The session was co-organised by the Shared Societies Project of the Club de Madrid and the Social Policy and Development Division of UNDESA and Under-Secretary Wu Hongbo, Amina Mohammed, Sarah Cook and Club de Madrid Members Danilo Türk from Slovenia and Abdul-Kareem Al-Eryani from Yemen shared their views on what would be required from those working in the field of social development. There was broad agreement that the expectation is that the new Sustainable Development Goals will be a universal, transformative, multifaceted, holistic and inclusive agenda. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals which were a set of separate targets, it is recognised that the new set of goals will be interlinked and mutually dependent and underpinned by fundamental assumptions related to the need for peace and security and a more inclusive, participative approach.
Therefore those working in social development will need to be multi-disciplinary, people-oriented and team players, with access to better data that is disaggregated in terms of race, identity, gender, age, geographical location, etc, and they will need to be more aware of the drivers of and obstacles to development. We need to be preparing people for this new role now.”
