A/76/162 was a genuine risk that the strategies used to achieve the Millennium Development Goals would be less beneficial for minority groups, and might even increase inequalities and further harm some minority communities. 4 To date, the link between inclusion of minorities, protection of minority rights and realization of the Millennium Development Goals has not been widely considered by development actors. This is in contrast with ongoing dialogues on gender and the Millennium Development Goals and the dialogue on the Goals and indigenous peoples undertaken in recent sessions of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 23. The warning of the Independent Expert was prescient and went largely unheeded. Her report was focused on poverty and the Millennium Development Goals, and the present study builds on her research, since it concerns the closelyrelated issues of the participation of minorities in social and economic development. It has become apparent 14 years after her warning that the strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals have not obviously been beneficial to minorities, and especially that the link between inclusion of minorities, protection of minority rights and realization of the Sustainable Development Goals has been even less widely considered by development actors than it was under the Millennium Development Goals. 24. In the present study, the Special Rapporteur outlines the historical positioning of minority issues in relation to the Millennium Development Goals and their place in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. He highlights how in 2007 the concerns and recommendations expressed by the first Independent Expert on minority issues, Gay McDougall (see A/HRC/4/9), were taken on board (or not) in the Millennium Development Goals and pays attention to the role of the Sustainable Development Goals in the participation of minorities in social and economic development. He focuses on the continuing disproportionate exclusion of vulnerable minorities, in particular minority women, from national activities for development, underlines the unfortunate growing invocation of development to weaken the participation of minorities and obstruct the implementation of their human rights and warns of the danger of the failure of any specific reference to the marginalization of minorities in United Nations efforts around the Goals. 25. The Special Rapporteur is grateful for all the submissions by States, civil society organizations and other groups and individuals. 5 B. Historical background 1. From the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals and minorities 26. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 6 was adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at a United Nations summit. The new A genda was adopted as the era of the Millennium Development Goals, which started in 2000, came to an end. In the 2030 Agenda, countries were called upon to begin efforts to achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. “The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are our shared vision of humanity and a social contract between the world’s leaders and the people”, said the former Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. 7 __________________ 4 5 6 7 21-09902 A/HRC/4/9, para. 22. The sample questionnaire and the list of public contributi ons to the thematic study is available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Minorities/SR/Sample_questionnaire_list_of_contributors.pdf . General Assembly resolution 70/1. See www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/sustainable -development-goals-kick-offwith-start-of-new-year/. 7/22