​Negotiations for the successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – are ramping up over the coming months as the end of 2014 draws ever closer. The post-2015 agenda must be established and an agreement on the SDGs reached before the year is out. While trade is more prominent in the current drafts of the new SDGs than it was in the MDGs, the proposed trade targets do not yet provide a framework for tackling the most pressing trade issues, in particular, how countries can insert themselves into global value chains.