November 2015: Civil society organizations (CSO) and others continue to respond to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA). Recent responses include a focus on national implementation, with papers recommending how the Irish development sector and the UK Government can move toward implementation. Other contributions address: indicators; global economic governance; tax evasion, illicit financial flows (IFFs) and other financing issues; and synergies between the 2030 Agenda and the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063.
Irish NGOs have primarily focused their SDG-related efforts “on fundraising from the Irish public, rather than on supporting social, political or conceptual change,” contributing to a portrayal of people in poverty in passive, recipient roles rather than as potential agents of change, writes Hans Zomer, Director of Dóchas, the Irish association of development NGOs, in an article, ‘From Charity to Universality?’ in Policy & Practice: A Development and Education Review. He recommends that the development sector focus on long-term sustainable solutions to poverty rather than the dominant, short-term charity approach, stressing that the recognition of shared challenges and universal responsibility is what sets the SDGs apart.
Similarly, the universality of the SDGs means that the UK’s approach to implementation must be “fundamentally different” than its approach to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and must go beyond the work of its Department for International Development (DFID), Claire Hickson writes in a paper, ‘Bringing the goals home’ published by Bond Beyond 2015 UK. She argues that the UK’s implementation will require three types of action: delivering the SDGs domestically for all UK citizens; ensuring DFID supports the delivery of the SDGs abroad; and ensuring that domestic action on the SDGs has a positive global impact. Recommended options for the UK’s implementation include: the development of a national sustainable development strategy (NSDS) with meaningful and measurable commitments; early identification of department leads for each goal and relevant existing data and indicators; and creation of a multi-stakeholder national body to review progress.
The Inter-Agency and Expert Group (IAEG) on the SDGs process needs to provide space for groups “who are innovating on measurement,” such as a platform organized by indicator where governments, researchers, civil society and others can share tools for measuring the SDGs, writes Kate Anderson in a post on The Brookings Institute. She highlights challenges encountered during the IAEG-SDGs meeting, including: inconsistent time allocated to discussion of indicators; no interventions allowed from UN agencies or observers on some indicators; and failure to discuss SDG indicators on education for sustainable development (4.7) and curricula on sustainable development and lifestyles (12.8) and climate change (13.3). She welcomes the three-day consultation for input from non-members, which “represents a positive move towards inclusiveness and a realization that measuring (and more importantly, implementing) these SDGs is going to require new types of collaboration.”
Also on indicators and monitoring, the Task Team on CSO Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment released a discussion paper on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation’s (GPEDC) Monitoring Framework. According to the paper, titled ‘Assessing CSO engagement: The Global Partnership and the Sustainble Development Goals Monitoring Frameworks,’ advantages of the GPEDC’s framework include its evidence-based approach for accountability and country-led approach that grounds monitoring in countries’ own accountability mechanisms and information systems. It recommends a multi-purpose indicator on the extent to which “civil society operates within an environment that maximizes its engagement in and contribution to development,” including for monitoring SDG 17’s (means of implementation and global partnership) target on encouraging and promoting effective civil society partnerships, and SDG 16’s target on good governance as an enabling environment for civil society.
On global economic governance, the German Development Institute (DIE) considers the need for an enabling global economic governance framework for the SDGs. The briefing paper, titled ‘Post 2015: The Need for an Enabling Global Economic Governance Framework,’ identifies key global economic challenges, including: adjustments to the international trading system to ensure that foreign investment and trade support sustainable development, including reforming the multilateral trading systems, and improving developing countries’ access to global value chains; and reform of global finance institutions and rules to address IFFs and transfers. The paper asserts that SDG 17 (MOI) and the AAAA do not address the challenges that prevent developing countries from benefitting from global trade and financial flows, recommending addressing this “ambition gap” to realize the 2030 Agenda.
Also on financing, Aniket Shah, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), identifies a critical role for national development banks in financing and achieving the SDGs because of their ability to promote public-private partnerships (PPPs) and long-term capital deployment. Shah outlines several key areas for national development banks, including: serving as a bridge between the planning of infrastructure investments by government and proper structuring for private capital; guiding local savings pools for use in financing domestic sustainable development; and leading a transition to a low-carbon future, including aligning investment with long-term decarbonization strategies in high-income countries and with climate adaptation plans in low-income countries. Shah proposes a ‘Global Development Banking Forum’ co-chaired by the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, with bi-annual meetings in Washington, DC and Beijing, China.
On a Social Watch/Righting Finance blog, Aldo Caliari expresses concern that financial models for infrastructure do not address the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. He notes, however, that “recommendations on rights of investors are quite explicit,” pointing to language on supportive business environments, a good climate for private sector investment and an appropriate degree of investor protection. Caliari recommends that the Group of 20 (G-20) strengthen coherence and implementation of the Guiding Principles through explicit recommendations in the High Level Principles on Long Term Investment Financing by Institutional Investors that, inter alia: governments have a regulatory and policy framework to ensure that investors are accountable for human rights violations when they occur; and institutional investors uphold their duty to respect human rights.
David Makwerere describes a focus on sustainable development, transformation, and human security as the common thread between the AU’s Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda in a blog post on the Action Support Centre. He also observes the “huge divergence” in their implementation schedules. He says that Africa’s success on both Agenda 2063 and the SDGs will depend on the accountability of states, their desire to fight corruption, and their will to democratize.
Finally, Anna Patricia Valerio observes in a Devex post, ‘SDGs, according to Google Trends’ that analysis of searches for the term “SDG” suggest: the term gained traction at the start of 2015, with searches for “SDGs” surpassing those on “MDGs” in September 2015; “Global Goals” likely became a synonymous term for the SDGs just prior to the UN Sustainable Development Summit; and the term “SDG” is most searched in India, with city-level data suggesting greater popularity of the term in searches in Kampala, Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; Lagos, Nigeria; and Dhaka, Bangladesh than in either Washington, DC or New York, US. [Policy & Practice Publication: From Charity to Universality?] [Bond/Beyond2015 Publication: Bringing the goals home Implementing the SDGs in the UK] [Brookings Institute Blog] [Task Team Publication: Asesssing CSO Engagement] [DIE Publication: Briefing Paper 15/2015 ] [SDSN Blog] [Social Watch Blog] [Action Support Centre Blog] [Devex Post]