There’s growing momentum for world
leaders gathered in New York to sign an “outcome document” on Wednesday that is
seen as an important milestone toward setting a post-2015 global development
framework.
 |
|
European Commissioner for
Development Andris Piebalgs participates in a
round table discussion on
disability and development at the United Nations
headquarters in New York.
|
The outcome document is expected to
examine progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals and suggest
a process for arriving at a followup set of goals that — unlike the
MDGs — is meant to be global.
The document, which is currently being
negotiated on the fringes of the 68th session of the United Nations General
Assembly, won’t suggest specific goals, targets or metrics, according to
European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs. That will be the focus
of negotiations next year, he told Devex on Monday.
In that sense, it is different from a draft
post-2015 framework suggested in May by a high-level panel appointed
by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. That framework did suggest a set of
goals and metrics, although they were called merely “illustrative” — a decision
made by panelists to avoid a negotiation stalemate.
Negotiators won’t have that luxury in
the coming years, as the deadline for achieving the MDGs draws closer and
disagreements on climate change, human rights and other issues come to the
fore.
Post-2015 discussions
The MDGs — and post-2015 agenda — were
the focus of a series of events on Monday in New York, including a high-level
meeting on disabilities and development and a ministerial breakfast hosted by
the governments of South Sudan, East Timor and Denmark in conjunction with the
g7+, a voluntary association of countries transitioning from conflict and the
International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding.
The breakfast included an update on
the post-MDG development agenda by Amina Mohammed,
Ban’s special advisor on post-2015 development, as well as remarks by the chair
of the g7+, East Timorese finance minister Emilia Pires and the co-chair of the
International Dialogue, Danish international development secretary Christian
Friis Bach.
Monday’s meetings highlighted the
importance of peace and security for international development and the need to
come up with a set of measurable goals that also address employment gaps and
human rights, said Piebalgs.
The EU, he added, will continue to
push for inclusive growth.
“There are marginalized groups that
live in extreme poverty,” he told Devex. “My task is mostly to look that
extreme poverty is not forgotten because the numbers are small, because it
still is a very serious issue and as long as societies don’t address people in
extreme poverty, they’re not sustainable societies.”
U.N. leaders want to ratify a
post-2015 global development agenda at the General Assembly in two years.
No comments:
Post a Comment