Development after 2030: More cooperation, less competition?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represented a key milestone in cooperation and a shared agenda to address global challenges across scales and geographies.

However, despite initial optimism that measurable targets would promote accountability and transparency in development, progress towards realizing the targets has been mixed. Global development programs are increasingly faced with the challenges of intensification of climate change, the return of populism and ethno-nationalism, and the deepening of inequalities on a national and international scale.

This article asks what priorities must underpin a critical post-SDG development agenda. To think about this, we first examine three questions of the development agenda: 1) can development be sustainable? 2) Can development be implemented through markets? And 3) can development be "global"? To deal with this tension and take the first step towards a more critical post-2030 agenda, we call for a focus on spaces, multiplicities and historical elements of development. (University of Sheffield, more at liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk)