In September 2015, the heads of state and government of the United Nations (UN) Member States are scheduled to decide on the Post-2015 agenda. This is to include not only a list of universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but also a mechanism for monitoring and review. What would the review mechanism have to look like to contribute to the implementation of sustainable development? Marianne Beisheim, researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) examines the debate taking [...]
Sustainable Development & Human Rights - Archive
n a new report released by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office, Barbara Adams and Kathryn Tobin give their take on the post-2015 process and suggest how various actors can intervene to shape proposed new goals. The Sustainable Development Goals will determine the global development agenda for years to come. They will affect not only the UN’s Secretariat, funds and programmes but each member state as well as non-governmental organizations and the private sector around the world. If processes converge to [...]
The second MenEngage Global Symposium was held in New Delhi, India, from November 10-13, 2014 and brought together more than 1200 activists and professionals coming from 94 countries. The outcome of the Symposium was the creation of the Delhi Declaration and Call to Action. This document presents the shared concerns of all participants regarding the gaps in the progress of the gender justice movement and, against this background, affirms the commitment of all parties to the continuous engagement of boys [...]
Following the release of the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program on December 9, 2014, two former UN Assistant Secretaries-General and UN Humanitarian Coordinators for Iraq, Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday, initiated a petition to start a judicial process against the violators of the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. The petition, which has now become global through the campaigning of the Brussels Tribunal, an activist think tank and peace organization [...]
Economic valuation of nature
The economic valuation of nature has now been debated for several years, having already been implicit in the Kyoto Protocol that set targets for greenhouse gas emissions and provided the framework for trading CO2 equivalents. The role of nature in models to measure prosperity and of market-based instruments in nature conservation was discussed at a conference organised by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Global Policy Forum and terre des hommes in Bonn, Germany, in November. Presentations and discussions at the conference [...]
The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) is considered one of the key achievements of the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Twenty years later, this principle has become a focal point of current negotiations on climate change and the post-2015 agenda. The developing countries that make up the Group of 77 want to preserve the principle unchanged. However, the US, EU and other industrialized countries want to do away with it in [...]
Of the people and for the people?
In a recent blog post, the Center for Economic and Social Rights takes a look behind the data ‘revolution’ and finds that high quality, accessible data – combined with important shifts in how we collect and use it – could certainly play a role in improving human rights enjoyment, empowerment and accountability. Indeed, CESR states that data can illuminate human rights problems and help to identify potential policy solutions. Not only does it provide and aggregate information about people, it [...]
What outcomes should be agreed in Addis Ababa in 2015?
2015 will be a landmark year for the global fight against poverty and for equitable and sustainable development, with three crucial summits in just six months. A central issue for all three summits is concrete proposals for reforms to international financial and trade systems so that they support the achievement of global sustainable development goals. Such reforms should be based on the right to development for all countries and ensuring economic and social rights for all. There are sufficient funds [...]
On September 19 2014, Global Policy Forum, in collaboration with MISEREOR, hosted an expert panel discussion that raised many strategic questions on the topic of financing the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and the sustainable development goals. Many of the answers to these questions depend on the outcomes of negotiations in the run up to the UN Financing for Development Conference in July and the expected UN Summit to pass a post-2015 agenda in September 2015. In the meantime, however, the [...]
"The debates on the Post 2015 Agenda offer the opportunity to reconsider development in light of the new realities and to overcome the old and often still paternalistic approaches of development policy. Therefore, a truly universal Post 2015 Agenda must not just become an updated set of MDGs. It should contain universal sustainability goals and a program for structural transformation which defines the necessary financial, regulatory and institutional means of implementation in all countries of the world, and this in [...]
The German NGO Forum on Environment and Development has sent an open letter to the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning, Amina Mohammed. The letter addresses the Secretary General’s synthesis report, which will constitute a major step in the elaboration of this new agenda and will reflect on the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals' report, published in July. The NGO Forum welcomes that the OWG report addresses a series of important issues such as inequality [...]
The German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, in cooperation with various other German civil society actors, has published a position paper outlining eight key aspects that need to be further built on by the post-2015 Global Development and Sustainability Agenda. Key elements include: a decent life for all; human rights; gender; generational and distributive justice and respect of planetary boundaries; the complete eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; and the safeguarding of natural resources and ecosystems – elements for [...]
Comments by the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives
In a new comment the the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives states that the SG’s report fails to address the core structural and macro-economic issues that shape the ability to implement and finance people-centered, ecologically sound policies and programs at all levels.
