17 new Sustainable Development Goals are being adopted at a UN Summit starting today.

The SDGs apply to all countries — not just the so-called ‘developing world’ — and put sustainability centre stage. Could the new goals provide a chance to reshape global development?
 

5 views on the new global goals

STEPS Director Ian Scoones looks back at the partial successes of the Millennium Development Goals, and suggests 5 ways in which the new goals might achieve lasting change for the better.

SDGs: time to rethink energy infrastructure?

A Sustainable Development Goal on infrastructure, industrialization and innovation could provoke new ideas on how people get access to energy. Adrian Ely asks if off-grid, distributed systems could now seriously challenge the logic of centralized-energy infrastructures.

Achieving sustainable development means no goal leaving gender behind

Goal 5 of the SDGs offers the chance to embed gender equality into transformative approaches to sustainable development. Melissa Leach argues that gender is vital for the whole SDG agenda, which should address and challenge the power relations and structures that create and sustain discrimination.

Rethinking Africa’s sustainable development pathways

Many countries in Africa have struggled to make progress on sustainable development, despite much investment and effort. In this post, Joanes Atela suggests that a transformative agenda for Africa should pay attention to resource politics, equity and inclusion.

Giving flesh to the science and innovation we need to see

Science, technology and innovation are vital to development and poverty reduction. But in the rush toward exporting high-tech inventions, there has not been enough emphasis on actors in developing countries. IDS research fellow Ben Ramalingam looks at how the SDGs might provoke a rethink.
 

More on the SDGs

Browse our special feature on the Sustainable Development Goals for a list of key books, papers and resources from the STEPS Centre.

Hot topic: Sustainable Development Goals