The world’s development blueprint for the next 15 years is now just one step away from becoming fully operational.
On Sunday, 193 U.N. member states came to an agreement on the sustainable development goals, the post-2015 priorities that will be adopted at the global body’s annual meeting in September in New York.
The post-2015 development agenda, a product of nearly three years of intense negotiations, contains nine more goals than the expiring Millennium Development Goals. While critics claim the 17 goals and 169 targets are too many and too unwieldy to be implemented effectively, many experts also say these SDGs are more comprehensive and more ambitious than the MDGs.