and informal dynamic as group members had to discuss
amongst themselves and coordinate their interventions, making the typical North – South
dichotomy of the UN less dominant. The way the two co-chairs led the proceedings, expertly
supported by a team from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) led by
Nikhil Seth, was another gift to the process. They set the open and deliberative tone from the
get go, and they steadily built trust – often a scarce commodity in multilateral negotiations
these days – as month followed month. Third, it helped that all meetings were held in the open,
webcast around the world and with civil society organizations as active participants.
To me, the most interesting pattern emerging was that there was a group of countries that
clearly wanted SDGs more than others. They consistently kept a high degree of pressure on the
rest to stay the course and move towards an ambitious outcome worthy of a sustainable
development agenda. This informal coalition had started to emerge in the run-up to Rio and
included mainly small and mid-size countries, some of them at the high-income level but most
were middle income countries. All had democratically elected governments. Colombia was still
the central force, but many others had stepped up considerably: Peru, Mexico, Guatemala,
Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Indonesia, Pakistan, and of course Hungary and
Kenya. They all seemed driven by the vision articulated by Paula Caballero: that all countries
needed to commit to balancing and integrating economic, social and environmental policy
making and action to secure a common future, and that shared goals agreed at the UN and
supported by the UN was the only way to achieve this. I wondered optimistically if this was a
sign of positive things to come: a new driving force for the common good emerging across the
North-South divide, made up of mostly mid-size democracies acutely aware of the need for
collective action and multilateralism to address our shared vulnerabilities and solve global
challenges. The world, and the UN, would definitely be better off if this were to be the case.
A leading U.S. based think tank, World Resources Institute, started to convene periodic retreats
to help advance thinking and dialogue among these and an expanding circle of countries as well
as some of us from the UN system, with funding from some of the donor countries involved.
The retreat explored what an integrated and integrating set of goals and targets could actually
look like, the meaning of a universal agenda, and how to go about developing indicators to
track progress.
Somewhat predictably, among the thorniest issues as the OWG moved into drafting mode in
the spring of 2014, were whether or not to have goals related to democracy, governance and
peace. Over the course of the OWG’s work, I was intensely involved in informal and formal
discussions around these issues, which we in UNDP saw as critical. We saw strong evidence that
progress towards the MDGs had been weak or absent precisely in countries hit by turmoil and
instability. And the upheavals in many Arab countries had demonstrated that significant MDG
progress was far from a sufficient condition for securing sustainable development. Inclusive and
fair governance mattered. We saw the new agenda as a unique opportunity to merge two
powerful paradigms into one: sustainable development as first articulated by the Brundtland
Commission in 1987, and human development as conceptualized by Amartya Sen and Mahbub
ul Haq around 1990. At the same time we understood the risk: disagreement ran deep on these
issues and could topple the entire project.
It went down to the wire in the OWG, but in the end the group managed to reach a difficult
compromise on one goal—the iconic Goal 16—dedicated to “just, peaceful and inclusive
societies”. Besides Western/Northern countries, many in the coalition mentioned above played
an important role, as well as a group of seven post-conflict countries (the socalled g7+) led by
Timor Leste, and several African countries. A number of very active CSOs, such as the Open
Society Foundation, contributed. It helped considerably that these issues had emerged as a
strong priority in the national consultations around the world and the MyWorld survey, which
by then had grown to millions of votes. Some key countries reversed or softened their initial
resistance in light of these results. In return, the countries most vocal against goals in these
areas got a concession: Language specifically on democracy was not included. In addition, the
countries of the North had to be more accommodating on core demands from the South: there
would be goals on growth and industrialization, and specific targets under each goal for “means
of implementation”.
The OWG finished its work in July 2014. After the usual frenetic overtime drama that has
become a dependable fixture of multilateral negotiations, the co-chairs could announce that
the group had delivered on its Rio mandate: to give the General Assembly a proposal for a set
of Sustainable Development Goals and associated targets. And what a feat it was: 22 years after
the first Rio Conference had established the ideal of sustainable development—of balancing
and integrating the economic, social and environmental—the unwieldy OWG had defied the
odds and produced a set of truly ambitious and universal goals, with targets that weaved
together economic, social and environmental strands across the goals. While many criticized
the result complaining that there were way too many goals and targets, or that some targets
couldn't be measured or lacked sufficient ambition, I felt immense satisfaction with the result. I
was convinced that these goals, if allowed to go live from January 1, 2016, would carry
enormous power to help transform our world for the better. I saw the number of goals as a
strength rather than weakness: they would appeal to much wider constituencies than the
MDGs. They would rescue development from the confines of the aid industry. They had already
mobilized unprecedented interest around the world. They were owned by the governments
who had negotiated them. Most importantly, Paula’s dream—which I had fully shared—was
about to come true: the same set of goals for all countries, for eradicating poverty while
safeguarding our planet. Sustainable development had finally emerged as the only acceptable
way to do development. The time had arrived for abandoning and rejecting the notions and
practices of economic expansion as destructive assault on the natural systems and functions we
depend on.
Since a majority of the GA had already participated actively in the OWG, most of us understood
the significance of the moment. These goals were unlikely to change much, and they would
form the centerpiece of the next global development agenda—as long as Member States would
only manage to agree on what still remained to be negotiated. How to finance the agenda was
now the question foremost on peoples’ minds.
Don’t forget the kids!
