The U.N. high-level report on the post-2015 framework reflects an evolution on global development thinking that departs substantially from the MDGs, writes Terra Lawson-Remer, Fellow for Civil Society, Markets and Democracy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
 
Last week the U.N. High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda released its long anticipated report: A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies Through Sustainable Development. I’ve finally had time to give the long report a good read. It is an aspirational manifesto, reflecting a “new mainstream” in development thinking that departs substantially from the development thinking of the 80s, 90s or even the 2000s.
 
The HLP focuses on some critical issues that have too long been sidelined: governance and rule of law, inequality and social and economic exclusion, and sustainability (especially climate change) to advance shared opportunity within and across generations. The report also recognizes the central role played by global economic rules, rather than aid flows, in creating opportunity or perpetuating poverty and exclusion. This attention to the local impact of global rules is similarly the starting point of my ongoing CFR series on poverty, inequality, and global economic governance.

Read more devex

On 30 May 2013, the High-Level Panel assembled by the UN Secretary General published its recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda. The document outlines both a general view on the future of global development (culminating in the five ‘big, transformative shifts’) and a list of goals and targets to follow up on the original Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The new list is longer than the original: there are now 12 instead of eight goals, and 53 instead of 21 targets. Two clear observations can be drawn from this sheer rise in numbers. First, the increase may be interpreted as an indication of a wider and higher level of ambition. Coming from this group of eminent persons, including many political leaders, this is a positive factor. Despite attracting various critiques, the MDGs have been a positive focusing device for policy and thinking about policy. By increasing the scope of goals, this focusing function is potentially stronger because it will affect a larger set of relevant issues.

Read more at Talkin’ Business

United Nations officials today highlighted the need to recognize the vital role of culture in poverty reduction and sustainable growth, and to ensure that it is integrated into the post-2015 development agenda.

As Member States plot the course for the global development agenda after 2015, the target date for achieving the anti-poverty objectives known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the General Assembly convened today’s high-level thematic debate to consider the role and impact of culture on development.

“The significance of the nexus between culture and development for the post-2015 agenda is not yet fully grasped,” said the President of the Assembly, Vuk Jeremic, who convened the debate in cooperation with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Read more at UN News Centre

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has endorsed the replenishment of funding for the Global Fund and the Roll Back Malaria Partnership.
In a dispatch from Japan, President Sirleaf who spoke just at the close of an opening statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, recalled her appointment by Mr. Ban in July 2012, to co-chair, along with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, and a Panel of 24 eminent persons, to consult and devise a new development framework to replace the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

Read more at allAfrica

The High-Level Global Cooperation for Development Symposium is happening in Ethiopia 6 to 7 June 2013. It intends to see "A renewed global partnership for development for a post-2015 era".

High level delegations from over 100 countries both developed and developing have convened in Addis Ababa to look into the performance of the Millennium Development Goals and to see how the remaining goals would be achieved.

Addressing the Symposuim Sofian Ahmed, Minister of Finance and Economic Development reckons Africa is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

The Symposium intends to renew the global partnership for development to meet goals that haven't been achieved and may possibly be unmet in the coming two three years.

This Symposium is a preparatory meeting to the upcoming symposium in 2014 that will convene to renew the millennium development goals for post 2015.

Read more at allAfrica

Anti-corruption and governance are undeniably key factors for achieving and sustaining development, globally as well as nationally. Governance and anti-corruption serve as forces behind eliminating poverty. Both are preconditions for sustainable and equitable development.
 
Until now, however, they have not been fully integrated into development agendas and efforts, most notably the Millennium Development Goals that were agreed in 2000 and which are to be achieved by 2015.
 
Yet all this may be about to change.
 
On Friday, a high-level panel of experts convened by the U.N. issued a report that identified 12 areas for goals that are to succeed the MDGs come 2015. Included is a stand-alone goal to ensure good governance and effective institutions, including a target to reduce bribery and corruption. It also put governance among the “transformative” factors affecting development beyond 2015. Putting governance so high on the agenda shows how much the development debate has shifted since 2000.

