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    Lancet 2012; 379: 220611

    Earth Institute, Columbia

    University, New York, NY, USA

    (Prof J D Sachs PhD)

    Correspondence to:

    Prof Jeffrey D Sachs, Earth

    Institute, Columbia University,

    New York, NY 10027, USA

    [email protected]

    For more on the report by theHigh-level Panel on Global

    Sustainabilitysee http://www.

    un.org/gsp/report

    From Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable

    Development GoalsJeffrey D Sachs

    The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) mark ahistoric and effective method of global mobilisation toachieve a set of important social priorities worldwide.They express widespread public concern about poverty,hunger, disease, unmet schooling, gender inequality, andenvironmental degradation. By packaging these prioritiesinto an easily understandable set of eight goals, andby establishing measurable and timebound objectives,the MDGs help to promote global awareness, political

    accountability, improved metrics, social feedback, andpublic pressures. As described by Bill Gates, the MDGshave become a type of global report card for the fightagainst poverty for the 15 years from 2000 to 2015. Aswith most report cards, they generate incentives toimprove performance, even if not quite enough incen-tives for both rich and poor countries to produce a globalclass of straight-A students.

    Developing countries have made substantial progresstowards achievement of the MDGs, although the progressis highly variable across goals, countries, and regions.Mainly because of startling economic growth in China,developing countries as a whole have cut the poverty rateby half between 1990 and 2010. Some countries will achieveall or most of the MDGs, whereas others will achieve veryfew. By 2015, most countries will have made meaningfulprogress towards most of the goals. Moreover, for morethan a decade, the MDGs have remained a focus of globalpolicy debates and national policy planning. They havebecome incorporated into the work of non-governmentalorganisations and civil society more generally, and aretaught to students at all levels of education.

    The probable shortfall in achievement of the MDGs isindeed serious, regrettable, and deeply painful for peoplewith low income. The shortfall represents a set ofoperational failures that implicate many stakeholders,in both poor and rich countries. Promises of offi cial

    development assistance by rich countries, for example,have not been kept.

    Nonetheless, there is widespread feeling among policymakers and civil society that progress against poverty,hunger, and disease is notable; that the MDGs haveplayed an important part in securing that progress; andthat globally agreed goals to fight poverty should continuebeyond 2015. In a world already undergoing dangerousclimate change and other serious environmental ills,there is also widespread understanding that worldwideenvironmental objectives need a higher profile alongsidethe poverty-reduction objectives.

    For these reasons, the worlds governments seem poisedto adopt a new round of global goals to follow the 15 yearMDG period. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moons

    high-level global sustainability panel, appointed in thelead-up to the Rio+20 summit in June, 2012, has issued areport recommending that the world adopt a set ofSustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This spring,Secretary-General Ban indicated that after the Rio+20summit he plans to appoint a high-level panel to considerthe details of post-2015 goals, with UK Prime MinisterDavid Cameron, Indonesian President Susilo BambangYudhoyono, and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

    as co-chairs. One scenario is that the Rio+20 summit willendorse the idea of the SDGs, and world leaders will adoptthem at a special session of the UN General Assembly toreview the MDGs in September, 2013.

    The SDGs are an important idea, and could help finallyto move the world to a sustainable trajectory. The detailedcontent of the SDGs, if indeed they do emerge inupcoming diplomatic processes, is very much up fordiscussion and debate. Their content, I believe, shouldfocus on two considerations: global priorities that needactive worldwide public participation, political focus, andquantitative measurement; and lessons from the MDGs,especially the reasons for their successes, and correctionsof some of their most important shortcomings. I haveserved Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moonas Special Advisor on the MDGs, and look forward tocontributing to the SDGs as well. The following sugges-tions, which I make solely in my personal capacity,include priorities for the SDGs and the best ways to buildon the MDG successes and lessons.

    Why SDGs?The idea of the SDGs has quickly gained ground becauseof the growing urgency of sustainable development forthe entire world. Although specific definitions vary,sustainable development embraces the so-called triplebottom line approach to human wellbeing. Almost all

    the worlds societies acknowledge that they aim for acombination of economic development, environmentalsustainability, and social inclusion, but the specificobjectives differ globally, between and within societies.Certainly, as yet, no consensus regarding the tradeoffsand synergies across the economic, environmental, andsocial objectives has been agreed. Still, a shared focus oneconomic, environmental, and social goals is a hallmarkof sustainable development and represents a broadconsensus on which the world can build.

    The urgency of the triple bottom line arises from a newrealisation brought to global awareness by earth scienceand the yearly changes around us. The world has entered anew era, indeed a new geological epoch, in which humanactivity has come to play a central and threatening part in

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    fundamental earth dynamics. Global economic growth per

    person, now led by the emerging economies, and a still-burgeoning population that reached 7 billion last year (andthat is expected to reach 8 billion by 2024) are combining toput unprecedented stress on the earths ecosystems.Following the lead of Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, one ofthe discoverers of the chemistry behind stratosphericozone depletion, scientists have quickly adopted the newterm Anthropocene to denote the human-driven age of theplanet. A closely related notion is termed planetaryboundariesthe idea that human activity is pushingcrucial global ecosystem functions past a dangerousthreshold, beyond which the earth might well encounterabrupt, highly non-linear, and potentially devastatingoutcomes for human wellbeing and life generally.

    The present era is distinguished by the fact that thesepressures are both global and local, and that they impingesimultaneously on several different crucial earth sys-tems, including the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles.Humanity faces not only one but many overlapping crisesof environmental sustainability, including: climate changeas the result of human-caused emissions of greenhousegases; massive environmental pollution (eg, the poisoningof estuaries and other ecosystems as a result of heavyrunoff of nitrogen-based and phosphorus-based fertil-isers); the acidification of the oceans, caused mainly by theincreased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide,which is the most important human-produced greenhousegas; the massive loss of biodiversity caused by unsustain-able demands on forests (eg, logging for timber or woodfuel; figure 1) and the continuing conversion of forestsand remaining wilderness into farms and pastures; andthe depletion of key fossil resources, including energy (oil,gas, coal) and groundwater.

    In view of these dire and unprecedented challenges,the need for urgent, high-profile, and change-producingglobal goals should be obvious. The public is beginning tosense that the increasing frequency of extreme climateevents is indicative of an underlying dangerous trendof long-term change. The detailed reports of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change have enabled theworld community to keep abreast of the latest scientific

    findings of anthropogenic interference in the climatesystem. Moreover, the growing burdens of high andvolatile food prices are confronting billions of people daily.

    Beyond the environmental threats, humanity facesother serious threats that are part of the sustainabledevelopment agenda. The human population continuesto grow rapidly, by around 7580 million people peryear, and is on a trajectory to reach 9 billion by themiddle of the 21st century, and even 10 billion by theend of the century. Even the medium forecast of the UNPopulation Division (which foresees a world populationof 101 billion in 2100) could well turn out to be low,since it is predicated on a rather steep decline in fertilityrates in low-income countries. These demographictrends have to be taken seriously, and households in

    high-fertility settings should be empowered to adopt

    rapid and voluntary reductions of fertility to benefitthemselves, their children, and the local and globaleconomy and environment.

    The combination of a rising world population andrapidly rising incomes per person in large emergingeconomies such as China and India suggests that thedemand for food grains and feed grains will continue toincrease, amplified by rising meat consumption in theemerging economies, against a backdrop of around1 billion people who are already chronically hungry, mainlyin Africa and south Asia. In the past two decades, many ofthe key yield-raising technologies of the green revolutionhave run their course; increases in productivity of food andfeed grains have slowed worldwide. A substantial share of

    US maize production has been diverted into biofuel.Increased grain production is increasingly diffi cult, andthreatens continued destruction of natural habitats,climate change, water stress, increased fertiliser pollution,decrease in biodiversity, and more. Social outcomes couldbe deeply destabilising, because sharp increases in foodprices threaten to push hundreds of millions of people intochronic hunger.

    Another set of challenges surrounds social inclusionor, put more simply, fairnessin the worlds economies.As the world has been stumbling through the intenseperiod of globalisation since 1980, together with theadvent of the digital age, inequalities in income havegenerally soared. Gaps in earnings between workers withhigher education and those without have widened sharply.The wages of highly educated and well trained workershave grown substantially, whereas earnings of lower-skilled workers with fewer years of education have tendedto decrease. The fragility of gainful employment for largeparts of the worlds labour force, in both rich and poorcountries, has contributed to increased public unrest(figure 2) and even the toppling of governments in thepast few turbulent years, with more unrest expected.

