24 January 2017: Civil society organizations (CSOs) have released papers on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 14 (life below water) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), and on financing the SDGs. The Brookings Institute released a paper that evaluates the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which asserts that the world would not have achieved the gains made by 2015 without the MDGs.
IIED underscores the potential role of ecological fiscal transfers or payments for environmental services in incentivizing action on SDG 14.
On SDG 14, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) presents an analytical framework for using fiscal policy to sustainably manage global fisheries and implement SDG 14. The framework, outlined in a briefing paper, includes six key areas of proposed action: selecting legal/regulatory or fiscal incentives; designing such instruments to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes; coordinating policies, regulations and fiscal incentives across SDG 14 targets to deliver efficient, holistic progress; ensuring institutional building blocks to deliver SDG 14, including capacity building, technical support and enabling environments; considering the role of actors at multiple scales; and ensuring that efforts for SDG 14 are complementary with efforts for the other SDGs. The paper, titled ‘A sustainable future for fisheries: how fiscal policy can be used to achieve SDG 14,’ underscores the role of subsidies, taxes and conditional transfers, such as ecological fiscal transfers or payments for environmental services, in incentivizing action on SDG 14.
On inequality and economic prosperity, Oxfam released a briefing paper that finds eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world. It cautions that widening global inequality undermines efforts to end poverty and ensure social stability. The paper, titled ‘An economy for the 99%,’ examines how large corporations and super-rich individuals drive inequality, and argues that the economy of the 1% is based on six false assumptions. For example, a false assumption that the planet has limitless natural resources has contributed to environmental exploitation and climate change. The report calls for a human economy that encompasses governments that are accountable and visionary, businesses that work in the interest of workers and producers, a valued environment, sustainable renewable energy, women’s rights, and fair taxation.
On the MDGs, the Brookings Institute paper, titled ‘Change of pace: Accelerations and advances during the MDG era,’ highlights that: accelerated progress saved at least 21 million additional lives; acceleration varied across areas and issues, with the greatest incremental gains in Africa; and smaller relative gains but more accelerated progress occurred in lower-income countries (LICs), compared with larger relative gains and less acceleration in middle-income countries (MICs).
On financing for the SDGs, the Third World Network (TWN) released a white paper that examines the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) proposed Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD). According to the paper, donors’ focus on creating, calculating and reporting TOSSD could distract from official development assistance (ODA) commitments. The authors also raise concerns about: the transparency and inclusivity of the process to create TOSSD; and what will and will not count as TOSSD, eg. the possible inclusion of refugee support and domestic expenditures on education, health and climate change in TOSSD, and the possible inclusion of public-private partnerships, blended finance and other financing arrangements. [A sustainable future for fisheries] [IIED Blog] [An economy for the 99%] [Change of pace] [Brookings Institute Blog] [TWN Press Release]