The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres challenged participants at the 61st Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 61) in March 2017: “Do not let us at the UN off the hook. Keep our feet to the fire.” Many civil society organizations (CSOs) are doing just that – calling for more from the CSW. Read more…
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is driving discussions on reforming UN working methods. Consultations are being held at the UN headquarters, which aim to enhance synergies and coherence, and to reduce overlap between the agendas of the UN General Assembly (GA) and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), including in the high-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF). Read more…
Last week the UN Committee of Experts on International Tax (UNTC) met at the United Nations HQ in New York, a few metres from the Security Council meetings on Syria, followed by a special session on tax of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The undercurrent of the detailed technical discussions during the week has been a crisis of global tax governance. While, for example, the grand-sounding Addis Tax Initiative included a commitment to double the aid for tax issues to developing countries, very little has come to the UNTC. Funds are needed especially to facilitate the work of subcommittees, which are essential to work through technical details. Lacking travel funds, it is difficult for developing country members to attend, and the shortage of staff makes it hard to provide secretarial support. At several points during the meeting of the Committee there was frustration that an issue was being raised which had received no or insufficient attention in a subcommittee, and some work was not completed as a result. Read more…
UN General Assembly Adopts 1st Resolution on Sexual Harassment
The resolution, passed by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, urges states to take effective action to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment against women and girls, to address structural and underlying causes and risk factors, and to protect victims of all forms of violence, including sexual harassment. It calls on states to take necessary measures to ensure that employers in all sectors are held accountable when they fail to abide by laws and regulations addressing sexual harassment.
The text calls on states to encourage digital technology companies, including internet service providers and digital platforms, to strengthen or adopt positive measures with a view to eliminating violence and sexual harassment in digital contexts. It also urges states to ensure the promotion and protection of the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights. As the committee debated, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized in his remarks commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women that violence against women and girls was a “global pandemic”. “Not until the half of our population represented by women and girls can live free from fear, violence and everyday insecurity, can we truly say we live in a fair and equal world.”
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, which mainly consists of setting norms and standards in the area of public health. However, a large part of the organization’s spending in 2016-2017 went to activities related to service delivery rather than to norms and standard setting. For example, US$ 1.16 billion (25.67%) was spent on its polio eradication programme. Read more at https://www.2030spotlight.org/en/book/1730/chapter/sdg-3-need-strengthen-public-funding-who
The OECD 2019 Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development paints a fairly bleak picture – an ‘SDG financing crisis’, with a 12% decline in external finance going to developing countries from 2013 to 2016 – see the table below (page 29) for a breakdown of resources (domestic resource mobilization/ private finance / official development assistance (ODA) / philanthropy / remittances). 
The report also looks at the macroeconomic parameters that affect the availability of financing for development, including debt (pages 28,61 and 65), and finds that the number of developing countries at high risk or in debt distress increased from 13 in 2013 to 24 at the beginning of 2018. One issue of concern is the report’s recommendation section on page 276 and 277, which includes promotion of the World Bank’s “Cascade Approach” – introduced in the March 2017 report “Forward Look – A Vision for the World Bank Group in 2030 – Progress and Challenges” – as a way of articulating different sources of financing.
SPOTLIGHT Enfoques sobre Desarrollo Sostenible 2018
El informe de este año consta de tres partes: La primera parte engloba dos artículos que resumen las principales conclusiones de las contribuciones a este informe y los mensajes de los informes nacionales de la sociedad civil. La segunda parte se centra en cinco capítulos sobre áreas transversales de reforma política que demuestran las interrelaciones entre varios ODS, la necesidad de “des-compartimentar” los enfoques políticos actuales y de promover políticas que sean verdaderamente coherentes en aras del desarrollo sostenible, los derechos humanos y la justicia de género. La tercera parte incluye 17 enfoques breves sobre los ODS que destacan una selección de ejemplos de buenas o malas políticas en función de objetivos específicos.
El informe cuenta con el apoyo de una amplia gama de organizaciones de la sociedad civil y sindicatos, enumerados como socios. También se basa en las experiencias y los informes de grupos y coaliciones nacionales y regionales de todas partes del mundo. Las contribuciones cubren muchos aspectos de la Agenda 2030 y de los ODS (y más), y reflejan la rica diversidad geográfica y cultural de sus autores. Pero lo que todas las contribuciones tienen en común es la convicción de que el mundo todavía está lejos de alcanzar el desarrollo sostenible y que son necesarios —y posibles— cambios fundamentales en las políticas y enfoques para desplegar el potencial transformador de los ODS.
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 United Nations system, reviewing donor reporting requirements across the UN system.
The JIU review focused on the United Nations system organizations that have the highest number of donor reports and on the 16 major donors to the United Nations system, including the European Commission. Read More.
