2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development / Overview
In 2015, the world’s governments defined a new global agenda for development: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Taking place amidst rising global inequality, declining economic growth rates, and public-private partnerships that accelerated the scramble for resources, assets, and markets, the processes of agreeing on the 17 SDGs privileged global and North-based actors, sidelining the analytical expertise of autonomous, South-based groups. Regions Refocus engaged in the SDG processes to advance regionally situated experiences and feminist analysis.
Between June 2014 and January 2015, during the intergovernmental negotiations toward the adoption of the SDGs, Regions Refocus convened seven regional workshops designed and led by progressive and feminist civil society, activists, and policymakers aimed at defining the policy priorities of each region. Topics included infrastructure development, mining and minerals development policy, sexuality policy, gender and climate change, economic justice, education policy, finance and tax reform, and just development architecture. Regions Refocus also provided the analytical tools for these discussions through regional policy matrices that assessed government policy proposals in comparison with UN policy recommendations. Regions Refocus 2015: Fostering Regional and Feminist Solidarities for Justice outlines workshop outcomes and collates cross-regional trends like the growing prevalence of the private sector, the weakening of the developmental state, and the need for progressive regional integration.
