At High-level Sustainable Development Forum, Speakers Suggest Fine-tuning Delivery Mechanisms for Post-2015 Goals, Urging ‘Mindset Change’ for Consumers, Producers
Representatives of Governments, international organizations and civil society today reflected on ways of promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, mobilizing resources needed to invest in the post-2015 future and tracking progress of established goals through existing mechanisms during three panel discussions at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
During a panel on “Sustainable consumption and production”, speakers stressed that, although sustainable consumption and production were considered as a stand-alone goal, the “10-Year Framework of Programmes” adopted by the Rio+20 Conference in 2012 had established their cross-cutting character. The current and future social and environment challenges were interlinked and required an integrated response, the representative of South Africa said. A critical review of existing patterns and practices would be required if sustainable consumption and production agenda were to be implemented as an integral part of sustainable development.
A change in mindset was needed, said panellist Ulf Jaeckel, Head of Division, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Germany, and Chair, 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns Board. On that theme, the representative of Togo asked how lifestyle changes could be encouraged in sectors providing vital contributions, such as youth employment, without causing adverse impacts on the national economy.
During a panel titled “Investing in the future we want: What will it require?”, speakers stressed the need for building broad partnerships to achieve the ambitious goals set forth in the post-2015 agenda. Stressing the importance of domestic resource mobilization, the representative of Canada called for channelling official development assistance towards mobilizing private finance to achieve the sustainable development goals.
To that, the representative of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization said there was lack of discussion on how Governments could expand domestic resource mobilization. Partnerships should focus on the industrial capacity of countries, he stressed.
The representative of Saudi Arabia said common but differentiated responsibility was a principle established through successive international conference and must be respected. While South-South cooperation was a valuable complement, it could not be considered a substitute for North-South cooperation.
At the panel on “Tracking progress through existing mechanisms”, speakers discussed ways in which existing thematic review platforms could best track the implementation of the sustainable development goals, with Switzerland’s representative stressing that the Forum should draw on reviews under way in other intergovernmental forums. Norway’s delegate asked how the sustainable development goals would be integrated into the work of the panellists’ respective organizations.
The representative of Fiji said that, while existing mechanisms had the expertise to evaluate sustainable development issues, with structures in place to address interlinkages, the draft goal on oceans was an “orphan”, lacking a mechanism to support review of its implementation. On that point, Mexico’s representative asked if it would be more useful to use existing platforms that had a cross-cutting component rather than create new ones.
In closing remarks, Martin Sajdik, President of the Council, said the Forum had covered a lot of ground, having gained better knowledge of what was needed to make the post-2015 agenda a success.
The Forum will reconvene at 10 a.m. Monday, 6 July, to begin its three-day ministerial segment.
Panel Discussion I
The morning session opened with a discussion titled “Sustainable consumption and production”, which was chaired and moderated by María Emma Mejía Vélez (Colombia), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council. The panellists were: Ulf Jaeckel, Head of Division, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Germany, and Chair, 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns Board; Carolina Toha, Mayor of Santiago, Chile; and Laszlo Borbely, President, Committee for Foreign Policy, Parliament of Romania.
Swati Shresth, Centre for Grassroots Development and the Global Forest Coalition, India, served as lead discussant.
Opening the discussion, Ms. MEJÍA VÉLEZ said sustainable consumption and production were key elements of the development process as a stand-alone goal. They also amounted to a cross-cutting goal that had established itself during the international discourse through the “10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns” adopted at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012.
Elaborating on the framework, Mr. JAECKEL said its concrete implementation structure for sustainable consumption and production had triggered a mindset change. Over the last three years, programmes had responded to regional and national needs and priorities through their main implementation mechanism to bring synergies and scale up and replicate best practices while generating support for new projects and initiatives. About 350 stakeholders were involved with five thematic programmes on sustainable cities, consumer information, tourism, lifestyle and education. Those programmes had responded to clearly defined priorities and needs identified by national focal points. There was still room for improvement in garnering greater political and financial support as well as engaging more stakeholders, particularly from the business community. Using the 10-year framework as one of the implementation mechanisms of the post-2015 agenda, therefore, made a lot of sense and was a responsibility the institution was prepared to bear.
