The World We Want - Beyond 2015 - A Toolkit for National Deliberations

The MDGs emerged at a time of relative stability, prosperity and coherence. Western economies were on the rise, the G7 was a dominant force in international diplomacy, and consensus on development issues had been building throughout the 1990s, especially in relation to the economies of Western Europe, North America and South-East Asia. The conditions were relatively good for forging agreement on global targets for development. Even then it took some ten years to develop and negotiate the original MDG framework. During the last decade, the MDGs framework has galvanised unprecedented support from numerous stakeholders, including Governments and civil society, and the Goals have helped to save the lives of millions of men, women and children as well as lifting millions of people out of poverty. In contrast, the financial crisis has rocked faith in long-established economic thinking, international power has become more diffuse and multi-polar, and climate change promises difficult times ahead. The post-2015 conversation is taking place at a moment of multiple crises and instability - and in a fiscally and natural resource-constrained world. The politics of development has changed significantly since the Millennium Declaration in 2000, and there have been major changes in the balance of global power. The distribution of poverty and inequality across the world is shifting, and the tools and actors addressing development challenges have changed. Many of the world’s poorest now live in middle income economies, climate change threatens much of the progress that has been achieved and inequality has deepened significantly since the MDGs were first agreed.