Read more at devex

May was a great month for showcasing the centrality of women to every single goal on the international agenda for development and poverty eradication. Dare I call it a watershed moment? It depends on what happens next.

The third Women Deliver conference -- a global call for action to improve the health and well-being of girls and women -- closed on the day that the UN's High Level Panel on post-2015 development objectives issued its recommendations. Both groups declared that poverty cannot be eradicated until no one, especially girls and women, is left behind.

The message: we must all get out of the "silos" that have each of us working against one problem in the development world while ignoring the rest. We must instead recognize that just as our targets are interlinked -- HIV/AIDS, family planning, maternal mortality, violence against women, child marriage -- so must our work -- and our spending -- be comprehensive as well.

Read more at Huffington Post

New global partnership for development - Global partnerships in development could work for Africa if they were aligned with the strategic vision of the continent and buttressed by a unified continental voice, Carlos Lopes, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), said here Thursday.

”In contrast,” Lopes added, “the partnerships that underpinned the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework did not go far enough to address some of the daunting challenges facing African countries.”

Lopes was addressing the opening session of a two-day high-level symposium that is discussing the future and features of a renewed global partnership for a post-2015 era, after the completion of the MDGs period in September 2015.

The symposium is the first of three major consultations in preparation for the Development Cooperation Forum that will be organised by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in July 2014 in New York to advance global dialogue on the future of development cooperation.

Read more AfriqueJet

MTN Ghana has pledged to work with the government in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on education.

Mr James Bukari Basintale, General Manager of the Northern Business District of the Company, said this is in appreciation of the critical importance of education to the development of both the individual and the nation.
“It is the main resource that builds the human capital of every country.”

Launching the “Y’ellow Care 2013”, a community support activity, under the theme: “Investing in education for all”, he made reference to a research report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which indicates that if all “students in low income countries left school with basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty and this will contribute to reducing global poverty rate by 12 per cent”.

Read more at Vibe Ghana.com

Graham Stuart MP is encouraging charities and not-for-profit groups in Beverley and Holderness to bid for money from a £4m fund to support efforts to reduce global poverty.

The Global Poverty Action Fund’s Community Partnership Window allows small, UK-based organisations to put forward innovative ideas in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals to help the poorest people around the world.
The bidding process has now opened and closes on 9 July 2013.

Mr Stuart said: “The Millennium Development Goals are a range of ambitious targets that were set by the leaders of 189 countries in 2000 and include the eradication of extreme hunger, the promotion of universal primary education, reduction in child mortality and improvement of maternal health.

Read more at  Driffield Times & Post

The report, compiled by the High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, co-chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, was presented last week to Secretary-General with a focus on assisting the poorest and most marginalized, a disproportionate number of whom are women.

“The report puts reducing disaster risk centre stage in the Post-2015 Development Agenda debate,” said the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström.

The 27-member Panel that wrote the document called for the new post-2015 goals to drive five major transformational shifts, including a transition from “reducing” to “ending” extreme poverty, leaving no one behind; putting sustainable development at the core of the development agenda; and forging a new global partnership based on cooperation, equity and human rights.

Read more at India Blooms

Give peace a chance. This is the message of the High-Level Panel, who singled out peace as a cornerstone of the post-2015 development agenda in their much-anticipated report released yesterday. The report stresses how freedom from conflict and violence are not just a means to an end, but ends in and of themselves. Such freedoms are “fundamental human entitlements” and “essential foundations for peaceful and prosperous societies.” Given simmering violence in the Middle East and across the Sahel, their message could not be more timely.

In putting peace squarely on the post-2015 development agenda, a historical wrong has finally been corrected. When the Millennium Declaration, which gave rise to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), was being crafted in the late 1990s, goals and targets on peace and security were quietly dropped from the final text. Now, they are front and center in the discussion. And rightly so. As the panel observes, “without peace, there can be no development.”

