International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by VSO

About VSO

VSO is an international development organisation that works through volunteers. We work in 33 developing countries, bringing people together to share skills and knowledge in the fields of education, health, livelihoods and governance. VSO volunteers work with local partners to respond to the needs of grassroots organisations and governments. We support a range of different volunteering partnerships, including international, national, south-south, diaspora, and corporate volunteering.

VSO is a member of the Beyond 2015 campaign. This response complements the Beyond 2015 submission to this inquiry with experience and perspectives drawn from across VSO, including from country offices, volunteers and policy advisers.

VSO is undertaking further consultation with people in the communities in which we work. We would welcome the opportunity to provide the committee with the findings from these additional activities and to expand on the comments below via oral evidence.

1. 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?

1. The MDGs have influenced policy and practice around the world. VSO has seen the impact in each of the 33 countries that we work in—with many governments explicitly incorporating the MDGs into national development strategies based on MDG targets and indicators. By 2005, 86% of 118 countries surveyed by the UN had adapted one or more of the MDG goals, targets and indicators within their development plans.1

2. The MDGs have helped to spur national and international commitment to poverty reduction, coordinating focus on a discrete number of policy issues and increasing development financing, especially for social sectors. The proportion of ODA spent in social sectors increased from around 32% of the total in 2000 to over 40% in 2009.2 The inclusion of gender equality within the framework has played a particularly important role in helping to increase understanding of the importance of measuring and tackling gender inequality.3 Official development assistance (ODA) from OECD countries for gender equality tripled between 2002 and 2006, from US$ 2.5 billion to US$ 7.2 billion.4

3. However, it is important not to overstate the influence of the MDGs, or to assume that their impact has been uniform across countries or sectors. For example, whilst ODA for gender equality has increased during the MDG period, progress towards the global gender equality target of parity in primary education has not accelerated faster than historical trends.5 Gender equality also remains neglected in national development strategies compared to other MDGs.6 Current trends suggest that approximately one billion people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2015.7

4. The MDGs were defined through an ad hoc, closed and top-down process. Whilst intended as global rather than regional or national goals,8 the political weight of the MDGs led to them being incorporated into many national development strategies without being tailored to local context or needs. In many instances, this has meant that national development plans are based on the somewhat arbitrary, universal targets contained in the MDG framework, rather than reflecting local needs or being set according to realistic local baselines.

5. Whilst the MDGs have translated into tangible benefits for many poor and marginalised communities in sectors covered by the MDGs such as access to education, the flip side is that attention has been diverted away from critical sectors and issues that are not included within the framework. For example, the formulation of the education goal has had perverse unintended impacts on the quality of education, spurring efforts to expand children’s access to school without parallel efforts to improve the number, capacity and skills of teachers. VSO’s own research revealed that the success of efforts to increase access to education in the Gambia has resulted in severe shortages of teachers, forcing schools to employ unqualified teachers, run double-shift timetables and combine classes.9 The quality of education has suffered as a result.

6. It is therefore important that the framework is designed so that it strengthens and is integrated with existing national development strategies and accountability systems. It must not evolve to be a parallel development framework that competes for resources, undermines local systems, fragments local strategies or skews democratically defined priorities.

7. The MDGs have undoubtedly helped to tackle poverty, but the formulation of the targets means that they have not had as much impact on the poorest and most marginalised people as they could have done. For example, it is easier to lift those who are already living close to the poverty line above it in order to reach the target of halving poverty, rather than focus attention on those living far beneath it. As a result, the MDGs have done little to tackle inequality. Gaps between rich and poor have persisted at the global level over the MDG period, and are growing rapidly in a number of middle income and developing countries.10

8. The post-2015 process should consider social protection floor approaches, which aim to transfer resources and build the productive capacity of the poorest and most vulnerable households and individuals. Examples include Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme and Bangladesh’s Targeting the Ultra Poor approach.11

2) How should the “Sustainable Development Goals” being established following Rio +20 relate to the development goals being considered by the High-Level Panel?

9. The Rio +20 outcome document states that the SDG process “needs to be coordinated and coherent with the processes to consider the post-2015 development agenda”.12 However, at the time of writing, it is not yet clear how this will be achieved in practice. The SDG and post-2015 processes currently appear to be developing along separate tracks. VSO is concerned that this will at worst result in the development of two separate frameworks and, at best, in a single framework that simply bolts together separate goals for environmental sustainability and poverty reduction.

10. Developing two separate frameworks or sets of goals would risk fragmenting support, creating competing priorities and duplicating effort. It would also be a step backward for the global sustainable development agenda, which firmly establishes poverty reduction as an integral component of sustainable development. Developing goals for sustainable consumption and natural resource management in isolation from poverty eradication and human development would likely result in the critical connections between these issues being overlooked, and opportunities for integrated approaches being missed.

11. It is vital that the parallel SDG and post-MDG processes are brought together to form an integrated and coherent framework to advance sustainable development. This will require political will and international trust and cooperation which is currently lacking.

3) The coverage of future goals: should they be for developing countries only or should progress be monitored in all countries?

