The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are time-bound development targets that address

many dimensions of poverty, such as hunger, disease, inadequate water supplies and lack of
education. The eight Goals place additional responsibility on the international community to
assist, particularly in the areas of trade, aid, debt, and access to essential drugs and technologies.
The high-level political commitment, the focus on a set number of issues and the creation of a
framework for measuring progress have catapulted the MDGs onto centre stage in the
development arena. Progress has been made on some of the targets, but the gaps remain daunting

The MDGs resulted in significant advances in multiple areas critical for the welfare of
populations and environmental sustainability. The process of implementation of the MDGs also
taught us valuable lessons, showing the limitations of the existing framework but also providing
numerous examples of how effective progress can be achieved. There is a need to build on what
we have learnt and on past achievements to tackle the much more comprehensive and ambitious
2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. A critical aspect of this Agenda is that it allows
addressing the different factors that drive progress in an integrated manner. This defines new and
broader policy spaces requiring much closer coordination to seize the opportunities for
transformation. While governments are strengthening mechanisms for intersectoral coordination,
the UN system, including at the regional level, has also been developing new initiatives and
using existing instruments for coordination to facilitate the implementation of the SDGs. Silos
need to be broken and all stakeholders need to be involved. By working together, we will be able
to deliver on the promise of the SDGs, a future that leaves no one behind.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The objective
was to produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political
and economic challenges facing our world.

The SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which started a
global effort in 2000 to tackle the indignity of poverty. The MDGs established
measurable, universally-agreed objectives for tackling extreme poverty and hunger,
preventing deadly diseases, and expanding primary education to all children, among
other development priorities.

For 15 years, the MDGs drove progress  in several important areas: reducing income
poverty, providing much needed access to water and sanitation, driving down child
mortality and drastically improving maternal health. They also kick-started a global
movement for free primary education, inspiring countries to invest in their future
generations. Most significantly, the MDGs made huge strides in combatting
HIV/AIDS and other treatable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

The legacy and achievements of the MDGs provide us with valuable lessons and experience to
begin work on the new goals. But for millions of people around the world the job remains
unfinished. We need to go the last mile on ending hunger, achieving full gender equality,
improving health services and getting every child into school beyond primary. The SDGs are
also an urgent call to shift the world onto a more sustainable path.
The SDGs are a bold commitment to finish what we started, and tackle some of the more
pressing challenges facing the world today. All 17 Goals interconnect, meaning success in one
affects success for others. Dealing with the threat of climate change impacts how we manage our
fragile natural resources, achieving gender equality or better health helps eradicate poverty, and
fostering peace and inclusive societies will reduce inequalities and help economies prosper. In
short, this is the greatest chance we have to improve life for future generations.

The SDGs coincided with another historic agreement reached in 2015 at the COP21 Paris
Climate Conference. Together with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, signed in
Japan in March 2015, these agreements provide a set of common standards and achievable
targets to reduce carbon emissions, manage the risks of climate change and natural disasters, and
to build back better after a crisis.

The SDGs are unique in that they cover issues that affect us all. They reaffirm our international
commitment to end poverty, permanently, everywhere. They are ambitious in making sure no
one is left behind. More importantly, they involve us all to build a more sustainable, safer, more
prosperous planet for all humanity.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a set of
objectives within a universal agreement to end poverty, protect all that makes the planet habitable,
and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity, now and in the future. The Goals were adopted
by all member states of United Nations formally in 2015, for the period 2016–30 to address the
overwhelming empirical and scientific evidence that the world needs a radically more sustainable
approach. The goals provide a well consulted framework that is sufficiently scientifically robust,
politically acceptable, and publicly intuitive. The goals provide us with our best chance of ensuring
the necessary collaboration and alignment as we implement global approaches to securing a fair,
healthy and prosperous future for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. Although the 17 goals
(Table 1) are supported by targets and indicators (see Table 2 for those associated, for example, with
Goal 2) the key learning is that all the goals are intimately interconnected—a failure to appreciate
this will perpetuate an approach which will be non-aligned at best and highly ineffective at worst.
Secondly, despite the intuitive nature of interventions that deliver both immediate and long-term ‘co-
benefits’ (such as sustainable transport and food systems, or better access to green space), there is a
worrying lack of generalizable, quantifiable evidence on the levels of benefit that appeals to policy
makers, scientists or practitioners. This inhibits our vision and courage to act in those areas where we
should be more specific about health, social and economic benefits. At a global level, we should use
the SDGs to highlight the inter-linkage between goals and champion the specific and collaborative
actions that create multiple and beneficial outcomes for shared purpose.

The SDGs are expected to promote efforts to resolve or ameliorate issues that have not been
resolved under the MDGs, and also to set universal goals and targets for new and emerging
issues. With the aim of realizing human security, JICA will continue contributing to the
establishment of a new development framework in developing countries by building on and
extrapolating from its past support, which has focused on inclusive and resilient development
perspectives.
The Millennium Development Goals are the international community's most broadly shared, comprehensive and
focused framework for reducing poverty. Drawn from the Millennium Declaration, adopted and agreed to by all
Governments in 2000, the MDGs represent the commitments of United Nations Member States to reduce extreme
poverty and its many manifestations: hunger, disease, gender inequality, lack of education and access to basic
infrastructure, and environmental degradation.

The MDGs are inter-dependent; all the MDG influence health, and health influences all the MDGs. For
example, better health enables children to learn and adults to earn. Gender equality is essential to the
achievement of better health. Reducing poverty, hunger and environmental degradation positively
influences, but also depends on, better health.

The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more
sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including poverty,
inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. 

The newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize that global development
issues, including poverty and hunger, will not be solved without leadership.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The purpose was to
produce a set of universal goals that would help combat the urgent environmental,
political and economic challenges facing our world. Unlike their predecessor, the
Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs explicitly call on all businesses to apply their
creativity and innovation to solve sustainable development challenges.

‘The beauty of the goals is that everyone can contribute, and every contribution, small
or big, will make an impact on our world. In our industry, we have seen how the goals
have shaped the business environment, and for the better. The Paris Agreement alone
has helped open up US$ 23 trillion in business opportunities for emerging markets for
climate-smart investments.’

‘Working primarily in developing and transitional countries, we see the impact, both the
negative impact of the changing environment and the growing inequality, but also the
positive impact of the goals and how they are helping create better opportunities for the
local communities. We have to use this momentum and keep pushing towards
achieving the goals, so we can create a better world for us all.’