Post-2015 agenda: mission impossible?

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have stirred people and mobilized actors into action to foster human well-being. Most stakeholders want a similar agenda beyond 2015. The article argues that a post-2015 agenda fit for the purpose is not ‘mission impossible’. Yet, it will require that some prerequisites are fulfilled which are currently being circumvented. Most importantly, two vital questions have to be answered regarding the ultimate purpose of global targets and whether the post-2015 agenda will be universal in scope or merely an extension of the existing global deal. Member states will also have to clarify the time horizon of the new agenda, its structure, its level of ambition, the benchmarks to be used, the integration of cross-cutting issues, as well as how to capture growing inequalities. Although they may seem technical in scope, most are political in nature. If stakeholders continue to focus on the list of global targets, the outcome of their negotiations will be either an overloaded agenda or no agenda at all. Each stakeholder has to choose between keeping the DNA of the MDGs intact – i.e. clear, concise, computable – or venturing into genetic modification that risks turning into an unending and fuzzy wish list.