SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, SOCIAL WORK, AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Believe it or not, that is what has been happening for the last two decades in what is known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are an update to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which ended in 2015. These goals represent a historic agreement among the global community to cooperate in solving the world’s most pressing shared challenges. Yet the SDGs are only as good as their implementation. Each goal, no matter how complicated, technical, or grounded in so-called “hard sciences", has a social dimension. This is true for SDGs related to climate science, agriculture, biodiversity, waste management, pollution, renewable energy, ocean acidification, technology, and broadband internet. The SDGs, like the MDGs before them, were born of a larger social development movement which over the last three decades has become increasingly mainstream in the areas of international development, sustainability, and social work. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, David Androff and Janianton Damanik; individual chapters, the contributors.