post 2015 news and events

• “Sustainable Lifestyles” Conference

  In this 2 day highly interactive conference, the EU Sustainable Lifestyles Roadmap and Action Plan to 2050 will be presented for the first time. This conference is focused on actions for more sustainable living across Europe. It presents a unique opportunity for policy-makers, business, innovators, designers, civil society, citizens, and researchers to accelerate current work and activate new ideas within the Sustainable Lifestyles Roadmap Framework. For any questions, send an email to sonia[at]anped.org.

  Read More at Spread Sustainable Lifestyles 2050

• 1000 days to MDGs deadline options for PH

  The countdown to the last 1,000 days to the 2015 deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has begun. On April 5, the world marked the beginning of the critical last mile of the MDGs.

  
  Launched in 2000 with the signing of the Millennium Declaration by 189 UN member-countries, the MDGs became the global agenda for development at the start of the new century. Being time-bound and measurable, the MDGs have made a difference and changed the way of achieving development objectives.

  
  The 8 MDGs are: the halving of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, reduction of child mortality, improved women's health, stoppage and reversal of the spread of TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and global partnerships for aid, trade and debt relief. The MDGs are measured against 18 targets and 60 indicators.

  
  Twelve years hence, the MDGs have shown successes in mobilizing the global community into achieving its targets. As of the 2012 Global MDGs Progress Report, 4 targets have been achieved. First, the global target of halving extreme poverty from its 1990 level has been reached, equivalent to 600 million people.

  
  Read more at Rappler Beta

• 20- 23 March: Advancing the Post- 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda, Bonn

  Advancing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda Reconfirming Rights – Recognising Limits – Redefining Goals

  This global event will bring together about 250 civil society activists and representatives from key stakeholders in order to draw together civil society inputs into the Sustainable Development and Post-2015 discussions. It will take place on 20 – 22 March 2013 in Bonn, Germany. Funding for a limited number of participants, mainly from developing countries, is available.

  At present, a multitude of discussion and consultation processes is going on worldwide: some in the context of the Rio+20 process, others preparing the Post-2015 agenda, some with a specific sector focus, others on national or regional level. While wide-ranging and participatory processes are welcome, we need to gain a better overview on civil society perspectives and demands in order to advocate more effectively for their implementation. Advancing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda aims at providing such an overview by bringing together key actors in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development discussion and helping them to exchange information, learn from each other, benefit from our sector’s diversity and agree joint demands and strategy where this is possible.

  
  Read more at NGO Branch Department of Economic and Social Affairs

• 2nd National Consultation on the Post- 2015 Development Agenda held in Beijing

  The second round of consultations in China on the Post-2015 Development Agenda took place on Monday in Beijing. Renata Dessallien, UN Resident Coordinator, Zhang Xiao'an, Vice President of the United Nations Association, and more than 100 representatives from social organizations, UN agencies and government agencies participated in discussion of what the global development roadmap should look like after the conclusion of the Millennium Development Goals' (MDGs) lifespan.

  
  The discussions were wide-ranging and focused on six key areas: Poverty reduction and inclusive growth, environmental and green development policy, global health, women and children, education and international co-operation. Crucially, the talks were held from a bottom-up perspective to give a voice to the poor and other marginalized groups – three quarters of the participants were representatives of social organizations. The output from the Beijing consultation as well from earlier talks at Kunming in December 2012 will be presented to the High-Level Panel convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to advise the General Assembly on its post-2015 agenda.

  
  Read more at UNDP China

• 5 Ways to meet an anti- corruption millennium development goal

  This week the United Nations is bringing experts and world leaders to Indonesia to debate development priorities beyond 2015, when the Millennium Development Goals expire. Good governance tops the list of what to add to the current eight targets.

  
  We want to make certain that good governance and anti-corruption form part of the promises and solutions post 2015 – because they can make a tangible difference in delivering all the
  A TI study from 2010 has shown the huge, positive impacts transparency can have on development – if you reverse the corruption-poverty equation. For example:
  The findings suggest that higher levels of access to information — such as on a school’s budget, resource inflows provided to schools and appointment procedures for teachers and school administrators — is positively and significantly correlated with higher literacy rates.