The General Assembly agreed on September 10, 2014 that the proposal of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would be the main basis for a concise set of sustainable development goals that will encapsulate a truly transformative post-2015 development agenda. Other inputs, such as the intergovernmental negotiating process at the UNGA's 69th session will also be considered. Japan, the EU and Australia are also encouraging the inclusion of the report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts [...]
The search for accountability in development agendas
„Accountability is only meaningful if the powerful can be brought into account” says Roberto Bissio of the civil society network Social Watch in a recent article. In order to achieve sustainable development, global accountability mechanisms have to change radically. Under the status quo, “mutual accountability” is practiced as oversight of donors and creditors over developing countries. Genuine accountability, however, would also include the developed nations’ commitments to human rights and environmental treaties and their pledges to give 0.7% of their [...]
Public-Private-Partnerships have become a mainstream development model in recent years. On the one hand, after the financial crisis contributions from the private sector are envisaged to fill the gap of decreasing official development assistance from states. On the other hand, an increasing share of development finance is channeled to businesses and financial institutions. NGOs criticize that private sector development priorities are not aligned with national development strategies and emphasize the conflict of interests between making profits and reducing poverty and [...]
After thirteen sessions, the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) made an important step forward towards a global sustainable development agenda last week in New York. It formulized a 24-page "outcome document" that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals, broken down into 169 targets. Once again, conflicts about the means of implementation (MOI) of the SDGs arose between member states in the final hours of the negotiations. The tense climate in the discussions revealed skepticism and suspicion on [...]
On Saturday 19th of July the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals concluded negotiations and submitted a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the United Nations General Assembly. Though the SDGs will be ultimately negotiated in September 2015, the proposal by the Open Working Group will have a big influence on the final set of goals. The SDGs will supersede the Millennium Development Goals and encompass a broad spectrum of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. Yesterday [...]
Development aid is being redefined. Before the new UN Development Goals (Post-2015 Agenda) can be determined, the industrialized countries of the OECD wish to redefine which financial flows count as development aid. In a new article, Swiss coalition Alliance Sud analyzes propsoals for a new ODA (Official Development Assistance) standard, which would be used to determine whether donor countries are fulfilling their pledges to allocate .7% of their GNI to development assistance. So far, NGO criticism of the new measurement [...]
A guide to environmental-social budgeting
International development policy is at a crossroads. By September 2015, governments plan to adopt a Post-2015 Development Agenda – an agenda that is supposed to shape the fundamental priorities, goals and strategies for development policy beyond 2015. In parallel, governments have agreed to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals integrating all dimensions (social, economic and environmental) of sustainable development and being applicable to all countries in the world. Forming one coherent Post-2015 Agenda, including the SDGs, affects all policy [...]
"Means and Ends"
Prologue
Monitoring is only meaningful if the powerful are held to account
Some 4,000 years ago, King Hammurabi had the laws of his domain between the Tigris and Euphrates carved in stone and placed in front of his palace. The laws were written in the plain language of the people, not in the arcane idiom of the priests, so that everybody could understand them. They were not engraved on clay, so they could not be changed at will, and they [...]
By Ranja Sengupta and Bhumika Muchhala*
Means of Implementation remains the most fiercely contested issue in the negotiations of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
With the release of the Co-Chairs’ revised version of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ‘Zero Draft’ on 30 June, the intergovernmental negotiations during the final session of the Open Working Group (OWG) in mid-July becomes even more critical. The OWG Co-Chairs are Ambassadors Macharia Kamau [...]
Why gender is crucial for a fair tax system
The latest report of the British NGO Christian Aid “Taxing Men and Women: why gender is crucial for a fair tax system” deals with the different effects of tax systems in men and women as well as possibilities how prudent fiscal and tax policy can contribute to gender equality. Whereas a lot of literature exists on the consideration of gender aspects on the spending side of national budgets, this report marks a first step to analyze state revenues with regard [...]
The negotiations of the Open Working Group (OWG) on a draft of goals and targets for the Post-2015 Agenda has reached its final phase at the 12th Session on 16-20 June in New York. Discussions were raised with respect to an inquality goal, which was included as a stand alone goal in the zero draft after the last session of OWG. However, an unofficial release of a new set of goals by the Co-Chairs on 16 June merges poverty reduction [...]
Aldo Caliari, Director of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project, argues in an article published by the United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) that financial and monetary reform should be a fundamental part of post-2015 development agenda. Taking this into consideration, the new agenda was a political opportunity to avoid following the imperfect path of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to include necessary means of implementation. On top of that, Caliari presents thoughts on key areas like financial regulations and [...]