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This chapter lays out a research agenda to assess conditions, challenges, and prospects for the Sustainable Development Goals to pursue this aim. First, the chapter discusses goal setting as a global governance strategy. Second, to contextualize the Sustainable Development Goals, it discusses the unique nature of the modern challenges that the Sustainable Development Goals must confront and review the historical and political trajectory of sustainable development governance, including the evolution from a primarily rule-based to a more goal-based system and the experience of the earlier Millennium Development Goals. Third, the chapter reviews the negotiating history of the Sustainable Development Goals. Then, the chapter elaborate on how the chapters are organized to address the three questions that guide the book.

The chapter argues that the global process that lead to the adoption of the sustainable development goals is synergistic with the decades-old ambition to redefine the framework of how society measures progress. The political interest in goals also brought renewed interest in measurement, but it is also raising the question whether standard ways of thinking about measurement will be enough to realize the SDGs transformative potential. Moving beyond its traditional conceptualization as a technical exercise, viewing measurement through the lens of political economy opens up new possibilities for understanding its potential as a transformative force. Conceptual aspects, actors and actor interests, mechanisms and institutions, and instruments are proposed for consideration both by the policy research community and by practitioners engaged in SDG implementation. The scope of inquiry would also need to go beyond questions related to the supply side and more explicitly address issues related to the use of measurement in policy design, monitoring, reporting and accountability mechanisms.

This chapter focuses on the contemporary framing of sustainability in the context of the adoption of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this setting, we consider the potential coherence and tensions between attempts to protect ‘people’ and the ‘planet’ while promoting ‘prosperity’, ‘peace’ and ‘partnership’. We begin by examining the identities and intentions of the policy actors engaged in formulating the SDGs, as revealed preparatory documentation. We then address the scope for debate (and even conflict) regarding the content of the SDGs and their interaction. Finally, we consider the processes created for supervision of SDG implementation at the UN level by the High Level Political Forum (HLPF). SDG 16 would seem to enable inclusive dialogue with diverse participants offering alternative knowledge bases for policy development, while SDG 17 conceives of a global partnership for development. The crucial question is whether the orchestration offered by the HLPF has that participatory potential.

The United Nations – with the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development playing a leadership role – is a central and necessary governance node to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. However, their scope and nature as goals and the normative character of sustainable development that demands integrative and coherent governance create significant challenges not easily met by traditional tools of multilateralism. Governance arrangements must therefore balance political authority at the global level with recognition that action and resources must also be mobilized at regional, national, and local levels and by a wide range of public and private actors. The High-level Political Forum must, therefore, be an orchestrator of orchestrators that promotes coordination within a fragmented governance space. This chapter assesses the prospects of UN-led governance under these circumstances and identifies key institutional mechanisms and conditions under which they have the best likelihood of mobilizing action on the Sustainable Development Goals.

This chapter summarizes some key findings of the book, discuss the challenges for, and opportunities of, the Sustainable Development Goals by identifying several conditions that might determine their successful implementation, and also suggest some possible avenues for further research. The approach of “global governance through goals”—and the Sustainable Development Goals as a prime example—is marked by a number of key characteristics, including its detachment from the international legal system, weak institutional arrangement, global inclusion and comprehensive goal-setting process, and granting much leeway to national choices and preferences. Those characteristics are reflected in the challenges for implementation, including those of developing indicators and institutional arrangements, tailoring implementation at national or stakeholder levels, and securing policy integration. Further research is needed in addressing these challenges, which requires inter- and transdisciplinary research development.

