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The search for a more sustainable society depends on more sustainable organisations and, as such, Production (Industrial) Engineering may contribute to this process through the training of professionals with a greater social and environmental consciousness. The purpose of this paper is to present arguments in favour of the integration of Production Engineering and the Millennium Development Goals and evaluate the potential of Production Engineering subareas in contributing to the Millennium Development Goals.

This work is conceptual and integrative in order to provide an original framework. A Brazilian perspective on Production Engineering has been adopted.

A framework is proposed to guide this integration process by providing suggestions for an agenda of opportunities for academics and practitioners in favour of a more sustainable society.

This work presents a new framework integrating Production Engineering and the Millennium Development Goals in order to promote a more sustainable training in Production (Industrial) Engineering field of research.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the viability for Bolivia of attaining the United Nations millennium development goal established in year 2000, of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

The study is based in numerical simulation with a model of the Bolivian economy. The model pertains to the (widely defined) family of dynamic input‐output models, and represents in detail income distribution, by size and socioeconomic class.

The millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 seems to be a difficult, but attainable goal for Bolivia. Given the expected debt reduction agreed with international creditors, the goal can be attained by a combination of investment and redistribution policies.

It is implied that a new approach to development strategy is adopted. A new policy consensus is assumed to supplant the Washington Consensus. The new consensus model is based on objectives such as policy autonomy, structural change, and distributive justice. Poverty reduction strategy is a combination of policies associated with these objectives, viz. foreign debt policy, investment policy, and income distribution policy.

The study shows that capital account regulation, investment planning and redistributive policies might conform effective strategies for attaining the millennium development goals.

The study represents a different approach to poverty reduction strategy, which explores the economy‐wide effects of new policy instruments, particularly on growth capacity, output structure, and income distribution.

The purpose of this papers is to highlight the applicability of integrated simulation models for national development planning to different issues and contexts. Specifically, the authors describe one such model, the Millennium Institute’s T21 model, which is used to support planning in various countries, and explore in detail the case of Swaziland to demonstrate the model’s usefulness at different levels in the planning process.

Integrated sustainable development planning models using the system dynamics (SD) modeling method have been designed to help overcome these obstacles and support decision-makers in the assessment of alternative policies. Such models are laboratory replicas of the critical mechanisms driving development in a country while being grounded in the historical data available. They can be used to perform simulation-based policy experiments that are otherwise impossible in the real world.

The proposed approach has facilitated the reporting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as on the cross-sector long-term ex ante evaluation of the country’s “Economic Recovery Strategy” and a proposed “Fiscal Adjustment” policy. These assessments provided essential information for improving the quality of the decisions made. Such information cannot be obtained by the application of purely economic models or sectoral tools, that are not including the fundamental feedback structures that shape development in the long run and determine its sustainability.

The new generation of global long-term Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) covers a far broader range of issues and indicators than the MDGs. The T21-Swaziland model only offers a limited subset of such issues, and future research will focus on achievements and challenges in expanding its scope to encompass the SDGs.

The T21 model has become one of the fundamental planning instruments of the country, and it has been used to evaluate national planning documents and other suggested strategies with respect to whether they are sufficient for reaching the long-term goals. Such information is then used as a basis for revision of development plans and adoption or rejection of suggested policy packages.

The MDGs (and their expanded follow-up, the SDGs) have been important step toward better governance, as they quantify key indicators of development and thereby allow for an evaluation of the degree to which these quantified aspirations are actually achieved. In addition to such hind-sight evaluations, ex ante evaluations are equally important for improvement of the quality of the decisions made. The authors propose and test a tool to support such type of evaluation, supporting integrated planning and model-based governance.

The objective of this study is to verify whether some of the largest companies in Brazil adopt management practices aligned with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Overview information obtained from the web sites of six Brazilian multinational companies listed in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking was analyzed.

The major findings of this study indicate that the companies studied did not demonstrate clear knowledge of the MDGs, nor did they adopt practices aiming at meeting those goals. The evidences show that the companies adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, which are indirectly related to four MDGs. It was observed that the CSR practices tend to be developed based on a contingency perspective according to the characteristics and impacts of products offered by those companies. Therefore, there is a window of opportunity for those companies to begin developing programs in order to meet the MDGs aiming at new business opportunities, innovative CSR practices, and new ways to make CSR information evident and more organized.

The originality of this research lies in the fact that there is a dearth of literature on MDGs and companies in development countries.

Vision has long been a quality and characteristic defining leadership. To cultivate vision among undergraduate students in a course, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are utilized as a foundation to inspire a vision that connects local service and personal interests to global, complex issues. Students select a goal to work with for various projects throughout their courses in a program, culminating with the selection of a goal to build a vision around for future contribution as leaders in our world. Student feedback indicated a positive impact of the SDGs on the awareness of global issues and the active role each can play at the local level for progress to continue moving forward.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically report the findings on the relationship between financial sector development, economic growth and of millennium development goals (MDGs) for poverty reduction, education and health development in South Africa.

The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing technique was applied to two indicators of financial development, economic growth and four indicators of MDGs.

Economic growth and MDGs jointly cause financial development. Similarly, economic growth and financial sector development jointly cause the attainment of MDGs. The attainment of MDGs such as increased per capita expenditure on food and education as well as economic growth jointly cause financial development.

The findings highlight the complexity of the relationship between financial development, economic growth and MDGs. It is essential that the government of South Africa pursue a three track strategy of promoting financial sector development, economic growth and MDGs. The development of one strategy causes and is caused by the development of the other two.

