Author: Ana Zeballos

Blog

Decoupling is the glue that holds “sustainable” and “development” together, material footprint is its indicator

By Roberto Bissio
“Development” is usually understood as a synonym of “economic growth” and it is universally measured by per capita gross domestic product (GPD). “Sustainable” is usually understood as “within planetary boundaries” or “in harmony with Nature” or “respecting the rights of future generations and it is measured… well, the problem is that the world cannot agree on how to measure it and thus “sustainable development” is an unbalanced promise. Read more…

UN Meetings / UN Monitor

Measuring the SDGs: Who controls the process, who owns the results?

By Barbara Adams and Karen Judd
Statisticians from around the world, meeting at the UN Statistical Commission in March, will again take stock of progress in the world of data over the previous 12 months, largely driven by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The official report on filling the gaps in the global indicator framework—a clear priority of the 2018 Commission—show that while some progress has been made much has stalled. Gaps and tensions continue over the selection and interpretation of indicators, the data to fill them, the selection of partners as well as control of the process and ownership of the results. Read more…

Briefings

Social Protection: Hot Topic but Contested Agenda

By Barbara Adams and Karen Judd
Social protection has surfaced to the top of multiple agendas, from human rights to the promotion of economic growth, from decent work to economic, social and gender equality. Its champions, particularly at the global level, include a host of different players, with different priorities, institutions and policy streams, all competing to define the concept and own the discourse. Read more…

Briefings

“You say you want a [data] Revolution”: A proposal to use unofficial statistics for the SDG Global Indicator Framework

By Steve MacFeely and Bojan Nastav
This paper argues that the Global Indicator Framework required to support the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals will not be successfully populated, using only existing approaches and mechanisms. Official statistical systems must adapt and consider new approaches if only partial success is to be averted. This paper presents a proposal to accredit unofficial statistics as official for the purposes of compiling sustainable development goal indicators. While there may be some reluctance, and there are certainly risks with this proposal, the arguments put forward highlight the potential for collaboration. Read more

Briefings

Desperately Seeking Indicators: different players, different priorities

By Barbara Adams and Karen Judd
Three years into the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, concerns continue about stalled indicators, missing indicators and proliferating and potentially competing data sources, which makes it difficult to assess progress.
Initiatives abound in the shifting terrain of the generation, validation and use of data to satisfy the demands of a growing market of players. In addition to the work of the UN mandated Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), these concerns and challenges have drawn the attention of a number of official statisticians and practitioners. Read more…

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…

Alert

Civil Society FfD Group’s Statement to the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Meeting on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This document has been collectively developed by the Civil Society Financing for Development (FfD) Group, a very broad platform of civil society organizations, networks and federations from around the world, including the Women’s Working Group on FfD. The Group followed closely the FfD process since its origins, facilitated civil society’s contribution to the Third International Conference on FfD, and continues to provide a facilitation mechanism for the collective expression of civil society in the FfD Follow-up process. While the group is diverse, and positions might differ on specific issues, this document expresses the elements of common concern. Read more…

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Governance of data and artificial intelligence

The current status of Artificial Intelligence governance must be reshaped or it will contribute to more being left behind. The risks and shifts are outlined by Cecilia Alemany of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and Anita Gurumurthy of IT For Change (ITFC) in a chapter on Governance of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the 2019 Spotlight on Sustainable Development report.

 

Four years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda the world is off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But there are signs of change. New social movements have emerged worldwide. They not only challenge bad or inefficient government policies, but also share a fundamental critique of underlying social structures, power relations and governance arrangements.

For this reason, the Spotlight Report 2019 has as main topic “reshaping governance for sustainability”. It offers analysis and recommendations on the global governance that sustainability requires, as well as on how to strengthen inclusive and participatory governance to overcome structural obstacles and institutional gaps.

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