In UN corridors you'll often hear frustrated diplomats whispering that the amount of process around an issue is inversely correlated to the likelihood of achieving anything on it.
The process of replacing the UN's millennium development goals (MDGs) will certainly be a long one: it doesn't end until September 2015. But despite the huge bureaucracy surrounding it, we don't have to accept an outcome based on the lowest common denominator.
The high-level panel set up by the UN secretary general – co-chaired by Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – which is intended to steer the process, meets on Wednesday. The challenge for the panel is to set a new agenda, ignite passions and stimulate the drive that is so desperately needed, rather than delivering a report bogged down by political bargaining.
Read more at The Guardian
