Eyes and ears
at the UN

HLPF

Briefings, Corporate Influence, People-centered Multilateralism

Corporate influence on the G20

Over the past eight years, the G20 has emerged as one of the most prominent political fora for international cooperation. For transnational corporations and their national and international associations and lobby groups, the G20 process provides important opportunities to engage with the world’s most powerful governments, shape their discourse, and influence their decisions. For this purpose, business actors have created a broad network of alliances and fora around the G20, with the Business20 (B20) as the most visible symbol of corporate engagement. A new working paper published by GPF and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung maps out the key business players and associations from the different sectors and branches involved in the work of the G20, and analyzes their core messages and policy recommendations. Read more…

Briefings, Equitable Global Governance & UN reform, Sustainable development, social justice and sustainable peace

The UN development system: Can it catch up to the 2030 Agenda?

By Barbara Adams and Gretchen Luchsinger

The current model of UN development assistance—operating country by country, and issue by issue, with priorities heavily driven by individual donors and their interests—is no longer fit for its intended purpose. The ambitious vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development challenges the UN development system to fully respond to the inextricable links across countries and among social, economic and environmental concerns. This is not just an issue of greater efficiency and effectiveness within existing arrangements. It is a question of how the UN development system can meet the high demands of new commitments aimed at transforming the course of development so that it is equitable, sustainable and aligned with human rights, and remains within planetary boundaries. Read more…

Briefings, People-centered Multilateralism

The HLPF 2016: First global meeting on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs

The United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) met in New York from 11 to 20 July 2016. It is the central UN body addressing sustainable development, and its chief task is to monitor the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The HLPF is still in a trial phase. Whether it can justifiably claim a central role in global sustainability policy will only be revealed over the next few years. Read more…

Articles, Economic justice

Lost in indicators: How the “experts” are rewriting the SDGs

Roberto Bissio, Social Watch

Almost one third of the targets that define the 17 Sustainable Development Goals approved by the governments at the UN are being de facto rewritten or deleted by the Inter-Agency Expert Group proposal of “priority indicators” published June 1 in New York. Important notions included in the SDGs such as labour rights, women rights to property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources and many commitments of developed countries to support the efforts of developing countries are excluded from the proposed list of indicators and would therefore not form part of the UN reviews of the new development agenda. Read more…

Briefings, Economic justice, People-centered Multilateralism

The struggle to shape the Agenda

By Barbara Adams and Gretchen Luchsinger

It is not surprising that the political battles have already become fierce in the concurrent negotiations for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) and the post-2015 development agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At stake is who will shape the agenda—and how much real impact it will have.
Read more

Briefings, Economic justice

Are FfD3 and Post-2015 striking the right public-private balance?

By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger
Getting the right balance between public and private sector roles and responsibilities in the Financing for Development and Post-2015 process will be fundamental to prospects for sustainable, inclusive development. Yet early evidence suggests this balance is already awry, skewed far in favour of private interests. Are we seeing a process of outsourcing the international agenda?
Read more… / Spanish version

Briefings, Economic justice, Sustainable development, social justice and sustainable peace

Post-2015: Measuring the (real) scope of ambition

By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger
The post-2015 development agenda aspires to global transformation. Its content so far, including the set of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) agreed in last year’s Open Working Group, affirms that aim through an unprecedented commitment to inclusion, sustainability and universality. This suggests that the world might finally move beyond current imbalanced patterns of consumption and production that have left wide swathes of human deprivation and pushed the limits of planetary boundaries.

Yet the main question, after the most recent intergovernmental negotiations on the agenda in March in New York, is: will the political process live up to the agenda’s promise? Read more…

Economic justice, People-centered Multilateralism, Publications

New Discussion Paper asks: Leave no-one out of the Post-2015 Agenda – particularly not the rich

The Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectivestoday launches its latest Discussion Paper. “Goals for the Rich – Indispensable for a Universal Post-2015 Agenda” deals with the question of how a fair sharing of costs, responsibilities and opportunities among and within countries can be achieved in formulating and implementing a Post-2015 Sustainability Agenda. Read more…

Articles, GPUNW, Partnership

Development: Post-2015 declaration – one step forward, two steps back? – Pt. II

By Ranja Sengupta; SUNS.

The United Nations negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda in New York saw Member States inching towards a political Declaration amidst considerable differences.

The Declaration is to lay the broader framework on which the more specific elements of the Agenda will rest in a separate outcome document. These will be adopted at the UN Summit on 25-27 September tilted "Delivering on and Implementing a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda".

Read more…

Articles, Equitable Global Governance & UN reform, GPUNW

First UN post-2015 development agenda session: Southern perspectives on broad contours, principles and imperatives

By Bhumika Muchhala (Third World Network)

The United Nations General Assembly negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda kicked off on 19-21 January 2015 with Member States putting forward the broad contours of what they envision for the next 15 years of international development cooperation. Read more…

Scroll to Top