World leaders meet at UN headquarters in New York to adopt 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will be directed at ending extreme poverty and addressing climate change by 2030.
The 17 SDGs replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000. Some advocacy groups fear the SDGs will be a mix of recycled old commitments and vaguely formulated new ones. In Nov 2014, the UN appointed Ireland and Kenya to lead the international SDG negotiations.
Intergovernmental preparatory meetings are underway, and advocacy groups are weighing-in on what should be included in the SDGs. Their demands include the right to universal family planning, the closing of tax havens for the rich and the transfer of technology to the world's least developed countries. A Technology Bank has been proposed. Demands from some quarters include making the SDGs measurable.
The MDGs were adopted at what the UN describes as the largest gathering of world leaders in history.
Date written/update: 2014-07-24