Governance by Global Goals: The evolvement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 - End Hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Abstract

The global community have been committed to resolving the issues of hunger for decades. This commitment was reaffirmed in September 2015, when 193 governments came together to agree the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They are designed to build on and finish the work of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). SDG 2 is a commitment to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. It is a framework aimed at influencing and guiding national and international strategy in respect of food policy.

In order to gain an understanding into the potential for SDG 2 to be effective in achieving its aim, this research uses the concepts of legitimacy and inclusiveness to analyse the means by which it was formulated. The research begins by assessing those factors which facilitated the ability of some countries to meet MDG target 1.C and those factors which hindered such progress in others. It then examines which actors were involved in the process to formulate SDG 2, and how they believed the issue of hunger should be addressed. Discourse analysis is used to examine these perceptions and is structured around three distinct framings of how the issues of hunger are discussed; food enterprise, food security and food sovereignty.

A framework was created to measure legitimacy and inclusiveness based on key criteria surrounding the participation into the process, and the perspectives on the issues of hunger which were presented by those taking part in the development of SDG 2.

The research concludes that the factors that contributed to the formulation of SDG 2 are likely to be perceived as legitimate and inclusive, and that therefore this increases the likelihood that it will be able to contribute to effective governance of global food systems. This research is the first to examine the formulation of SDG 2.