Sustainable Development Goals: From Rhetoric to Reality by Kitty van der Heijden, Sonya Suter and Mathilde Bouyé - July 08, 2015

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Sustainable Development Goals: From
Rhetoric to Reality
by Kitty van der Heijden, Sonya Suter and Mathilde Bouyé - July 08, 2015
Kenyan farmers plant rust-resistant wheat. Photo by Petr Kosina / CIMMYT
In September, world leaders will descend on New
York to set goals for creating a more sustainable
world, free of extreme poverty by 2030. The 17
proposed Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) will replace the earlier Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), but unlike their
predecessors, these goals will be universal. They
will apply to all countries and can only be achieved
if all countries act – not just “developing” ones.
But this larger, more ambitious set of goals poses a challenge: How do we make sure
that all of those responsible follow through on September’s good intentions? In a
voluntary agenda, how do we inject accountability? As the United Nations High Level
Political Forum, the body that will review progress on the agenda, wraps up its
meetings this week, now is the perfect time to ask these questions.
It may be tempting to write off accountability as impossible without a legally binding
agreement. While true that the SDGs by themselves will not have the force of law, it is
still possible to clearly assign responsibility, making sure all governments, businesses
and other stakeholders have clear objectives and performance standards, as well as
answerability, ensuring all actors inform and justify their actions to those affected.
Setting out what governments and other stakeholders are responsible for and requiring
that they answer for their actions publicly is critical. These are important elements of an
accountability framework. All stakeholders shoulddevelop clear plans for what they will
do to achieve the SDGs, and enable their own citizens to track their progress.
At the same time, no country, rich or poor, will be able to reach the goals in isolation.
We live in a globalized economy facing global-scale environmental challenges. Domestic
policies in the areas of trade, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, climate change and
economic growth (to name just a few) can impact sustainability, poverty and growth

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reality?utm_campaign=wridigest&utm_source=wridigest-2015-07-14&utm_medium=email&utm_content=title
elsewhere, both for better or worse. Countries will needto identify these spillovers and
externalities and work together to address them, particularly for global public goods
like climate change, or freshwater scarcity. Only by the combination of its own and
other countries’ actions will any one country fully achieve the SDGs.
At the same time, national governments are no longer the only players.
Citiesgenerate 80 percent of global GDP and 70 percent of carbon emissions , putting
them at the heart of the action for sustainable development. Similarly, the long reach of
global supply chains give the private sector huge potential to lead or lag on
environmental sustainability and labor conditions across the globe. And civil society is a
vital component of the social pact between governments and citizens – and often
uniquely able to evaluate a government’s progress. All three—cities or local
governments, the private sector and civil society—will have a role in making progress on
SDGs through their own actions, by forming multistakeholderpartnerships, and in
pushing national governments and each other to lead. And of course, in holding them to
account for their commitments.
The word “accountability” has long been a taboo in the SDG negotiations, but we know
that making strides against the twin challenges of poverty and environmental
degradation will be nearly impossible without ways to not only measure progress, but
also delineate clear responsibility for making progress. Speaking in 2010, UN Secretary-
General Ban ki-Moon explained the lack of improvement against the MDGs as: “… not
because the goals are unreachable, or because time is too short. We are off course
because of unmet commitments, inadequate resources and a lack of focus and
accountability.”
This September, we will set a transformational global agenda that will no doubt inspire
and motivate. But the warm glow will not be enough to carry us through to 2030. The
SDGs must be supported by a web of partnerships that spell out who does what, and
that can be transparently monitored and assessed. As countries finalize the SDGs over
the coming weeks and months, they must not shy away from making accountability a
reality.