Mainstream thinking about governance focuses on rule-making and directs attention to the challenges of developing rules, promulgating implementing regulations, and dealing with matters of compliance and enforcement. But this is not the only method for meeting needs for governance in complex systems. An alternative strategy centers on goal-setting and features the establishment of clearcut priorities, the allocation of resources to address these priorities, the development of effective teams with a mandate to pursue goals, and the introduction of metrics to measure progress toward goal fulfillment. While goal-setting is more familiar to those working at subnational and even local levels, cases like the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals indicate that this strategy is usable in largescale settings as well. In some cases (e.g. the regime created under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), rule-making and goal-setting are joined together in a single governance system. But goal-setting is a distinct governance strategy with a logic of its own. It makes sense in a variety of settings to compare and contrast the relative merits of goal-setting and other governance strategies in devising arrangements likely to prove effective in solving specific problems.

This chapter explores the origins of the concept of sustainable consumption in global policy circles in the 1990s and its subsequent evolution in academia, business, civil society, and policy. It describes how academic research increasingly critiqued the understanding of consumption as an individual act and instead conceptualized it as a systemic issue deeply embedded in the economy, culture, and infrastructure, and how it is structured by life-event decisions like buying a house. It describes how the ecologically-inspired critique of consumption merged with the much older social critique of consumerism going back to Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and the Frankfurt, School and discusses the emergence of alternatives and possible pathways to systemic change. The concept of sustainable consumption has influenced policies in the European Union, on the level of cities, and organizations like the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Since the Great Recession of 2008, the concept has acquired new meanings spurred by the economic crisis and, in the US, the demise of the “American Dream”. The chapter concludes by discussing the concept’s ambiguities and possible futures.

This chapter focuses on the importance of including peace and security in the development agenda. Identifying both fragile and conflict-affected states, it will analyze the obstacles to development in each, using Somalia and Burundi as examples. Highlighting other attempts to incorporate peace and security goals in development, the chapter discusses the New Deal for Engagement with Fragile States created by the g7+. It further argues the Sustainable Development Goals to take into account the minimum needed to allow for steady progress on development and the incorporation of the principles under the New Deal to address issues of peace and security more specifically.

This chapter first evaluates the MDGs achievements. The MDGs are evaluated positively for their achievements in poverty reduction, gender disparity in school education, gender equality and some of the health related goals. They have not succeeded in, among others, maternal mortality, sanitation and environmental sustainability. The critical weakness lies in the lack of implementation mechanisms. Lessons from the MDGs tell us that in order for the SDGs to be more effective they need to take into account a multilayered approach also tailored at regional and national levels providing a menu of options for actors to select from. Regarding the health related goals focus is on child mortality and the role of GAVI and Norway in this context and both these actors have contributed to a fairly high score on this goal and individual leadership has been particularly important. The lessons also underline the significance of mobilizing money. A final lesson relates to the virtue of combining UN and non-UN efforts. While the UN is necessary to secure legitimacy, smaller and more flexible bodies are often necessary to reach ambitious goals.

Mainstream thinking about governance focuses on rule-making and directs attention to the challenges of developing rules, promulgating implementing regulations, and dealing with matters of compliance and enforcement. But this is not the only method for meeting needs for governance in complex systems. An alternative strategy centers of goal-setting and features the establishment of clearcut priorities, the allocation of resources to address these priorities, the development of effective teams with a mandate to pursue goals, and the introduction of metrics to measure progress toward goal fulfillment. While goal-setting is more familiar to those working at subnational and even local levels, cases like the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals indicate that this strategy is usable in largescale settings as well. In some cases (e.g. the regime created under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), rule-making and goal-setting are joined together in a single governance system. But goal-setting is a distinct governance strategy with a logic of its own. It makes sense in a variety of settings to compare and contrast the relative merits of goal-setting and other governance strategies in devising arrangements likely to prove effective in solving specific problems.

