International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Stakeholder Forum

(A) Introduction

1. Stakeholder Forum (SF) welcomes the International Development Committee inquiry into the Post-2015 Development Goals. Determining a new development agenda must be an urgent priority for the international community.

2. One of the key outcomes of Rio+20 was to establish a process which will set up an inter-governmental Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in late September 2012, comprised of 30 representatives from Member States. Countries will nominate these representatives from the five United Nations regional groups, with the aim of achieving fair, equitable, and balanced geographic representation. The proposed SDGs will be global in nature and universal in application (therefore covering both developing and developed countries alike). They will set a framework for—what will likely be the next 15 years (from 2015–2030)—moving towards a more just, fair and sustainable world.

3. Related to this process is the Post-2015 Development Agenda. As a part of the outcome of the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit, it was agreed that work needed to be undertaken to inform the inter-governmental debate on the post-2015 UN development process. To undertake this task, the Secretary-General established a UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, requested to lead system-wide preparations for post-2015 and the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons (HLP) whose mandate is to build political consensus and to oversee coordination with the SDGs.

(B) Lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals

4. Three years before the MDGs’ expiration date, the Millennium Development Goals Report 2012 gives an account of current progress towards the achievement of these Goals. The targets set for poverty reduction, access to drinking water, improving the living conditions of slum dwellers, and parity in primary education for girls and boys have been achieved; and significant progress has been made on primary school enrolment rates, under five mortality rate reductions, access to treatment for people living with HIV, reversing the spread of tuberculosis and malaria related deaths. However, in spite of this progress, the achievement of these goals is unequally distributed across regions and countries. Some of the targets are far from being achieved; for example the proportion of people in full employment and women’s access to contraceptives is still low, whereas maternal mortality remains high.

5. Some of the key lessons learned from the MDG process and framework have been identified in a BOND-DEG paper (May, 2012) and should be taken into account in if we are to address some of the main concerns raised by the MDGs:

(a)Ownership and leadership: MDGs’ indicators and targets were not subject to processes of extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and the fact that the MDGs were so heavily based upon an OECD proposal has been questioned by several developing countries and NGO groups.

(b)Scope and integration: Another critique of the MDGs is that they have not addressed development in a comprehensive manner. For example, they have failed to integrate human rights, equity, environmental sustainability and peace/conflict resolution adequately.

(c)Building technical capacities: The lack of capacity and/or resources at the national level to collate data for some of the indicators has meant that monitoring progress has been a major challenge throughout the MDG process. This has led to discrepancies and inconsistencies between national and international data sources and made processes of review more difficult.

(d)New challenges: The limited scope of the MDGs has not assisted many developing countries to fully address the governance-related issues such as the development of robust government institutions, social welfare systems and an enabling environment for civil society. This has meant that many developing countries have been particularly vulnerable to emerging global development challenges such as climate change, food crises, rapid increasing urbanisation and unsustainable resource use.

(e)Quality and effectiveness: The MDGs framework was perceived to be borne from a results management agenda and has therefore been criticised for being too focused on outputs and quantitative indicators as opposed to quality and the overall impact of interventions on peoples’ lives—especially regarding the poorest and most marginalised groups.

(C) Moving towards a Post-2015 Development Agenda

6. The key challenge in moving from post-Rio to post-2015 will be the further integration of the development and environment agendas; this is a challenge that has been formally recognised for over forty years beginning with the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. The full and proper integration of the development agenda and the environment agenda is essentially sustainable development. We believe that the post-2015 process and Sustainable Development Goals have to converge in an integrated and coherent framework that adequately links the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainable development therefore becoming an effective tool for addressing wider development challenges in a comprehensive manner.

7. The ultimate aim over the next two and half years for the post-2015 and SDGs process must be to ensure that a single set of global goals which are action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature and universal in application are agreed in the year 2015. As stated in the Rio+20 outcome document (Paragraph 249), it is imperative that the Rio+20 and post-2015 processes fully converge to arrive at one post-2015 UN development agenda, with sustainable development at its centre. These goals must be based on principles of sustainable development, and they must integrate the SDG process with the post-2015 process. At the moment, there is a small but real risk that the next two years will cause a widening division between these two camps as issues of protectionism come to the fore.

8. Prime Minister David Cameron has been asked to Co-Chair the HLP (along with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia and President Sirleaf of Liberia). This should mean that the UK is in an excellent position to shape the post-2015 development agenda. However, given the current UK Government’s attitude towards sustainable development domestically and abroad, it remains to be seen whether or not this is a positive situation.

9. Furthermore, the politics and policies of the Department for International Development (DFID) has thus far not been encouraging regarding the issues highlighted above. The then Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, choose not to attend Rio+20 in June 2012. It was reported that he did not see the relevance of the conference or the process to his portfolio or to his department.

(D) Taking a Multi-Stakeholder Approach

10. We encourage the HLP to liaise closely with the work of the OWG on SDGs and identify common ground on how to link the different dimensions of sustainable development, making sure that the consultation processes feed into each other.

11. To enable governments to make the best informed decisions it is critical that stakeholder views are taken into account. As the SDGs OWG and the post-2015 HLP undertake their deliberations, steps must also be taken to ensure the effective involvement and engagement of stakeholders. Inclusive participation will mean that all concerned constituencies will be enabled to make substantive input to the UN processes. Currently there is a lack of formal or informal mechanisms for stakeholder engagement directly with either the OWG or the HLP.

12. An inclusive and widespread stakeholder consultation programme would provide a good basis for the processes to make recommendations that are grounded in stakeholders’ experiences and contributions to sustainable development. This will result in better informed and more thoroughly deliberated decisions being taken. If fully implemented, stakeholders will take greater ownership of the outcomes and be more active in the delivery of policy on the ground, optimally in partnership with governments and other stakeholders. Given the fact that the SDGs must be global in nature and universal in application, it is essential that wide and diverse opinions and viewpoints are a part of their development.

13. The post-2015 (including the HLP) and the Sustainable Development Goals processes need to coordinate the consultation programmes that they are set to undertake. Otherwise, there could be a risk of consultation fatigue and a missed opportunity to reach the greatest number of stakeholders.

14. The role of the private sector has been recognised as pivotal to achieve the MDGs. Its importance for inclusive economic growth, job creation, innovation, investment in essential infrastructure and partnerships for development has been expressed in many fora. We are all aware, however, that this contribution is not straight forward. Business practices can also undermine the social, economic and environmental components of development and hold back countries from achieving these goals. We think that the process should explore mechanisms through which business and industry will be driven to more sustainable paths and be accountable for them.

15. Currently, this is a two-track process with no formal mechanism for conjoining the two tracks. Bring all stakeholders together in a call for the actualisation of a single, integrated development and environmental is vital to creating a sustainable future for all.

October 2012