This paper asks whether a set of global goals would be an effective tool for changing global behaviour towards meeting the requirements of sustainable development.
With the next round of planning for what follows the MDGs under way, this paper considers both sides of the argument. It concludes that the discursive, realm-of-possibility setting nature of global goals should not be underestimated.
Connected Success - The Future of the Socially Valued Organisation - 21 03 14Tim Jones
This document summarises the findings from a major foresight programme that identified the nature of future social needs and considered how organisations are expected to address these.
Undertaken via a combination of research, one-on-one interviews, discussion forums and major workshops held on three continents, this programme has explored multiple perspectives with experts and informed people from over 100 different organisations.
The insights were gained as part of a wider project for Barclays Bank plc. that has been building on its current Citizenship platform and looking ahead to shifts and options for change in the world in 2020.
This summary is being shared directly with all participants in the discussions as a record of the dialogue and its conclusions. In addition, it is also been made more widely available for continued discussion and feedback.
Connected success The Future of the Socially Valued Organisation - Full ver...Tim Jones
This document details the findings from a foresight programme that identified the nature of future social needs and considered how organisations could address these.
It is a longer version of the summary deck available on http://www.slideshare.net/timjones72/connected-success-the-future-of-the-socially-valued-organisation-21-03-14 and is designed to be printed as an A5 booklet.
This document details the findings from a foresight programme that identified the nature of future social needs and considered how organisations could address these.
Undertaken via a combination of desk research, one-on-one interviews, discussion forums and major workshops held on three continents, this programme explored multiple perspectives with experts and informed people from over 100 different organisations.
The insights were gained as part of a wider project for Barclays Bank plc. which has been building on its current Citizenship platform and looking ahead to shifts and options for change to prepare for the world in 2020.
This summary is being shared directly with those who participated in the discussions as a record of the dialogue. In addition, it is also being made available to interested parties for continued discussion and feedback.
The approach taken for this project was based on that adopted for the global Future Agenda programme – the world’s largest open foresight project to date.
• Starting with informed perspectives gleaned from research and initial interviews, a range of assumptions and hypotheses were developed and discussed within the core team.
• A series of group discussions were then used to test thinking and gain new perspectives from experts across a number of areas – from academics, philosophers and ethnographers and leaders of social enterprises to economists and businesses.
• Revised perspectives were then taken into three major workshops in Johannesburg, London and New York where a wider group of informed people from multiple organisations challenged and built upon each others’ views to provide a richer, deeper view of the future of the socially valued organisation.
This document is a synthesis of what we heard and learned from these discussions.
Building a Participative Growth Foundation: Make a European Sense of an Econo...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
This article puts forward an argumentation that a successful growth transformation requires people to work together for a mutual benefit, that is, growth often makes sense with partnership at the foundation. The EU leadership should lead changes on a strength position that emphasizes the necessity of a coming-together that creates a winning inside-out growth reform that resonates across social, economic and political dimensions and gains broadest possible public acceptance to achieve a strongest possible mandate that moves the public beyond one’s causes.
Key principle of this contribution presupposes that every meaningful policy must aim at serving people. In political terms, growth should mean cooperation based on fairness and a leadership demonstration thereof. Growth transformation
requires an orchestration platform that engages people towards actions. However, forward-looking, far-reaching and holistic growth policy shall never be exhaustive without a long-term sense-making outlook from a global perspective – indeed as
meaningful and practical as its legitimacy and ownership by the people.
In implementation terms, the policy transformation should aim at sustainable growth dynamics, resonating and orchestrating across multiple levels, policy disciplines and country members with a goal-oriented, comprehensive yet people-near management organ. Win-win partnership lies at heart of the transformation.
Connected Success - The Future of the Socially Valued Organisation - 21 03 14Tim Jones
This document summarises the findings from a major foresight programme that identified the nature of future social needs and considered how organisations are expected to address these.
Undertaken via a combination of research, one-on-one interviews, discussion forums and major workshops held on three continents, this programme has explored multiple perspectives with experts and informed people from over 100 different organisations.
The insights were gained as part of a wider project for Barclays Bank plc. that has been building on its current Citizenship platform and looking ahead to shifts and options for change in the world in 2020.
This summary is being shared directly with all participants in the discussions as a record of the dialogue and its conclusions. In addition, it is also been made more widely available for continued discussion and feedback.
Connected success The Future of the Socially Valued Organisation - Full ver...Tim Jones
This document details the findings from a foresight programme that identified the nature of future social needs and considered how organisations could address these.
It is a longer version of the summary deck available on http://www.slideshare.net/timjones72/connected-success-the-future-of-the-socially-valued-organisation-21-03-14 and is designed to be printed as an A5 booklet.
This document details the findings from a foresight programme that identified the nature of future social needs and considered how organisations could address these.
Undertaken via a combination of desk research, one-on-one interviews, discussion forums and major workshops held on three continents, this programme explored multiple perspectives with experts and informed people from over 100 different organisations.
The insights were gained as part of a wider project for Barclays Bank plc. which has been building on its current Citizenship platform and looking ahead to shifts and options for change to prepare for the world in 2020.
This summary is being shared directly with those who participated in the discussions as a record of the dialogue. In addition, it is also being made available to interested parties for continued discussion and feedback.
The approach taken for this project was based on that adopted for the global Future Agenda programme – the world’s largest open foresight project to date.
• Starting with informed perspectives gleaned from research and initial interviews, a range of assumptions and hypotheses were developed and discussed within the core team.
• A series of group discussions were then used to test thinking and gain new perspectives from experts across a number of areas – from academics, philosophers and ethnographers and leaders of social enterprises to economists and businesses.
• Revised perspectives were then taken into three major workshops in Johannesburg, London and New York where a wider group of informed people from multiple organisations challenged and built upon each others’ views to provide a richer, deeper view of the future of the socially valued organisation.
This document is a synthesis of what we heard and learned from these discussions.
Building a Participative Growth Foundation: Make a European Sense of an Econo...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
This article puts forward an argumentation that a successful growth transformation requires people to work together for a mutual benefit, that is, growth often makes sense with partnership at the foundation. The EU leadership should lead changes on a strength position that emphasizes the necessity of a coming-together that creates a winning inside-out growth reform that resonates across social, economic and political dimensions and gains broadest possible public acceptance to achieve a strongest possible mandate that moves the public beyond one’s causes.