Read more at ISN Blog

• From defunding civil society to defending civil society -  Enrica Barago and Tchamba Olivia, CIVICUS Geneva Interns
• Youth unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa is cancerous
• General debate on human rights situations that require the council’s attention
• Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Interactive Dialogue
• Submission on an Enabling Environment for Civil Society to the UN High Level Panel on the Post 2015 Development Agenda
• Beyond 2015 - Aid alone cannot eradicate poverty
• Cuba: Importance of Civil Society Highlighted
• Egypt: Memoir author talks about a life spent fighting for civil society
• India: Uttarakhand NGO gets French award
• USA: Revelations about government surveillance ‘raise red flags’
• The $1 Trillion corporate heist
• UNRWA launches teacher toolkit for Human Rights, Conflict Resolution and Tolerance
• Reagan-Fascell democracy fellowships at the National Endowment for Democracy

 Read this issue online or subscribe to receive all future issues

• Pluralism: a key challenge of the 21st century - Koffi Annan
• A global debate needs local voices - Jay Naidoo
• Listen to, not attack Turkey protestors: CIVICUS
• The deteriorating situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic and the recent killings in Al-Qusayr
• A new global partnership: eradicate poverty and transform economies through sustainable development - The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
• Africa: West African civil society leaders meet in Accra
• Egypt: NGO law becomes test for Egypt’s Morsi
• Russia: Who's next? Putin critics worry as Russia clampdown spreads
• Canada: Tell the Prime Minister that you care about global poverty reduction and human rights
• Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai
• Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation, and Accountability

 Read this issue online or subscribe to receive all future issues

One of the final announcements at Women Deliver, the global conference on family planning, was the launch of a social network campaign to demand countries include reproductive and sexual health and rights in the UN’s new development goals.

These new development goals will take over when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. UN agencies, countries, non-governmental groups and suppliers are busy now working to ensure their top issue or product is included.

Read more at LifeNews.com

The European Union is edging closer to its final take on the post-2015 agenda.
 
The overarching framework for the period after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015 is one of the main items on the agenda of the EU development ministers’s meeting on Tuesday in Brussels, where ministers are also expected to approve a larger-than-expected budget for the European Development Fund and to set the tone for action to reduce poverty in the world with the implementation of the Agenda for Change.

Read more at devex

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to receive the World Statesman Award from U.S.-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation (ACF) in his upcoming visit to New York.

The award is given in recognition of Yudhoyono's significant contribution to democracy, world peace and human rights promotion.

The award would be handed over by the ACF, a prestigious organization founded in 1965 that promotes coalition of business and religious leaders in enhancing peace, tolerance and resolution of ethnic conflicts around the world through democratic means and protecting human rights.

Read more People’s Daily Online

More than 3,000 delegates including policy-makers, advocates and world leaders representing over 150 countries will convene for the Women Deliver 2013 Conference at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) here, tomorrow, the decade's largest meeting focused on girls' and women's health and rights.

Malaysia is the first Asian country to be given the honour to host the three-day global conference, which was previously held in London and Washington D.C.

According to a statement from the conference's Malaysia Media Secretariat today, the conference would feature more than 100 sessions with talks by some of the world's leading voices, calling for action to ensure that girls and women are prioritised in the lead-up to the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline and beyond.

Read more at National News Agency of Malaysia

The United Nations Resident Coordinator Office in Lebanon is organizing a National Consultation on the Post-2015 Development Agenda which will take place on 29 May, at the Holiday Inn Beirut-Dunes (Dunes Ballroom) at 9:00 am. This consultation will be a unique opportunity for a frank and open discussion, to receive feedback from diverse segments of Lebanese society about key concerns, and to generate ideas for future regional and global improvements.

The UN General Assembly had called on the UN system to facilitate national discussions on development priorities in the post-2015 period. Lebanon was one of 83 countries selected to participate in the process.

