Looking for leadership

The story of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be ending about now, but I’m not sure it will ever really end. The idea was always that they would set a path toward a stronger, fairer, more sustainable world by 2030. At this stage we should just be ticking off the last few bits of unfinished business.

Progress absolutely has been made, and I’m thrilled that this publication showcases so much of it. But the idea of the SDGs as an agenda that will bring cohesion to global development efforts, not least because it was universally accepted, is fading. And yet with seemingly little interest in any kind of negotiation to replace the SDGs beginning until the age of Trump is behind us – if then – it may continue to be the platform that sets such direction as can be set for some time to come.

That direction is still largely unchanged and still broadly correct. But this is an agenda that was designed to be palatable to the forces of 2015 and also to contain within it the possibility for more dynamic action. Those forces are different now, and the appetite for greater ambition is lower.

The west has pivoted away from a development agenda, but neither the Global South, nor the middle powers, nor any would-be replacement hegemons, nor the uncomfortable amalgamation of all those things that is the BRICS has really stepped into the gap.

A weakened sense of direction 

Where do we go when we have such a weak sense of where we’re going? As Sheela Patel demonstrates in Why markets alone cannot solve the affordable housing crisis, markets can do much but they cannot do it intentionally, leaving gaps that require leadership to fill.

We see its absence in various ways. Emi Gui shows us in Science-based policymaking – bridging the gulf between promise and reality that even though the science is pretty clear, clear science does not lead to clear policy. Kate Levick and others make a compelling case for why climate action needs to be understood in terms of economic risk management – and yet it isn’t.

Meanwhile our leaders have been busy looting and slaughtering. The result, as Bineta Diop notes in Building the infrastructure for peace, is that peace agreements frequently do not lead to peace, while the humanitarian and conflict nexus remains as intractable as ever – although Asya Varbanova powerfully articulates in Empowering women during humanitarian crises gender can help to calibrate a reset.

If that picture feels bleak, it shouldn’t. The strength and diversity of work that continues to be undertaken, and the impact it has, is remarkable. But it is important to acknowledge and navigate the strong political headwinds such efforts must battle.

Self-interest or redistribution?

Opinions differ as to how best to do this, and there’s probably something to be said for a diversity of approaches. On the one hand: in a world of increasing hostility toward development from both donors and recipients it is increasingly tempting to reframe development as a matter of mutual self-interest. This offers the opportunity not only to increase the political palatability of development but also to hold a conversation about power and control: who directs development and in whose interests. While the short-term consequences of the west’s retreat from development have been severe, it does create a greater space for efforts to be truly led by and for polities in the Global South – something we have yet to meaningfully see.

Yet at the same time, as Adriana Abdenur reminds us, inequality is the defining challenge of our time. Tobias Schillings confirms this for health, in Coverage is not enough: why universal health coverage must tackle inequality. Indeed, inequality is the reason development is required in the first place. Thus, development must have a redistributive, maybe even a reparatory, element: if it does not result in wealth transfers from rich to poor both within, and critically between, states, then it does not meaningfully alter the world’s economy. At best it just accelerates the economy we have, inequalities and all. One can argue about the extent to which traditional development was ever truly redistributive of wealth. But if redistribution is not even an aspiration of the system that replaces it, there will be a low limit on the change it can bring.

There is an understandable caution around talking in such terms given the political climate. But there is a perhaps greater risk if, in an attempt to avoid censure in this polarized age, we use vague language to paper over meaningful,substantive political differences. As Phoebe Koundouri and others remind us in Is the European Green Deal’s vision still intact?, a strategy which tries to be all things to all people will ultimately end up satisfying none. Uncomfortable as the process may be, leadership in development – particularly given the challenging politics and the fact we are reaching the end of our roadmap – requires making difficult choices, not denying that we must.

There are several potential framings that are helpful here, although none will provide for all the answers. In Stopping polarization from destroying democracy, Jennifer McCoy suggests inspiring a politics that would generate such leadership through the framework of “targeted universalism.” Likewise, Molly Sharone and Isabel Hagbrink argue powerfully for the articulation of climate technology as a justice issue.

Who might step up?

Who could show that kind of leadership? Could it come from our much bruised but still standing multilateral system, particularly under a new Secretary-General, as Richard Gowan (in Can the UN still make peace?) and María Espinosa(in Why the UN needs women’s leadership) discuss? It’s not impossible, but it certainly cannot be taken for granted. States agree on candidates through a process that requires broad acceptability, as well as the approval of the five permanent members of the Security Council. That process has historically sided against, but not entirely prevented, such voices from emerging.

But as we wait to see who, if anyone, emerges from this process, and while we observe the vacuum of global political leadership and ambition, the articles in this publication stand in testament to the fact that practitioners can and will continue to deliver change against the odds. This type of thought leadership is creating a coherent, scientific foundation for true sustainable development. It also provides such direction as is to be provided until such time as political interest in a sustainable future is revived. And when it is, it will provide the framework for success.