Analysis Of The Evolution And Influence Of The UN Post-2015Development Agenda

This dissertation agrees with the definition of “development” from CriticalDevelopment Studies which regards “development” as a dominant discourse ofWestern modernity. The development discourse spreads Western development ideaand knowledge through problematisation, professionalization and institutionalization.And the UN played an important role in the process of professionalization andinstitutionalization due to historical background. In this process, problematization ofpoverty and problematization of environment spawned Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Agenda. And these two agendas formsthe basis of the post-2015UN development agenda.This dissertation analyzes the evolution of the the UN post-2015developmentagenda. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the new process ofinstitutionalization of sustainable development discourse was firstly proposed inRio+20, and then received a lot of attention. However, the environment forsustainable development discourse has changed with the rise of developing countries.In the process of the formulation of SDGs, there are divergences between developedcountries and developing countries from the principle to specific targets andindicators. And the divergences determines the direction of post-2015UNdevelopment agenda. Based on this, the new agenda has3distinct trends: the changeof core development discourse, the exclusive compression of the formulation process,the stricter monitoring mechanism and more blurred boundaries of internationaldevelopment interventions. These trends will directly affect the participation strategyof the government both in developed and developing countries in short term.