In September 2000, The Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration. Ratified by 198 countries, the Declaration pledged to achieve by the year 2015 eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) including poverty reduction, universal education, gender equity, protecting the environment and enhancing global partnership.

Read more at Zawya

Investing in the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls will help accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, United Nations senior officials said on the final day of the Women Deliver Conference.

“We need – in Governments, legislatures, and public administrations – more people who will lead on these issues,” today said UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Helen Clark, in her remarks to the third Women Deliver Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“We need many more women in positions of power, and women who are prepared to use that power to advance the human development and rights of other women.”

She added that life had improved for many girls and women since the eight anti-poverty targets known as the MDGs were launched with a deadline of 2015, and a 20-year action plan on sexual and reproductive health rights was agreed on in 1994 in Cairo at the UN International Conference on Population and Development.

Read more at UN News Centre

Investing in the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls will help accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, United Nations senior officials said on the final day of the Women Deliver Conference.

“We need – in Governments, legislatures, and public administrations – more people who will lead on these issues,” today said UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Helen Clark, in her remarks to the third Women Deliver Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“We need many more women in positions of power, and women who are prepared to use that power to advance the human development and rights of other women.”

She added that life had improved for many girls and women since the eight anti-poverty targets known as the MDGs were launched with a deadline of 2015, and a 20-year action plan on sexual and reproductive health rights was agreed on in 1994 in Cairo at the UN International Conference on Population and Development.

Read more at UN News Centre

The 27-member U.N. panel expressed "deep respect" for the MDGs, saying: "The 13 years since the millennium have seen the fastest reduction in poverty in human history: there are half a billion fewer people living below an international poverty line of $1.25 a day. Child death rates have fallen by more than 30 percent, with about three million children's lives saved each year compared to 2000. Deaths from malaria have fallen by one quarter."
The panel proposed a major expansion of the MDGs — with a special focus on the more than one billion people still living on less than $1.25 a day — to tackle the causes of poverty such as weak government institutions, corruption, a lack of basic freedoms, conflict and hunger.

Read more at ctpost.com

Excellency,

The undersigned organisations are writing to urge your government to ensure that the human rights situation in Egypt is addressed by your delegation at the Human Rights Council at its upcoming twenty third session in June 2013.

"We urge members and observer states of the Human Rights Council to explicitly address the ongoing human rights violations taking place in Egypt under items 3 and 4 of the programme of work. We also urge your delegations to call for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to ensure that any memorandum of understanding establishing an OHCHR regional office between the OHCHR and the Egyptian government allows the regional office to monitor and report on violations of human rights in Egypt to the OHCHR and other relevant entities."

Read more

“We are writing to call on members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to take action during the current 23rdsession of the HRC to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, in response to the continued appalling situation of widespread and systematic human rights violations in Eritrea and the lack of cooperation demonstrated by the Eritrean government towards international and regional human rights mechanisms.”

Read More

Kenya's medical practitioners are among 3,000 guests attending an international conference on girls and women's health and human rights issues in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Women Deliver 2013, which brings together leaders and women rights advocates from more than 150 countries will be officially opened by Malaysia's Prime Minister Dato Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak on Tuesday.

Institutions such as the World Bank and World Health Organisation (WHO) are expected to release their new findings on how to improve voluntary family planning services within the next seven years.

The conference also hopes to make a resolution on how to place the needs of women and girls at the centre of the 2015 millennium development agenda.

Read more at Daily Nation

As the 2015 deadline to meet up with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, the African region on Thursday called for the inclusion of all unmet health targets in the post-2015 agenda.

The post-2015 development agenda refers to a process by the UN to help define the future global development framework that would succeed the UN Goals.

Speaking on behalf of Nigeria in an interview, Dr Bridget Okoeguale, Director Public Health, Federal Ministry of Health, said there was the need to continue with MDGs 4 and 5 MDGs 4 and 5 deal with the health of mothers and children.
She noted that most countries, including Nigeria, were yet to meet up with the MDGs relating to women and children.

Read more at Spy Ghana

There is a growing push to include resilience to disaster risk in the post 2015 development agenda discussion.

The most frequently used reasons used at the UN Global Platform meeting underway in Geneva are huge costs to infrastructure and government and its impact on the poor and the most vulnerable groups in society.

Vulnerable groups, according to United Nations definition in terms of disaster risk represents women, children and people living with disability.

Speaking to journalists, the UN Deputy Secretary General, Jan Elliason said investing in disaster risk is not the sole responsibility of the central government but all stakeholders in the community.

“All stakeholders, which includes government, civil society and the business community should work together to build resilient infrastructure and communities to prevent natural disasters.

Read more at Prevention Web

A group United Nations human rights experts today called* for the post-2015 development agenda to be urgently refocused on equality, social protection and accountability. The statement came as UN Member States will discuss this week in New York how to shape a new set of global development goals.

“As we enter this crucial phase we must not forget the failures that have left nearly one billion hungry and poverty still rife. The rise of inequality has severely undermined the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals,” the independent experts said.

“Future goals must be sensitive to who benefits and at whose expense, and must go beyond blunt, aggregate targets that allow us to pick the ‘low-hanging fruit’ and ignore the most vulnerable groups, while leaving systemic injustices untouched,” they stressed.

The UN Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals will meet from 22 to 24 May to discuss the contours of a set of post-2015 targets to succeed the Millennium Development Goals.

Read more at Scoop World

Reproductive health is an essential right for all females and should be a major component in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, local and international experts told The Jordan Times.

“The Post-2015 Development Agenda gives us in Jordan and the world a great chance to renew commitments to women and children,” said Muna Idris, the UNFPA assistant representative in Jordan.

“Many of our indicators related to women’s health and reproductive health have stagnated over the past few years, and we need to exert additional efforts to reach a tipping point upwards again,” Idris told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

In order to prepare a Post-2015 Development Agenda, the UN is carrying out global and national consultations to understand what priorities and recommendations are to be included in this future agenda, which will follow the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

She explained that with youths representing 70 per cent of Jordan’s population, “we need to focus more attention on reproductive health and the empowerment of young women”.

Read more at The Jordan Times

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that a total of 470 million new jobs, or about 32 million jobs per year, will be needed to provide employment to the world’s working age population in the 15 years from 2015 to 2030.
ILO senior economist, Aurelio Parisotto, cited the first results of the United Nations (UN)’s ‘My World’ global survey, which asked people in 190 countries for their priorities for a post-2015 development agenda, and which showed that “jobs are a high priority everywhere.”

Parisotto said that the current employment scenario is already bleak.

“One in every three workers in the world is living with their families below the US$2 poverty line,” he said. “They work as paid employees, own-account workers or unpaid family labour, but remain trapped in poverty.”

The world’s youth are particularly affected by unemployment. Parisotto said that of the over 200 million unemployed people worldwide, almost 73 million of whom are young people.

Read more at Asian Journal

As the world faces growing water securitychallenges, experts are calling for better monitoring of the availability, quality and use of water, and its inclusion in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals as a key issue in the post-2015 development agenda.

Human activities, such as building dams andagricultural irrigation, they say, have fundamentally altered the global water system, threatening ecosystems and a steady supply of fresh water. But a lack of scientific data and monitoring mean there is still no effective global governance of this key resource.

TheMillennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015, focus narrowly on drinking water and sanitation forhuman health, but ignore global water quantity and quality standards for personal use, agriculture and healthy ecosystems, argue scientists from the Global Water System Project (GWSP).

Read more at Thomas Reuters Foundation

“The rise of inequality has severely undermined the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs,” the independent experts said in their message to Member States which will meet this week in New York to discuss how to a shape a new set of global development goals for the period after the 2015 deadline of the MDGs.
“Development targets that pay no attention to which groups are being left behind are just like economic growth targets – they can be met without having any real impact on ensuring a more equal and just world,” they added.

