By Marina Ponti, Social Watch
As UN negotiations on the post 2015 framework begin to tackle the complex issues of accountability, review and follow up, the diversity of views, perspectives and the lack of concrete proposals make the likelihood of finding an agreement remote indeed. Read more…
The Open Working Group has produced a bold and comprehensive set of goals and targets that, if realized, will greatly enhance the protection and fulfillment of human rights and lay strong foundations for a life in freedom and dignity for current and future generations.The International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (ICC) fully supports these goals and the compelling vision for their realization put forward by the UN Secretary General in his synthesis report. As National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) established by Member States to protect and promote human rights we encourage Member States to adopt a follow-up and review mechanism that ensures accountability for the commitments made. Read more…
By Marina Ponti, Social Watch
As negotiations on the draft outcome of the Financing for Development Conference resume at the United Nations in New York, the European Commission launches its 2015 European Report on Development titled Combining finance and policies to implement a transformative post-2015 development agenda to contribute to the debate. Read more…
Tove Maria Ryding, Tax Justice
CSO statement during the Intergovernmental negotiations on the outcome document Read more…
By Paul Okumu
They say in Africa that you do not correct an older man in public. So with all due respect to the very able team of Nobel Laureates, Intellectual minds and some Civil Society and Non State Actors who have been advising the Copenhagen Consensus, allow me to explain why I think they are wrong in asserting that we should abandon the work that the United Nations has done and instead focus all our resources and energy on what they call “ 19 Smarter Targets for Development by 2030”. Read more…
By Barbara Adams and Gretchen Luchsinger
It is not surprising that the political battles have already become fierce in the concurrent negotiations for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) and the post-2015 development agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At stake is who will shape the agenda—and how much real impact it will have.
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By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger
Getting the right balance between public and private sector roles and responsibilities in the Financing for Development and Post-2015 process will be fundamental to prospects for sustainable, inclusive development. Yet early evidence suggests this balance is already awry, skewed far in favour of private interests. Are we seeing a process of outsourcing the international agenda?
Read more… / Spanish version
By Marina Ponti, Social Watch
As the negotiations on the zero draft of the Third Financing for Development Conference (FFD3) progress civil society organizations, Governments and the UN met at the occasion of the roundtable entitled Towards a Private Sector Accountability Protocol for Sustainable Development1 to discuss the proposal of a Private Sector Accountability Protocol for Sustainable Development. Such a framework would entail, among others, mandatory social and environmental reporting and financial transparency rules to align the private sector’s activities with SDG’s and human rights obligations.
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By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger
The post-2015 development agenda aspires to global transformation. Its content so far, including the set of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) agreed in last year’s Open Working Group, affirms that aim through an unprecedented commitment to inclusion, sustainability and universality. This suggests that the world might finally move beyond current imbalanced patterns of consumption and production that have left wide swathes of human deprivation and pushed the limits of planetary boundaries.
Yet the main question, after the most recent intergovernmental negotiations on the agenda in March in New York, is: will the political process live up to the agenda’s promise? Read more…
In the Roundtable Discussion “Systemic Issues, including Global Economic Governance and External Debt” that took place in the framework of the UN General Assembly Hearings with Civil Society in preparation for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development Marina Durano, member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, said that we need to respond to volatile flows of finance that become external sources of instability for open economies. Colleagues have already spoken about unpredictable aid flows. We need to take a critical look at investment capital that search for gains from interest rate or currency arbitrage brought on by very loose monetary policies of developed countries. These flows affect the value of developing country currencies as well as prices in their assets markets.
