International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the ESRC Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre
1. The ESRC STEPS Centre is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry. We believe that an open and transparent process is vital in considering the post-2015 international development framework and urge that efforts are made to involve a broad range of groups, especially the beneficiaries of the framework, in its formulation and implementation. We argue that the post-2015 framework should focus on providing poorer people with the capabilities to choose and enact their own pathways to sustainable development. Guided by scientific evidence but recognising the power and politics at play, the post-2015 framework should try to foster a diversity of innovation approaches, both technical and social, serving not only global challenges but also locally-defined development problems. The remainder of this document is organised around the questions posed by the committee in their inquiry.
2. The ESRC Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement centre uniting development studies with science and technology studies. Our work addresses two vital global challenges: linking environmental sustainability with better livelihoods and health for poor people; and helping science and technology work for poverty reduction and social justice. The STEPS Centre is based at the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU—Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex in the UK. We work with partners in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe and are funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Further details are available at: www.steps-centre.org
Lessons learned from the adoption of the International Development Targets and the Millennium Development Goals: in particular how effective has the MDG process been to date
3. The STEPS Centre believes that the MDG process has been effective in focussing political attention and enabling donors to co-ordinate their activities in particular sectors. Whilst externally imposed goals and objectives can sometimes disrupt policy processes in developing countries, the long time-frame of the goals to some extent allowed potential distraction from national and local priority-setting to give way to momentum and synergy between top-down and bottom-up approaches. However, the MDGs process lacked adequate acknowledgement of the role of power and politics in setting and achieving the goals, an even more important consideration in a very different post-2015 world. Played out through the interactions of heads of state, ministers and local government, businesses, citizens, NGOs and people’s movements in specific, settings—politics is central in determining whose priorities, interests and values count, how the goals are met or why they are not. Without acknowledgment of power relations and the political dynamics fostered within the process, the ability to achieve sustainable goals which prioritise the needs of the poor and marginalised as effectively as possible is diminished.
4. Recent data (United Nations 2012) indicate significant progress to date, but also illustrate the continuing difficulties in achieving the ambitions of over a decade ago. In attempting to address hugely complex, dynamic and globalised challenges across time and scale, the MDGs process, perhaps understandably, avoided the messy, uncertain and contested aspects of development in favour of a more singular approach. Our work at the STEPS Centre argues that, multiple, diverse “pathways” will always be needed to meet development challenges effectively. Inevitably, trade-offs and competition between different alternatives will always occur. How these are resolved depends on power and politics and the openness of these processes. We believe the MDGs process might have been more effective had more efforts been made to opening up a diversity of possible directions of change rather than closing down around particular interests and values.
How should the “Sustainable Development Goals” being established following Rio +20 relate to the “development goals” being considered by the High-Level Panel?
5. These processes should be aligned as a matter of urgency in order to avoid further tensions arising around the post-2015 international development framework. The MDGs, in which environmental sustainability figured as just one amongst other goals, proved a wholly inadequate means to address what abundant evidence now confirms, are integrated global challenges. That the prospects for development of all kinds is conditioned by environmental futures has now been scientifically clarified and emphasised in the identification of nine planetary boundaries, referring to the highly dynamic biophysical processes in the Earth’s system on which human life depends (Rockström et al, 2009). Human actions are rapidly approaching or have already transgressed key global thresholds, increasing the likelihood of unprecedented ecological turbulence that will compromise development at all scales. Embracing this analysis, the “The Future We Choose”, the declaration from the High-level dialogue on Global Sustainability at Rio, argued that “the combined effects of climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience at a time of increased demand, poses a real threat to humanity’s welfare ... there is an unacceptable risk that human pressures on the planet, should they continue on a business as usual trajectory, will trigger abrupt and irreversible changes with catastrophic outcomes for human societies and life as we know it.” Planetary boundaries can be understood as defining a “safe operating space” for humanity within which development goals must assist societies to steer.
6. In this light, we believe that interactions between SDG panel and the High-Level Panel should be enhanced in advance of their reporting in 2013, and—following that—the United Nations should convene a single participatory and networked process for the formulation of goals and of implementation strategies.
The coverage of future goals: should they be for developing countries only or should progress be monitored in all countries?
7. As agreed at Rio+20 in discussions around the SDGs, future goals should be “universal”. Shifts in the global geography of fortune, poverty and power, with the rise of rapidly-growing BRICS countries and evidence of pockets of poverty and “underdevelopment” even in the most industrially-advanced nations, undermine the distinctions between “developed” and “developing” nations that were perhaps more salient when the MDGs were set. Development is now a truly global process and post-2015 goals need to be “global sustainable development goals”.
8. From a UK perspective, therefore, the STEPS Centre believes that future goals should recognise the importance of sustainable development at home and abroad, rather than focussing entirely on “development” as a process or activities to be exported or supported in other countries. As the only head of an OECD state serving as a co-chair on Ban-Ki Moon’s High Level Panel, David Cameron has a particular role in advocating for ambitious goals that contribute to more sustainable patterns of development in wealthier nations, and which contribute to greater global equality in patterns of environmental use and consumption.