Just as the OWG finished its work in the summer of 2014, I moved to UNICEF. UNICEF had been
active throughout the whole process, advocating successfully for the inclusion of goals and
targets that mattered to children, and for an overall strong emphasis on equity and “leaving
nobody behind”. We now remained vigilant to make sure the many goals and targets that
addressed the needs and interests of children would survive, and also pushed for certain
improvements. But our attention shifted increasingly to a looming big test ahead: how to
finance the new agenda? Member states had decided, again after difficult negotiations, to go
ahead with a third Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015, to
essentially try to reach agreement on the thorny issue of money for the new agenda, right
ahead of its adoption. It meant that final negotiations on the post-2015 agenda and on how to
finance it would run in parallel.
There was clearly plenty to worry about with this high intensity, high stakes approach. Rather
than worry, we in UNICEF decided to zoom in on making a strong, evidence-based case for
“investing in children”. We wanted to convince people that children should no longer be seen
as simply a “vulnerable group” deserving of attention, but as actors in their own right that could
transform a nation’s development trajectory if prioritized in policies and budgets. We had
increasingly robust data that showed the economic and social returns from investing in
children. The previous FFD conferences had been silent about children, but now we saw the
gains from the post-2015 process as an opportunity. I proposed that we encourage UN
ambassadors with interest in children’s issues to form a “Group of Friends of Children and the
SDGs” to strengthen advocacy on behalf of children in both the FFD and post-2015
negotiations. Pakistan’s UN Ambassador took the initiative and within a couple of months we
had an active and dedicated group of some 40 ambassadors meeting regularly, supported by
UNICEF.
The impact of the group was almost immediate. All of a sudden strong voices on behalf of
children were heard, at times in the form of consolidated group statements, but more often by
individual members drawing on data and analytics provided by UNICEF. The advocacy ranged
from the need to maintain certain SDG targets such as on combatting violence against children,
to strengthening emphasis on their participation in the implementation of the new agenda, and
from including a forceful paragraph for investing in children in the FFD outcome document to
making commitments to national spending targets.
When exhausted negotiators emerged from—as usual—difficult overtime sessions in Addis in
July and announced a deal, it was met with mixed reactions. Many felt the FFD accord lacked in
real commitments. Most saw it as just “barely enough” to get sufficient momentum and
support ahead of the final post-2015 negotiations the following weeks. But there were some
reasons to celebrate: With the financing accord in place, the final major barrier for adoption of
the new agenda was removed. FFD established a more comprehensive vision for financing
sustainable development by looking across public and private, domestic and international
sources, and it did embrace our clarion call for investing in children as a key strategic lever.
A movement is born
On September 24, 2015 at the UN, immediately after an historic speech by Pope Francis and an
equally powerful appeal by Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, the President of the General
Assembly gaveled Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development into being, in the presence of
more than 150 Heads of State and Government and with enormous attention and excitement
around the world. The 17 goals were virtually identical with the OWG deal from more than a
year before. The 169 targets were largely the same as back then, but thankfully some of those
lacking in ambition and measurability were improved. Despite these marginal changes in the
goal framework, the final rounds in July and August had been far from easy. Negotiators
haggled over wording on financing and other "means of implementation", arrangements for
review and follow-up at national and global levels, and--as usual--"territories under occupation"
until the very end. Now, all of that mattered very little. Astonishingly, it was clear that the new
goals were already alive and kicking, constituting a virtual movement in their own right. They
were known and owned by an unprecedented range of key players: the governments that had
negotiated them, the coalitions in civil society that had fought for their issues and contributed
to an ambitious outcome, a wide range of private companies and industries, academic and
scientific entities, and most importantly global citizens. A poll undertaken by Nielsen indicated
that already, more than half of the global population had some awareness of the SDGs. What a
way to confirm the wisdom of the controversial decision at Rio+20. And what a contrast to the
way the MDGs had been launched 15 years earlier.
And now, what?
And yet, it is only now that the real work, and the real test, comes. Will governments in both
north and south give real priority to the new agenda as they contemplate their policy priorities
for the coming years, and as they put together their budgets? Will they manage to make
meaningful prioritization across the goals while avoiding selective cherry picking of the goals
and targets they find most convenient? Will we in the UN system and other international
organizations get our act together in support of the difficult job ahead for governments? Will
the private sector engage and civil society and regular citizens be given space and opportunity
to take part, both with solutions and in helping track progress and ensuring accountability?
Just as I write these words, the Middle East is engulfed in ever-worsening turmoil. Europe finds
itself dealing with an unprecedented refugee crisis, providing a powerful illustration of the
necessity in our time of a shared, universal development agenda. However, some countries are
contemplating deep cuts in their long-term development cooperation in order to find funds for
the costs of providing for refugees and asylum seekers. This happens just months after the
historic SDG Summit at the General Assembly, and does not bode well. Now is not the time to
scale back on commitment in the North to cooperation for sustainable development. At the
same time, now is definitely the time for autocratic governments and leaders everywhere to
deliver more fair, inclusive and transparent governance with all people treated as equal citizens
under the rule of law.
Despite these concerns, I continue to be optimistic about what this new agenda and era can
bring. The break-through climate agreement reached in Paris fits hand-in-glove with what
Agenda 2030 sets out to achieve, with enormous opportunities for synergy. It was only thanks
to stubborn optimism by so many that the year of 2015 delivered what it did. We need even
more of the same to turn this powerful vision into reality. Not everybody will do their part, but
if enough of us do, that won't matter.