In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an “integrated and indivisible” set of policy objectives with the aim, among others, to unite the diverse and vast system of international organizations under one shared normative agenda. And yet, have these SDGs really become such an integrative force in global governance? Our conclusion here is negative, and our research suggests that the SDGs have not lived up to these high expectations. We find instead that the 17 global goals have not been taken up by a substantial group of international organizations, and some organizations rather cherry-pick those goals that best fit their own agenda and interests. To overcome these challenges and to fulfill the promise of integrated global sustainability governance enshrined in the SDGs, we propose three urgent actions: first, to further push the use of the SDGs across all international organizations, in particular regional organizations outside the United Nations system; second, to facilitate better collaboration across policy domains; and third, to focus attention on those SDGs that are so far “left behind.”

2015 年，联合国商定了 17 项可持续发展目标 (SDG)，作为一套“完整且不可分割”的政策目标，其目的之一是将多样化和庞大的国际组织体系统一在一个共同的规范议程下。然而，这些可持续发展目标真的成为全球治理中的一股综合力量吗？我们的结论是否定的，我们的研究表明可持续发展目标没有达到这些高期望。相反，我们发现 17 个全球目标并没有被大量国际组织采纳，一些组织宁愿挑选最适合自己议程和利益的目标。为克服这些挑战并实现可持续发展目标所载的全球可持续综合治理承诺，我们提出三项紧急行动：首先，进一步推动可持续发展目标在所有国际组织中的使用，特别是联合国系统以外的区域组织；第二，促进跨政策领域更好的合作；第三，将注意力集中在那些迄今为止“落后”的可持续发展目标上。