Global Policy Watch

Author: Ana Zeballos

COVID-19 / UN Meetings

2021 HLPF side event: “Voluntary National Reports on the 2030 Agenda: What can we learn for a post-pandemic world?”

On 12 July, Social Watch and Global Policy Forum co-organized together with the Secretariat of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP,  the New School, the HLPF virtual side event “National Reports on the 2030 Agenda: What can we learn for a post-pandemic world?” to launch the CDP Background Paper “What did the 2020 Voluntary National Review (VNR) reports still not tell us?”. Read more

COVID-19 / LDC5 / UN Meetings / UN Monitor

Heard during UN LDC5 preparations

By Alexa Sabatini
Ambassador Fatima highlights the drastic consequences the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought on LDC countries. Referring to the scheduled process of LDC “graduation” out of that category, managed by the UN Committee on Development Policy, she underlined the way in which the pandemic has upended progress since the last LDC conference. Read more

Blog / LDC5 / UN Meetings / UN Monitor

LDCs present VNRs at the HLPF (13–15 July 2021)

By Barbara Adams and Tejaswini Vavilala
The second PrepCom session will take place on 26-30 July 2021 and will launch negotiations on the Programme of Action for LDCs for the next decade, a decade that coincides with the last decade of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is the last HLPF before the Doha conference / LDC5. During the HLPF Ministerial segment of the HLPF, eight LDCs will present their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), making a total of 53 LDC VNR presentations over the last six years, many by countries for the second, and some for a third, time. Read more

COVID-19 / LDC5 / UN Meetings / UN Monitor

CSO Perspectives on the LDC5 Programme of Action

By Elena Marmo and Alexa Sabatini
The Fifth UN Conference on the LDC5 will be held In Doha in January 2022. Preparations are already underway to negotiate the Outcome Document to be adopted in Doha, which will serve as a new 10-year Programme of Action for the LDCs.
On 20 May 2021, Co-Chairs of the LDC5 Preparatory Committee bureau–Rabab Fatima, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh and Bob Rae, Permanent Representative of Canada–facilitated a virtual consultation with CSOs, designed to address policy prescriptions that LDC5 must deliver to meet the needs of people and planet. Read more

Alert / COVID-19 / UN Meetings

ONLINE | Voluntary National Reports on the 2030 Agenda: What can we learn for a post-pandemic world?

The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) will discuss with Civil Society Reflection Group their key findings of its analysis of 2020 VNRs, highlighting the disconnect between the ambition of the agenda and the attention given to the transformative policies in such areas as productive capacities, pandemic preparedness, inequalities and sustainable consumption and production. Read more

Blog

Mismeasuring foreign aid

By Simon Scott and Hedwig Riegler
DAC members as a group have never got near meeting the ODA target, but for political reasons they have also never dared to abandon it. Their unfortunate solution to the conundrum has been a series of dubious rule changes that weaken ODA’s concessional nature and therefore help donors look as if they are spending more without really doing so. Read more

UN Meetings / UN Monitor

UNGA Revitalization and selecting the next Secretary-General

By Elena Marmo
In 2007, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) established an Ad Hoc Working Group on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly (AHWG) which in recent years has addressed the selection process of the UN Secretary-General (S-G). The current S-G Antonio Guterres’ five-year term is set to expire on 31 December 2021 and Member States have begun activities for the 2021 selection and appointment for the UN S-G position, including a thematic debate on the selection process on 23 April. Read more

Blog / COVID-19 / UN Meetings

Broad consensus, paltry results. The UN Forum on Financing for Development 2021

By Bodo Ellmers
The UN Forum on FfD 2021 was the first FfD forum held as planned since the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. Accordingly, the expectations were high. Development finance is currently facing a triple challenge: to mitigate the humanitarian crisis, funds for an acute crisis response are needed – for example, to finance universal access to vaccines through the COVAX-facility, or for social protection measures. To mitigate the further divergence between countries, resources must be made available for economic stimulus programmes in the Global South that match those of the Global North. To prevent the failure of the Agenda 2030, the SDG financing gap that already existed before the COVID-19 crisis and has widened as a result of the crisis must be filled. The UN FfD Forum 2021 was a pivotal moment on the international policy calendar to take the necessary steps. Read more

Blog / COVID-19

Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2021: The yawning gap between development finance needs and political ambition

By Bodo Ellmers
In the lead-up to the UN’s Financing for Development Forum that takes place virtually from April 12-15, the 2021 edition of the Financing for Sustainable Development Report has been released. The report is published by the so-called Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), which comprises numerous UN entities, but also the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. It is widely considered the most comprehensive source of data and analysis on development finance topics.Read more

Blog / COVID-19

Video of the virtual workshop “Making the 2030 Agenda accountable: What is the role for civil society?”

The video of the virtual Campaign Activation Workshop “Making the 2030 Agenda accountable: What is the role for civil society?” is now online. The virtual workshop was co-organized by Global Policy Forum, Global Policy Watch and Social Watch as part of the 2021 SDG Global Festival of Action and it was held on March 25, 2021. Read more