Reporting the underreported about the plan of action for People, Planet and Prosperity, and efforts to make the promise of the SDGs a reality.
A project of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as the Flagship Agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Surely a massive infusion of aid into Africa would be to pour money down a rat hole? Isn't this the mistake that was made in the past—enormous generosity by the rich countries only to see it wasted on misconceived projects, bad economic management and, at its worst, siphoned away into war and corruption, as is so evident in say Zimbabwe, Congo and Somalia right now?
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The late Everett McKinley Dirksen, an American politician. once famously said: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money".
Perhaps that remark may be applicable to the funding of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), where developing nations continue their relentless search for billions of dollars—now rising to trillions—to help achieve these targets by the year 2030. (P20) HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
![UN Development Goals Can be Best Achieved with Civil Society Participation By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — A coalition of over 1,000 civil society organizations (CSOs) from 127 countries, under the umbrella of the Global People’s Assembly (GPA), has declared that the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be best achieved—and on its 2030 deadline—only with the active participation of civil society. “Seven years after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals—almost halfway to the 2030 deadline—the visionary promise of social justice and a rights-based, equitable and ecologically just world for all appears to be a distant dream,” warns the coalition. The GPA, in an appeal, has called upon world leaders to take “bold and transformative steps to address the current unjust, unequal and extractive system”. A Declaration developed with inputs from over 30 national and regional people’s assemblies was adopted at the three-day Global People’s Assembly on September 20-22—and organised by Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) and allies during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly currently underway. Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IDN the Global People's Assembly rightfully expresses grave concern over the implementation of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs. The latest Human Development Report, for the first time since it was launched three decades ago, measured a decline in 90 per cent of countries in two years in a row. The Assembly, he pointed out, has come up with 25 key demands across nine thematic fields. “This is a time where minorities, civil society and democratic rights are under attack in many countries.” But if the SDGs are to be achieved, he argued, democracy, human rights, equality and participation need to be strengthened significantly. “For me, the call for global democracy and a robust civic space is the key message of the people's assembly. What is more, the aspiration of Agenda 2030 to achieve more effective, inclusive and accountable institutions must expand to the UN.” Bummel said the Assembly's call for a UN Parliamentary Assembly and a participatory World Citizens' Initiative are very important to make the UN more democratic. Elaborating further, he said, “The Global People's Assembly creates an important space for alternative views and voices to be raised while heads of state meet in New York. Those gathered in the assembly believe that the UN cannot remain an exclusive club of governments. The people, civil society, and elected representatives need to be included. “The time to act is now,” said the group, which calls for a shared political and economic power equally between the global north and global south, for global democracy and a robust civic space. “We have attempted to galvanise the voices of the most marginalised communities in the people’s assemblies organised at the national, regional and global levels. The global assembly declaration has been prepared in a bottom-up process by taking inputs from the grassroots groups world leaders have to listen to,” says Ingo Ritz, Director of Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). The Global People’s Assembly is calling for decision-makers to link the needs of future generations to present priorities, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to end militarism and to act on the climate crisis, with a strategy founded on human rights principles and intergenerational equity, essential to preserve the interests of present and future generations. "In order to achieve global justice, we must achieve climate justice, and in order to achieve climate justice, we must ‘Stop Ecocide’. Ecocide is a crime against my generation and against humanity. Centring my generation in the fight for global justice is key, because it's our future that we're shaping," says Emma Buretta of Fridays For Future, who will be joined by thousands in the streets of New York city for the upcoming climate strike. In a recent statement, GPA says the Declaration places a special emphasis on the current human rights challenges across the globe and calls for world leaders to guarantee the fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly, association, and expression and uphold the rights of all to participate fully in economic and civic life. “Civic space conditions continue to remain a challenge throughout the world with only 3.1% percept of the global population living in countries where fundamental freedoms are respected and protected.” Lysa John, Secretary General, CIVICUS, said the SDGs cannot be completely achieved without the participation of those who are affected by them, and such participation can only be realised in an enabling environment. “It is critical for civil society to be fully, actively and effectively engaged to accelerate Agenda 2030 commitments.” Speaking on civic space ahead of the upcoming Presidential elections in Brazil, Athayde Motta, Executive Director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE) and Executive Staff at Abong, says, "Brazilian civil society organisations and social movements have been subject to bureaucratic criminalization processes whose goal is to prevent them from demanding rights for the poorest sectors of Brazilian society”. “Civic spaces have been completely shut down in Brazil, and citizen's participation in policy-making and decision-making has been obliterated. The result is clear: less effective social policies and less money for social programs, or, simply put, more poverty." Bhakta Biswakarma, Asia Dalit Rights Forum, said caste-based discrimination and untouchability known as work and descent-based discrimination in UN