Episode 2: The SDGS - Understanding Complexity: Development or Sustainable Development – Parallel Paths Emerging as One
What are the Sustainable
Development Goals?
The Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) are a universal set of 17 goals and 169 targets, with accompanying
indicators, that were agreed upon by UN member states to frame their policy
agendas for the 15-year period from 2015 to 2030. Written by three authors who
have been engaged in the development of the SDGs from the beginning, this book
offers an insider view of the process and a unique entry into what will be seen
as one of the most significant negotiations and global policy agendas of the
twenty-first century.
What does the book address?
The book reviews how the SDGs
were developed, what happened in key meetings and how this transformational
agenda, which took more than three years to negotiate, came together in
September 2015. It dissects and analyzes the meetings, organizations and individuals
that played key roles in their development. It provides fascinating insights
into the subtleties and challenges of high-level negotiation processes of
governments and stakeholders, and into how the SDGs were debated, formulated
and agreed. It is essential reading for all interested in the UN, sustainable
development and the future of the planet and humankind.
What is in this Episode?
In this episode, we examine how
sustainable development moved from a contested idea to a shared global
priority. What role did post-Rio consultations, and the High-Level Panel play?
And how did national, thematic, and citizen-driven dialogues shape the SDG
vision?
Episode 2: Understanding
Complexity: Development or Sustainable Development – Parallel Paths Emerging as
One
What did people say about the
book?
"Learning from the process
that engaged so many stakeholders at national and international level is
important for future multilateral negotiations. This contribution from three
actors intimately involved in the process offers rare insights into a long,
challenging and ultimately fruitful process. I hope many readers will enjoy the
insights presented in this book and be inspired to realise that the impossible
is possible through compromise, partnership and leadership."
– from the foreword by Mary
Robinson, President of the Mary Robinson Foundation: Climate Justice, Former
President of Ireland (1990–1997) and Former UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights (1997–2002)
"This is an important book
that charts the journey we went on and the challenges faced in agreeing the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. I hope it will help people understand
what was achieved and help those now, and in the future, engaged in the
implementation of this agenda."
– from the foreword by Ambassador
Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations in New
York, USA, co-chair of the negotiations for the Sustainable Development Goals
(2012–2014) and co-facilitator of Transforming Our World: the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development (2014–2015)
"Having participated in
various negotiations on sustainable development since 1992, this overview of
the process leading to the ambitious and important Sustainable Development
Goals allows us to see the big picture and helps make the journey ahead possible."
– Julia Marton-Lefevre,
former Director General of IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of
Nature
"As the most prolific writer
on issues of sustainable development and the multilateral system, Felix Dodds
has done it again; on this occasion, working with Ambassador David Donoghue and
Jimena Lieva Roesch. These three authors have brought their individual and
collective knowledge and expertise to review the 2030 development agenda,
consolidated in a recently articulated set of Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Offered by people who were immersed in the process, theirs is a
necessary and timely analysis of how the multilateral system works, the
consultations and negotiations out of which the SDGs evolved and their intended
objectives.
Given their backgrounds and
proximity to what took place, the authors have brought to their subject the
quality of information and analysis likely to be useful to those who will be
engaged in fulfilling this agenda within the multilateral system and its myriad
stakeholders. When compared with the MDGs, the very large number of sustainable
development goals and targets suggest very high ambition and an enormous
undertaking at both the national and international levels. For students of
development and international relations this will be an essential book. It will
become a useful tool for peer review of the attainment of the SDGs. Coming so
soon after consensus on the SDGs and the new development agenda were reached,
the authors engage in an important discussion on which future books on this
area will draw and be assessed.
All three authors are to be
congratulated for this important piece of work."
– Liz Thompson, former UN
Assistant Secretary General for Rio+20 and Barbados Minister of Energy and
Environment
"Experienced journalists
covering UN negotiating meetings on sustainable development issues tend to make
a bee-line for Felix Dodds to discover what is going on. Now he, and his
equally well-informed co-authors – Ambassador David Donoghue and Jimena Leiva
Roesch – are doing everyone a service by extending the privilege through this
book, which traces the often tortuous process that led to the agreement last
September of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Though AS OF YET little-known
outside the international environment and development community, the Goals are
– as the authors write – ‘a blueprint for the development of humanity and the
planet in the 21st century’. Their adoption marks the moment when a decades-old
argument was finally won.
This book charts how that
happened and suggests how the victory should be followed up with action. "
– Geoffrey Lean,
award-winning environmental journalist
"Negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals is an important and timely contribution
to global development policymaking that will further our understanding of how
the SDGs became the new overarching framework for a comprehensive development
agenda – and help inspire and guide their implementation."
– Mark Suzman, President
of Global Policy and Advocacy and Chief Strategy Officer, Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation
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