Sustainable Development Goals
OAD's goals are framed by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are a "set of globally adopted priorities to end poverty, preserve the planet and promote peace and prosperity for all1".
The OAD tries to encourage the astronomy community to work towards these goals through the (astronomy-based) interventions that they execute as IAU-OAD funded projects. It can be difficult to conceptualise how astronomy, an esoteric and specialised science, can contribute to the very immediate and real challenges facing society today. Some examples of how past funded projects have attempted to do this are illustrated in the next section.
1 "Sustainable Development Goals," United Nations Development Programme, Accessed 5 July 2018, http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html