Key principle of this contribution presupposes that every meaningful policy must aim at serving people. In political terms, growth should mean cooperation based on fairness and a leadership demonstration thereof. Growth transformation
requires an orchestration platform that engages people towards actions. However, forward-looking, far-reaching and holistic growth policy shall never be exhaustive without a long-term sense-making outlook from a global perspective – indeed as
meaningful and practical as its legitimacy and ownership by the people.
In implementation terms, the policy transformation should aim at sustainable growth dynamics, resonating and orchestrating across multiple levels, policy disciplines and country members with a goal-oriented, comprehensive yet people-near management organ. Win-win partnership lies at heart of the transformation.
On Choice Materiality: How to Transform Development Diplomacy in Dialogs of R...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Paris Climate Agreement from 2015 gives a reason for hope to the mankind. The global community came together and brought forward a common set of ambitious objectives to curb further emissions of the greenhouse gas (GHG) and ameliorate
potential consequential impact of the climate change. Indeed, every global challenge needs no less than a global approach. This agreement is therefore a right step in a right direction for this reason. Just three years later, His Excellency Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, urged all member states once again at the beginning of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly to remain committed to the
course of this agreement (United Nations Secretary General, 2018). His message to all unequivocally even earnestly appealed for stronger contributions toward the collective goals. One plausibly infers that success of this collective effort depends on how the global community chooses to advance this course with a good sense of rationality. This is a leadership challenge. How should the global community engage the sense of choice rationality as fundamentals of collective progress? How could this effort take a moral highground to advance this leadership effort at meaningful and moral frontiers? Which leadership perspectives of development rationality would be instrumental in charting forward changes around us as much as within ourselves?
How Human Capital Index Captures Substance of a Country’s Future Productivity...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Shared ambition toward stronger sustainability future for all never deserves greater attention from the international community, especially at today’s unprecedented crisis
crossroads. The COVID-19 situation not just brings greater focuses to people-centric policy-making choices addressable on a purpose-driven highground of public health and socio-economic sustainability and resilience. Dedicated focuses on human at the fundamentals of decision-making choices rarely play a stronger transformative role than under today’s circumstances, particularly by making sense of rational decision-making processes for each individual as part of the national and regional transition in shared forward-looking outlook on a whole-of-society basis. Strategic implications of
long-term development and investment in resonance with cause-driven structural growth as proposed by the Human Capital Index are therefore outstanding should we all in the society genuinely seek to establish a commonground that serves greater shared purposes but also leverages the people’s power for a better future after crisis.
Recommendation to establish national data strategy dialogs under leadership of the Prime Minister with forward-looking intent to advocate, legislate and promulgate the first national data for development act, in representation of the required transition from the national assembly, but also in close consultation with the academia, the civil society and all walks of life across the country particularly in multi-stakeholder dialogs
On Development and Innovation: How Ecosystem Approach Differentiates Innovati...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Development of the 21st century needs more science and innovation. On two grounds this argument self-reinforces its legitimacy. An increasingly complex world undoubtedly requires stronger logical fundamentals to understand how global challenges come to forces and more importantly how they affect the world around us. Indeed, depth and rigor of the understanding that comes with science only allows us to grasp complexity as well as implications across perspectives with rationality. On a deeper level, scientific methods give us powerful principles and practices to deal with probability, uncertainty even biases in a systematic manner. One can never emphasize such significance enough, provided an ever greater scale and scope of system-level challenges in today’s global development world.
Examples in case of water scarcity, energy sector in transition and food security manifest themselves how much the current world lacks not only fundamental awareness but also a required level of understanding of why and how system thinking on a basis of scientific rigor could make a profound difference to the developmental bottomline. Indeed, how much neglected long-term consequences could distort sense of meaningfulness of one’s short-run developmental policy choices is no match to compound psychological effects that alter behavioral perception of rationality of the people on the ground who are both actors and victims of repeated policy failure. Still, does the world deserve a second chance?
This sense of urgency gives three argumentative substances of this discussion. First, on rational choice-making premises, how could scientific knowledge help us better understand developmental challenges toward behavioral shifts? Second, toward a long-run sustainable impact, how should we better leverage science-driven policy to orchestrate collective efforts especially when coping with diverse local caveats and practices on the ground? And third in meaningfulness terms, how would global innovation advance scale of changes with people on the ground?
GreenBiz 18 Tutorial Slides: Fulfilling the Potential of Business to Realize ...GreenBiz Group
While leading businesses have long been engaged in efforts to integrate sustainability at the core of corporate strategy and decision-making, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide us with a new lens through which to translate global needs and ambitions into business solutions. These solutions will enable companies to better manage their risks, anticipate consumer demand, harness the potential of historic growth markets, secure access to needed resources and strengthen their supply chains, while moving the world towards the delivery of the SDGs and a more prosperous society for all.
While business is not being asked to deliver the SDGs by itself, this complex and urgent agenda will not be realized without involvement at scale by the private sector. Converting the SDGs into meaningful and widespread corporate engagement, and ushering in the inclusive and sustainable economic growth that the Goals represent, will be a sizeable challenge.
Forward-looking businesses are already working towards having a meaningful impact on the SDGs - in particular by:
developing a thorough understanding of how their activities translate into economic, environmental and social impacts in the context of the SDGs;
setting ambitious goals to implement the SDGs, including by incorporating responsible business practices across strategies and operations;
pursuing impactful contributions to the 2030 Agenda through a strong commitment to universal principles in relation to human rights, equality and the environment;
developing business solutions to address sustainability challenges;
collaborating with peers to develop a collective vision and roadmaps to realize substantial sector transformation;
working across sectors to help transform entire economic systems;
disclosing SDG performance and progress;
openly advocating for key policy and finance enablers that will help achieve a tipping point.
Evaluation of sources: a new sustainable approach using argument analysis and...Elise Wong
Radcliff, S. & Wong, E. Evaluation of sources: a new sustainable approach using argument analysis and critical thinking. Presented at Library Instruction West 2014 conference.
An area of information literacy instruction that has increasingly gained attention is evaluation of sources. Moving away from the checklist approach (timeliness, relevancy, bias, credibility, authority), this session describes a new approach incorporating critical thinking questions and training for students on analyzing arguments using the Toulmin method, which students apply to evaluating articles and to detecting “myside” (confirmation) bias in their own writing.
