2015 marks the target year of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the UN in 2000. The goals have not yet been fully achieved due to various reasons, and the unfulfilled agendas need immediate attention.

This paper makes a case for extending the MDGs beyond 2015 but significantly reshaping them: to make progress towards goals more explicitly rights-based and participatory, to prioritise economic and social equity and environmental sustainability, to insist on the centrality of employment and decent work, and to move away from the outdated and oversimplified North-South dichotomy.