    Of course, the increased inequality caused by differencesin educational attainment adds to longstanding inequalitiesin other dimensions. The goal of gender equality betweenmen and women and boys and girls (MDG 3) has not yet

    Figure 1: Illegal logging near Anapu, Par, Brazil

    Corbis

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    been met worldwide, even though some progress has beenmade on girls school enrolment and womens participationin politics and business. Minority groups (ethnic, religious,racial) continue to endure hardships in all countries.Longstanding discrimination against indigenous popu-lations is stark and in many places intensifying as ascramble for jobs, water, and arable land increases. Youthalso find themselves aggrieved. They have arrived on theplanet at a time of remarkable technological advancement,notably in digital, material, and health technologies, butseemingly also at a time when technological advance isthreatening the access of many people to good jobs ratherthan enhancing it.

    The triple bottom line plus good governanceThe MDGs were targets mainly for poor countries, towhich rich countries were to add their solidarity andassistance through finances and technology. The SDGswill, necessarily, have a different feel about them.Sustainable development is eluding the entire planet.The SDGs should therefore pose goals and challenges forall countriesnot what the rich should do for the poor,but what all countries together should do for the globalwellbeing of this generation and those to come. Middle-income emerging economies, such as Brazil, China,India, and others, will be crucial leaders of the SDGs,

    and will have their own internal challenges of balancinggrowth and environmental sustainability; vulnerabilitiesto adverse trends such as climate change; and risinggeopolitical roles, regionally and globally.

    I would propose organisation of the SDGs into thethree broad categories of economic development,environmental sustainability, and social inclusion, withthe proviso that success in any of these three categories(or subcategories within them) will almost surely dependon success of all three. The SDGs might have threebottom lines, but achievement of any of them is likely toneed concerted global efforts to achieve all of them.Moreover, the three bottom lines will depend on a fourthcondition: good governance at all levels, local, national,regional, and global.

    The economic dimension should build on the MDGs,

    which have helped to advance the worlds agenda inthe fight against poverty, hunger, and disease. Between2015 and 2030, the world should aim not merely toachieve the MDGs where they have not been met, but tocarry on with the task initiated at the very start of the UNitself (and represented in the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights): to secure the basic material needsandhuman rightsof everybody on the planet. To declarethat by 2030, all extreme deprivationhunger, extremeincome poverty, and avoidable disease and deathscanbe eliminated is both realistic and profound. Allindividuals should be able to access safe water (figure 3)and sanitation, electricity, connection to information andcommunication technology (figure 4), and primary health

    care, and be protected from natural hazards. Many placeswill remain poor, but no place should be destitute, unableto meet these basic needs.

    A key challenge is to adopt a meaningful standard ofbasic needs worldwide. I would propose the following goal.

    SDG 1: by 2030, if not earlier, all the worlds peoplewill have access to safe and sustainable water andsanitation, adequate nutrition, primary health services,and basic infrastructure, including electricity, roads, andconnectivity to the global information network.

    This target might seem optimistic, but it is well withinreach. Technological advances and economic growth aremaking it possible. One of the notable facts about povertynowadays is that well over half of the 1 billion people witha low income are living in middle-income countries,which means that they are living in societies with thefinancial and technological means to address theirremaining poverty (as Brazil and China have effectivelyand notably done in recent years). Although hundreds ofmillions of impoverished people still live in the leastdeveloped countries, they are a dwindling proportion ofthe worlds poorest people, such that small financial andtechnological transfers from high-income and middle-income countries can alleviate their plight.

    The second pillar is environmental sustainability,usefully conceptualised by the global planetary boundaries.

    SDG 2: from 2015 to 2030, all nations will adopt economicstrategies that increasingly build on sustainable best-practice technologies, appropriate market incentives, andindividual responsibility. The world will move togethertowards low-carbon energy systems, sustainable foodsystems, sustainable urban areas (including resilience inthe face of growing hazards), and stabilisation of theworlds population through the voluntary fertility choicesof families supported by health services and education.Countries will adopt a pace of change during these15 years, individually and with global cooperation, thatwill enable humanity to avoid the most dangerousplanetary thresholds. The world community will helplow-income countries to bear the additional costs thatthey might entail in adoption of sustainable systems for

    energy, agriculture, and other sectors.

