The 193 Member States of the United Nations formally adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 17 global goals at the start of a three-day special summit in New York on Friday. The new framework, entitled “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, contains 17 goals (SDGs) and a set of 169 targets that aim to end poverty and hunger, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. “The new agenda is a promise by leaders to all people everywhere. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms – an agenda for the planet, our common home,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the opening of the summit which also heard speeches from Pope Francis and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai. Ban Ki-moon underlined that the true test of commitment to the new goals will be their implementation: “The 2030 Agenda compels us to look beyond national boundaries and short-term interests and act in solidarity for the long-term. We can no longer afford to think and work in silos.” The new agenda concludes a negotiating process that began three years ago with the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20. The 17 SDGs will replace the Millennium Development Goals, which will expire at the end of this year. Goal 2 promises to „end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”. It contains targets on ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030, doubling the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale farmers, ensuring sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices, and maintaining the genetic diversity of seeds, plants and animals. FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva reminded world leaders that this second goal must be urgently pursued as ending hunger is a precondition for achieving other goals. Worldwide, 800 million people are still suffering from chronic undernourishment. “We have given ourselves an enormous task, that begins with the historic commitment of not only reducing but also eradicating poverty and hunger in a sustainable way,” da Silva said during his speech. “We need to build more sustainable agriculture and food systems, that are resilient to stresses and better able to cope with - and respond to - climate change impact,” he added. Civil society organisations welcomed the adoption of the ambitious goal 2 but also stressed that decisive action is needed. Greenpeace, for example, critisised that much of the language is vague and fails to address the root and structural causes of hunger and unsustainability. The environmental organisation is therefore concerned that this may result in a “doing more of the same” rather than promoting any real political change. Greenpeace warned that Goal 2 must not be used as a way to promote chemical-intensive agriculture inputs (like pesticides, genetically modified seeds and chemical fertilisers). Instead, these targets should be translated into action through wide-scale support for the uptake of ecological farming to maintain ecosystems and improve soil quality while increasing productivity and resilience to climate change and other shocks. (ab)