Author: Ana Zeballos

Recording: Launching event of the Spotlight on Susainable Development 2020

On the eve of the (virtual) United Nations 75th anniversary event and the Global Goals Week, authors presented this year’s global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development. With this virtual launching event that took place on 18 September 2020, we presented key findings of the report.

If you missed it, you can watch the recording on youtube now.

REINFORCING the shift
towards climate justice

Climate change impacts are now undermining and will pose significant constraints on meeting sustainable development and poverty eradication in many developing countries due to the loss and damage that they bring to critical economic and human infrastructure but also to the long-term shifts in economic production that they will entail.

Income inequality and enduring poverty exacerbates the impact of climate change on the poor, particularly those in developing countries. These make the extremely poor, virtually all of whom live in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, much more vulnerable to the losses and damage that climate change results in. The lower levels of financing, technology, physical infrastructure and disaster preparedness and resilience that most developing countries experience due to their development circumstances pose greater challenges to climate change adaptation and long-term development resilience for these countries.

The COVID-19 crisis and the worldwide measures to tackle it have deeply affected communities, societies and economies around the globe. COVID-19 is a global wake-up call for enhanced international cooperation and solidarity.

But calls for “building back better” by just pushing the reset button will not change the game. We need structural changes in societies and economies that ensure the primacy of human rights, gender justice and sustainability.

This is the key message of the 2020 edition of the Spotlight Report on Sustainable Development “Shifting policies for a systemic change.” The report unpacks various features and amplifiers of the COVID-19 emergency and its inter-linkages with other crises.

Re-inventing multilateral solidarity: rhetoric, reaction or realignment of power?

Multilateral solidarity is gaining traction as the slogan for mobilizing support for international cooperation and for the UN. Is it replacing or merely renaming cross-border obligations – many of which have been enshrined over decades in UN treaties, conventions and agreements, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibility in their implementation?

Why do we seek another name at this time? It seems that reaffirmation is less attractive than invention in this time of innovation, short term thinking and results measurement and messaging via social media and 280 characters. How should it be reinvented?

Solidarity assumes trust and common responsibilities. Reinventing multilateral solidarity must start with bending the arc of governance back again – from viewing people as shareholders – to stakeholders – to rights holders.