  
  In other words, make a school budget more transparent, our research shows, and literacy rates go up.

  
  If we had an anti-corruption or “good governance” goal for all countries, what would we do to put the transparency pay-off into practice...

  
  Read more at Transparency International

• 7 principles for the post- 2015 agenda

  As ACTION participates in the consultation process for a post-2015 development agenda, I wanted to share some of our key principles for how we would want to see post-2015 development goals be shaped. Let us know what you think in the comments section!

  Our Top 7 guiding principles for the post-2015 agenda include...

  Read more at Action Global Health Advocacy Partnership

• A global goal on gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment

  In a new post-2015 development agenda, we must build on the achievements of the MDGs while avoiding their shortcomings. Everyone agrees that the goals have galvanised progress to reduce poverty and discrimination, and promote education, gender equality, health and safe drinking water and sanitation.

  
  The goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment tracked progress on school enrolment, women’s share of paid work, and women’s participation in parliament. It triggered global attention and action. It served to hold governments accountable, mobilize much-needed resources, and stimulate new laws, policies, programmes and data.

  
  But there are glaring omissions. Noticeably absent is any reference to ending violence against women and girls. Also missing are other fundamental issues, such as women’s right to own property and the unequal division of household and care responsibilities.

  
  Read more at Thomas Reuters Foundation

• A Post- 2015 Cry for Quality Education… But Who Hears It?

  With the all but impossible task of deciphering global priorities – let alone goals and strategies to achieve them – the post-2015 United Nations development process got a dose of clarity recently.

  
  Most readily accessible as a web platform, MY World is a global survey for citizens initiated by the United Nations Development Program, the UN Millennium Campaign, the Overseas Development Institute, and the World Wide Web Foundation to allow people from across the world to voice their priorities for the post-2015 agenda. The offline version of MY World is being rolled out in 20 countries to help further capture people’s views.
  The initial results are in…

  Read more at Global Partnership for Education

• A Post- 2015 Jobs Goal: 500 Million New Paid Jobs by 2030

  There’s a lot of interest in an ‘employment goal’ as part of the post-2015 agenda.  That makes sense.  Ask people what they’re most concerned about worldwide and it is jobs and the economy. Ask politicians what they’re most concerned about and employment will come high up the list.

  
  So what measure would we use?  We can’t use ‘reduced unemployment’ as the goal, because it doesn’t really capture the full scale of the problem. The great majority of working age people are ‘employed’ worldwide, because if they weren’t doing something to earn money or grow food they’d be reduced to begging to survive –in most countries there just isn’t much in the way of a safety net to support them.

  Read more at Global Development: Views from the Centre

• A sneak peek into post- 2015 agenda priorities

  
  In the United Nations’ first wave of global consultations, three priorities have emerged as post-2015 development goals.
   
  The priorities, summed up in a snapshot report called The Global Conversation Begins, have emerged from the results of a global multimedia conversation, involving more than 200,000 people in 83 national dialogues across 189 countries.

  
  Read more at Devex

• ABANTU Commemorates International Women’s Day (IWD)

  International Women’s Day (IWD) was, yesterday, commemorated with a stakeholder Consultation in Accra on the theme: ‘Staying on Track for Gender Responsiveness in Post 2015 Development Agenda’.
  IWD is celebrated annually to honour women’s advancement while diligently reminding policy makers and critical actors of the continued vigilance and action to ensure that women’s advancement and gender equality become a reality in all aspects of life.

  
  In Ghana, this year’s IWD is on theme: ‘The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum’ while that of the UN is “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women”.

  
  The Consultation, organised by ABANTU for Development, a sub-regional gender policy advocacy Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), in collaboration with Christian Aid Ghana, aimed to create greater awareness and provide a platform for harnessing efforts towards building a momentum in gender equality activism in the country.

