ABSTRACT
The 17 Global Goals and their 169 targets are ‘a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity’. This chapter argues that the Goals are neither designed nor equipped to address the question of neoliberalism and have at their heart a fundamental contradiction between those Goals calling for growth and those seeking to protect the natural environment. This chapter argues that the Goals seek to achieve their development targets within the same tried and failed economic model which has created the climate crisis and generated extreme poverty. Rather than seeking accommodation within the current failed economic model, this chapter argues that the international non-governmental organisation sector should seek to decouple the development process from growth and critically interrogate the capacity of the Goals to deliver on their targets.
