What next after the Millennium Development Goals

There have been suggestions that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set to end in 2015, be succeeded by what has been referred to as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The possibility and extent of this “succession” will become clear after the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held next month in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Dubbed Rio+20, the Earth Summit is comes exactly 20 years after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also held in the Brazilian city. During the 1992 Earth Summit, Heads of State and Government set in motion legally binding environment agreements, including Agenda 21, a comprehensive global plan of action to check human impact on the environment, and therefore, development.Rio+20 will focus on “how to build a green economy to achieve sustainable development and lift people out of poverty; and how to improve international coordination for sustainable development.”The SDGs will only form part of the discussions. One of the key observations is that the Millennium Development Goals were focused solely on developing countries to uplift their levels of development by 2015. The push now is for the SDGs to be universal in their coverage to include the developing and developed countries alike.The MDGs had their shortfalls. For instance, they left out key issues in both the economic and environmental spheres. The MDGs did not address economic issues such as growth, jobs, private sector and inequality. Environmentally, they did not address issues such as climate change, water and biodiversity.While the SDGs are yet to be fully ironed out, the proposed priority areas include the above issues, and specifically relate to oceans, food, energy, consumption and sustainable cities. The essence of it is that the SDGs should more effectively deliver on human development and be more socially inclusive. Good governance, especially for, developing countries, including in Africa, has been suggested as essential. While the UN Secretary General has expressed his support of the concept of the SDGs, the question of what follows the MDGs after 2015 is complex, politically sensitive, and involves multiple constituencies with diverse interests. Bearing this in mind, the particular example of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been cited in the vexed issue of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. Disappointment has, therefore, predictably been expressed that the UNFCCC climate process has so far failed to make a major breakthrough on reducing global emissions, mainly due to national interests. International observers also note that the MDGs were only applicable to developing countries and demanded relatively little from Western governments. A universal and more comprehensive set of post-2015 Goals, including both the developing and developed countries, would need to look beyond aid, entailing changes to domestic policies in sensitive areas like migration, trade, intellectual property, or energy policy.This foretells a difficulty that may be encountered with the SDGs, with many politicians struggling to find the political space to rise above narrow national interests.While political interests should appear inevitable, Rio+20 must be able to chart the way forward drawing from lessons since the 1992 Earth Summit. It cannot be emphasised enough that real solutions must be sought. Twitter: @gituram