By Tamara Johnson
10 August 2012
On 23 July 2012, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) heard a briefing by members of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) regarding development strategy post-2015. The Vice-President of the Council, H.E. Mr. Luis Alfonso de Alba, opened the meeting. CDP members Ms. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs, The New School; and Mr. Norman Girvan, Professional Research Fellow, UWI Graduate Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago reviewed the Committee’s recent report, United Nations Development Strategy Beyond 2015. Main points from the report include the following.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been a powerful tool in galvanizing government, donor, business, and public support for poverty eradication. However, moving forward, there are problematic issues that need to be addressed. While the Millennium Declaration was worded to express a firm basis in human rights, with particular commitment to equality, that focus failed to translate into the MDGs. The next round of goals should comprehensively redress that failure by requiring “that a target of reduced inequality should apply to all specific goals” as well as “a goal, on its own, to underscore the intrinsic value of equality as on overriding objective” (United Nations Development Strategy Beyond 2015,19).
Additionally, the report recommends that carbon emissions targets be included in Goal 7, to ensure environmental sustainability. Political rights, as outlined in Chapter 5 of the Declaration, should be more systematically emphasized. International cooperation needs to be better standardized and coordinated. Human security should be more proactively ensured against such threats such as food, financial, and fuel crises, as well as natural disasters, disease, and political violence.
The report also calls for improvements to the monitoring and assessment framework. Reporting processes so far have been too uncoordinated and have failed to standardize country, regional, and global reports. Focus should be shifted from the level of achievement to progress made in order to avoid bias against countries with initially low development indicators. Data collection should be disaggregated to permit assessment of sub-group populations. Finally, statistics gathering and dissemination capacities need to be developed, both for assessment and policy advocacy purposes. [See Report on ECOSOC Panel Discussion: “Improving capacities for evidence-based humanitarian decision making”]
Following the statements from Professors Fukuda-Parr and Girvan, interventions were heard from the representatives of Bangladesh, Japan, Mexico, and the World Tourism Organization. Questions focused on the processes of development, the CDP’s role, and migration issues.
Professor Fukuda-Parr, in response, called the UN development conferences “one of the most remarkable achievements of last couple of decades” in that they mobilized so much participation. Collaborative international processes were built on national processes, she said, involving actors from sectoral ministries, civil society, diplomats, etc. Development processes moving forward ought to be similarly inclusive and based on national-level processes in order to tailor development strategies appropriately to specific countries’ conditions and needs.
Professor Fukuda-Parr described the CDP as a body of development specialists that integrates diverse competencies and perspectives and does not represent countries or special interests. The Committee supports ECOSOC’s work by providing an analytical base for the consideration of different strategy options.
Finally, Professor Fukuda-Parr discussed the question of growth, which she described as important but potentially treacherous without contextualization in human rights and sustainability. She said that considerations of growth should be located in a framework of inclusion and improvements in human wellbeing for all people.
Professor Girvan responded that migration has not been recognized sufficiently as a development component. Development goals are strongly impacted by the conditions of migrants, of whom there are some 200 million in the world. The average unemployment rate amongst immigrants in 2010, he said, was 50% higher than naturals of respective host countries. He emphasized that individual states have an obligation to protect the basic human rights of everyone inside their territory by ensuring decent living conditions, access to the judicial process, equal pay for equal work, etc. It is important that there be increased political recognition of the need to incorporate migrants into the international agenda and regulatory framework.
Professor Girvan also recommended the creation of a council on social and environmental issues.