9. The question of the coverage of future goals and who they are “for” (framed at Rio+20 as the future “we” want) throws up the dilemma of who “we” are when it comes to delivering on SDGs in real national and local settings. There are multiple, disputed versions of “sustainable development” that imply different winners and losers. For example, in tackling water stress in India, does sustainable development mean addressing the needs of rapidly-growing urban populations and industries by building large dams? Or supporting the efforts of marginalised rural farmers and pastoralists to live with water uncertainties, through local knowledge and livelihood strategies?
10. When it comes to combating hunger in settings such as rural Kenya, does sustainable development mean improving national food security through boosting agricultural productivity, using modern plant breeding and genetic engineering to roll out technical solutions at scale? Or does it mean tackling diverse local food insecurities shaped by ecological, market, social and institutional contexts, through farmer-participatory approaches?
11. We believe that future goals can only be effective in our inter-connected, globalised age, if they are embraced universally by the global “we”, but implemented in ways that respect diverse national, regional and local needs and priorities.
The process: are the right voices being heard? What are the opportunities for and constraints to global consensus?
12. The current process is insufficiently resourced—both financially and in terms of time—to allow appropriate consultation at national and sub-national levels. STEPS Centre members have previously argued (in relation to the sustainable development goals) that, the global community must to be aware of the deep implications for global justice of defining a collective future, and continue to strive for an inclusive process that recognises the needs, aspirations and innovative contributions of the poorest.
13. High level panels to address sustainability challenges tend to settle on solutions based on combinations of international co-operation and top-down global and national policies and management, often relying on rather nebulous notions of “political will”. Such “top down” policy proposals are often coupled to particular forms of technological fix, whereby advanced science and engineering are harnessed towards solutions that can be rolled out at scale—whether in biotechnology (to produce high yielding crops to feed nine billion people), or geo-engineering and low carbon energy technologies (to mitigate climate change). Much of the-Rio + 20 discussion of SDGs implied this kind of approach.
14. Opportunities for deliberation and input have so far been very few, reducing the democratic legitimacy of any post-2015 framework to be adopted. The UK government—through departments here and offices overseas—can play a role in remedying this deficit. As was illustrated around Rio+20, constraints to any ambitious global consensus are numerous; however careful formulation can allow for ambitious goals with space for regional, national and local flexibility. The United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative provides an example of flexible goals that leave prioritisation open to national levels. The post-2015 framework could draw upon this example, but should be more open, transparent and participatory in its formulation.
15. The STEPS Centre believes that, in order to meet new SDGs, international conventions and agreements need to connect firmly with an array of community-led, grassroots initiatives and institutional arrangements emerging in farms, forests, villages, municipalities, factories and homes across the globe. Examples of what this means in practice are set out in Transforming Innovation for Sustainability (Leach et al, 2012).
Targets: was the MDG “target-based” approach a success? Should it be retained? How should progress be measured?
16. Critics have argued that the MDGs suffered from a lack of broad consultation in formulation, being unclear in the distinction between the level of goal setting (global or national), and being overly aid-centric (see Fukuda-Parr 2012). At the same time they point to problems in conceiving of improvement only in relation to static targets rather than building widespread innovation capabilities for ongoing sustainable development (see Oleyaran Oyeyinka in STEPS Centre 2009).
17. Instead of static goals, we believe that more attention should be paid to building the capabilities for continuous innovation towards agreed directions of development and environmental sustainability. This requires a focus on more process-based, ongoing forms of monitoring and assessment, geared towards keeping processes “on track”. At the same time, inclusive processes are required that enable progress to be assessed from the perspectives of diverse groups in society.
18. The STEPS Centre has worked on a set of three interlinked principles—direction, diversity and distribution—which we believe can help guide both the elaboration of and monitoring of progress towards SDGs in a way that would allow for diverse voices to be heard, providing a real opportunity for inclusive global consensus with requisite flexibility.
19. The first, direction of change, means being clear on the particular goals and principles driving policy and innovation, not leaving these open, undiscussed or driven by general imperatives of growth or progress, but actively steering these towards the kinds of transformation needed to stay with a safe operating space and meet SDGs.
20. Secondly, diversity is crucial. Nurturing more diverse approaches and forms of innovation (social as well as technical) allows us to respond to uncertainty and surprise arising from complex, interacting biophysical and socio-economic shock and stresses, avoiding “putting all our eggs in one basket”. Fostering diversity—of biophysical resources, biodiversity, ecologies, strategies, institutions and innovations—provides a richer resource to foster more resilient innovation pathways in to the future.
21. Thirdly, attention to distribution means taking seriously how the safe operating space is shared between different people, and asking about who gains and who loses from particular policies and innovations. Setting SDGs and steering policy and innovation towards any goals required keeping distributional issues central in shaping directions of change and engaging instead of excluding people in ecosystem stewardship.