    Figure 2: Greek workers demonstrating against job losses

    BenCurtis/AP/PressAssociationImages

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    I have put the emphasis on the main drivers of human-

    induced global environmental change: energy use,food production, urbanisation with its attendant pollu-tion and potential hazards, and population increase.Food production, for example, is a major driver not onlyof greenhouse gas emissions, but also of the loss ofbiodiversity and increasing stress on fresh water supplies.If humanity can address these drivers of change in arespectful, civilised, balanced, and evidence-basedmanner, through appropriate economic institutions,these challenges will be large but achievable. If theseissues continue to be ignored, they will eventuallybecome calamitous. In my view, none of the environ-mental dangers constitutes a fundamental obstacle toclose the technology and income gaps between high-

    income and low-income countries. In other words, withimproved technologies and behavioural choices, bothdevelopment and nature can coexist. SDG 2, as statedabove, begs many questions, especially as to who willhelp low-income countries to accomplish what the high-income countries have not yet even accepted.

    The third broad SDG is social inclusion, the commit-ment to future economic and technological progressunder conditions of fairness and equitable access topublic services, and with the government counteractingsocial discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnic origin,religion, and race.

    SDG 3: every country will promote the wellbeing and

    capabilities of all their citizens, enabling all citizens toreach their potential, irrespective of class, gender,ethnic origin, religion, or race. Every country willmonitor the wellbeing of its citizenry with improvedmeasurements and reporting of life satisfaction.Special attention will be given to early childhood, youth,and elderly people, addressing the vulnerabilities andneeds of each age cohort.

    A particular focus should be on early childhooddevelopment (ages 06 years), the period of crucial braindevelopment, formation of cognitive skills, and vitalhealth outcomes, all of which have important lifetimeimplications. Special care should also be taken forchildren (aged 614 years) and youth (aged 1524 years),

    especially girls, to ensure that all young people cancomplete secondary education and make an effectivetransition from school to skills to the labour market. In aworld where 12% of the population, and 22% of that ofmore developed regions, will be older than 65 years by2030, new targeted programmes and social protectionswill be needed for elderly people in many countries.

    Traditional measures of economic performancenamely, gross domestic product and household incomecapture only a small part of what determines humanwellbeing. Human happiness, life satisfaction, and thefreedom from suffering depend on many things inaddition to meeting of material needs, including socialtrust, honest government, empowerment in the work-place, mental health services, and a high level of civic

    participation. Many countries are adopting new metricsto measure these determinants of wellbeing and tomeasure their ultimate bottom line: life satisfaction ofthe population. Bhutan has inspired the world with itsmeasure of gross national happiness. During the 15 yearsof the SDGs, all governments should agree to introducenew multidimensional measures of citizen wellbeingand the distribution of wellbeing in the population.

    Governance for sustainable developmentA fourth basic determinant of the worlds ability toachieve SDGs 13 will be the quality of governance atall levels, from local to global, and in the private sector aswell as government. At every level, government andoffi cial agencies should be responsive to the citizenry.Companies need to recognise and act on theirresponsibility to a wide range of stakeholders. Together,the worlds governments should cooperate to finance andprovide essential public goods and protect the interestsof future generations from the short-sighted despoliationcaused by the present generation. I would thereforesuggest the following SDG.

    SDG 4: governments at all levels will cooperate topromote sustainable development worldwide. Thistarget includes a commitment to the rule of law, humanrights, transparency, participation, inclusion, and sound

    economic institutions that support the private, public,and civil-society sectors in a productive and balancedmanner. Power is held in trust to the people, not as aprivilege of the state.

    Governments represent not only todays generation, butalso those to come. They will introduce politicalinstitutions to ensure that the rights of future generationsare respected. Societies will promote the notion ofsubsidiarityie, that governance should be as close tothe people as functionally possible, giving individualsand families maximum freedom of action. Governmentswill share information, exchange ideas, encouragemeetings and brainstorming, and work in good faithacross cultures. They will also shape a new sustainableand decent approach towards human migration,

    Figure 3: Pupils in India drinking rainwater from an underground store

    DieterTelemans/PanosPictures

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    recognising the growing economic and environmental

    pressures on people to leave their homelands, andprotecting the rights of migrants to resettle their familiesand meet their basic needs.

