The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals and 169 targets around which international and national development efforts are expected to coalesce. They can also be thought of as a cluster of interrelated ‘norms’ that prescribe pathways for global poverty alleviation and sustainable development. The widespread nod from member states to the final SDG document can be seen as a point of global normative convergence around the post2015 development agenda. However, such convergence at the inter-governmental level does not guarantee the successful achievement of the SDGs; the success and failure of the SDGs will ultimately be decided at the national level by whether and how member states follow through on their international commitments.