2015 is the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. There has been a lot of progress done in some areas, but major challenges remain.
At the Rio+20 conference world leaders agreed to draft a new set of goals for post-2015 development, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This Discussion Brief, developed together with SEI’s Research Associate Nina Weitz, examines how the SDGs process to date has addressed issues related to food security, sustainable agriculture and nutrition, and identifies areas where SIANI’s contributions would be most valuable.
The SDGs have a broader scope than the MDGs and take a different approach. While the MDGs applied only to low-income countries, the SDGs aim to be universally applicable and take a more integrated approach to social, economic and environmental issues. The SDGs are also meant to set “transformative” targets that address the root causes of poverty and systemic barriers to sustainable development.
The MDGs addressed food security in Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and covered other issues relevant to agriculture and rural development in Goals 7 and 8, on environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development. However, it did not specifically address agriculture.
The SDGs are being drafted through a process led by the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG), which has been tasked with developing a proposal for the UN Secretary General. In parallel, stakeholder consultations at the global and national levels, and numerous workshops, statements and reports by UN and non-governmental organizations, think tanks and academics are also helping shape the agenda. The OWG’s third meeting, in May 2013, included in-depth discussions on food security and nutrition and on sustainable agriculture, and several more SDG inputs since have focused on those issues.
Read the Discussion Brief (PDF 206 KB)