This approach was used at two institutions, a 2-unit information literacy course at CSU East Bay and several sections of an English Composition course Saint Mary’s College and incorporated a “flipped classroom” design with much of the information being presented online to students prior to the in class session.
The presentation includes a literature review showing past uses of argument analysis and critical thinking in evaluation of sources, the instructional design from both institutions and results from a rubric–based evaluation of student work and student reflections.
The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2016Peerasak C.
Foreword
On 1 January 2016, the world officially began implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—the transformative plan of action based on 17 Sustainable Development Goals—to address urgent global challenges over the next 15 years.
This agenda is a road map for people and the planet that will build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and ensure sustainable social and economic progress worldwide. It seeks not only to eradicate extreme poverty, but also to integrate and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development—economic, social and environmental—in a comprehensive global vision.
It is vital that we begin implementation with a sense of opportunity and purpose based on an accurate evaluation of where the world stands now.
That is the aim of this report. It presents an overview of the 17 Goals using data currently available to highlight the most significant gaps and challenges.
The latest data show that about one in eight people still lived in extreme poverty, nearly 800 million people suffered from hunger, the births of nearly a quarter of children under 5 had not been recorded, 1.1 billion people were living without electricity, and water scarcity affected more than 2 billion people.
These statistics show how important coordinated global data-generation efforts will be in supplying reliable and timely data for systematic follow-up and progress reviews.
The Goals apply to all societies. Even the wealthiest countries have yet to fully empower women or eliminate discrimination.All nations will need to build the Sustainable Development Goals into their national policies and plans if we are to achieve them.
This first report is a starting point. With collective global action, we can seize the opportunities before us and, together,fulfill the pledge of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind.
BAN Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations "The new agenda is a promise by leaders to all people everywhere. It is a universal, integrated and transformative vision for a better world. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms. An agenda for the planet, our common home. An agenda for shared prosperity, peace and partnership. It conveys the urgency of climate action. It is rooted in gender equality and respect for the rights of all. Above all, it pledges to leave no one behind."
BAN Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
Digital transformation is enabling rapid change in every industry and across every aspect of our lives. As a direct result of three fundamental ICT forces—mobility, broadband and the cloud—a new service economy is emerging where value chains are being reshaped, business models are becoming digitalized, distance is being overcome and increasingly, people can share goods and services instead of buying and owning them—all examples of how the digital age is unleashing innovative new business models and changing lives.
The new Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, set out a shared global agenda for human development based on prosperity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. The SDGs include several bold objectives to be achieved by the year 2030, including universal coverage in health, education, poverty eradication and modern energy services. This is the 2030 Agenda.
Five ways ICT can help
According to the OECD, “more ubiquitous access to and use of broadband Internet networks, which are available in a competitive market and at affordable prices, will help foster innovation and drive the growth of the Internet Economy and the economy in general.”4
To achieve the SDGs ICT needs to be combined with innovative policies, services and solutions to deliver transformation at unprecedented speed and scale. It can be a powerful means of implementation in five major ways:
1. Accelerated upscaling of critical services in health, education, financial services, smart agriculture, and low-carbon energy systems.
2. Reduced deployment costs.
3. Enhanced public awareness and engagement.
4. Innovation, connectivity, productivity and efficiency across many sectors.
5. Faster upgrading in the quality of services and jobs.
Issues and Challenges
No technology is without risks and widespread uptake of ICT raises a number of issues that will need to be addressed and managed. Several issues have been identified which governments, industry and other stakeholders must work together to address:
1. Privacy and surveillance
2. Cybersecurity
3. Loss of human skills
4. Possible public concern about health effects
5. Electronic waste and carbon emissions
6. Digital exclusion
7. Child protection and the Internet
Sustainability Criteria and Indicators.
Need for Sustainable Livelihoods for India.
Livelihood Assets.
Case of a Landless Female Agriculture Labour.
The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework.
Sustainability in Business
“Sustainability should be a touchstone for all innovation …In the future, only companies that make sustainability a goal will achieve competitive advantage. That means rethinking business models as well as products, technologies, and processes.”
Businesses employing Sustainable Management and Strategy .
Sustainability issues and impacts in Business.
On Choice Materiality: How to Transform Development Diplomacy in Dialogs of R...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Paris Climate Agreement from 2015 gives a reason for hope to the mankind. The global community came together and brought forward a common set of ambitious objectives to curb further emissions of the greenhouse gas (GHG) and ameliorate
potential consequential impact of the climate change. Indeed, every global challenge needs no less than a global approach. This agreement is therefore a right step in a right direction for this reason. Just three years later, His Excellency Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, urged all member states once again at the beginning of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly to remain committed to the
course of this agreement (United Nations Secretary General, 2018). His message to all unequivocally even earnestly appealed for stronger contributions toward the collective goals. One plausibly infers that success of this collective effort depends on how the global community chooses to advance this course with a good sense of rationality. This is a leadership challenge. How should the global community engage the sense of choice rationality as fundamentals of collective progress? How could this effort take a moral highground to advance this leadership effort at meaningful and moral frontiers? Which leadership perspectives of development rationality would be instrumental in charting forward changes around us as much as within ourselves?
How Human Capital Index Captures Substance of a Country’s Future Productivity...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Shared ambition toward stronger sustainability future for all never deserves greater attention from the international community, especially at today’s unprecedented crisis
crossroads. The COVID-19 situation not just brings greater focuses to people-centric policy-making choices addressable on a purpose-driven highground of public health and socio-economic sustainability and resilience. Dedicated focuses on human at the fundamentals of decision-making choices rarely play a stronger transformative role than under today’s circumstances, particularly by making sense of rational decision-making processes for each individual as part of the national and regional transition in shared forward-looking outlook on a whole-of-society basis. Strategic implications of
long-term development and investment in resonance with cause-driven structural growth as proposed by the Human Capital Index are therefore outstanding should we all in the society genuinely seek to establish a commonground that serves greater shared purposes but also leverages the people’s power for a better future after crisis.
