13 Conclusion: Key Challenges for Global Governance through Goals Frank Biermann and Norichika Kanie
As numerous commentators have suggested, 17 Sustainable Development Goals can be seen as an unprecedented step to advance and strengthen a novel type of governance that will guide and “orchestrate” public policies and private efforts over the next 15 years. While there have been predecessors—notably the Millennium Development Goals—the new Sustainable Development Goals are different and unique in their broad coverage and specific characteristics. Yet, as critics also rightfully pointed out, it is far too early to fully assess the eventual effectiveness of this new approach of setting global universal goals on sustainable development. At the time of this writing, the Sustainable Development Goals are barely one year old. In chapters 1–12 of this volume, our group has thus offered nothing more than a first analysis and assessment of the evolution, rationale, and future prospects of the Sustainable Development Goals as examples of a novel type of “governance through goals.” In this concluding chapter, we summarize some key findings of this volume, with a view to general implications for governance through goals as a novel mechanism of world politics. In addition, we discuss the challenges for, and opportunities of, the Sustainable Development Goals by identifying several conditions that might determine their successful implementation. We also suggest some possible avenues for further research. Governing through Goals As emphasized throughout this volume, the approach of “global governance through goals”—and the Sustainable Development Goals as a prime example—is marked by a number of key characteristics. None of those is specific to this type of governance. Yet all these characteristics together, in our view, amount to a unique and novel way of steering and distinct type of institutional arrangement in global governance.