    Sustainability requires the leadership and responsibilityof the private sector alongside the public sector and civilsociety. The private sector is the main productive sectorof the world economy, and the holder of much of theadvanced technologies and management systems thatwill be crucial for success of the SDGs. Private-sectorcompanies should support the SDGs in practical andmeasurable ways, in their policies, production processes,and engagement with stakeholders. They should refrainfrom lobbying and political activities that might endangerthe SDGs.

    Offi cial development assistance will have a continuingrole for low-income countries during 201530, but therole of aid will decline as todays low-income countriesreach middle-income status as the result of economicgrowth. Private philanthropy and volunteering will beencouraged. All but the poorest countries will share inthe financing of global public goods, in relation to theirrespective economic capacities and according to theprinciple of common but differentiated responsibilities.Offi cial financing for the public goods of sustainabledevelopment will be based on secure, predictable, andagreed formulas to end the non-fulfilment of financialpledges. Governments will join together to implementinternational strategies and institutions to ensure theeffective and rapid diffusion of technologies that supportsustainable development.

    Some lessons learned from the MDGsThe SDGs can benefit from both the successes andthe shortfalls of the MDGs. The successes are notable.Unlike many UN goals, the MDGs are still very muchwith us almost 12 years after their adoption. Thiscommitment is rare. I believe that three strengths of theMDGs can explain the longevity of public support andawareness. First, the MDGs were reasonably easy tostateeight simple goals that fitted well on one poster!By contrast, Agenda 21, adopted at the UN conference in

    Rio de Janeiro in 1992, runs to 351 pages. These eight

    goals were what stuck in the publics mind, not the18 targets and 48 indicators. Simplicity has workedeffectively in this case from the point of view of publicawareness, mobilisation, advocacy, and continuity.

    Second, the MDGs were not a legally binding set ofcommitments, but rather a set of moral and practicalcommitments. Little time was lost negotiating the exactwords of the MDGs. Legally binding commitments arealmost universally regarded as the gold standard ofinternational diplomacy, but the number of years thatare often invested in reaching legally binding treatieson sustainable development are unlikely to counter-balance the heavy transaction costs and delays. Evenwhen legally binding agreements are reached (as in the

    case of the Kyoto Protocol), they are often ignored inpractice because of the absence of effective enforcementmechanisms.

    Third, the MDGs could be pursued through practicaland specific measures adopted by governments, busi-ness, and civil societies worldwide. I do not want tooverstate the casemany of the MDGs will not be met inmany countriesyet much progress has been achieved,and the practical nature of the MDGs has played apowerful part in that success.

    As Special Advisor for the MDGs, I have alwaysemphasised very specific and actionable measures as thekeys to success. The UN Millennium Project, which Iwas honoured to lead, subtitled its report A practical planto achieve the MDGs.1 The studies in that project describedmany practical technologiesfrom antimalaria bednetsto high-yield seedsthat taken together could providethe basis for achievement of the MDGs.

    The MDGs have also had their share of weaknesses,and these should be recognised to improve theperformance of the SDGs that will follow. I will mentionfour domains in which the SDGs should improve uponthe organisation of the MDG effort. First, the 15-yearMDG period had no intermediate milestones. The15 years of the SDGs should include intermediateobjectives and milestones with clear dates. 15 years is agood stretch for serious policy making, but intermediate

    stages along the way would ensure closer feedbackbetween policies and outcomes.

    Second, the lifeblood of the MDGs and the SDGsshould be data that are accurate, timely, and available tomanagers, policy makers, and the public. One of thebiggest drawbacks of the MDGs is that the data areoften years out of date. Accurate published informationfrom the past 12 months is still not available for mostlow-income countries. This timelag was inevitablewhen data were obtained by hand in household surveys,but in the age of the mobile phone, wireless broadband,and remote sensing, data collection should be vastlyquicker. Governments should consciously invest in areal-time reporting system for the SDGs to producereliable data with no more than a yearly, if not quarterly,Figure 4: Nurse in a rural hospital in Nyamata, Rwanda

    SvenTorfinn/Panos

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    timelag. This investment would vastly strengthen

    programmes in several ways: advocacy, feedback, andreal-time management.Third, the private sector should be crucially engaged

    from the very start. Neither the MDGs nor the SDGs willbe achieved without the leadership of private companies,large and small. Multinational companies bring uniquestrengths: a worldwide reach, cutting-edge technologies,and massive capacity to reach large-scale solutions,which are all essential to success. Yes, many largecompanies are also lobbyists for policies antagonistic tosustainable development, so engagement with businesshas to be done cautiously, but it should also be active,forward-looking, and intensive.