The experts stressed that as the 2015 deadline approaches, countries must not forget that one billion are still hungry and that poverty is still rife across the world.

Read more at UN News Centre

African leaders and experts have called for children to be at the centre of the post-2015 development agenda. The call comes as the African Union (AU) prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

According to a statement issued yesterday by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), a panel of distinguished African leaders and thinkers agreed on a number of critical priorities to ensure children's specific and holistic needs are reflected in a strong post-2015 development agenda and a common set of accountable and comprehensive goals for governments and the international community.

ACPF is a leading pan-African centre for policy research and dialogue on the African child.

Joaquim Chissano of former president of Mozambique and Chairman of the International Board of Trustees of ACPF, said; "The MDGs have achieved much for children, galvanising development efforts and guiding global and national priorities, and as a continent Africa has witnessed much progress including impressive reductions in child mortality and greatly improved primary school enrolment."

Read more at allAfrica

In a new post-2015 development agenda, we must build on the achievements of the MDGs while avoiding their shortcomings. Everyone agrees that the goals have galvanised progress to reduce poverty and discrimination, and promote education, gender equality, health and safe drinking water and sanitation.

The goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment tracked progress on school enrolment, women’s share of paid work, and women’s participation in parliament. It triggered global attention and action. It served to hold governments accountable, mobilize much-needed resources, and stimulate new laws, policies, programmes and data.

But there are glaring omissions. Noticeably absent is any reference to ending violence against women and girls. Also missing are other fundamental issues, such as women’s right to own property and the unequal division of household and care responsibilities.

Read more at Thomas Reuters Foundation

As part of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings that took place in Washington, D.C., last week, World Bank President Jin Yong Kim, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and a handful of influential leaders and opinion-makers hosted Global Voices on Poverty to discuss what it takes to end poverty.

With less than a thousand days to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals, President Kim talked of looking ahead towards a new set of “Sustainable Development Goals” post-2015. The low-hanging fruit of the development goals has been achieved, claimed President Kim — thanks in great part to the rapid rise of China and, to a lesser extent, India — and the world must now look towards the “higher-hanging fruit” that still remains.

Secretary-General Moon stressed that while all leaders may decry the ills of poverty and tout the need to work together to fight such ills, real political will is needed back home to enact change.

Read more at policymic

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

AGAINST the backdrop of the alleged inadequacies of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), experts drawn from the United Nations (UN) and Africa, among others, have urged a review of the targets for the continent’s development.

The call was part of the positions of participants yesterday at the beginning of a two-day policy research seminar entitled “Achieving the Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa” in Cape Town, South Africa.

The remarks by Executive Director of Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), Dr. Adekeye Adebajo, and Chief Executive Officer, Congolese Institute for Development Research, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Prof. Mbaya Justin Kankwenda, including scholarly presentations by experts on key targets of the MDGs, stressed the need for the review.

According to Kankwenda in his address entitled “Achieving the Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa: Progress, problems and prospects,” the eight targets of MDGs, which include  the elimination of poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating Human Immuno-deficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS), malaria and other diseases, achieving environmental sustainability, and global partnership for development, are very commendable for Africa in their drive for social progress.

Read more at The Guardian

In the opening address of the event, Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala declared that Finland is strongly committed to formulating the Post-2015 development agenda and is closely involved in contributing to its progress. “One of the key starting points in the Finnish policy is to pay attention to fragile states, where achievement of the Millenniums Development Goals has posed the biggest challenges,” the Minister stated.

Read more at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland

UN Women have presented a report to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development that was convened on June 2012 in Brazil; this is a review of that report.

The paradigm shift towards sustainable development must be based on the premise of human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment. This shift requires a renewed focus on people-centred development that prioritizes the expansion of capabilities, the eradication of poverty and the reduction of all types of inequalities, and that promotes the rights and agency of women. It is a shift to a world where women and men, girls and boys—not profit—are placed at the centre of action and decision-making, and all people take responsibility for sustainable production and consumption and respect the earth’s resource limits.