Relationships between financial development, economic growth and MDG targets are unsettled in the literature. This paper studies the link between the three variables in South Africa. Hence, the contribution of this study is to enrich the understanding of this important field in the context of an important African country.

The purpose of this paper is to present corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an alternative roadmap to accelerating realization of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Uganda, even after 2015.

Using a mixed research methodology, this research documented CSR activities of 16 companies operating in Uganda. Data collection was guided by quantitative and qualitative methodologies (semi-structured interviews with CSR managers, plus non-participant observation of CSR activities and projects linked with MDGs). Triangulation was used to ensure credibility and validity of the results. For data analysis, the authors followed a three-stepwise process, which helped to develop a framework within which the collected data could be analyzed. For generalization of the findings, the authors were guided by the “adaptive theory approach”.

Uganda will not realize any MDGs by 2015. However, CSR activities have the potential to contribute to a cross-section of various MDGs that are more important and relevant to Uganda when supported by the government. If this happens, realization of the MDGs is likely to be stepped up. CSR's potential contributions to the MDGs were found to be hindered by corruption and cost of doing business. Lastly, MDG 8 and MDG 3 were perceived to be too ambiguous to be integrated into company CSR interventions, and to a certain extent were perceived to be carrying political intentions which conflict with the primary business intentions of profit maximization.

Governments in developing countries that are still grappling with the MDGs can use this research when devising collaborations with private-sector companies. These documented CSR activities that contribute directly to specific MDGs can be factored into the priority public-private partnership arrangements. Private companies can also use these findings to frame their stakeholder engagement, especially with the government and also when setting CSR priorities that significantly contribute to sustainable development.

This research advances the “Post-2015 MDG Development Agenda” suggested during the United Nations MDG Summit in 2010, which called for academic and innovative contributions on how MDGs can be realized even after 2015.

In light of the emphasis on “inclusion” in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the notion of social inclusion encompasses the goal of granting opportunities for disabled people, integrate them and make them participate in the new environment. Referring to the capability theory, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the social inclusion of disabled young people in Lebanon.

This paper uses a qualitative approach based on a series of focused semi-structured interviews with 11 participants occupying key positions in aid associations for disabled people.

The findings suggest that smart technologies can enhance social inclusion through three key factors: the nature of impairment and other personal characteristics of disabled people, the resources available to them and the environmental aspects provided by government policies and society’s cultural practices. In the contemporary society characterized by an increasing role of ICTs, the findings of this research could contribute to lead the developing countries to a sustainable and inclusive world through social inclusion of their youth.

This study has some limitations that should be mentioned. First, it was conducted only on a small sample size (with 11 interviewees). Further empirical research must be conducted on larger sample to build and elaborate on the findings. Second, the results are mainly based on the points of view of people working in aid associations for disabled people. In future research, semi-structured interviews can be carried out with the disabled people themselves or with members of their family to ask them about their personal experience with smart technologies and the impact of this on their social inclusion. It was also suggested that the future research should explore the challenges of inclusion for different categories of disabled people separately because they are not all facing the same issues and the same challenges. Furthermore, as this paper focuses on the role of smart technologies in the development of social inclusion of disabled people, future research could take place with other groups, for example, Palestinian and Syrian refugees, to identify whether these groups are experiencing similar challenges and barriers when trying to use smart technologies as a way to enhance their social inclusion.

Related to a larger and broader approach, social inclusion of disabled or marginalized people or refugees in developing countries could be a way to commit to a sustainable and inclusive world, in alignment with the eight goals of the Millennium Development Goals.

Related to a larger and broader approach, social inclusion of disabled or marginalized people or refugees in developing countries could be a way to commit to a sustainable and inclusive world, in alignment with the eight goals of the Millennium Development Goals.

The purpose of this paper is to account for and to justify the UN's recent appeal to “all Member States, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system and relevant non‐governmental organizations […] to ensure a more visible and effective integration and mainstreaming of culture in development policies and strategies at all levels”.

The paper delves into the history of ideas leading up to the UN's belated recognition of culture's influence (a full ten years into the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)). It shows how the post‐Second World War intuitions embraced in UNESCO's Constitution matured in the course of the nation‐building and decolonization processes that have given way to today's context of advanced globalization.

Against that background, rising international awareness of the issues involved in the environment‐development nexus conspired with growing concern for the safeguarding of world heritage and cultural diversity, finally culminating in the establishment of specific international standards that call for sustainable, integrated approaches to development.

Drawing from UNESCO's experience, the paper provides compelling evidence in support of the idea that culture, creative industries and cultural heritage contribute a great deal to development, in terms not only of quantitative economic growth (income, employment), but also of qualitative standards of equity and well‐being. In light of such criteria, examples are offered and plans are laid out for concerted action in view of attaining the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 and of building on from there.

This brief note sheds light on the links between Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

Three alternative methods based on keyword overlap to establish links between SDGs and JEL codes are presented.

These simple linkages illustrate that the themes of SDGs have corresponding closely related JEL classification codes.

The mappings presented in this note are based on simple keyword overlap and are therefore necessarily imperfect and incomplete. There is plenty of room for further development.

Despite the demonstrated possibility of linking SDGs to existing JEL codes, introducing a specific JEL code for each SDG would reduce search costs for those searching for economic research related to specific SDGs.

The first and preliminary attempt to link SDGs and JEL codes.