World leaders have just ratified the 17 Sustainable development Goals that they have been negotiating since 2013. It is a resounding success that 193 member states have reached consensus on such a comprehensive document, as its five areas - people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships - go far beyond mere environmental protection.

However, it would be wrong to present them as the panacea of global progress without taking into account the nuances that have accompanied both the negotiation process and the results that have come out of it. Some of these are discussed below:  

Difficulty of negotiations

The current agreement has required two and a half years of negotiations in an extremely complex process. The negotiations - most of them open - have provided a glimpse of the different interests of the Member States.

Jan Vandemoortele pointed in El País (10/08/2015) to a certain inability of rich countries to set a truly universal diary , explaining how in some cases they try to give the impression that threats to development are found only in poor countries, when the reality is not always so.

At the same time, Bhumika Muchhala, senior policy analyst at Third World Network, denounced in The Guardian (13/08/2015) the lack of transparency coupled with some lobbying campaigns at the end of the negotiations, which could obscure the whole process.

Scope of Objectives

Transforming our world: diary 2030 for Sustainable development is the name given to the document that is going to be approve this week by a resolution of the General Assembly. It is an aspirational document, which means that there is no legal obligation to comply with it. This is nothing new: the only binding texts in the United Nations are the resolutions of the committee Security Council.

But the fact that such a document is not binding does not mean that it is unimportant. In fact, the United Nations will allocate a significant part of its budget to implement each goal and goal. In addition, a series of indicators are available to check their implementation internship, so that non-compliant States will be exposed in the eyes of the international community.

Consensus with reservations

The Goals and their targets are theoretically universal, but many countries have expressed reservations throughout the process, which are expected to materialize in some declarations after this week's Summit, as some of the States have already done. The negotiations themselves have not been free of controversy in the way certain issues have been addressed.

In the Annex to the report of the group of work Open, published in October 2014, there are perceived concerns from some countries around points such as the fight against terrorism, sexual and reproductive health or economic sanctions. These are issues that imply very high levels of commitment from poor countries, levels that, as Jan Vandemoortele also referred to, rich countries are not willing to assume.

Historic opportunity

At the conclusion of the negotiations, Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN and co-chair of the SDG negotiations, noted that this was truly a historic moment. development Despite all the weaknesses in the content and elaboration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they constitute a unique opportunity to put on internship a diary of development global and, at the same time, adapted to the specific circumstances of each country.

For this, the generosity of all is necessary, especially of those who, because of their possibilities, can contribute in a more magnanimous way to the progress of all nations.