  Read more at Government of Ghana

• Achieving Sustainable Development Post- 2015 will Require Addressing Governance Challenges

  Parliamentarians, civil society and academia have repeatedly emphasised the centrality of governance to sustainable development, taking into account capacity development needs of both people and institutions for good governance at different levels, from local to global.

  The press conference held at the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), discussed a wide-range of issues, including: the current international development agenda, assessment of progress on the MDGs, governance bottlenecks to the achievement of MDGs as well as the need to align the Post-2015 agenda with the needs and aspirations of global citizens. If sustainable development is to be achieved, “there is need to deal with bureaucratic bottlenecks” in our governance structures and systems  said Hon. Ebrahim Abrahim, South Africa’s Deputy Minister in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). South Africa, the continent’s largest economy, is committed to taking a leading role in the Global Thematic Consultation on Governance and in shaping the post-2015 global development framework. Mr. Ebrahim cautioned that as important as it might be, the eradication of corruption alone is unlikely to lead to the full realization of MDGs as it was just “one of the many” governance problems the world is facing today.

  Read more at United Nations South Africa

• ActionAid calls for post- 2015 development panel to address domestic taxation

  Taxation must be central to discussions on how to finance any new development goals, ActionAid said today ahead of a meeting of the high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda next week in Bali.

  Members of the panel will be discussing the thorny issue of how to finance any new development goals that follow the Millennium Development Goals which expire in 2015.

  David Cameron is one of three co-chairs of the panel, and will be represented in Bali by Justine Greening, Secretary of State for International Development.

  A new ActionAid briefing paper, Bringing taxation info the post-2015 development framework, sets out a number of options for increasing domestic resource mobilisation, focussing on how developing countries could increase their tax revenues. This includes building tax collection capacities, but it also means changing the international rules that stand in the way of developing and developed countries collecting taxes.

  The issue of corporate tax avoidance and evasion has risen up the global political agenda, with Cameron promising it will be a key item for the G8 this year.

  
  Read more at AlertNet

• ActionAid calls for post- 2015 development panel to address domestic taxation

  Taxation must be central to discussions on how to finance any new development goals, ActionAid said today ahead of a meeting of the high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda next week in Bali.

  Members of the panel will be discussing the thorny issue of how to finance any new development goals that follow the Millennium Development Goals which expire in 2015.

  David Cameron is one of three co-chairs of the panel, and will be represented in Bali by Justine Greening, Secretary of State for International Development.

  A new ActionAid briefing paper, Bringing taxation info the post-2015 development framework, sets out a number of options for increasing domestic resource mobilisation, focussing on how developing countries could increase their tax revenues. This includes building tax collection capacities, but it also means changing the international rules that stand in the way of developing and developed countries collecting taxes.

  The issue of corporate tax avoidance and evasion has risen up the global political agenda, with Cameron promising it will be a key item for the G8 this year.

  
  Read more at AlertNet

• Addressing Inequalities: The Heart of the Post- 2015 Agenda

  As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, the United Nations, Member States and civil society have started consultations on a new development framework that will succeed the MDGs. Eleven global thematic consultations on topics identified as critical to the post-2015 framework are taking place over the next several months, each of which is co-led by two UN agencies.

  
  Within the ongoing thematic consultations the urgency of addressing inequality head-on and the question on how a new reference framework for development can take into account the need for inclusive growth have emerged as two major, cross-cutting issues. Preliminary exchanges on the subject have shown that dealing conceptually with inequalities within the post-2015 framework may prove challenging.

  
  In order to discuss the different dimensions of inequality and concrete options to address them through development efforts after 2015, the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) has organized an event on Inequality, Inclusive Growth and the post-2015 Framework -- How can the post-2015 framework address inequalities and foster inclusive growth? The event brought together a motley array of senior representatives from UN Agencies, governments, academia, private sector and NGOs and generated a lively discussion on how the post2015 framework could tackle inequality.

  
  “There is now a broad recognition of the powerful and corrosive effects of inequality. The post-2015 agenda needs to emphasize that there is a crucial need to invest in people especially amongst those who are most excluded.” said H.E. Jean-Francis R. Zinsou, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Benin to the United Nations and Chairperson of the Coordination Bureau for LDC Group.

