We will publish weekly episodes, from different authors – including academics and voices from the development sector – discussing the SDGs from different angles. 

This series is created in collaboration with MO*Magazine. The contributions will be published in English on this webpage and in Dutch on MO*Magazine. 

Episode 1: Jan Orbie and Sarah Delputte (UGent) – Who wants some more old wine in new bottles? Why the Sustainable Development Goals will not save the world.

Episode 2: Remco van de Pas (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp) – The Coronavirus pandemic and the irrelevance of the SDGs. Time for a Jubilee.

Episode 3: Marc Maes (11.11.11-Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement) – Trade and the Sustainable Development Goals. Mission unfulfilled.

Episode 4: Francine Mestrum – How sustainable are the SDGs? We need more development, not post-development.

Episode 5: Chiara Macchi (Wageningen University & Research) – The SDGs and the urgency of human rights in times of crisis

Episode 6: Jonathan Matthysen (Oxfam Belgium) – The SDGs as double agent for progressive sustainable development

Episode 7: Bernard Mazijn (UGent) – Agenda 2030: the limits of multilateralism?

Episode 8: Brecht De Smet (UGent) – SDGs caught between development and underdevelopment. It is time for new alternatives based on old critiques

Episode 9: Tonia Novitz (University of Bristol) – The normative promise of sustainability for labour standards – and the limitations of the SDGs

Episode 10: Mia Kristin Häckl and Julia Schöneberg (University of Kassel) – It is time to abandon “development” goals and demand a post-2030 Utopia

Episode 11: Keya Khandaker and Lata Narayanaswamy (University of Leeds) – The unbearable whiteness of international development: the SDGS and decolonial feminisms

Episode 12: Thomas Vervisch (Ghent University) – 0,7 cake crumbs or actual cakes? Why we need a Minister of Global Affairs