published on sdg.action.org, 15 June 2021
The challenge of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) puts the way in which we govern ourselves to the test. If we wanted to achieve the SDGs by 2030 by just using the governance structures of the pre-2015 world, we would end up in that world again, or even worse. For several years, our domestic political systems and the global governance architecture have been struggling to respond effectively to people’s changing needs and aspirations, as well as to present and future threats to our societies. The COVID-19 pandemic has further laid bare the deficiencies of how our societies, as well as humanity as a whole, deal with common and collective problems.