Transforming Multilateral Diplomacy ─ The Inside Story of the Sustainable Development Goals

Transforming Multilateral Diplomacy provides the inside view of the negotiations that produced the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which will guide UN environment and development policy through 2030. Not only did this process mark a sea change in how the United Nations conducts multilateral diplomacy, it changed the way that the UN does its business. This book tells the story of the people, issues, negotiations, and paradigm shifts that unfolded through thirteen sessions of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals and the subsequent seven sessions of negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, from the unique point of view of Co-Chair of the Open Working Group and Co-Facilitator of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Kenyan Ambassador Macharia Kamau, and other key participants from governments, the UN Secretariat, and civil society. The historic nature of the Sustainable Development Goals and their negotiation make this story a must-read for anyone interested in multilateral negotiations, diplomacy, the environment, sustainable development, or the United Nations.

Macharia Kamau is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations. In this capacity, he served as Co-Chair of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Co-Facilitator of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Prior to this, he served as the Ambassador of Kenya to the United Nations Office in Nairobi and has 24 years political, development and policy work with the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other UN organizations. In 2014 he was awarded the Gold Medal Award for Environmental Diplomacy from the International Council of Environmental Law and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICEL/IUCN).

Pamela Chasek is professor of political science at Manhattan College. She is the executive editor of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a reporting service on United Nations environment and development negotiations, and reported from all of the meetings of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. She is the author and editor of several books and numerous articles on international environmental policy, including Global Environmental Politics, 7th edition, The Roads from Rio, The Global Environment in the 21st Century, and Earth Negotiations.

David O'Connor is Permanent Observer of IUCN to the United Nations. From 2003 until 2015, he served as Chief of the Policy and Analysis Branch, Division for Sustainable Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, where he led and managed a team of policy researchers who provide the analytical direction and substance to the United Nations' work on sustainable development. In this capacity, he led the core UN Secretariat substantive team supporting the UN General Assembly Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals.