The MDGs are important as they have led to a new international development consensus. However, this consensus has not effectively reduced poverty as it is based on a ‘Faustian bargain’, in which international commitment to promoting economic development and reducing global income inequality has evaporated, and national and international policies have focused on promoting global integration rather than production and employment. It is necessary now to build a new consensus around global sustainable development and a new policy narrative founded on the development of productive capacities and on rebalancing the terms of development partnership.