  
  Read more at UNCDF

• Africa making great strides toward many MDG targets yet serious challenges remain

  Converting Africa’s impressive economic performance over the past decade into greater gains on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains a primary challenge for Africa, according to a new report.

  
  Released today, The MDG Report 2013: Assessing progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals concludes that while Africa is the world’s second fastestgrowing region, its rate of poverty reduction is insufficient to reach the target of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

  
  The progress report, prepared by the African Union Commission (AUC), UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), was launched on the final day of the African Union Summit.

  
  Read more at African Brains

• Africa to Address Post- 2015 Disaster Resilience Agenda

  Governments from over 50 countries in Africa will meet in Arusha, Tanzania from 13-15 February for the Fourth Africa Regional Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (ARP) to address the challenges of building a disaster resilient society.

  
  The Africa region is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is projecting economic growth of 5.25% for sub-Saharan Africa in 2013, a rate that places the region second only to Asia's booming economies and well above a world forecast of 3.6%.

  
  As the countries in this blossoming region continue to develop, this impressive growth could be undermined by exposure to disaster risks and a changing climate. A recent statement "Raising the African Voice" at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the African Science Academies, claims that climate change will impact Africa more severely than any other region in the world and that severe weather events such as droughts and floods are on the increase.

   

  Read more at reliefweb

   

   

• Africa Wide Consultation on the Post- 2015 Development Agenda

  Ministers, parliamentarians, policy-makers, members of the Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda, as well as representatives from civil society, youth organizations and the private sector, will attend the third and final regional consultation to define Africa’s position on post-2015 development priorities, on March 11-12, 2013 in Hammamet, Tunisia. The first sub-regional consultative meeting on the Post-2015 development agenda was held in Mombasa, Kenya (October 1-2, 2012) and the second in Dakar, Senegal (December 10 -11, 2012).

  Read more at StarAfrica.com

• Africa Wide Consultations on Post- 2015 Development Agenda and Expert Group Validation Meeting on Africa’s Progress Report on MDGs, Tunis, Tunisia, 11- 14 March 2013

  The 2015 deadline to the current Millennium Development Goals has led to a flurry of activities on what the post 2015 development agenda should look like. The question is not whether there will be a set of international development goals after 2015, but rather, what the proposed framework will consist of. In effect, should the MDGs be retained in their current configuration with an extended deadline? Reformulated? Or replaced by an alternative framework? Underlying all these is the question of which option is likely to have the greatest impact on poverty eradication in Africa.

  
  At the global level, activities have been initiated led by a UN Task Team coordinated by DESA and UNDP resulting in the report Realizing the Future We Want For All, which whilst reaffirming the Millennium Declaration of 2000, proposes a set of global objectives based on the three concepts of human rights, social development and environmental sustainability. This will constitute one of the base documents to be discussed at a Special Session of the General Assembly on the post 2015 development agenda in September 2013. This same group has also prepared guidelines for consultations at the global, regional and national levels – including thematic issues. These guidelines are open-ended and adaptable to the local context. Furthermore, the Secretary General established a High Level panel on the post 2015 agenda and the appointment of the President of Liberia of Ms. Johnson Sirleaf as co-chair of this panel together with the newly established Assistant Secretary General for post 2015 development planning Ms. HajiaAmina Mohammed provides a unique opportunity to feed the outcomes of the Africa-wide consultations into the report of the High Level Panel.

  
  Read more at Union Africaine

• Africa Youth Conference Adopts Declaration on MDGs, Post 2015 Agenda

  The African Youth Conference on Post-2015 Development Agenda, held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 12-16 December 2012, has adopted a Youth Declaration on the Post-2015 Agenda. This Agenda identifies 13 actions for accelerating progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and makes recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda.

  Convened by the Organization of African Youth, with the support of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, the Conference reviewed progress on the MDGs, discussed the future of youth in the post-2015 agenda and addressed African countries’ commitments on creating jobs and reducing youth unemployment.

  Read more at Sustainable Development Policy & Practice