15: The EU and the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Balancing Growth, Inclusiveness and Sustainability?

The sustainable development agenda succeeding the UN MDGs will need to live up to the challenge of finding the right responses to achieve tangible development results. However, an important lesson learned from the MDGs is that achieving any sustainable impact on social and environmental challenges is extremely difficult in the absence of growth. How influential is the EU in devising international strategies to reduce poverty and reach higher levels of development? What are Europe’s core strategies in this context? What is the potential of private industry to cope with the current consequences of the economic crisis while achieving lasting prosperity for all?