From MDGs to Post 2015 Agenda

One of the things I want to do as I get deeper into my fields of interest is to bring the discourse, discussions, and information taking place or being disseminated in academia, multinational agencies, governments, etc to the general public. To start, my internship has given me the opportunity to observe some of decision making and thought processes that occurs in the United Nations and the supporting NGO infrastructure which allows the organization to do its job. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to observe a Security Council briefing on the situations in Somalia and Libya, including hearing the ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda speak. I learned a great deal from that meeting but I did not take notes. I did take notes however at the Economic and Social Council Meeting on the Post 2015 Agenda later on that day. My notes are below. Looking over what I wrote, it is important to underscore that while the delegates and experts are cognizant and adamant that they want to include civil society and basically everyone in this dialogue about what our international objectives and priorities will be after 2015, a lot more can be done to spread this information and the complementary initiatives to all, especially because of how effective social media can be in disseminating information and ideas . In all honestly, I am not sure how effective or important posting this on my blog will be to bridging this gap but not sharing is not an option considering the unique privilege I have been granted with this internship. I hope having this post up will hopefully allow anyone who comes into contact with it to have some information about how certain ideas and agendas come to take hold in our global discourse and, more importantly, why and how they come to frame the intimate affairs of our lives.

Notes

Date: 7 November 2012

ECOSOC Post 2015 Agenda

Objective: Brief members on the two high level meetings held on the Post 2015 Agenda

Michael Anderson - special envoy from London providing brief on meetings held in London last week 
*Theme of meeting: Household Poverty and Individual Poverty, Sirleaf co-chaired the panel
*Some key ideas which came forth:
   -  Process must be state driven 
   -  Best features of MDGs must be retained; post 2015 goals must be ambitious but practical Jobs
   -  Equitable growth
    - Peace, Justice, and Rule of Law 
*There has been no conclusion on how to incorporate/frame issues of peace, security, justice, and rule of law in agenda
*Looking beyond aid, assistance
*Dialogue between global visions & global goals versus national agenda and how to situate this dialogue in post 2015 agenda
*Do not want to reinvent the wheel

Abdulai Lakume~ - envoy from Liberia on London meeting
*Meeting to be held in Monrovia in Feb 2013

*Focus will be poverty eradication

*Some other focus agreas: state actors, fragile states, corruption, governance 

*Even though meeting will be held in Africa and concerns Africa, will have global scope

*Sirleaf started consultations in Africa, went to Europe, etc. Sirleaf believes that the best course of action is to get everyone at the table

Aminah Mohammed - UN Post 2015 panel 
UN has been holding country consultations

John Podesta - UN Post 2015 panel 
*There has been convergence around some key issues that will lead to the development of the post 2015 goals 
*This process is different from that which produced the MDGS
*Attempt to include everyone in this process - holding consultations with "youth, voiceless, private sector, civil society, governments"
*Some of the themes: eradicate extreme poverty and achieve sustainable growth, 
create jobs, how to let entrepreneurship of the poor blossom, better connect young people with access to education, healthcare, justice, etc
*We have from now until 2015 to try to reach promise of MDGs but cannot wait until 2015 to develop these goals
*The question of peace, justice, security relationship to poverty and development, especially as it relates to post conflict states 

Homi Kharas - UN Post 2015 panel 
* Panel must work on instrumentality and nature of goals

*On question of global financial crisis: sustainable growth with equality; also question of who is being left out of development discourse and how to address this in the development agenda

Desra Pergaya~ - UN Post 2015 panel 

*Meeting in Bali in 2014

*Focus will be on the global dimension of development

*Development agenda will only be achieved through robust global cooperation

On consensus thus far~~

*Doing more for the rights of women and girls

*Doing more for those who have been left behind in the development discourse

*Create conditions conducive to success for everyone rather than granting access to certain groups or people

*Improve quality of data

*Increase accountability and transparency to drive implementation and partnership

*To get participation of those on the ground: SMS Initiatives, My World

Delegates questions/comments

Nigeria - harmonization and system-wide collaboration; put the issues into country agenda/plan earlier on
US - would like more information from chair about what we know works in development and how to integrate that into post 2015 agenda
India - how can the issues of peace, justice, security and rule of law be linked with concrete development goals 
Japan - same request as US.
Tanzania - question of ownership, part of the failure of MDGs was that it was not fully embraced by the international community

Russia - has Council discussed global financial crisis and its relation to the post 2015 agenda

Morocco - question of sustainable energy for all is paramount to sustainable development so will there be a coordination or reciprocal communication between post 2015 committee and sustainable energy committee?

Egypt - question of complementarity between intergovernmental organizations; there must be discussion between the post 2015 working group and SDG process. There must also be a means of implementation identified for each of the post 2015 goals so as to make the agenda more action oriented.

Australia – Given importance of London meetings, can panel give the temperature on how close or far we are to synergy on the post 2015 goals?

Bangladesh – similar request to those above

~Possible spelling error of name

~~Not sure which panel member made this statement