By Thalif Deen, IPS
The Civil Society Reflection Group (CSRG) on Global Development Perspectives will be releasing a new study which calls for both goals and commitments – this time particularly by the rich – if the U.N.’s 17 proposed new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the post-2015 development agenda are to succeed.
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By Sabá Loftus
The 23-27 March session of the Post-2015 intergovernmental negotiations will focus on the Sustainable Development Goals and Targets. In this context on the 18th March, at the special request by the Co-facilitators, the Bureau of the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) provided a “Technical report on the process of the development of an indicator framework for the goals and targets of the post-2015 development agenda”. This has re-sparked ongoing discussion over whether the indicators should be technical or politically negotiated.
By Marina Ponti, Social Watch
On Monday, the 23rd of March 2015, government representatives will meet at UN Headquarters for five days of negotiations on the SDG’s goals, targets and indicators.
Governments should resist the temptation –particularly when looking at targets and indicators- to be restricted by existing quantitative monitoring systems and the current (and limited) availability of data.
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By Sabá Loftus, Social Watch
On the 18th March, the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) hosted a side event in New York to promote the report “Why Public-Private-Partnerships don’t work”. The report assessed the impact of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) actually undertaken in rich and poor countries. These global case studies show that there is no evidence that PPPs are cheaper or more convenient for governments in the long-term.
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The Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectivestoday launches its latest Discussion Paper. “Goals for the Rich – Indispensable for a Universal Post-2015 Agenda” deals with the question of how a fair sharing of costs, responsibilities and opportunities among and within countries can be achieved in formulating and implementing a Post-2015 Sustainability Agenda. Read more…
By Marina Ponti, Social Watch
An interesting report named “Illicit financial flows, human rights and the post-2015 development agenda” has been submitted to the Human Rights Council on 9 March 2015 under the agenda item “Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, in political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development”.
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By Roberto Bissio, Social Watch
The UN Statistical Commission concluded its meeting in New York last March 6 without agreeing on a list of indicators to measure the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The body is composed of 24 governments and it oversees the work of the UN statistical Division, the most important global agency on world indicators, in charge, among other things of defining how GDP is conceptualized and counted.
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By Sabá Loftus
The UN Statistical Commission discussed the challenges of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. This included implementation, measuring or monitoring progress as well as accountability. This includes a pragmatic look at the available data and implications for the Sustainable Development Goal indicators. Linkages between different agendas being negotiated in parallel such as Financing for Development, Post-2015 and Climate were starkly noticeable.
By Ranja Sengupta and Mirza Alas.
As the discussion on the Declaration of the Post-2015 Development Agenda gets underway, differences between developing and developed countries that are likely to loom over the rest of the Post-2015 negotiations became clearer.
By Ranja Sengupta; SUNS.
The United Nations negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda in New York saw Member States inching towards a political Declaration amidst considerable differences.
The Declaration is to lay the broader framework on which the more specific elements of the Agenda will rest in a separate outcome document. These will be adopted at the UN Summit on 25-27 September tilted "Delivering on and Implementing a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda".
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.
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.
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.