Our mission and the Sustainable Development Goals
“The SDGs will help us engage our stakeholders in improving our contribution to eradicating poverty, protecting the environment and empowering people and communities. The framework enables us to have greater impact on these issues through collaboration”
Matt Sparkes, Head of Corporate Responsibility, Linklaters LLP
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed by 193 countries at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. They set 169 targets and further indicators that every UN member state will use in framing their agendas and political policies until 2030.
Scroll down through the page to see how our work is furthering the SDGs.
Operational since January 2016, the 17 SDGs supersede the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were agreed in 2000 and expired in 2015. The SDGs are ‘a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity’. They seek to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. They are integrated and indivisible and seek to balance the multiple dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. Aiming to achieve the human rights of all, the SDGs relate to poverty, food security, health, education, the economy, the environment, gender, sustainability and more.
Goal 16 (Peace and Justice, Strong Institutions) is particularly relevant to A4ID, given our commitment to providing development organisations with the highest calibre legal advice. Nevertheless, we provide legal support in pursuit of all the SDGs, with the ultimate goal of eradicating poverty and creating a more equitable global society.
Why Sustainable Development matters to lawyers
The law is critical role in the achievement of the SDGs. Robust legal systems provide an essential pillar for success across all aspects of development: they safeguard human rights, uphold the rule of law and ensure equality and non-discrimination.
The SDGs mark an opportunity for lawyers to make a tangible contribution. They cannot be realised without full, active participation from the international legal community. This has already been recognised by many of the world’s largest law firms that are A4ID legal partners.
Beyond that, the creation of more effective legal systems has manifest commercial benefits for international companies and the international law firms which they use when doing business in developing markets. Likewise, the development of effective legal systems is integral to the growth of developing economies. Through A4ID, law firms and companies can do much to assist.