12. The post-2015 framework needs to be global in its scope rather than focused on a select number of countries. The reasons for this are twofold:

13. Firstly, the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation traverse national boundaries. This is true across a range of issues, from international volatility in food prices and imbalanced trade agreements through to incentives for good governance and reduced carbon emissions. Such issues are global in nature, and therefore require global responses and global commitment to tackle them.

14. Secondly, we need a new global framework which captures and addresses the complex global geography of poverty, inequality and environmental degradation that we currently face. It is critical that we avoid framing the world’s problems as being located solely in the “global south”, to be tackled only through aid from the “global north”. Whilst poverty and exclusion remain significant problems in the world’s poorest and most fragile countries, the majority of the world’s poor now live in middle income countries, where the benefits of growth often fail to trickle down to marginalised groups.13 Urgent action to tackle environmental issues and growing inequality is needed in high, low and middle income countries alike, and the solutions for change will not be found solely in high income states.

15. Building a new framework that captures these complex realities whilst also preserving the clarity and simplicity from which the MDG framework derives much of its strength will not be an easy task. One option would be to establish global goals which could then be tailored to define specific targets for different country contexts. For example, all countries could work to reduce inequality and advance sustainable consumption and production, but specific targets will vary from country to country depending on the baseline and what will be realistic to achieve in that context in the given timeframe.

4. The process: are the right voices being heard? What are the opportunities for and constraints to global consensus?

16. The post-2015 framework must be defined through an inclusive and participatory process. VSO welcomes the efforts that are being made by the UN to consult widely on a range of thematic issues and in different countries. However, at the time of writing, we are concerned about the lack of clarity about when consultations are being held, what format they will take, how different groups can participate, and how the outcomes will inform the final framework.

17. Particular effort will be needed to ensure that representatives from communities most affected by poverty and marginalisation can participate, without assuming that they will be represented by formal civil society organisations. For the outcomes of the consultations to be legitimate and useful, people from a cross section of groups most affected by poverty and marginalisation need to be supported to participate, including women, young people, ethnic and religious minorities, sexual and gender minorities and people with disabilities. This will require active steps to break down barriers that are preventing participation, including the translation of documents into local languages, ensuring that clear, accessible terminology is used, and steps to include people who have difficulties in reading, writing or using digital communications.

18. The new framework must recognise the important contributions that people make to development in their day to day lives, as caregivers, community health workers, outreach and extension workers and representatives on local committees. It must recognise that people are not simply beneficiaries, but rather active partners in development. It is therefore important that the UN national and international consultations reach out to grassroots voluntary groups so that they can contribute their experience and perspectives and, in doing so, develop a sense of ownership over the new framework.

19. VSO is concerned that there is currently a global crisis of multilateralism, and that reluctance to compromise on national interests for the sake of global development will result in failure to reach agreement on the post-2015 framework. The recent track record of multilateral negotiation and agreement is poor, with the near collapse of negotiations in Rio, and the failure of governments to adopt the conclusions of the 2012 Commission on the Status of Women for the first time in nearly a decade. Multilateral negotiations are further strained by the current political and economic context, with economic downturn and crisis eroding the political will of governments to act on behalf of others.

20. We urge strong and vocal leadership on these issues from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. He has the opportunity to seize the opportunity of his role co-chairing the high level panel, and the UK’s presidency of the G8, to provide global leadership on the post-MDG process and build the political support needed for a strong and meaningful outcome.

5. Targets: was the MDG “target-based” approach a success? Should it be retained? How should progress be measured?

21. Overall the target-based approach has been a success, providing focus for coordinated action to tackle critical human development issues and to reduce poverty. The successor framework needs to retain this strength, with clearly defined and measurable targets. It is also important that existing targets and indicators are not abandoned so that we can continue to track progress being made over the 21st Century.

22. However, it will be critical to build and improve on existing targets and indicators, addressing current weaknesses and gaps. New targets need to focus on outcomes rather than intermediary outputs. This will help the framework to tackle issues of power and inequality head on, for example through defining targets to reduce inequalities in the ability of women and men to influence public decisions that affect their lives, rather than to simply increase their representation in formal political institutions. Similarly, the focus should be on strengthening public service systems holistically, for example strengthening health systems rather than solely honing in on symptoms of their weakness such as the incidence of particular diseases.

23. A range of indicators should be selected for each target that provide a full picture of progress from different perspectives. These must include indicators concerning whether poor and marginalised people themselves feel that progress is being made, for example in the power they have to influence public policy and decisions that affect them, or the quality of the services that they have access to.

24. The post-2015 framework should also encompass mechanisms that allow people to track progress and hold leaders to account for commitments that have been made. For example, in Orissa, India, VSO is working with partners to support a system that allows people to log delays and gaps in access to services and benefits with the local government via phone, text message or internet.14 If built into the post-2015 framework, such systems could help to enhance accountability and accelerate progress.

