Officially known us Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, are an intergovernmental set of aspiration Goals with 169 targets. The Goals are contained in paragraph 54 United Nations Resolution A/RES/70/1 of 25 September 2015. The Resolution is a broader intergovernmental agreement that, while acting as the Post 2015 Development Agenda (successor to the Millennium Development Goals), builds on the Principles agreed upon under Resolution A/RES/66/288, popularly known as The Future We Want!

On 19 July 2014, the UN General Assembly’s Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) forwarded a proposal for the SDGs to the Assembly. The proposal contained 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues. These included ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests. On 5 December 2014, the UN General Assembly accepted the Secretary-General’s Synthesis Report which stated that the agenda for the post-2015 SDG process would be based on the OWG proposals.

The Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post 2015 Development Agenda (IGN) began in January 2015 and ended in August 2015. Following the negotiations, a final document was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit September 25–27, 2015 in New York, USA. The title of the agenda is Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

 Background

The history of the SDGs can be traced to 1972 when governments met under the auspices of the United Nations Human and Environment Conference, to consider the rights of the human family to a healthy and productive environment. It was not until 1983 that the United Nations agreed to create the World Commission on Environment and Development as an independent body of the UN. In 1992 the first United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio. It was here that the first agenda for Environment and Development was developed and adopted, also known as Agenda 21.

Twenty years later, at the Rio+20 Conference, a resolution, known us The Future We Want was reached by member states. Among the key themes agreed on were on poverty eradication, energy, water and sanitation, health, and human settlement. Paragraph 246 of the Future We Want outcome document forms the link between the Rio+20 agreement and the Millennium Development Goals: “We recognize that the development of goals could also be useful for pursuing focused and coherent action on sustainable development. The goals should address and incorporate in a balanced way all three dimensions of sustainable development (environment, economics, and society) and their interlinkages. The development of these goals should not divert focus or effort from the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals”. Paragraph 249 states that, “the process needs to be coordinated and coherent with the processes to consider the post-2015 development agenda.”

Taken together, these two paragraphs paved the way to bring together the development agenda centered on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, and the agreement under the Future We Want outcome document. The Rio+20 summit also agreed that the process of designing sustainable development goals, should be “action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature and universally applicable to all countries while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities”.

The MDGs were supposed to be achieved by 2015. A further process was needed to agree and develop development goals from 2015-2030. Discussion on the post-2015 framework for international development began well in advance, with the United Nations System Task Team on Post 2015 Development Agenda releasing the first report known as Realizing the Future We Want the Report was the first attempt to achieve the requirements under paragraph 246 and 249 of the Future We Want Outcome Document. It identified four dimensions as part of a global vision for sustainable development: Inclusive Social Development, Environmental Sustainability, Inclusive Economic Development, and Peace and Security. Other processes included the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Post 2015 Development Agenda,^[14] whose report was submitted to the Secretary General in 2013.

The goals

Further information: Post-2015 Development Agenda

On 25 September 2015, the 193 countries of the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Development Agenda titled Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Following the adoption, UN agencies, under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Group, decided to support a campaign by several independent entities, among them corporate institutions and International Organizations. The Campaign, known as Project Everyone,^[16] introduced the term Global Goals and is intended to help communicate the agreed Sustainable Development Goals to a wider constituency. However the decision to support what is an independent campaign, without the approval of the member states, has met resistance^[17] from several sections of civil society and governments, who accuse the UNDG of ignoring the most important communication aspect of the agreement: Sustainability. There are also concerns that Global Goals is a term used to refer to several other processes that are not related to the United Nations.

The Official Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted on 25 September 2015 has 92 paragraphs, with the main paragraph (51) outlining the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and its associated 169 targets. This included the following goals:

1. Poverty – End poverty in all its forms everywhere Targets.
2. Hunger and Food Security – End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture Targets.
3. Good Health and Well-Being – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages Targets.
4. Education – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all Targets.
5. Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls Targets.
6. Water and Sanitation – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all Targets.
7. Energy – Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and clean energy for all Targets.
8. Economic Growth – Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all Targets.
9. Infrastructure, Industrialization – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation Targets.
10. Inequality – Reduce inequality within and among countries Targets.
11. Cities – Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable^[30] Targets.
12. Sustainable Consumption and Production – Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns Targets.
13. Climate Change – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts Targets.
14. Oceans – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development Targets.
15. Biodiversity, Forests, Deforestation – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss Targets.
16. Peace and Justice – Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels^[ Targets.
17. Partnerships – Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development Targets.

As of August 2015, there were 169 proposed targets for these goals and 304 proposed indicators to show compliance.