Post 2015: a new era of accountability?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were criticised for failing to address the issue of governance, and the associated notions of responsibility and accountability. The Sustainable Development Goals, we argue, need to recognise the structural constraints facing poor countries – the power imbalances in the global economic system that limit their ability to promote the prosperity and well-being of their people, as was clearly brought out by the Commission on Global Governance for Health, of which we were both members Ottersen, O. P., J. Dasgupta, C. Blouin, Paulo Buss, Virasakdi Chongsuvivatwong, Julio Frenk, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, et al. 2014. “The Political Origins of Health Inequality: Prospects for Change.” Lancet 383: 630–667. This article is divided into three parts. We begin by making the case for a global justice perspective which emphasises the responsibility – and hence also accountability – of international organisations and rule-making bodies. We next demonstrate the limitations of accountability mechanisms of the type adopted in the MDGs. We conclude by arguing for a new approach to accountability that may be better suited to the post-2015 era.