Recommendation to establish national data strategy dialogs under leadership of the Prime Minister with forward-looking intent to advocate, legislate and promulgate the first national data for development act, in representation of the required transition from the national assembly, but also in close consultation with the academia, the civil society and all walks of life across the country particularly in multi-stakeholder dialogs
On Development and Innovation: How Ecosystem Approach Differentiates Innovati...Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Development of the 21st century needs more science and innovation. On two grounds this argument self-reinforces its legitimacy. An increasingly complex world undoubtedly requires stronger logical fundamentals to understand how global challenges come to forces and more importantly how they affect the world around us. Indeed, depth and rigor of the understanding that comes with science only allows us to grasp complexity as well as implications across perspectives with rationality. On a deeper level, scientific methods give us powerful principles and practices to deal with probability, uncertainty even biases in a systematic manner. One can never emphasize such significance enough, provided an ever greater scale and scope of system-level challenges in today’s global development world.
Examples in case of water scarcity, energy sector in transition and food security manifest themselves how much the current world lacks not only fundamental awareness but also a required level of understanding of why and how system thinking on a basis of scientific rigor could make a profound difference to the developmental bottomline. Indeed, how much neglected long-term consequences could distort sense of meaningfulness of one’s short-run developmental policy choices is no match to compound psychological effects that alter behavioral perception of rationality of the people on the ground who are both actors and victims of repeated policy failure. Still, does the world deserve a second chance?
This sense of urgency gives three argumentative substances of this discussion. First, on rational choice-making premises, how could scientific knowledge help us better understand developmental challenges toward behavioral shifts? Second, toward a long-run sustainable impact, how should we better leverage science-driven policy to orchestrate collective efforts especially when coping with diverse local caveats and practices on the ground? And third in meaningfulness terms, how would global innovation advance scale of changes with people on the ground?
GreenBiz 18 Tutorial Slides: Fulfilling the Potential of Business to Realize ...GreenBiz Group
While leading businesses have long been engaged in efforts to integrate sustainability at the core of corporate strategy and decision-making, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide us with a new lens through which to translate global needs and ambitions into business solutions. These solutions will enable companies to better manage their risks, anticipate consumer demand, harness the potential of historic growth markets, secure access to needed resources and strengthen their supply chains, while moving the world towards the delivery of the SDGs and a more prosperous society for all.
While business is not being asked to deliver the SDGs by itself, this complex and urgent agenda will not be realized without involvement at scale by the private sector. Converting the SDGs into meaningful and widespread corporate engagement, and ushering in the inclusive and sustainable economic growth that the Goals represent, will be a sizeable challenge.
Forward-looking businesses are already working towards having a meaningful impact on the SDGs - in particular by:
developing a thorough understanding of how their activities translate into economic, environmental and social impacts in the context of the SDGs;
setting ambitious goals to implement the SDGs, including by incorporating responsible business practices across strategies and operations;
pursuing impactful contributions to the 2030 Agenda through a strong commitment to universal principles in relation to human rights, equality and the environment;
developing business solutions to address sustainability challenges;
collaborating with peers to develop a collective vision and roadmaps to realize substantial sector transformation;
working across sectors to help transform entire economic systems;
disclosing SDG performance and progress;
openly advocating for key policy and finance enablers that will help achieve a tipping point.
Evaluation of sources: a new sustainable approach using argument analysis and...Elise Wong
Radcliff, S. & Wong, E. Evaluation of sources: a new sustainable approach using argument analysis and critical thinking. Presented at Library Instruction West 2014 conference.
An area of information literacy instruction that has increasingly gained attention is evaluation of sources. Moving away from the checklist approach (timeliness, relevancy, bias, credibility, authority), this session describes a new approach incorporating critical thinking questions and training for students on analyzing arguments using the Toulmin method, which students apply to evaluating articles and to detecting “myside” (confirmation) bias in their own writing.
This approach was used at two institutions, a 2-unit information literacy course at CSU East Bay and several sections of an English Composition course Saint Mary’s College and incorporated a “flipped classroom” design with much of the information being presented online to students prior to the in class session.
The presentation includes a literature review showing past uses of argument analysis and critical thinking in evaluation of sources, the instructional design from both institutions and results from a rubric–based evaluation of student work and student reflections.
The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2016Peerasak C.
Foreword
On 1 January 2016, the world officially began implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—the transformative plan of action based on 17 Sustainable Development Goals—to address urgent global challenges over the next 15 years.
This agenda is a road map for people and the planet that will build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and ensure sustainable social and economic progress worldwide. It seeks not only to eradicate extreme poverty, but also to integrate and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development—economic, social and environmental—in a comprehensive global vision.
It is vital that we begin implementation with a sense of opportunity and purpose based on an accurate evaluation of where the world stands now.
That is the aim of this report. It presents an overview of the 17 Goals using data currently available to highlight the most significant gaps and challenges.
The latest data show that about one in eight people still lived in extreme poverty, nearly 800 million people suffered from hunger, the births of nearly a quarter of children under 5 had not been recorded, 1.1 billion people were living without electricity, and water scarcity affected more than 2 billion people.
These statistics show how important coordinated global data-generation efforts will be in supplying reliable and timely data for systematic follow-up and progress reviews.
The Goals apply to all societies. Even the wealthiest countries have yet to fully empower women or eliminate discrimination.All nations will need to build the Sustainable Development Goals into their national policies and plans if we are to achieve them.
This first report is a starting point. With collective global action, we can seize the opportunities before us and, together,fulfill the pledge of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind.
BAN Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations "The new agenda is a promise by leaders to all people everywhere. It is a universal, integrated and transformative vision for a better world. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms. An agenda for the planet, our common home. An agenda for shared prosperity, peace and partnership. It conveys the urgency of climate action. It is rooted in gender equality and respect for the rights of all. Above all, it pledges to leave no one behind."
BAN Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
Digital transformation is enabling rapid change in every industry and across every aspect of our lives. As a direct result of three fundamental ICT forces—mobility, broadband and the cloud—a new service economy is emerging where value chains are being reshaped, business models are becoming digitalized, distance is being overcome and increasingly, people can share goods and services instead of buying and owning them—all examples of how the digital age is unleashing innovative new business models and changing lives.
The new Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, set out a shared global agenda for human development based on prosperity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. The SDGs include several bold objectives to be achieved by the year 2030, including universal coverage in health, education, poverty eradication and modern energy services. This is the 2030 Agenda.
Five ways ICT can help
According to the OECD, “more ubiquitous access to and use of broadband Internet networks, which are available in a competitive market and at affordable prices, will help foster innovation and drive the growth of the Internet Economy and the economy in general.”4
To achieve the SDGs ICT needs to be combined with innovative policies, services and solutions to deliver transformation at unprecedented speed and scale. It can be a powerful means of implementation in five major ways:
1. Accelerated upscaling of critical services in health, education, financial services, smart agriculture, and low-carbon energy systems.
2. Reduced deployment costs.
3. Enhanced public awareness and engagement.
4. Innovation, connectivity, productivity and efficiency across many sectors.
5. Faster upgrading in the quality of services and jobs.
Issues and Challenges
No technology is without risks and widespread uptake of ICT raises a number of issues that will need to be addressed and managed. Several issues have been identified which governments, industry and other stakeholders must work together to address:
1. Privacy and surveillance
2. Cybersecurity
3. Loss of human skills
4. Possible public concern about health effects
5. Electronic waste and carbon emissions
6. Digital exclusion
7. Child protection and the Internet
Sustainability Criteria and Indicators.
Need for Sustainable Livelihoods for India.
Livelihood Assets.
Case of a Landless Female Agriculture Labour.
The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework.
Sustainability in Business
“Sustainability should be a touchstone for all innovation …In the future, only companies that make sustainability a goal will achieve competitive advantage. That means rethinking business models as well as products, technologies, and processes.”
Businesses employing Sustainable Management and Strategy .
Sustainability issues and impacts in Business.
Connected success - the future of the socially valued organisation hrPatrick Harris
Connected Success - The Future of the Socially Valued organisation. A superb project with the Growth Agenda team.
Some organisations are socially useful maybe even socially valuable, but at times in inconsistent ways. So, crucially, what does it require for organisations to be socially valued?
How can the Global Goals for Sustainable Development be effectively delivered...vmalondres
Supporting PowerPoint Presentation of an international development seminar delivered at the Open University on 16 September 2015
http://www.open.ac.uk/about/international-development/news/delivering-global-goals
Chapter 3: Illustrative Goals and Global Impact2015on
The High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda today released “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development,” a report which sets out a universal agenda to eradicate extreme poverty from the face of the earth by 2030, and deliver on the promise of sustainable development. The report calls upon the world to rally around a new Global Partnership that offers hope and a role to every person in the world.
The paper draws on the author’s contributions to UNCTAD’s Trade and
Development Report 2006. The author is grateful to Kevin Gallagher, Gerry Helleiner, Dieter
Hesse, Detlef Kotte, Andrew Mold, Sheila Page, Ugo Panizza, Ken Shadlen, Adrian Wood,
and participants of a Geneva Trade and Development Workshop for helpful comments and
suggestions, and an anonymous referee for an opinion, on an earlier draft. The opinions
expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNCTAD
or its Member States.
The paper examines how developing countries can use existing policy space, and enlarge it, without opting out of international commitments. It argues that: (i) a meaningful context for policy space must extend beyond trade policy and include macroeconomic and exchange-rate policies that will achieve developmental goals more effectively; (ii) policy space depends not only on international rules but also on the impact of international market conditions and policy decisions taken in other countries on the effectiveness of national policy instruments; and (iii) international integration affects policy space through several factors that pull in opposite directions; whether it increases or reduces policy space differs by country and type of integration.
As you read these words there is a group of people shaping how global humanity will think about the economy for the next few decades. No, there’s not a conspiracy theory unfolding here. What I am referring to is the United Nations process for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)—where a course is being set for the next fifteen years of intergovernmental coordination for our economic system. This process has been quietly unfolding in the background for several years and will come to completion this fall in New York City.
I am a language researcher who cares about the future of humanity. And I share concern about the risks associated with globalization that currently threaten our collective future—climate disruption, soil depletion, widespread inequality and poverty, regional conflict, rigged financial systems, and more—the very same risks that concern many of the people involved in the SDG process. My primary responsibility at TheRules.org is to study cultural patterns of understanding and unpack their significance. This includes the use of frame analysis where I closely scrutinize the words used to think and talk about important issues.
Frame analysis is the study of mental models for human understanding. The concepts we have in our minds are structured in ways that can be systematically explored to reveal implicit assumptions, logical inferences, value judgments, and moral sentiments. An example relevant to the SDG process is the diversity of mental representations for poverty.
Poverty can be conceptualized as a disease that spreads like an epidemic, a prison to be liberated from, the condition of being incomplete or broken, a magical number measured in some predefined way, and more. We might talk about poverty eradication (treat it like a disease) or as a war (battle with and defeat it). Each meaning brings its own basic assumptions, constraining what poverty is understood to be about and how to deal with it.
Importantly, these meanings can be incorrect, inadequate, and problematic yet still be widely used. Poverty can be treated as merely a part of the natural world, for instance, which conceals the history of poverty creation throughout the last few hundred years where it came into being as a core feature of economic development.
When I looked at the language used to talk about the SDGs I was struck by how much hidden meaning can be found there. The analysis that follows is based on written text for the proposed sustainable development goals. It reveals a great deal about the faulty assumptions that remain uncritically accepted in the process. These assumptions jeopardize the entire effort by leaving out many of the structural factors that create poverty and directly contribute to ecological devastation.
No credible use of the word sustainable would perform in this way. In the following pages I make the case that the SDG process is fundamentally compromised and carries within it the seeds of its own
International cooperation and development: a conceptual overviewIra Tobing
Any credible claim to implement an agenda for global development – such as currently discussed in the post-2015 process – will require integrating the broader framework of
international cooperation into this effort. A wide, but vague consensus that global framework conditions matter for development has already existed in past development debates. However, good resolutions such as MDG 8 for a global partnership have shown insufficient progress in practice. This paper reviews key aspects of the relationship between international cooperation and development at a conceptual level. Drawing on a distinction between domestic and global public goods as enablers and goals of development, the paper first illustrates the role of international cooperation and its interdependence with domestic action. The framework identifies contact points in the relationship between global and domestic action and goals with the categories of provision, support, access and preservation. The second part of the paper reviews key concepts of patterns of international cooperation that represent the elements of the global governance framework to which a broadening development agenda needs to link up more strongly. Overall, the conceptual review underlines that the question of how international cooperation works has moved to the centre of development studies. Yet, an even bigger challenge than achieving cooperation in the first place might be to steer the complex architecture and processes of international cooperation towards contributing to a global agenda for development.