The introductory chapter highlights the significance of studying sustainable development, introducing it as a concept that significantly marks approaches to environmental protection, economic growth, and social well-being in the present day. It highlights the main arguments of the entire book, which is first that sustainable development should be thought of as an ongoing set of processes that involve embroilments, rather than a point of balanced stasis where a particular goal has been reached. Centrally, the central argument of this book is that with few exceptions, sustainable development ultimately serves to reproduce and reinforce existing inequalities and yields highly uneven social and environmental results. The socio-natures of Amazonian realities show how injections of capital and state influence produce disproportionately consolidates the power of capital and the state, even as they are contested by members of civil society. The chapter situates the research presented in the book in theoretical context, building upon notions of socio-nature from the field of geography, and drawing upon environmental governance literatures in anthropology and political science to lay the foundations for interrogating sustainable development in the Brazilian Amazon.

This chapter discusses the many ways that science, technology, and innovation (STI) can bolster the global agenda of the United Nations (UN) toward meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs). It shows how STI applications can make multiple contributions to the achievement of SDGs. It is particularly important for developing countries to harness STI, while managing resulting trade-offs, to deliver sustainable development effectively. The SDGs simultaneously touch upon environmental, social and economic aspects of development but integrating these aspects into the implementation of the SDGs is challenging for both policymakers and researchers. To meet its SDG targets, the global community must mobilize STI across multiple sectors, support new investments in innovation, and contribute to policy design that addresses a range of barriers.

The position of poor countries reflects international relationships governing economic exchange, debt, and markets. No less important are the dominance of ideas from abroad, such as the Washington Consensus, and the role of international organisations in enforcing its principles. Policies have shifted from the self-direction of the Poverty Reduction Strategies towards the top-down priorities represented by the Sustainable Development Goals.

In the twenty-first century, globalization of trade, travel, and culture is likely to impose complex effect on health protection: increased trade is likely to improve material access and services but also bring harm to health and the environment; travel and human migration enrich human experience but also exacerbate health threats such as the rapid dissemination of communicable diseases; and globalized food production and ineffective regulation of food production have led to adverse human health outcomes. This chapter discusses ideas that bridge traditional public health disciplines and concepts to enable multidisciplinary actors to examine, plan, act, and implement together to protect human health and well-being. This chapter also explains how health protection might be linked to some important global policies such as Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. Specifically, ‘One Health’, ‘planetary health’, and ‘sustainable development’ allow the conceptualization of the relationship between human, other living organisms, and eco-system.

This concluding chapter comes back to the question that has was raised at the beginning of this book: What is development in the Global Information Age? The chapter proceeds in three parts: first, it makes a philosophical argument on the ultimate goal of development, for “dignity as development,” using the elements of the development theories of John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz, and taking a step forward from there; second, it links this to the social scientific theoretical framework of the book about development in the Global Information Age; finally, as the question has also very significant practical importance– being discussed by e.g. the UN related to the Sustainable Development Goals—the concept of “dignity as development” is operationalized in a preliminary way with a Dignity Index that gives it also direct policy-connectivity

Multilateral development objectives and targets need to be recognized as universal in nature—and, thus “de-colonized” in that they should not focus exclusively on developing countries. As an integrated framework, Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development must embrace economic development, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. This agenda places equality at the center as an ethical principle and the ultimate goal of development. This means adopting a rights-based approach, which recognizes that all individuals are equal in rights—civil and political, as well as economic and social—and that they should have autonomy, recognition and dignity. Finally, regional cooperation should play a central role in its implementing the Agenda as it is best place to ensure inclusion and protection of weaker players.

Domestic resource mobilization (DRM) has assumed increasing significance as a form of financing for sustainable development and economic growth in Africa. This chapter explores the present and future roles of international law concerning the regulation of this form of financing for sustainable development and economic growth in Africa, as well as the main obstacles and challenges of mobilising DRM in African developing and less developed countries. While there is a wide array of questions and issues related to this form of financing for development that international conferences and summits, in particular the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development and the Addis Ababa Agenda for Action, have addressed in various forms and with different emphasis and results, the chapter focuses exclusively on some substantial issues, such as the use of DRM for the financing of the new Sustainable Development Goals and the relationship between DRM and poverty alleviation actions and strategies.