It is likely that the replacements for the Millennium Development Goals will put more emphasis on work in combating global poverty. This is a sensible approach, but much more needs to be done to produce a manageable agenda

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have dominated the global poverty agenda for years are due to expire in 2015, and the world’s leaders have been discussing through the United Nations what should come next.

The latest description of the issues at stake suggests that the world of work will play a much bigger role in the next phase, which is what trade unionists have been urging for years. We’ll be discussing these issues with the UK’s international development minister Lynne Featherstone next week at a Forum on International Development.

Despite some scepticism, progress has been made towards achieving the eight goals, although some countries have been more successful than others, and progress has been patchy between the different goals, too. Overseas aid, which came to be seen as the chief method of delivering the goals, has been particularly badly hit by the global financial and economic crisis. Voices on left and right have criticised the emphasis placed on aid, compared for example with the impact of trade, tax and wages.

But last week, the co-chairs of the snappily-titled UN Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (the OWG for brevity) issued a 19-point agenda for the next stage of the debate. That’s probably far more headings than the eventual MDG replacement agenda will contain, and you can see how some (economic growth; industrialisation; and infrastructure, to name but three) could easily be merged.

But what is striking about this list is the emphasis on work. The original MDGs concentrated on delivering services, like education and health (and they’re still in the new list, along with water and sanitation, and food security and nutrition.) Climate change is there too (I can’t see marine resources, oceans and seas; or ecosystems and biodiversity staying separate) along with less expected headings like sustainable cities and human settlements. It’s a very interesting list.

But the eight original MDGs contained only one directly related to economics, and it has not been one of the best performers, although it was given the status of MDG 1: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. And this is where the new 19-heading document really breaks with tradition.

Poverty eradication remains in the list, and including economic growth is probably only giving voice to an objective that always underpinned the MDGs anyway. But the common trade union and environmentalist critique of growth as an objective per se is validated on the one hand by the inclusion of employment and decent work for all; and on the other, sustainable consumption and production.

And equality is listed twice – once to reaffirm the importance of gender equality (including workplace equality and equal pay for work of equal value), but secondly, promoting equality more generally, covering ‘economic, social, political and environmental inequalities’ as well as issues around disability and migrants (are LGBT groups covered – not explicitly, for sure, but implicitly maybe – by ‘minorities’?)

The International Trade Union Confederation has expressed concern that, while decent work gets a heading to itself, social protection (which is, after all, one of the pillars of decent work) is only referred to in the texts under eradicating poverty and promoting equality. Is that insufficient?

Overall, then, this is a very good shopping list, which gives a much higher profile than before to the world of work and its vital importance in tackling global poverty. But it will need to be refined before the UN summit next year that will finally need to agree on what will replace the MDGs.

Global unions and the International Labour Organisation can be satisfied with the progress made so far, but there is much more to be done as we get to the more difficult task of narrowing the goals to produce a manageable agenda.

Owen Tudor is head of the European Union and International Relations Department of the UK’s Trades Union Congress. This post first appeared on the TUC’s Touchstone Blog