30 November 2012
DESA Live Chat Provides Updates on Post-2015 Development Agenda
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The online discussion attracted approximately 900 participants, who were invited to submit questions.

Answers were provided by representatives of DESA and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), as part of the core team of the UN Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

27 November 2012: The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) held a live chat on Facebook on the topic “Keeping the Momentum Beyond 2015: Moving Forward Towards a New Global Development Agenda,” on 27 November 2012. The online discussion, which attracted approximately 900 participants, focused on the current processes and thinking on moving toward a post-2015 UN development agenda.

Participants were invited to submit questions, for which answers were provided by representatives of DESA and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), who comprise part of the UN Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Initiating the discussion, Rob Vos of DESA highlighted the need to “rethink our development paradigms” to achieve a shared and sustainable future for all.

Questions from participants on the post-2015 development agenda addressed, inter alia: civil society participation and engagement of youth, marginalized people, remote communities, and fragile and conflict-affected States; how the results of consultations (including thematic, national, and online consultations) will be reflected; coordination between UN agencies to make the agenda consistent with and complementary to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) process; inter-linkages between all ongoing post-2015 processes; the need for these processes to be consolidated into a global development framework to avoid fragmentation; and lessons learned on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

DESA and UNDP representatives indicated that there is emerging consensus on framing the post-2015 development agenda around common shared principles and a limited set of global goals, with more specific targets tailored to countries’ circumstances. They also underscored the importance of: goals that promote synergies between the three dimensions of sustainable development; cross-cutting issues including governance, gender and women empowerment; and addressing MDGs’ shortcomings while also building on their strengths, and incorporating their “unfinished business.”

On the consultations, UN Task Team representatives discussed the UN Development Group (UNDG) project on “Planning for Post-2015: The Future we Want,” which aims to promote open and inclusive discussions about the post-2015 agenda through support to approximately 100 inclusive national dialogues, 11 thematic meetings, and an ambitious social media platform for outreach to all citizens and concerned stakeholders. They specified that more than 50 national consultations have been initiated, and that these consultations are making a specific effort, using innovative methods, to include the poorest and the most marginalized people. They added that: information about the consultations will be available on a website that is still under construction; an interim report with early results from the consultations should be published in the spring of 2013; and the consultations will continue through 2015 with several interim reports that will provide a synthesis and main messages emerging from the process. They said that concerns and ideas from the consultations would be considered in advising the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and in all other structured discussions related to the post-2015 development agenda.

Vos said another chat would be organized soon. [IISD RS Sources] [Live Chat Webpage]


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