After the SDGs: What If Communities Set the Next Global Agenda?

About the session The Sustainable Development Goals run to 2030. Conversations about what comes next are already beginning. But before another global development framework takes shape, there is a more fundamental question to ask: Who gets to decide what the next agenda is? Too often, global frameworks are developed through international institutions and national governments, with communities only invited to contribute once much of the architecture has already been established. Priorities are set, indicators are designed, and resources begin to align around a framework that the people closest to the challenges had limited power to shape. What would happen if we reversed that process? The Movement for Community-Led Development (MCLD) brings together more than 3,000 members, primarily grassroots and community-based organizations across the Majority World, alongside international organizations and other champions of community-led development. Over the coming year, MCLD members and partners will begin developing a collective vision for what a genuinely community-led post-SDG agenda could look like. This session is an early conversation in that process. What should the world learn from the SDG era? What should be carried forward, and what should be left behind? What opens up when communities start from their own realities rather than responding to an agenda designed elsewhere? What is the role of international partners to support a process and paradigm shift like this? How can we take an ecosystem approach to make the changes to global development institutions, financing, and decision-making needed so that communities are not simply consulted on the next framework, but have meaningful power in determining it? There will not be a finished answer in the room. The purpose is to start building one together. What to expect An informal brainstorming and working session for members and partners of the Movement for Community-Led Development, alongside others committed to community-led development. Rather than presenting a predetermined framework, participants will surface ideas, tensions, lessons, and priorities that can inform a collective vision for the post-SDG era. We recognize that because of costs, visas and a lack of meaningful access, many of the community actors that need to lead this process won't be in the room. We will speak explicitly about the different roles and responsibilities of varied partners in our ecosystem. This conversation is intended to be one of many. Over the coming year, MCLD plans to use moments when members are already gathering, alongside online consultations and working sessions, to develop and refine a community-led vision ahead of the next SDG Summit. The Sidebar conversation is an opportunity to begin exploring this together in-person, imagining what could emerge if communities helped author the agenda themselves, rather than react to someone's else framework. Who this is for This session is primarily for MCLD members and partners, grassroots and community-based organizations, community-led development practitioners, INGO allies, funders, and others interested in ensuring that communities have meaningful power in shaping whatever comes after the SDGs. It will be a chance to meet, connect and build with other champions of community-led development. What you will get out of it An opportunity to help shape an emerging community-led vision for the post-SDG era Space to reflect on your role in realizing this vision Space to identify what the current global development framework has enabled, where it has fallen short, and what should change Early thinking about how power, financing, accountability, and measurement might need to change in a genuinely community-led framework Connections with others who want communities involved not only in delivering the next development agenda, but in determining it An introduction to the Movement for Community-Led Development and its mission Hosted by The Movement for Community-Led Development (MCLD)