    Fourth, and finally, the success of the SDGs will need

    societies worldwide to invest adequately in their success.Sustainable development is the only viable path forhumanity, but it will not be achieved unless a small partof consumption spending is turned into investmentsfor long-term survival. The investments for sustainabledevelopment (eg, transition to low-carbon energy sys-tems) will not be heavy, certainly not compared with themassive costs if no investment is made. I have previouslyestimated that meeting the major goals of povertyreduction, biodiversity conservation, climate changemitigation, and primary health for all would needperhaps 23% of global income.2 That small amount, ifproperly invested, would be transformative.

    The MDGs relied on voluntary financing mechanisms,notably the foreign aid outlays voted by each parliament.Experience has shown that free riding on financialassistance is the norm, not the exception. Only a handfulof countries have abided by their promises to give 07%of their gross domestic product as offi cial developmentassistance. Even specific, timebound pledges (such as thepledge at the G8 Gleneagles summit in 2005 to doubleoffi cial development assistance to Africa) were not met.

    The SDGs should be more focused and realistic withregard to financing than were the MDGs. Rather thanrelying on so-called aid voluntarism, in which countriesannounce their individual aid promises (and then fail tohonour them in most cases), countries should agree to

    transparent and specific standards of financing, such asquotas and assessments (eg, International Monetary Fundquotas and UN dues) related to national incomes, andlevies on national greenhouse gas emissions (eg, a fewdollars per ton of carbon dioxide emitted per year). Thesums are small, manageable, and essential for success.

    Technology, the private sector, and critical pathways tosustainable developmentWhen it comes to elimination of extreme poverty, the mainstrategy is to expand the reach of crucial technolo-gies (including medicines, diagnostics, electrification,high-yield seeds, and internet) from high-income and

    middle-income economies to low-income economies.

    Meeting the SDGs will be different. The world will neednew technologies and new ways to organise humanactivity to combine improving living standards andecological imperatives. Technological and social changewill be paramount, in both rich and poor countries alike.

    For this reason, the SDGs need the identification of newcritical pathways to sustainability. Moving to a low-carbonenergy system, for example, will need an intricate globalinterplay of research and development, public investmentsin infrastructure (such as high-voltage direct currenttransmission grids for long-distance power transmission),private investments in renewable power generation, andnew strategies for regulation and urban design. The taskis phenomenally complex. Market-based strategies (such

    as carbon taxation) can help to simplify the policychallenge by steering private decisions in the rightdirection, but politics, planning, and complex decisionmaking by many stakeholders will be unavoidable.

    The SDGs will therefore need the unprecedentedmobilisation of global knowledge operating across manysectors and regions. Governments, international insti-tutions, private business, academia, and civil society willneed to work together to identify the critical pathways tosuccess, in ways that combine technical expertise anddemocratic representation. Global problem-solving net-works for sustainable developmentin energy, food,urbanisation, climate resilience, and other sectorswill therefore become crucial new institutions in theyears ahead.

    New social media and information technology havegiven the world an unprecedented opportunity forinclusive, global-scale problem solving around themain sustainable development challenges. Scientists,technologists, civil society activists and others areincreasingly turning to online networks for collaboration,crowdsourcing, group problem solving, and open-sourcesolutions such as for software and applications. Thepathways to sustainable development will not beidentified through a top-down approach, but through ahighly energised era of networked problem solvingthat engages the worlds universities, businesses, non-

    governmental organisations, governments, and espe-cially young people, who should become the experts andleaders of a new and profoundly challenging era.

    Conflicts of interest

    The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest.

    Acknowledgments

    I thank Guido Schmidt-Traub, Shiv Someshwar, Erin Trowbridge,Joanna Rubinstein, Lauren Barredo, and Claire Bulger.

    References1 UN Millennium Project. Investing in development: a practical plan

    to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. New York: UnitedNations, 2005.

    2 Sachs JD. Common wealth: economics for a crowded planet. NewYork: Penguin Press, 2008.