A coherent analysis of poverty is absent from the 2030 Agenda. While the agenda does address redistribution, social rights, and resource consciousness, and makes important contributions to social protection and care policy, it makes only superficial reference to the need for regulating of the economy.
The 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty: New horizons for global social policy?
We welcome the currently very powerful movements to tax the super-rich and to cancel or re-finance public debt. Complementing this, we need to regulate large transnational corporations so that they comply with human rights conventions, apply international labour standards, and adhere to climate and biodiversity commitments along their entire value chains. Here the arguments for a UN-negotiated Treaty on business and human rights, which would be bolder than current national and regional due diligence legislation:
Ecofeminist perspectives: towards a UN treaty on business and human rights
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Transforming our World (United Nations, 2015) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 2015) commit to norms and principles of social inclusion – promising to ‘end poverty and hunger in all their forms and dimensions’ and to ‘leave no one behind’. Leaving no one behind has been understood in a universalist and rights-based interpretation as including all people on the planet in sustainable and just societies. That would indeed be transformative of the dominant socio-economic orders, which have been reproducing and cementing poverty, inequality and social exclusion throughout history. This edited volume offers some articles for reflection:
The Politics of Social Inclusion: Bridging Knowledge and Policies Towards Social Change
We have the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, and we have the UN Convention on the Eradication of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). What traction do these have in Germany? A study (in German) by Hannah Birkenkötter, Gabriele Köhler, Wolfgang Obenland und Anke Stock:
Blinder Fleck Gleichstellung
The UN Pact for the Future, adopted in 2024, is a follow-up as well as a reaffirmation of the 2030 Agenda. Here, a critical assessment by Albert Denk and Gabriele Köhler (in German)
Widersprüchlich, teils kontraproduktiv
The majority of the global population is not insured for ill health, accidents, old age, maternity leave, or unemployment. See my plaidoyer for universal social protection in The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2025, edited by Christoph Scherrer, Madeleine Moore and Marcel van der Linden (in your library). Also see some examples from South and Southeast Asia here:
The politics of rights-based, transformative social policy in South and Southeast Asia: The politics of rights-based, transformative social policy
Austerity measures are usually presented as necessary to tame debt. However, public goods and services need adequate funding at the national level. Here some ideas (in German):
Ökofeministischer Input zur Haushaltsdebatte
Another consideration is how to finance access to social protection globally:
Normative frameworks for universal social protection
As the number of autocratic governments increases around the world, this UNRISD briefing note by Alina Saba and myself traces the economic, political and social trajectories of India and Nepal, using the eco-social contract model as a reference.
Contestation movements and the emergence of eco-social contracts in India and Nepal
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Some updates on social policy
A coherent analysis of poverty is absent from the 2030 Agenda. While the agenda does address redistribution, social rights, and resource consciousness, and makes important contributions to social protection and care policy, it makes only superficial reference to the need for regulating of the economy.
The 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty: New horizons for global social policy?
We welcome the currently very powerful movements to tax the super-rich and to cancel or re-finance public debt. Complementing this, we need to regulate large transnational corporations so that they comply with human rights conventions, apply international labour standards, and adhere to climate and biodiversity commitments along their entire value chains. Here the arguments for a UN-negotiated Treaty on business and human rights, which would be bolder than current national and regional due diligence legislation:
Ecofeminist perspectives: towards a UN treaty on business and human rights
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Transforming our World (United Nations, 2015) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 2015) commit to norms and principles of social inclusion – promising to ‘end poverty and hunger in all their forms and dimensions’ and to ‘leave no one behind’. Leaving no one behind has been understood in a universalist and rights-based interpretation as including all people on the planet in sustainable and just societies. That would indeed be transformative of the dominant socio-economic orders, which have been reproducing and cementing poverty, inequality and social exclusion throughout history. This edited volume offers some articles for reflection:
The Politics of Social Inclusion: Bridging Knowledge and Policies Towards Social Change
We have the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, and we have the UN Convention on the Eradication of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). What traction do these have in Germany? A study (in German) by Hannah Birkenkötter, Gabriele Köhler, Wolfgang Obenland und Anke Stock:
Blinder Fleck Gleichstellung
The UN Pact for the Future, adopted in 2024, is a follow-up as well as a reaffirmation of the 2030 Agenda. Here, a critical assessment by Albert Denk and Gabriele Köhler (in German)
Widersprüchlich, teils kontraproduktiv
The majority of the global population is not insured for ill health, accidents, old age, maternity leave, or unemployment. See my plaidoyer for universal social protection in The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2025, edited by Christoph Scherrer, Madeleine Moore and Marcel van der Linden (in your library). Also see some examples from South and Southeast Asia here:
The politics of rights-based, transformative social policy in South and Southeast Asia: The politics of rights-based, transformative social policy
Austerity measures are usually presented as necessary to tame debt. However, public goods and services need adequate funding at the national level. Here some ideas (in German):
Ökofeministischer Input zur Haushaltsdebatte
Another consideration is how to finance access to social protection globally:
Normative frameworks for universal social protection
As the number of autocratic governments increases around the world, this UNRISD briefing note by Alina Saba and myself traces the economic, political and social trajectories of India and Nepal, using the eco-social contract model as a reference.
Contestation movements and the emergence of eco-social contracts in India and Nepal
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