With less than five years until 2030, and with the Sustainable Development Goals unlikely to be met, how can development be reconceived to meet the needs of humanity? 

The question emerged on the sidelines of this year’s High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, an annual fixture on the United Nations calendar in New York, during which Member States, UN agencies, civil society and other actors review progress toward the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Beyond 2030: The Future of the Development Agenda

During this year’s HLPF, the BIC delegation contributed to conversations about the development agenda beyond 2030. While many participants focused on whether and how the SDGs themselves should be revisited, including proposing new goals, BIC delegates examined how development is implemented and even understood.

Using the analogy of a tree during one of the BIC co-hosted events, Mr. Perell said “The goal of a development agenda is not the tree itself, but the fruit it produces," and that "if we are not seeing the outcomes we want, it is more than a matter of branches and leaves, but also about the type of tree we are planting in the first place and how we cultivate it.”

Reflecting on his conversations regarding Agenda 2030, Mr. Perell emphasized the importance of focusing on the means necessary to ensure humanity can achieve the SDGs or similar goals. The greatest obstacle has not been whether the SDGs and their indicators are perfectly articulated, but about the local, national and international ownership and implementation of the agenda, he said.

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights didn't have an expiration date, because these rights remain universal,” Mr. Perell added. “In the same way, ending poverty does not stop being a goal after 2030. The bigger issue is implementation—not the goals themselves. Renegotiating goals every 15 years could distract from a more fundamental question: how can we actually achieve them?”

The perspective resonated during broader conversations held by the BIC throughout HLPF side events and meetings. Representatives and delegates for the BIC encouraged colleagues to use the discussion on what comes after 2030 as an opportunity to identify and explore the root causes of ongoing development challenges. While the annual HLPF is an important space for SDG review, this more generational conversation is an opportunity to generate lessons humanity is learning at a deeper level.

Inspiring Action

In that vein, BIC Representative Liliane Nkunzimana invited participants at a peace and development event to consider what enables individuals and communities to move from recognizing injustice—in gender relations, for example—to taking sustained action to address and correct unjust relationships.

“The equitable, healthy, and sustainable societies humanity yearns to create do not just happen as a natural consequence of more access to material resources,” Ms. Nkunzimana said, critiquing some development thinking that foregrounds material or economic growth as a way to address deeper societal concerns.

Action is driven not only by urgency, but also by hope as a strategic force in the pursuit of peace, Ms. Nkunzimana added.

BIC delegates across HLPF also shared the idea—taken from decades of experience in Bahá’í communities around the world—that when individuals and a community join in acts of service it can dissipate patterns of mistrust or competition. Cooperation and shared ownership then begin to reshape relationships across a society, between individuals, across communities, and with institutions.

“We need to re-envision essential relationships in a society,” Ms. Nkunzimana said, referring to the dynamics between people, their neighborhoods and communities, and civil authorities and institutions. “When people in a community build their capacity to serve others, and to think about the needs of their societies, the wider community will also experience a positive transformation.

Development advances through a reciprocal process, the BIC’s delegates said across several events. Participatory structures for collaboration create new possibilities for individuals to contribute to a form of development that centers on raising human capacity—rather than only economic measures.

Peacebuilding and Development

Similarly, the BIC’s Principal Representative, Rachel Bayani, highlighted the need to develop “two fundamental capacities” for conflict prevention. 

“We must see beyond the countless permutations of 'us and them' that are at the root of most conflicts," Ms. Bayani said in her remarks. “Humanity is gripped by a crisis of identity, as various peoples and groups struggle to define themselves, their place in the world, and how they should act.”

“So at the core of peacebuilding must be a conversation about who we are as people, how we see others, and what we feel our purpose and role is in the world,” she added. “In the long run, we won’t be able to address conflict in a lasting way if we are not able to have these conversations."