22. Inclusive, democratic politics that respect the principles of direction, diversity and distribution will be critical if SDGs are genuinely to build towards sustainable, fair futures. A more detailed explanation of the “3Ds” can be found in Direction, Distribution and Diversity! Pluralising Progress in Innovation, Sustainability and Development, Andy Stirling, (Stirling 2009).
23. Regarding the question of who should measure progress, worldwide, we see novel structures for scientific advice being put in place: both through new institutions like the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES); and the appointment of a UK-style “chief scientific adviser” at the European Commission. Following Rio+20 there has been a renewed push to ensure that the latest research and evidence informs international policy discussions, with new initiatives such as Future Earth and the UNESCO science advisory board.
24. But while tackling the sustainability and development challenges of the 21st century will undoubtedly require the “best available” scientific advice—to measure progress; to predict impacts; to identify solutions; and to evaluate options and pathways for decision-making—the formulation of political visions in a numerical, measurable way requires not only technical but political inputs. Efforts need to be made to build and maintain robust, open and accountable processes of expert advice that can operate effectively across disciplines, sectors, social contexts and national boundaries, and which incorporate citizen inputs where appropriate.
Financing global goals: are new mechanisms needed?
25. The STEPS Centre has not worked specifically on mechanisms for financing global goals. However our work points to the importance of several key ideas and principles when considering financing approaches. First, in addition to aid flows and donor funds (including the creation of new, additional funds such as the Green Investment Fund), mechanisms that re-distribute finance from one part of the financial system towards those with a greater developmental benefit deserve attention and support. For instance there are powerful arguments in favour of an International Financial Transactions Tax to fund sustainable development.
26. Second, new financial mechanisms need to be closely scrutinised both for their genuine aggregate global benefit, and for their distributional consequences. For instance, actual and proposed new market and payment arrangements for climate, biodiversity and other ecosystem services, especially where offsets are involved, may fund sustainable development in one place but at the cost of continued environmental degradation elsewhere. When implemented without due local consultation and attention to political contexts, such mechanisms have also been found to undermine local land and resource rights, contributing further to impoverishment (see the Journal of Development Studies 2012, vol. 39.2).
The role of the private sector and other non-state organisations
27. Non-state actors are key, however new goals should not be determined by the private sector. Although implementation will inevitably involve work across non-governmental organisations (public and private interest), accountability lies at the door of politicians/governments.
28. Non-state inputs include grassroots innovation from communities, NGOs and other civil-society organisations. STEPS Centre members Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely argued in a June 2012 Guardian article Rio+20 must make inclusive innovation stepping stone to a sustainable future that inclusive innovation must be inclusive in its process, not just its outputs, and that the form, depth, scope and spaces for inclusion should be considered (Smith and Ely 2012).
Timescale: what period should the new framework cover? Was the 15-year timescale for the MDGs right?
29. The 15 year time-scale for the new framework is appropriate; however—as with the MDGs—periodic assessments of progress and opportunities for adaptation must be incorporated in future plans.
The content of future goals: what would be a good set of global goals? What continuity should there be with the MDGs, and how should the unfulfilled MDGs be taken forward?
30. The STEPS Centre’s work addresses many of the areas covered by the MDGs (health and disease, food and agriculture, water and sanitation, energy and climate change). All of these are potentially important areas that should be addressed by a new global sustainable development goal framework. However rather than specify the content of particular goals, our work suggests a number of broader points that should guide the process of defining an appropriate goal(s) framework, including the question of continuity with the MDGs.
31. First, and as stated in paragraphs 5 and 6 above, we believe that a key requirement for the next generation of global goals is that environmental sustainability should be “mainstreamed” across all, drawing on insights from the planetary boundaries framework. The environmental implications of all development processes and all aspects of well-being need to be fully recognised.
32. Second, the interactions between “sectors” on which particular goals might focus also need to recognised to a greater extent than did the MDGs. For instance, interactions between water and many aspects of health; between climate change and food; and between energy access and education, as well as interactions across these, are crucial to sustainable development. Separate targets linked to separate government or donor agencies can discourage the kind of joined-up policy thinking that will be critical to progress. At the same time, where existing goals and processes exist—such as in relation to energy, with the Sustainable Energy for All initiative—efforts should be sought to complement, integrate and align, rather than to repeat sectoral goals within a new SDG framework.
33. Third, while a set of ambitious, globally agreed goals is appropriate at a global level, care should be taken that these are not framed in a way that prescribes a universal set of values and pathways. For example blunt use of terms like “modern” or “improved”, which, as examples from the energy technologies (Ely 2012) and water and sanitation (Movic and Mehta 2009) fields show, are often interpreted from an overly-Western perspective. Providing energy or water services requires context-specific solutions, especially in diverse marginal communities. Equally, as explained above, a new SDG framework must be constructed in such a way that diverse national and local priorities, contexts, interests and debates are able to prevail in the interpretation and implementation of goals in country settings. We suggest that the three principles of direction, diversity and distribution could offer a guiding framework for the process of setting, implementing and measuring progress against goals that ensures they are effective in a world of complex local-global relations (Leach et al, 2012).
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