Focused Actions to Reduce Poverty

OVER THE NEXT 15 years, a rough calculation suggests that at least $2.5 trillion will be spent on development assistance. Where this spending goes will largely be dictated by 169 development targets that the United Nations has endorsed for the next decade and a half. Next week, government ministers will return to New York to discuss the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda, amid growing recognition of the headache of trying to pursue so many different well-meaning ambitions at once.

Three years have passed since world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 169 targets that must be reached to transform the planet. We are one-fifth of our way towards 2030, but miles behind on achieving the lofty goals to reduce poverty, increase prosperity, protect the planet and advance peace.

At the end of this month, one of the most consequential political conferences of the decade will take place, with more than 150 world leaders gathering in New York to set the path for global development spending – more than $2.5 trillion – between now and 2030. But, in fact, heads of state are not expected to do much at the conference at all. With the so-called Agenda for Sustainable Development having been quietly finalized by diplomats and United Nations bureaucrats last month, the leaders are expected just to smile for the cameras and sign on the dotted line.