The new development agenda should value women’s unique, adaptive and innovative potential, and their concrete contributions, paid and unpaid, to their families, societies and economies. Stronger measures are needed to reduce the unpaid care work women do, and to share this work among women, men and institutions more equitably.

Read more at Sudan Vision

The World Health Organization’s Director General has asked the member states to ‘do everything’ they can to ensure that health occupies ‘a high place’ on the post-2015 development agenda.

“Investing in the health of people is a smart strategy for poverty alleviation,” Margaret Chan said in her opening remarks of the 66th World Health Assembly that kicked off in Geneva on Monday.

At least 3000 delegates of 194 member states are attending the nine-day long annual gathering at this Swiss lakeside city in a time when globally the preparations are on to set the after 2015 development goals when the current MDGs end.

The WHO chief, however, also urged member states to increase their efforts to achieve MDG-set targets within the remaining days.

Read more at bdnews24.com

Over 560,000 citizens from 194 countries have already voted for the issues that would make the most difference to their lives, providing, for the first time ever, real-time and real-world intelligence on what people think about the biggest challenges facing them and their families.

•    “A good education”, “better health care” and “an honest and responsive government” are the top trending issues to date.
•    MY World is the United Nations global survey to hear people´s priorities for the future development agenda after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015.

MY World, the United Nations global survey for a better world (www.myworld2015.org) is a groundbreaking initiative inviting citizens to virtually take their seat at the UN and participate in the global conversation on the next development agenda by voting in an option-based survey.

From Rwanda to Philippines and Mexico City to Amman and Madrid; across schools, mosques, offices and refugee camps, citizens have been turning out in their hundreds of thousands to vote and help define a better world for all.

Read more at Sierra Express Media

Ending extreme poverty can be achieved in this generation, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron told journalists in New York on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister co-chairs a UN panel which seeks to build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
While the eight MDGs galvanized global action on behalf of the poor, Cameron said the panel believes they overlooked the importance of strong institutions and the rule of law, and the effects of conflict and violence.
He said the panel's report, to be delivered later this month, will emphasize the need to tackle the causes of poverty, not just the symptoms.

"Above all, we need to focus on economic growth driven by a strong private sector as the most powerful engine there is to lift people out of poverty. We need a recognition that development has to be sustainable for the planet for the long term, but there's this new commitment to strong institutions and governance because these are essential to end conflict, to protect the rule of law, to stamp out corruption and insecurity, and to hold governments accountable. This, I believe, is a totally new addition to the Millennium Development Goals—the importance of good governance, the lack of corruption; what I call the 'golden thread' of development."

Read more at United Nations Radio

The G8 club – France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Russia – will hold its annual summit on June 17-18 in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
 
The group has in the past described progress toward achieving Millennium Development Goals No. 4 and 5 as moving at an “unacceptably slow rate,” and observers within the aid community told Devex that flagging momentum for accelerating progress in maternal and child health was evident in recent G8 meetings.
 
Recognizing family planning and sexual and reproductive health as fundamental human rights would have an immediate impact on the political mindset of G8 and G20 donor countries, said EPF Secretary Neil Datta.
 
“This could mean that the prioritization of family planning would increase – taking it beyond the restrictive, prescriptive and highly politicized box of only being relevant for MDG No. 5B,” he explained.

Read more at devex

"Culture has to feature prominently in global thinking about the world we want," Deputy Secretary-General Petko Draganov told the Hangzhou International Congress on 15 May. The theme being explored by the Congress is Culture: Key to Sustainable Development.

Speaking at a high-level discussion on culture in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, Mr. Draganov emphasized the role of culture and the creative industries in promoting inclusive development growth and poverty reduction.

He highlighted recent UNCTAD statistics on markets for creative goods and services that are based on local culture, which indicate that the sector has grown dramatically in recent years, at a rate of more than 10 per cent annually. "Creative industry exports reached $624 billion in 2011," Mr. Draganov said.

