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SEI’s Cleo Verkuijl in SDG Knowledge Hub: animals remain missing from global development agenda

SEI Senior Scientist Cleo Verkuijl and Adalene Minelli of New York University’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection write that the UN High Level Political Forum is an opportunity to address a major missing piece of the sustainable development goals: animal welfare.

Published on 12 July 2026
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Lynsi Burton / lynsi.burton@sei.org

A yellow diamond-shaped road sign featuring a black tapir silhouette stands to the right of a two-lane jungle road cutting through lush green rain forest in Costa Rica.

Though the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda encompass a broad range of issues, from clean water to climate to hunger, they fail to address animals, which intersect with the systems SDGs seek to transform, Verkuijl and Minelli argue in a new column in the SDG Knowledge Hub.

The authors draw from a recent report they co-authored that details how animal health and welfare can be incorporated into the 2030 Agenda and other sustainable development initiatives.

Instead of burdening the SDGs with a new mandate, Verkuijl and Minelli say animal considerations can be woven into the current framework, either by including them in SDG implementation or adding new targets and indicators to related goals – or the international community can add animals as an 18th goal, recognizing their cross-cutting relevance to the other goals and elevating them to equal importance.

Read the related report

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Cleo Verkuijl
Cleo Verkuijl

Senior Scientist

SEI US