Monthly Archive: October 2018

Blog

How United Nations reform can support a reimagined democracy

By Chantal Line Carpentier
Just three years ago our world leaders committed “to working tirelessly” for the full implementation of a “comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative goals and targets” (para 2). The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, also commonly referred to as the Global Goals, is made up of 17 powerful and, some say, overly ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Taken as a whole, Agenda 2030 envisions a world free of poverty, hunger, inequalities, sickness and war, and the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources, by 2030. Read more…

Blog

What role for the people in public private partnerships?

By Roberto Bissio
Over the last months multinational corporations have jumped from the ‘economy and business’ pages of world newspapers to the sections on ‘crime and police’: Volkswagen was found guilty of programming its cars to cheat on emission tests enabling it to contaminate while on the streets way beyond the acceptable limits. The sugar industry was exposed as having a long record of fake scientific research aimed at blaming other factors for the health problems that they create. Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government in 2001 to lie about the state of its economy, in order to be admitted into the Eurozone. Between 2012 and 2015 the most powerful banks of the world, including Barclays, Chase Morgan, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and others, paid billions of dollars in fines for having manipulated for their own benefit the exchange rates among global currencies and the Libor interest rates that determine the cost of billions of credit operations around the world every day. Read more…

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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.