At the turn of the twentieth century, 191 countries agreed to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The European Union (EU) has incorporated many of these goals into its development policies. However, the effect of the MDGs on the construction of EU development policy has not been achieved through a homogenous diffusion of global development norms, but through a heterogeneous process: some MDGs have had a greater impact on EU policy formation than others. By reconceptualizing the EU as a receiver of norms, this paper aims to locate the scope conditions of global norm convergence in EU development policy through a comparison of disaster risk reduction and urban development in slum dwellings. Informed through world society theory, the findings point to the importance of norm ‘theorization’ in explaining the scope conditions of norm diffusion.