MDGs and SDGs: Are the concepts compatible?

For the last 20 years, the international development debate has been dominated by two trends that seem, at first, to be heading in a similar direction. However, under closer scrutiny, they differ with respect to their focus and underlying philosophies. On the one hand, there is the agenda of reducing poverty in developing countries in its various dimensions, which found its expression in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). On the other hand, there is the idea of sustainability that became popular at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and that, at the Rio+20 summit in 2012, generated a parallel concept to the MDGs: the so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development