An Article on - "Voices of the Marginalised: the use of participatory action research to influence the post-2015 discussions" - Authors - Marion Steff, Nusrat Zerin, Jahangir Alam
Beyond GDP indicators in policy: action case studiesnefwellbeing
BRAINPOoL (Bringing alternative indicators into policy) is an EU-funded project aimed at identifying and overcoming the barriers to ‘Beyond GDP’ indicators being used in policy. This presentation focuses on 7 case studies where barriers exist, and identifies solutions
Integrating Governance into the Sustainable Development GoalsRuben Zondervan
http://sdg.earthsystemgovernance.org/sdg/publications/integrating-governance-sustainable-development-goals
Key messages of Policy Brief #3:
1. Governance must be a crucial part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, there are also different ways of integrating key aspects of governance into the SDGs. Much of the discussions for the SDGs has revolved around either having a stand-alone governance goal or integrating governance into other goals on specific issues (e.g. goals on poverty reduction, water, food).
2. Three aspects of governance need to be considered: good governance (the processes of decisionmaking and their institutional foundations), effective governance (the capacity of countries to pursue sustainable development), and equitable governance (distributive outcomes). While these three different aspects have a number of connections between them, the three aspects will require separate political efforts. To most fully integrate governance into the SDGs, it is important to take account of all three aspects of governance when shaping the goals and targets.
3. If governance was addressed as a stand-alone SDG, then this would offer the best opportunity to comprehensively incorporate all three aspects of governance into a post-2015 development agenda. However, because of existing indicators of governance and actor coalitions organized around specific issues, the risk remains that good governance might be privileged over effective governance or equitable governance.
4. Conversely, if governance is integrated into issue-specific goals, then this would offer opportunities to build from existing policy experience about how different governance arrangements shape relevant outcomes. While this strength is important, pursuing governance in this manner is less likely to be comprehensive. Awareness of this limitation will be important in spurring creative and ambitious governance targets on all issues in the SDGs.
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1. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
Global goals for sustainable development
1. Introduction
This paper asks whether a set of global goals would be an effective tool for changing global
behaviour towards meeting the requirements of sustainable development. This introduction
sets out the criteria used to judge effectiveness, and outlines the rest of the essay.
The ‘effectiveness’ criteria used is one of whether goals are likely to elicit any change in the
behaviour of global actors towards sustainable development. Clearly this is a low bar. To decide
whether global goals are more effective than other governance tools it would be necessary to
examine exactly what must be achieved and to perform a thorough review of the most
appropriate method to reach those outcomes. However, sustainable development is a vast
subject and a large research project would be required in order to make a robust prediction
about the likely success of various methods. Moreover, the literature on ‘global goals’ is limited
compared to that on international law or international organisations. This essay is merely a
starting point in a discussion about the effectiveness of sustainable development goals.
Following a conceptualisation of ‘global goals’ in section two, the essay goes on to consider the
arguments for and against sustainable development goals, in sections three and four
respectively. The essay concludes, in section five, that agreement on the effectiveness of global
goals is likely to require a constructivist rather than realist worldview and that further
evidence-based research is necessary.
2. An overview of global goals
This section conceptualises global goals, explains the topical nature of the issue, and then
describes how sustainable development goals are being advanced.
A global goals approach is best exemplified by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
These were agreed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 and were designed to focus
the world’s efforts to end poverty. They are a set of eight broad goals, divided into 21 targets,
with specific, mostly quantifiable indicators, to be met by 2015. For example, ‘MDG 6: Combat
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases’ has three targets, including ‘6A: Have halted by 2015 and
begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS’, which are measured by ten different indicators,
including ‘HIV prevalence, condom use, and proportion of population with comprehensive,
correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS’. Goals were used in this context in order to harmonise efforts to
end poverty and to provide a way of measuring progress.1
Global goals are not legally binding. A party that commits to them will suffer no repercussion
should they not be met. No coercive power is exercised, and no new international organisations
will be created. Instead, positive outcomes are reliant upon the commitment made by
signatories and the discursive, social power of jointly-shared goals. Global goals are deliberately
simple: in their shortest form, the MDGs are just 37 words – including all the targets and
indicators they are just over 1000 words – the antithesis of a complex international treaty.
Global goal-setting is back on the global agenda for two reasons. The first is temporal:
discussions are growing, particularly in the development field, as to what should follow the
1 United Nations, 2007.
1
2. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
MDGs in three years time. The second is that environmentalists are now considering whether
global goals might work for sustainable development. The governments of Colombia and
Guatemala proposed sustainable development goals (SDGs) for the agenda of the UN Conference
on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012.2 They will seek agreement on the idea of a
set of SDGs and a mandate for the UN to develop the precise goals by 2015.3 It is not necessary
at this stage of negotiations to agree on the precise goals, and these shall not be discussed in this
essay. Some of the key suggestions are presented in Annex 1. It is necessary, however, to discuss
whether goals are an appropriate tool at all.
3. Why goals work
This section develops the argument that global goals, targets and indicators could be an
effective tool in changing global behaviour to meet the requirements of sustainable
development. It considers where goals lie on a spectrum of behaviour change, argues for goals’
discursive power generally, and for their particular relevance for sustainable development.
a. Goals generally
Methods of behaviour change can be seen as lying on a spectrum from norm promotion to
binding law with strong compliance mechanisms. Often the latter is considered the strongest
method. Yet the early part of the spectrum is not necessarily less effective. In the absence of law,
it is possible to use normative, behavioural or cognitive factors, such as reputation, elite group
membership or domestic pressure to create change. These might include league tables, prizes,
or citation before international panels.4 These efforts socialise concepts that come to be the
norms that change or reinforce behaviour.5 Global goals are towards the norm-promotion end
of the spectrum: their power is discursive. A small group of well-publicised goals would shape
obligations, expectations, priorities and commitments.
This discursive power lies both in the goals and the indicators. Firstly, a small group of goals can
be easily absorbed and explained by the media, far more so than a legal treaty. This has been
demonstrated with the MDGs, which are advocated by media luminaries such as Ted Turner.6
This keeps goals on the global media agenda and builds public support to maintain domestic
pressure on governments. Clear, overarching goals are not only a boon to the media, but also to
those working in the field, particularly in smaller non-governmental organisations. Those who
argue that only bottom-up policy will create sustainable development tend to neglect the power
of having a strong international norm to which to link a grass-roots policy.7 Bottom up
innovation is not generated out of nothing, but is rather a response to necessity or a call to
action. Goals give advocates for change a strong brand on which to hang their campaigns,
empowering them to succeed. Organisations working towards a global goal might be more likely
to get funding or support from larger agencies. Common goals create better opportunities to
link with other ‘roots’ doing similar things: the shared language creates an environment for
efficiency and productivity.
