13 January 2016
CSOs Reflect on Early Implementation of SDGs, Indicators, Accountability
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As implementation officially begins on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), civil society organizations (CSOs) and others have reflected on early progress and implementation.

In blog posts and papers, highlight areas needing greater attention, such as agreeing on indicators and ensuring follow-up and review mechanisms.

Other contributions address: implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in tandem with SDG implementation; climate resilience; SDGs on gender and cities; and the concerns of the least developed countries (LDCs) about trade within the context of the new development agenda.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)January 2016: As implementation officially begins on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), civil society organizations (CSOs) and others have reflected on early progress and implementation. In blog posts and papers, highlight areas needing greater attention, such as agreeing on indicators and ensuring follow-up and review mechanisms. Other contributions address: implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in tandem with SDG implementation; climate resilience; SDGs on gender and cities; and the concerns of the least developed countries (LDCs) about trade within the context of the new development agenda.

“It’s all gone national,” writes Claire Melamed, Overseas Development Institute (ODI), in a blog post on Deliver 2030 reflecting on early progress. She points to national-level discussions and plans for implementing the SDGs, including in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and observes that many governments and CSOs are “busy working out what the goals mean for them” while the UN system provides practical tools and guidance for national implementation. At the global level, Melamed highlights continued focus on data issues, including on operationalizing commitments to disaggregated data and agreeing on indicators for the SDGs’ targets and the monitoring and reviewing framework. She identifies the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) as key to ensuring accountability on progress. Melamed concludes by informing that ODI is developing its programme of work on the SDGs, with a focus on the poorest and most marginalized.

An International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) article identifies several criteria for successfully measuring progress on the SDGs. Livia Bizikova, Peter Denton and Laszlo Pinter argue that indicators need to be: manageable (able to be collected, monitored and reported on); relevant for sustainable development priorities, including at the national and local levels; able to monitor actual changes over time; and cover all key dimensions of the sustainable development framework. On ensuring manageability, the authors suggest beginning with a core set of “must-have” indicators. They also recommend including “state” indicators that measure the state of resources and changes over time, and using “proxies” when state indicators are not available.

Restless Development released a publication, ‘Follow-up and Review: How to Scale Up Ambition on Youth-led Accountability for the SDGs,’ that presents three recommendations on a “sliding scale of ambition” to transform youth engagement and leadership into national, regional and global reviews of progress on sustainable development that enable accountability to citizens at all levels. Restless Development proposes that youth: monitor progress on the SDGs, as invited representatives in state-led review processes; create their own mechanisms, spaces and evidence for holding governments accountable; and lead a paradigm shift on accountability. The publication calls for increased political, financial and technical support for youth-led accountability to operationalize recommendations.

The Paris Agreement provides a framework for “accountability dynamics [to] work through reputational incentives, peer pressure, policy advocacy and activist litigation” writes International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Director Andrew Norton in a blog post. Norton discusses the scale of changes needed to implement the Paris Agreement and the SDGs, including shifting towards a development pathway that combines local action for equity and rights, with a global shift towards zero net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. He highlights the potential for local actions to achieve global climate action, ranging from clarification of local ownership rights to incentivize the protection of forests and coastal ecosystems, to combining economic empowerment with decarbonization of energy through democratized energy access.

Climate resilience is the most discussed resilience sector, according to the findings of ODI’s ‘Resilience Scan,’ which also observes an increase in case studies on climate resilience. The scan summarizes writing on resilience from July-September 2015, and highlights the importance of focusing attention on measuring chronic stressors, and understanding and managing trade-offs in resilience building. Among other findings, ODI cites a range of different approaches to measuring resilience, such as tracking losses or numbers affected.

Abigal Hunt, Womankind Worldwide, discusses key actions for governments to ensure that gender remains a priority in the 2030 Agenda, in a blog post on Deliver 2030. These actions include: reviewing existing gender equality strategies, policies and programmes to determine their alignment with the SDGs; establishing or strengthening action plans that are costed, time-bound and financed; tackling structural barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment; strengthening the capacity and gender-responsiveness of institutions; securing flexible, sustainable, long-term financing; and ensuring robust follow-up and review.

ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability has developed a series of briefing sheets on the SDGs that focus on SDG 11 (Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable). The briefing sheets introduce the SDGs, highlight the relevance of the SDGs for local and city level actors, discuss SDG implementation in cities, examine the role of indicators and data in ensuring accountability and transparency, and explain the relationship between key 2015 processes and the expected New Urban Agenda.

To ensure an appropriate finance mix for the least developed countries’ (LDCs) in the post-2015 development agenda, Debapriya Bhattacharya, Center for Policy Dialogue, recommends prioritizing LDC trade issues, such as duty-free, quota-free market access for LDCs, trade facilitation, regional integration and accession of LDCs to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Bhattacharya presents his findings in a Think Piece on the E15 Initiative, ‘Post-2015 International Development Agenda in the Context of Interlocking Trade and Financing in the LDCs.’ The paper also discusses the role of domestic resources and private capital in financing sustainable development, the use of official development assistance (ODA) to leverage other finance and ‘blended finance’ instruments to catalyze investments with strong social and development benefits or to overcome market barriers, among other approaches. [Melamed Blog] [IISD Blog] [Restless Development Publication: Follow-up and Review: How to Scale Up Ambition on Youth-led Accountability for the SDGs] [IIED Blog] [ODI Publication: Resilience Scan, July-September 2015] [Hunt Blog] [ICLEI Briefing Sheets on SDGs] [E15 Publication: Post-2015 International Development Agenda in the Context of Interlocking Trade and Financing in the LDCs]

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