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Ecosystem services are essential for human well-being. The chapter explores the linkages between ecosystems and ecosystem services, biodiversity, and the Millennium Development Goals. Specifically, it focuses on the discussions in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the ecosystem approach within the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and ecosystems’ role in the achievement of specific targets of the Millennium Development Goals. It highlights the need for ecosystem-based approaches to ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, and attainment of human well-being.

In spite of the outstanding efforts of the United Nations, the poverty alleviation targets outlined in Millennium Development Goals have not been fully achieved. The further need for improving the living standard of the world population led to the introduction of a new set of revised and expanded Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. The private business and especially large multinational enterprises (MNEs) are playing a significant role in the implementation of the sustainable development program. However, in spite of decades of research, the mechanisms through which MNEs can contribute to host country economic development are still not fully understood. Furthermore, the role of local government and its possibilities to influence MNEs’ activities have not received sufficient attention. The aim of the MNEmerge project was to develop and test the framework for an analysis of the contribution of MNEs to sustainable development agenda. Specific attention is placed on the formation of linkages between subsidiary and local stakeholders such as society, business, and government. The chapters in this book outline the findings of the project and provide recommendations and implications for policy makers.

This chapter explores the impact of UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Rio + 20 in improving Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. While MDGs and Rio + 20 have suggested additive guidelines for improving CSR practices, they do not provide a strong legislative mandate. We find both MDGs and Rio + 20 have had limited cumulative effect on CSR practices and discourses within the corporate reports. UN bodies should bring a new policy and regulatory framework that addresses limitations in the principles espoused in the MDGs and Rio + 20. An independent monitoring system (a social compliance audit mechanism) can be mandated in an attempt to make incremental substantive change.

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) were introduced by the United Nations in 2016 to replace the millennium development goals (MDGs). This chapter examines the impact of integrating these goals within a design challenge, as part of a level 3 undergraduate degree module. Design Values, Issues and Ethics is an expansive module, aiming to broaden the students’ discipline focus and allow them to expand their learning within a new landscape. This module promotes the utilization of nature-based intelligences to establish solutions to a community’s basic need to survive and thrive. The SDGs were integrated through embedding them as part of a future-building scenario, supported by a series of exercises and seminars. Students were then asked to reflect on how the SDGs had impacted their design process, and to consider ethical and value dimensions. These reflections were used to analyze the effectiveness of the SDGs as key principles for an ethical design intention. Integrating the SDGs within the design curriculum has served to promote a connectivity of systems that were largely separated prior to this pilot.

The chapter describes the milestones at the global and European level on the path toward sustainable development. The first steps toward a different growth agenda were made in 1970s when the “Limits to growth” highlighted the divergence with the increasing needs of the growing population, the limited supply of resources, the planet can provide and the growing pollution. In 1980s the Brundtland report defined sustainable development as a three-dimensional one: economic, social and environmental, stressing not only the interplay between the goals, but also the global interdependence and the need for joint action to achieve the goals. Several ambitious strategies were prepared, most notably the Kyoto protocol, the Millenium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which are shaping global policies at the moment. The European Union has always been at the forefront of the efforts toward sustainability with its ambitious goals, which includes not only achieving SDGs, but also moving further, for example, toward a circular development approach.

Discusses how changes in institutional objectives for international food assistance have influenced the organization of supply chains for innovative therapeutic foods designed to address problems of malnutrition and undernutrition.

Draws upon insights from donor and international organization reports, policy documents, and academic publications to reveal the structure, goals, and objectives of international organizations involved in food assistance strategies. Explores how innovations in Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods and Ready-to-Use Supplementary Foods fit into food assistance strategies and broader humanitarian goals.

Informed by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, international food assistance strategies have broadened beyond acute malnutrition to include chronic undernutrition. Food assistance strategies have shifted toward a focus on local and regional procurement (LRP) over transoceanic aid, with Public Private Partnerships (P3s) playing a facilitating role.

This chapter raises important considerations to factor into the design and execution of international food assistance strategies using LRP/P3 modes of organization. It contributes to an understanding of the challenges of organizing international food assistance strategies that include socioeconomic goals of sustainability and nutrition objectives.

In March 2002, the Bush administration unveiled what it deems to be a “new global development compact”: the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). This new compact builds upon the Millennium Development Goals, e.g. halving world poverty by 2015, put forward by 189 countries at the Millennium General Assembly at the United Nations in September 2000. However, and in stark contrast with the latter strategy, which is aimed at addressing human security issues, the MCA is tied to the objectives of the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States. As such, the MCA is primarily aimed at bringing excluded states (or, “failed states”) into the bounds of disciplinary role of capital. For instance, one of the most novel, and coercive, features of this development compact is the “pre-emptive” method in which it will administer aid. Under the MCA, only countries that govern justly, invest in their people, and open their economies to foreign enterprise and entrepreneurship will qualify for funding. In what follows, I argue that while the form of the MCA represents an unabashed articulation of U.S.-led imperialism vis-à-vis the poorest regions in the South, witnessed by the growing privatization of development aid and military intervention, its content reflects the same goals and interests that underlie the proceeding development agenda (i.e. the Washington consensus), namely promoting the idea that the “only” path to increased growth and prosperity is to be found in countries’ willingness and ability to adopt policies that promote economic freedom and the rule of law.

Since World War II, the United States has played a leading role in development assistance in both volume of funds and role. Though the largest bilateral development agency, USAID is somewhat of an outlier in modes of operation, scope and nature of activities, and place within government. This chapter examines the development and character of U.S. foreign assistance. Like others, the United States provides foreign aid for multiple reasons – to relieve suffering and promote long-term economic and social development, to gain favor with allies, to open markets, to help ensure national security. Security and diplomacy do play a large role in U.S. foreign aid, even in basic education. In the context of U.S. internal politics, both humanitarian/development and diplomatic/security rationales have been necessary to sustain public and government support for foreign aid. Still neither rationale has prevailed; the budget is split nearly in half. The need for a humanitarian rationale may be characteristic of U.S. foreign assistance along with the emphasis on democracy. Yet these programs have sometimes been distorted by the diplomatic rationale and the security needs of the state. Many of these tensions and the constant need to justify foreign aid likely derive from the perennial periodic isolationist thread of U.S. politics, the particular adversarial institutions of U.S. policymaking, and the transparency which leaves these processes open. Even so, U.S. development assistance has played a prominent role in the trajectory of international development post-World War II, and has worked to address many of the great challenges of the times.