This volume examines the legacies and historical context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The complex background of relationships, actors, and institutions of the several goals are explored in detail by international experts from a range of disciplines.

Chapter 14 from this book is published open access and free to read or download from Oxford Scholarship Online, https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/ Before the UN Sustainable Development Goals enables professionals, scholars, and students engaged with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to develop a richer understanding of the legacies and historical complexities of the policy fields behind each goal. Each of the seventeen chapters tells the decades- or centuries-old backstory of one SDG and reveals the global human connections, governance tools and frameworks, and the actors involved in past efforts to address sustainable development challenges. Collectively, the seventeen chapters build a historical latticework that reveals the multiple and often interwoven sources that have shaped the challenges later encompassed in the SDGs. Engaging and insightfully written, the book's chapters are authored by international experts from multiple disciplines. The book is an indispensable resource and a vital foundation for understanding the past's indelible footprint on our contemporary sustainable development challenges.

Introduction: The long and the short road to the sustainable development goals 1. SDG 1 - On the origins of the idea of ending poverty 2. SDG 2 - The elusive global quest to end hunger 3. SDG 3 - Historical perspectives on health and well being as international policy goals 4. SDG 4 - Global education unfolding: Concepts, Emergence, Objectives 5. SDG 5 - A long, short and unfinished history of the journey to gender equality 6. SDG 6 - Changing international policies on safe water and sanitation after the Second World War 7. SDG 7 - A history of fossil fuel consumption and its replacement with renewable sources of energy