Role for academic institutions and think tanks in speeding progress on sustainable development goals.

In September 2015, countries at the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), a set of targets for 2030 to mobilise action on three interwoven dimensions of our existence—people, planet, and prosperity. The problems facing humanity and the planet are now acknowledged as being too large to be tackled by specific sectors—such as health, education, or trade—alone. In recognition of this, the SDGs expanded the scope of their predecessors, the millennium development goals (MDGs), and moved away from a siloed approach. While three of the eight MDGs concentrated on health, only one of the SDGs (goal 3) is focused on the broad goal of health and wellbeing for all. However, health is explicitly mentioned in many others and is connected with all 17 goals and 169 targets. This means that meeting the goals for health, as well as the other SDG targets, will require the involvement of a diverse set of actors. Transformative governance for health