25. Efforts to reduce inequality must be mainstreamed throughout the new framework, assessed through disaggregated data on progress that is being made against different targets for the most marginalised groups—the income poor, people with disabilities, children and young people, ethnic minorities, sexual and gender minorities and people in remote areas. Gender equality must be included in the framework as a standalone goal, as well as being mainstreamed throughout each goal.

26. Finally, the framework should be flexible enough to allow for alignment with national development strategies and the formulation of country-specific targets that feed into global goals. This will require the process of defining the framework to be inclusive and multi-layered, providing adequate time and space for governments to align national and international strategies.

6. Financing global goals: are new mechanisms needed?

27. Whilst it is critical that donors and governments everywhere dedicate sufficient resources to implement the new post-2015 framework, it is also important that negotiations do not get side tracked by debates about financing. The focus during the post-2015 process must remain squarely on defining a strong and legitimate framework.

28. A range of financing and development effectiveness commitments have been made since the establishment of the MDGs, but remain unfulfilled. Their fulfilment would go a long way towards accelerating progress towards the MDGs and implementing the new framework.

29. One key commitment is for donor countries to invest 0.7% of GNI in ODA, first pledged at the UN General Assembly in 1970 and reaffirmed in the Monterry Consensus (2002) and by the G8 and EU in 2005. Despite assurances at Doha in 2008 that the global economic crisis would not stall poverty reduction efforts, levels of development cooperation fell in 2011 for the first time in over a decade.15 Whilst seven European countries have already met or exceeded ODA targets, Europe as a whole missed its collective target in 2010, leaving a development financing gap of 18 billion Euros.16 It is critical that governments in Europe and beyond realise and build on the 0.7% commitment before starting new debates about alternative financing mechanisms. VSO welcomes the UK government’s commitment to reaching this target by 2015, and urges continued leadership on this issue at the international level during the current period of global economic instability.

30. It is also crucial that efforts are stepped up to improve the quality and impact of development cooperation, in line with the Paris Principles and subsequent Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. This includes the alignment of assistance with country-owned development strategies and sectoral plans; coordination in the delivery of assistance; strengthening finance and governance systems and improving transparency; and deepening mutual accountability between donors, governments and poor and marginalised communities. The post-2015 process must uphold and advance these principles.

7. The role of the private sector and other non-state organisations

31. The private sector has a critical role to play in spurring sustainable development and must be included in the definition and implementation of the post-2015 framework.

32. The post-2015 process presents an opportunity to establish a framework that encourages and supports private sector actors to harness and adapt their core business activities in ways that generate profit whilst also creating value and positive development impact in the communities that they work in. Companies must therefore participate in consultations to help identify the partnerships, business practices and innovative solutions that are needed for sustainable, responsible and inclusive economic growth.

33. Special effort needs to be made to include representatives of micro, small and medium sized enterprises upon which many of the world’s poorest people depend for their livelihoods. Only then can opportunities be fully understood and supported for these businesses to thrive responsibly and economically and provide more people with sustainable pathways out of poverty.

34. Civil society also has an important role to play in the post-2015 process, contributing experience and insights from working in the world’s poorest communities, joining new and innovative partnerships for poverty reduction, and helping to hold businesses and governments accountable to poor and marginalised communities. Participation from groups across the spectrum of civil society must be included in the consultations; particular effort will be required to include grassroots voluntary organisations and movements that may not be represented by large formal civil society organisations.

8. Timescale: what period should the new framework cover? Was the 15-year timescale for the MDGs right?

35. The 15-year timescale for the MDGs provided sufficient time for progress to made whilst also providing a time-bound deadline that drove action. As such, a similar timescale would be appropriate for the post 2015 framework.

9. 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

36. The content of the future framework must be defined through an inclusive and participatory process, and should therefore not be pre-empted. However, critical gaps and weaknesses that have already been identified in the MDGs must be addressed in the post-2015 framework. These include failure to:

Tackle the root causes of poverty, particularly those related to power imbalances and the marginalisation of particular groups within decision making and accountability processes.

Focus on poverty reduction outcomes and strengthen public service systems holistically.

Tackle inequality and support the hardest to reach groups.

Mainstream gender equality effectively throughout the framework.

Integrate poverty reduction and environmental sustainability targets effectively.

Drive forward policy coherence for development and define clear responsibilities for high income countries to tackle transnational systemic issues such as imbalanced trade, climate change, financial instability and speculation, and tax avoidance.

37. Whilst these weaknesses must be addressed, this must be done in a way that ensures strong continuity between the MDGs and post-2015 framework. It is important that we continue to measure progress against the current MDG targets so that we can build a full picture of the progress that has been made over the course of the 21st Century. This could mean that the current MDG targets are included in the new framework, complemented by new targets and indicators that provide a fuller picture and fill the current gaps identified above.

38. The need for the new framework to drive transformative change towards inclusive, people-centred, sustainable development is highlighted by the report of the UN post-2015 Task Team, Realising the Future We Want for All. The report puts forward a number of key principles and dimensions of development which could form the basis of the development of the post-2015 framework. The findings and recommendations of the report should be the starting point for the UN and inter-governmental processes to define the new framework.

October 2012