terms, is “a fundamental root cause of extreme poverty, non-representation, violence, exclusion, slavery, and injustice to Dalits”. “Such injustice and inequalities have to be eliminated by implementing national and international laws and policies effectively.” The Declaration also focuses on several main issues, including vaccine equality, democracy and human rights, both online and offline, a gender transformative approach, the need to meet and exceed the Paris Climate Agreement, debt and economic justice—in particular when it comes to financing for development and an accountable global financial system—the need for pacifism, and finally UN reforms ahead of the Summit of the Future in 2024, where no one should be left behind. “While civil society seriously strives for the successful implementation of the SDGs, political and economic systems are failing us.” Rising food and energy prices, loss of livelihoods, environmental degradation and critical gaps in healthcare—including vaccine inequality and other inequities in the fight against COVID-19—are pushing people to the margins and making our planet uninhabitable. Urgently, the assembly demands to ensure free and universal access to the COVID vaccine and all tests and treatments, prioritizing the most marginalized countries, going a step beyond the decision of the WTO Ministerial Conference in June 2022 to include a full TRIPS waiver of vaccine, test and treatment. Finally, the pandemic treaty proposed by the WHO should be adopted. Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Chair of Forus and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, says initiatives such as the Global Peoples' Assembly regenerate spaces in which activists and civil society organisations can meet, strengthen each other, express solidarity and strategize with communities that are left on the periphery of today's political world. “I am referring, of course, to young people, women, people with disabilities, the elderly and all those who are left out because of power imbalances. It is time to hear their voices.” “The gap between rhetoric and reality must be closed. Let us finally translate promises into action! Let everyone, Leaders, Researchers, Civil Society Groups and all other Actors around the world find in my words, a call to action.” [IDN-InDepthNews – 26 September 2022] Read the Global People’s Assembly declaration here. Image credit: Global Call to Action Against Poverty.](/images/GPA.jpeg)
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — A coalition of over 1,000 civil society organizations (CSOs) from 127 countries, under the umbrella of the Global People’s Assembly (GPA), has declared that the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be best achieved—and on its 2030 deadline—only with the active participation of civil society.
By Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kazakhstan
As Kazakhstan hosted on September 14-15 the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, an influential US magazine National Interest published an article by the Kazakhstan President where he dwells on the significance of the two-day congress amid rising global tensions. The following text was re-published by The Astana Times newspaper.
BERLIN | NUR-SULTAN (IDN) — At times like this, we need to build bridges, not walls.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — In the race to 2030, the United Nations Joint SDG Fund has been doubled to $114 million as a result of an additional US $54.5 million in investments for projects in five countries, to try and get the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back on track.
Selected from a global pool of submissions from over 100 countries, the proposals submitted by Kenya, Madagascar, North Macedonia, Suriname, and Zimbabwe emerged as the strongest, most impactful, and investment-ready to take public.
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — Expressing solidarity with migrants on the move, “has never been more urgent”, said the United Nations Secretary-General in a message just ahead of International Migrants Day, celebrated on December 25. This year, International Migrants Day falls almost exactly 70 years since the historic Brussels conference that led to the establishment of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) — UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) President Munir Akram has called for a 'Coalition of the Willing' to promote agreement at the global level, on a specific set of early actions to provide fiscal space and supplementary liquidity to developing countries suffering the disastrous impact of COVID-19.
In an email interview with IDN, Mr Akram said speedy actions should include comprehensive debt suspension, debt restructuring for countries in current or potential debt distress, creation of new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) worth $500 billion and redistribution of unutilized SDR quotas to developing countries. (P 30) CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN | P0RTUGUESE | TURKISH
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Almost forgotten in the story about the Coronavirus is the story of AIDS. The drive to deal with it, the search to find medicine to cure it, and the self-discipline by homosexuals only began in 1981, when the disease was discovered, and its causes understood.
It was a stroke of luck that AIDS was discovered so quickly. Another five or ten years could have easily passed before it was detected. Then it would have rampaged through societies all over the world.
Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (ESCAP), Kanni Wignaraja (UNDP) and Bambang Susantono (ADB)*
BANGKOK (IDN) – As lockdowns ease in countries across Asia and the Pacific in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing is clear—a return to business as usual is unimaginable in a region that was already off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The virtual High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development recently convened governments and stakeholders across the globe to focus on the imperative to build back better while keeping an eye on the Global Goals.
By Elena Marmo, Global Policy Watch (GPW)
This article first appeared in the GPW's blog.
NEW YORK (IDN) – Across the UN System, all hands are on deck to address the impact of COVID-19 from immediate humanitarian and health needs, to medium and longer-term socio-economic policy. Various initiatives are circling one another, raising issues of governance, reporting and accountability. Member States in the ECOSOC Operational Activities Segment explored some of these questions as they related to the UN Development System (UNDS). At the same time, in the 28 May and 2 June meetings on Financing for Development, they also explored policy ideas, with an emphasis on accounting for vulnerability in macroeconomic analysis.
