Monthly Archive: April 2016

Blog

Obstacles to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

During “The way ahead: Successful frameworks and strategies for financing the Sustainable Development Goals and the paradigm shift towards low carbon societies” panel discussion on “Financing poverty eradication and sustainable development” at the President of the General Assembly’s High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals held at the UN in New York on Thursday, 21 April 2016, Barbara Adams from Global Policy Forum pointed out governments on one hand are signing the Paris Agreement and on the other hand signing certain bilateral trade treaties. See the video here.

Briefings

Options for strengthening global tax governance

The importance of international—or even better, global—cooperation on tax issues is becoming more and more evident in the light of tax evasion and avoidance scandals during the last few months and years. Countries in the global North and South were shown to offer preferential treatment to foreigners—from Panama to Luxemburg from the Cayman Islands to Hong Kong. Individuals as well as huge transnational corporations are using a fragmented and inconsistently regulated global system of trans-border taxation to evade and/or avoid taxes. The sums lost amount to hundreds of billions annually. Depending on the model of estimation, developing countries are losing more than one trillion US dollars per year in illicit financial flows, the majority of which can be attributed to the abuse of transfer pricing rules. A panel of the UN Economic Commission for Africa chaired by former South African president Thabo Mbeki estimates the losses of Africa alone at approximately 50 billion US dollars per year. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) puts global revenue losses from Base Eros ion and Profit Shifting at an annual 100 to 240 billion US dollars. Read more…

Blog

Mind the Gap – from CSW to FfD

Less than one month ago the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) adopted its “ agreed conclusions” on “Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development.”

From 18-20 April, the Financing for Development Forum (FfD Forum) will provide an early test on the commitment and ability of Member States and the UN system to finance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and address structural obstacles to development. Read more…

Blog

Accountability and transparency of multi-stakeholder partnerships at the UN

During the session on “accountability and transparency of multi-stakeholder partnerships” held in the framework of the Partnership Forum at the UN, Barbara Adams from Global Policy Forum and Social Watch said that partnerships are based in a win-win dynamic but there is a need to understand of what is “win-win”. See the video here.

Follow:

Lebanese civil society formulated concrete recommendations in their alternative report on the 2030 Agenda: 1. Move from project-led initiatives towards adopting a comprehensive national strategy on rights-based development, integrating targets and goals. 2. Ensure that the National Committee for SDGs and the new National Human Rights Institute remain independent in their monitoring, coordination and advisory roles towards the implementation of the SDGs and the promotion and protection of human rights. 3. Revisit social and economic policies to ensure their alignment with the rights-based development approach. For implementation of the Capital Investment Plan – promoted by the government for job creation and development – ensure that an enabling environment for the private sector does not come at the expense of human rights and sustainable development.  Read more 

SDG 3: THE NEED TO STRENGTHEN PUBLIC FUNDING FOR THE WHO

A strong and dynamic World Health Organisation (WHO) is critical for the achievement of the SDGs, especially SDG 3 on health and well-being. The WHO constitution mandates the organization “to act as the directing and co-ordinating authority on international health work”. However, its ability to fulfill this mandate is circumscribed by the nature of its financial resources. WHO’s biennial budget for 2018-2019 is US$ 4.42 billion, 2 just over a quarter of the total sales of the top-selling medicine Humira (Adalimumab) in 2016 (US$ 16.08 billion). In part this is because many of the organization’s donors share the view that WHO may not need a huge budget to carry out its constitutional mandate. Read more here

Ways to improve donor reporting across United Nations system

The United Nations and system organizations should engage with donors in a dialogue at the strategic level for the adoption of donor reporting templates and accommodating the common information needs, demands and requirements of donors and the regulatory frameworks and capacities of the organizations. This is one of the main recommendations highlighted in a new report by the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), an independent external oversight body of the UN system, reviewing donor reporting requirements across the UN system. The JIU review focused on the UN system organizations that have the highest number of donor reports and on the 16 major donors to the UN system, including the European Commission. Read more here.