2 República de Colombia, 2011.
3 Ibid.
4
See, e.g. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, the Mo Ibrahim Prize for
Achievement in African Leadership, etc.
5 See, e.g. Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998.
6 Turner, 2011; Murray et al, 2007.
7 Victor, 2006, p.99.
2
3. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
Secondly, beyond the overarching goals, the indicators provide the detail required to prove
technical robustness. Moreover, setting the indicators themselves can be a useful way of
socialising demands for change. In this process, actors have to start with the outcomes they
want to see achieved. They must work together as a ‘global’ society to carefully define how they
will measure success. This stage of development may be difficult, but once established, allows
any actor who can concretely prove that an indicator is shifting due to an action they took to be
socially rewarded, or allows campaigners to prove the opposite, and to shame the actors.
Indicators could be especially powerful in the field of sustainable development, for the reasons
explained in 3b below.
The discursive power of goals also allows for the exercise of power over intransigent
institutional opposition, such as the hegemonic macroeconomic discourse found in the
international financial institutions. The single goal these institutions promote is economic
growth; an idea that has captured the discourse of ‘progress’ for decades. The extent to which
new global goals can change this was demonstrated to a greater and lesser extent by the MDGs.
These were enthusiastically adopted by the World Bank, who now work in tandem with the
United Nations to provide data on poverty. The effect on the IMF has been weaker. It argues that
GDP growth and limited state spending is still the key to the meeting MDGs.8 This demonstrates
a lack of discursive power: the IMF adopted the MDGs, but managed to place them within their
worldview, and as a result IMF policies have not changed.
Finally, though this essay has used MDG evidence to support several claims for goals, there is
the question of whether these global goals did effectively change behaviour on poverty
reduction overall. Much of the literature agrees that the MDGs changed the political debate and
galvanised support for global poverty reduction by providing clarity, a focus on implementation,
and inspiring engagement beyond traditional development sectors.9 This does not mean that
they helped to reduce poverty. It is not possible to prove that the MDGs caused a reduction in
poverty greater than would have been realised counterfactually. However, authors in the field
have concluded that the MDGs probably helped increase aid spending and probably changed
national policies to benefit poverty reduction.10
b. Goals for sustainable development
There are reasons to believe that global goals would be particularly effective for sustainable
development, including the potential for bringing together the three realms of sustainable
development, the global nature of environmental problems and solutions, and the current
movement towards a new macro-indicator of global progress.
One of the motivations for those suggesting the SDGs is to re-harmonise the three elements of
sustainable development: economic growth, social welfare and environmental protection, which
have become disparate over time.11 Sustainable development came to mean ‘the environment’
when, as clearly defined in the Brundtland report, it was meant to be the marriage of those
8 IMF, 2010; Gutner, 2010.
9 E.g. The High Level Panel on Global Sustainability, 2012, p.72; Melamed and Sumner, 2011.
10 Melamed and Sumner, 2011.
11 República de Colombia, 2011.
3
4. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
three fields.12 A set of common goals could encapsulate all three elements, reminding people of
their interlocking nature.
Secondly, it is not only states whose behaviour requires change. Sustainable development is a
post-globalisation problem, which requires a multi-scalar reaction, going beyond the nation
state to include corporations, local governments and individuals.13 Sustainable development
problems are global in nature, and so are their solutions. It was on this basis that Agenda 21 was
created at the first Rio Summit. The SDGs could build on this, creating specific, coherent and
clear targets for sustainable development, to be pursued at various levels of governance.
It is the indicators that are particularly important. These operationalise sustainable
development, making it real for finance ministers or development banks who may have ignored
it, or left it for environmental departments to deal with, because it was perceived as a woolly
concept. Furthermore, strong indicators in this area could help establish paradigmatic shift in
two ways. Firstly, they could inspire a movement away from the primary value given to GDP
indicators towards an indicator inclusive of social and environmental measures. Secondly, they
could also to expand ideas of what sustainable development can incorporate, from a green
economy to participatory governance models to social protection, education and health.14 On
the former point, global discourse on progress continues to present an increase in income as the
end goal of society and individuals. It is difficult to understate the power of indicators of income,
which can bring down governments, remove boards from companies and are religiously
reported by the media. A more complex, holistic metric could be a powerful force in shaping
thinking around progress.
Several governments, think tanks and international organisations are already working on new
indicators for progress, whether ‘wellbeing’ or ‘happiness’ to go ‘beyond GDP.’15 The SDGs could
support these efforts, or better, bring them together to create universal metric – a global
sustainable development index.16 The idea of a regular ‘state of the planet’ report by the UN
Secretary-General will be discussed at Rio+20. This could build upon the power of this
indicator.17
4. The problems with goals
This section outlines and reviews several arguments against global goals as a means of changing
global behaviour, including the limited power of discourse versus self-interest, the problems for
local delivery and accountability, and the issue of finding agreement on the goals.
The first criticism goes to the heart of the effectiveness of goals as it regards compliance and
their universal nature. It states that the most accurate indicators and robust reporting may still
not elicit change if the powerful do not will it. Empathy, reputational costs and socialisation of
12 Drexhage and Murphy, pp.1,2.
13 See, e.g. Scholte, 2000.
14 Global Environmental Governance Project, 2011.
15 These include the ‘environmental accounting’ work of the World Bank, UNECA’s sustainable
development indicator framework for Africa, the UNECE/OECD/Eurostat Taskforce for Measuring
Sustainable development, OECD’s Better Life Index, and various national ‘wellbeing’ indexes. The majority
of these were inspired by the work of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission.
16 Global Environmental Governance Project, 2011, pp. 7-9.
17 For the ‘state of planet’ review see United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20),
2012, para. 56.
4
5. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
norms only go so far in the face of domestic political accountability, profit-making and personal
consumption. While lessons from other regimes are sometimes positive – states do, for
example, regularly submit to external monitoring and potential sanction on human rights and
trade issues – sustainable development may require far greater behaviour change and national
costs.18 The difficulty is intensified with global goals as there is no strict individual culpability if
they are not met. There is thus a strong incentive for free-riding.
