UN goals reflect needs of the people

The World Food Program's chief has rejected criticism the United Nations has gone overboard in drafting its next set of development goals.

"To suggest we should not address all the issues affecting the most vulnerable people in the world would be unconscionable," the program's executive director Ertharin Cousin told AAP in Canberra on Friday, adding that the UN did not have the luxury of prioritising one need over another.

The UN is due to adopt 169 targets and 17 sustainable development goals to replace the soon-to-be-expired eight millennium development goals and their 21 targets at a conference in New York in September.