REVIEW ON THE DRAFTING PROCESS AND COMPARISON OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGS) AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS (original) (raw)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) differ from the MDGs in purpose, concept, and politics. This article focuses process and comparison of the predecessor to the SDGs. The identification of Millennium Development Goals and the follow-on Sustainable Development Goals are referred to here as examples of such policy forming activities. The Millennium Declaration was adopted on 8th September 2000. According to David Hulme, the drafting process attempted to please both the rich countries insisting on their Development Assistance Committee (DAC) prepared list of International Development Goals and everybody else. It argues that the SDGs address several of the key shortcomings of the MDGs and incorporate a broader and more transformative agenda that more adequately reflect the complex challenges of the 21st century and the need for structural reforms in the global economy. The SDGs also reverse the MDG approach to global goal setting and the misplaced belief in the virtues of simplicity, concreteness, and quantification. While the SDGs promise the potential for a more transformative agenda, implementation will depend on continued advocacy on each of the targets to hold authorities to account. The future of global public participation may move beyond invitation (and its deficiencies), to one based on collecting passive information of the global public. It still remains to be seen whether SDGs really demonstrate the longterm public concerns especially with the set of global priorities until 2030.