Further research is necessary on whether global goals could be matched with innovative
compliance mechanisms that add to the discursive power discussed in section three. An
institution like the UN Global Compact regularly de-lists companies that fail to meet its criteria
and bans them from using its branding – this institutionalised ‘naming and shaming’ process
might still not be enough.19 To neutralise these realist arguments against global goals, it would
be necessary to find some kind of universal issue-link or lock-in mechanism that creates more
self-interested incentives beyond obedience to social norms.
The second criticism is from those who argue that the global nature of the goals is inappropriate
when sustainable development is driven by ‘resolutely local’ issues.20 Others suggest that that
while the goals could be global, national governments must have primacy on ownership and
accountability for the framework and delivery.21 This seems contradictory, but countries will
have to take different measures to ensure the world meets goals: this creates a problem when
the overall indicator of success is global, and the rewards of sustainable development may be
unevenly distributed.
While it is clear that local action must be taken to meet any SDGs, this does not necessarily
require local actors. A scaled-up Global Environment Facility would enable projects to be
initiated, financed and managed by different parties, as befits a global solution. National
governments may only be needed for their approval. Furthermore, global indicators could be
channelled into expectations for each nation, which could be monitored by a central global
body. This would still rely on the social power of goals and that nations would take action
despite the lack of coercion. The lessons from the MDGs are not particularly favourable: several
targets are likely to be missed and there will be no national or global accountability for this, just
unmet commitments. 22 Likewise, the OECD aid target of 0.7% is not met by many, suggesting
that reputation costs and domestic pressure is not enough to drive compliance.23
The third criticism deals with the process of gaining agreement on the actual goals, perhaps not
so much easier than agreeing on a comprehensive treaty. The SDGs have been proposed in an
atmosphere probably less cooperative than that of the MDGs. The latter were developed in the
late 1990s in a context of booming OECD economies and a uni-polar world, with trigger
pressure applied by faith-based campaigns providing the grass-roots support for large-scale
political anti-poverty commitments.24 Fifteen years on and power structures are changing: the
18 For example, the UN Human Rights Council, and stronger regional bodies such as the European or
Inter-American Courts of Human Rights. The WTO is exceptional at a world level in that it provides a
dispute settlement mechanism, but its sanctions are limited.
19 See www.unglobalcompact.org.
20 Victor, 2006, p.99.
21 UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (2011).
22 Melamed, 2011.
23 OECD, 2010.
24 E.g. The Jubilee 2000 campaign was a network of churches working with Oxfam et al.
5
6. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
world faces increasing multi-polar (or ‘non-polar’25) deadlock in institutions, and austerity in
the OECD region. Early meetings on the SDGs have suggested some difficulties regarding the
indicators and ‘regional particularity’.26 India is thought to be against quantifiable indicators.27
More positively, as pointed out by several NGOs, there is already much collective agreement on
the ‘goals’ of sustainable development - the next step is to prioritise them and support their
delivery.28 The original proposal by Colombia and Guatemala argues that since the Rio Summit
in 1992 set out the guiding principles and road map and the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in 2002 set out a plan of implementation, Rio+20 only needs to take the next small
step towards creating SDGs to encourage structured implementation.29
5. Conclusion
This essay described global goals and specifically the suggestion of SDGs at Rio+20. It then
developed the reasons for which goals, targets and indicators can change global behaviour, most
of which relied upon their discursive power. It argued that goals would be particularly effective
in the issue area of sustainable development, since they could help marry the tripartite realms,
reflect the multi-scalar action required and their indicators could shift the discourse of progress
beyond GDP. The essay then provided an overview of the weaknesses of global goals,
particularly with regard to free rider effects, confusion over levels of responsibility and action,
and the fact that agreement on indicators may be difficult to reach. The first of these is still the
most problematic.
Ultimately, whether global goals are perceived as effective will depend on whether a realist or
constructivist position towards international affairs is taken. However, given the growth of
‘global’ issues, which somewhat transcend nation-states (and realist theory), and given that
discursive power should not be underestimated, global goals are likely to be effective in
changing state behaviour. As Fuchs says: ‘discursive power precedes the formation and
articulation of interests in the political process...’30 While empirical evidence for behaviour
change caused by goal-setting is sparse, perhaps the fact that global goals are back on the
agenda, and have travelled between disciplines, is a sign that many people believe they are an
effective tool.
Further research into this area could investigate: the political will for the goals; the risks of
competition between development and environment activists; the legitimacy of the goals-
drafting process; the larger question of the most effective method for achieving sustainable
development; and opportunities or ideas for new methods to change global behaviour. Given
that there are merely three months to Rio+20, supporting sustainable development goals would
seem like a realistic and achievable starting point.
25 Haass, 2008.
26 Evans and Stevens, 2012; Global Environmental Governance Project, 2011, p.11.
27 Evans and Stevens, 2012.
28 World Future Council response, in UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service, 2011, p.8.
29 República de Colombia, 2011.
30 Fuchs, 2005, p.778, my emphasis.
6
7. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
6. Annex 1
Suggested sustainable development goal areas31
Theme Colombia/Guatemala (8) NGOs / CSOs (17) UN High Level Panel
(11)
Energy Energy, including Clean energy Energy
renewable
Consumption Changing consumption Sustainable Sustainable
patterns consumption and consumption
production
Commons Biodiversity and forests Biodiversity Biodiversity
Forests
Oceans Healthy seas and Oceans
oceans
Water resources Water Water
Food Advancing food security Food security
Sustainable agriculture
Social policy Green jobs
Sustainable Decent work and
livelihoods, youth and social inclusion
education
Combating poverty
Basic health
Climate Climate sustainability
Disaster risk
reduction
Resilience
Habitat Promoting sustainable Green cities
human settlement
development
Governance Subsidies and
investment
New indicators of
progress
Access to information
Public participation
Access to redress and
remedy
Environmental justice
for the poor and
marginalised
31High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, 2012; UN Conference on Sustainable Development
Secretariat, 2012; República de Colombia, 2011.
7
8. Joseph Mitchell Global goals for sustainable development – May 2012 @j0e_m
7. Bibliography and works cited
Bond, Patrick, 2006, ‘Global Governance Campaigning and MDGs: From Top-down to
Bottom-up Anti-Poverty Work’. Third World Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 339-354.
Evans, Alex and Steven, David, 2012, ‘Sustainable Development Goals – a useful outcome
from Rio+20?’ New York, New York University’s Center on International
Cooperation.
Drexhage, John and Murphy, Deborah, 2010, ‘Sustainable Development: From Brundtland to
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