300333 The Millennium Development Goals and perspectives on the post-2015 development agenda (S) (WiSe 2014/2015)

The Millennium Development Goals were introduced in 2000 by UN member states with the objective to combat central development issues worldwide. Initially, it was aimed to achieve these goals by 2015. After 14 years of collective efforts some goals could be reached and other targeted objectives remain far from being achieved. On the other hand other development issues emerged or gain in importance over the last years.
Lately, discussions around the post-2015 development agenda were started that continue to stick to the basic ideas of the millennium goals: to struggle against central development issues of humanity by collective political commitments. Accordingly, build on the MDG’s, through the initiation of the ‘global conversation’ platform launched by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the post-2015 development agenda quest were initiated for continue to address still not reached millennium goals and to define newly raised key development problems. Beside of political perspectives, also academic viewpoints on post-2015 development agenda exist that focus more critically on the development, respective discourse and considered solutions.
The seminar aims to provide an overview of the MDG scopes and of discussions on the post- 2015 development agenda.
In line with this objective, the seminar is divided into two main parts:
The first part is dedicated to central development issues that are considered in the MDGs. By discussing respective policy documents and academic literature, it is aimed to focus on initial objectives, as well as on the real scope at the end of the defined period.
In the second part of the seminar policy documents on the post-2015 development agenda will be addressed. These mainstream viewpoints will be contrasted by alternative academic perspectives on the discussion.