International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Claire Melamed, ODI
There is a strong consensus among the UN post-2015 secretariat that the objective should be to reach agreement on a single global agreement which tackles poverty in a sustainable way. However, the exact meaning of this has yet to be defined and there are very different views as to what that implies for the content of a future agreement.
The majority view is probably that the objective is an agreement which aims at ending poverty, but which contains some incentives towards, and monitoring of, the extent to which that is done in a sustainable way. This would probably include tougher obligations on richer countries to reduce resource use and, where applicable, to contribute both resources and technology to enabling sustainable development pathways in developing countries.
However, this is not a universal consensus. There are some countries—among them some of the original proponents of the SDG idea—who would like an agreement to go further in pursuing environmental objectives, for example in regard to oceans. There are others who argue that separating the agendas might be more productive. For some the current post-2015 conversation should focus on the poverty dimension—leading to faster results on poverty eradication (which seems to be the view of the Gates foundation and Save the Children). Alternatively, the possibility of two separate sets of goals arising from the current debate was recently raised in New York by the representatives of Brazil and Egypt. At this point, it is hard to tell if this is a negotiating tactic or a seriously considered position, and it is not clear if this position will get any support among other UN member states.
My World
1. My World is a joint project of ODI, the UNDP, the UN Millennium Campaign, the World Wide Web foundation, ONE and the Omidyar network. It is part of a broader consultation process designed to ensure that all the world’s citizens, particularly the poorest, have a voice in designing the next global development framework.
2. The core of MyWorld is 16 options which reflect the priorities of poor people as expressed in participatory research and opinion polling, the political debates around different goals, the priorities of NGOs and other actors, and the range of issues on which goals might feasibly be agreed (see list below). They cover the existing MDGs, plus issues of sustainability, security, governance and transparency.
3. After extensive consultations, the 16 goals were tested through an SMS survey in Uganda, where an open question was asked and the responses coded back to the 16 options. When asked about issues of most importance to individuals and their families, less than four% of responses did not fall under the 16 options categories.
4. The survey also provides an opportunity for participants to enter their own priority, through a 17th “your own option” choice. Any entries under this option will be collated and analysed very carefully to see if there are missing themes or new ideas that are generating support. The analysis of these free-form options will be made available.
5. People will be asked which six of the 16 possible goals, like better health, more jobs, or tackling crime and violence, they think would make the most difference to their lives.
6. My World will use both traditional and non-traditional media to gather responses. It will be a website in different languages and will be disseminated by digital means including a smartphone app, social media, and by SMS. Private sector partnerships are key: it is relationships with mobile phone operators and other companies such as marketing agencies that will make My World widely available and accessible.
7. It is particularly important that My World reaches poor people, many of whom do not have access to communications technologies. Sub-national poverty data will provide a map of the areas where poverty is concentrated and a network of NGOs, faith groups and youth groups will be mobilised to make sure that people in those areas participate in large numbers off line.
8. When doing the survey, all participants will be asked for their age, gender and country. Additional information, such as level of education and sub-national region will be available from some respondents.
9. The My World project will run for several years and in that time the data will be regularly analysed and assessed to give a developing picture of global priorities, and differences between groups. The expectation is that over the lifetime of the survey several million people will take part.
10. The data will be aggregated to provide a global picture, with weightings given to different groups on the basis of gender, age, country and other information, to ensure that the results reflect the population as a whole. In addition, the data will be disaggregated to examine differences in the priorities of, for example, young people in Africa or Europe, men or women, people in Bolivia or Bulgaria.
11. Regular reports will provide a picture of emerging trends, and once cleaned the data will be made available publicly through the MyWorld website. These reports will be made available to the members of the High-Level Panel on the post-2015 agenda and the Open Working Group on the SDGs, as well as disseminated more widely through the MyWorld website and organizational contacts. In addition tailored reports could be produced for individual governments or other organisations wanting to know more about the priorities of particular groups.
Box 1
MYWORLD OPTIONS
My World is funded through a mixture of direct contributions, contributions via the UN country consultation process, and pro bono contributions from private sector partners. The current budget for the project is USD 3.3 million, of which around half comes from DFID and around half from a mix of pro bono and other contributions. The breakdown is currently:
My World will be part of the UN national consultations in at least 30 countries. The MyWorld survey will be implemented as part of the program of activities of the consultation. We estimate the total cost of this as around USD 500,000, funded from the UN Development Group support to national consultations. This in turn comes from a range of UN Member States.
MyWorld will be embedded in the existing “worldwewant2015” web platform. USD 500, 000 was invested by the UN in setting up this platform.
The negotiated offer from the mobile implementing partner—real cost 950, 000 USD offer at 250 ,000 USD (still at final stages of negotiation), so we estimate their contribution at USD 700,000.
In addition we are looking for pro-bono support from advertising agency and media buying partner, and for further contributions from other mobile phone operators. NGOs will be donating staff time to do the survey off-line.
Direct contribution from DFID of USD 1.6 million.
Total current budget estimated at: USD 3.3 million. But please note this will rise as more private sector and civil society partners come on board with both pro-bono and paid for contributions, so the proportion of the project funded by DFID will fall progressively.
December 2012