Read more at UNCTAD

A senior researcher is calling for China to play a more positive role in the agenda setting for the era of post-2015 UN Millennium Development Goals.

At the International Symposium on Post-2015 Global Development Agenda and Child Development which was held in Beijing on Monday, Deputy Secretary General of China Development Research Foundation, Fang Jin, says the world's second largest economy should take more responsibilities in setting the agenda for the post 2015 global development goals.

Fang points out that China understands the problems and challenges facing other developing countries. In order to help them better cope with those problems, China must change its mindset, devote sufficient resources for participating in global governance, do more research and have more communications with those countries, and provide its own solution to the world's pressing issues.

Read more at CRI English.com

The High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons working on the post-2015 development agenda concluded a two-day meeting at United Nations Headquarters, New York, on May 14 - the final opportunity for the 27-member Panel to discuss pending issues before the report can be finalized and submitted to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on May 30, 2013.

According to a dispatch from New York, the meeting, under the guidance of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, and the envoy of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia - the three Co-Chairs - reached agreement on the most challenging and contentious outstanding issues.
Summing up the session, President Sirleaf called it a very productive meeting, saying, "We managed to agree on some difficult issues, like how to tackle peace and conflict, to foster good governance and to ensure that this is a truly universal agenda - one with responsibilities for all countries."

The Panel will finalize its report and present it to the Secretary-General in two weeks. Secretary-General Ban visited the Panel on Wednesday, in the midst of the negotiations. He witnessed firsthand the deliberations, and heard the thinking behind some of the Panel's most difficult decisions.

Read more at AllAfrica

A United Nations high-level panel on a post-2015 global development agenda wrapped up today with consensus emerging on how to make a more equitable world, said British Prime Minister David Cameron in his role as co-chair of the body.

Addressing journalists at the UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Cameron said that members of the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which includes President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, “nailed our colours to the mast with one clear overarching aim – end extreme poverty in our world.”

Building a framework to succeed the eight anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the panel, appointed last year by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, aims to create a development agenda that will also focus on protection of the rule of law, good governance and holding Governments to account, which comprise what Mr. Cameron called “the golden thread of development.”

Read more at UN News Centre

The Stakeholder’s Consultations of the IBSA Women’s Forum entered its second and final day with parallel sessions on ‘Gender Responsive Budgeting’ and ‘Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality: Post 2015 Development Agenda’.

Panelists discussed the processes that could further strengthen the ongoing efforts of gender budgeting at all levels of governance. The participants engaged in intensive dialogues centering on the challenges of developing convergence action plans and mechanisms for translating gender commitments into budgetary allocations amongst the partner countries.

The panel discussions for the Forum concluded with the session on the role of women in the Post 2015 Development Agenda which addressed structural inequalities which persist for women and explored the many ways to make available the necessary resources to create sustainable and effective action on gender equality and empowerment. Participants from member countries stressed the need for greater engagement of women as equal partners in the global developmental processes, where they are regularly consulted on what they see as priorities for the development of their communities.

Read more at Education Diary.com

Several governments and the HFA2 Advisory Group identified the need to take advantage of the momentum for the Fourth Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to further advance the consideration of disaster risk reduction and its link to the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The session will discuss a number of issues that the Post-2015 development agenda may want to consider regarding disaster risk reduction.

The objectives of the session are to discuss…

Read more at Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

Iraqis came together on Sunday to agree on their country’s most pressing needs, and send a message to the international community on what issues should be prioritised after 2015.

With only two years remaining before the deadline of the Millennium Declaration Goals (MDGs), the UN is consulting with a wide range of Iraqi civil society, persons living with disabilities, academia, women and youth groups to add their voices to the global conversation on what issues the international community should prioritise beyond 2015.

“The importance of making this a civil society-led process cannot be understated,” explained Jacqueline Badcock, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Iraq. “The concerns of the most vulnerable, persons living with disabilities, women and youth are often drowned out. This series of consultations has ensured the voiceless are given a voice.”

Read more at Iraq- Business News