Ms. TOHA said there were tremendous opportunities for cities, home to 54 per cent of humanity, to promote sustainable consumption and production. At local and urban levels, there were transformations under way that could have an impact on sustainable development. Transport mobility was an area that provided both challenges and opportunities. Accounting for 20 per cent of global CO2 emissions, current modes of mobility were a major impediment to sustainable development. Referring to a television commercial for a car reputed for its speed, she said that image of success was being portrayed to audiences living in cities. The goal of “going fast”, however, was irrational. Through decisive policies and programmes to change the public’s mindset, there was an opportunity to strengthen public transport and encourage cycling. Engendering that shift required local leadership in efforts such as a forum of cities, citizen participation and multilateral financial support.
Providing a political perspective, Mr. BORBELY said Romania had had a strategy for sustainable development in place since 2008. However, as a minister and senior politician, he found it an uphill task to impress upon colleagues the importance of changing mindsets. Recent seminars on sustainable development that had been held in Romania had drawn active participation from legislators, he said, stressing the need to do more to raise awareness and action at the people’s level. Now that the structures for sustainable development had been built, the challenge was to implement appropriate policies and programmes. That would require a strong public education campaign on the virtues of a green economy and sustainable transport. Within the framework of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, sustainable development goals had been discussed extensively. There was a need for a coherent mechanism for the next 15 years on how parliaments could enact appropriate legislation.
Ms. SHRESTH stressed the importance of structural and governance reforms to ensure that the needs of the most marginalized segments, mostly women, were prioritized. Current developments in the livestock industry had undermined pastoral communities that had been balancing environment and growth and the underlying presumption that overgrazing was a problem that had interfered with their traditional practices. Similarly misguided interventions needed to end in order to prevent the marginalization of those communities. Sustainability standards could not account for indirect impacts such as land grabs and the marginalization of women. Citing the example provided by a panellist, she said young people dazzled by high-speed cars should not be replaced by people wholeheartedly embracing green-certified transportation without understanding what went behind the certification process.
When the floor was opened for discussion, speakers stressed the importance of the 10-year framework as an implementation mechanism for the post-2015 agenda, with the speaker from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) underlining that sustainable consumption and production could help to deliver a more integrated set of goals addressing interdependent challenges such as poverty and development.
The delegate from Maldives, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, stressed the need to recognize the numerous challenges developing countries faced, particularly those in special situations such as small island States. Calling for a scaling up of financing, she said the High-level Political Forum provided a place for countries and partners alike to share lessons learned, identify existing gaps and discuss and commit to solutions.
The representative of the European Union encouraged UNEP as the secretariat of the 10-year framework to explore new synergies with partners. He also reiterated his support for policies and programmes aimed at doing more and better with less.
South Africa’s speaker said the current and future social and environment challenges were connected and required an integrated response. A critical review of existing patterns and practices would be required if those dimensions of the agenda were to be implemented as an integral part of sustainable development.
The representative of Togo asked how lifestyle changes could be encouraged in sectors with the view of creating youth employment without causing adverse economic impacts. The representative of the Sustainable World Initiative, underlining the importance of not conflating efficiency with sustainability, asked whether Governments were willing to draw up more creative policies such as a luxury tax.
Responding, Mr. JAECKEL said implementing the sustainable consumption and production agenda had to consider local needs and capabilities. Detailed emission information on advertisements for cars was useful, but was not the only ingredient that influenced buyers’ behaviour. A change in mindset was required.
Ms. TOHA said that while the idea of interdependence of goals resonated through the discussion, there was a need to promote positive interdependence. For instance, low economic growth could not be the most effective response to climate change, she said, calling for greater education and awareness programmes.
Mr. BORBELY said there was a need for a positive movement at the international, regional, national and local levels towards more communication, accountability and transparency.
Also speaking today were representatives of the United Kingdom, Sweden, Brazil, Finland, Russian Federation, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. A representative of the Inter-Parliamentary Union also spoke, as did a speaker from the major group on children and youth.
Panel Discussion II
The discussion, titled “Investing in the future we want: What will it require?”, was chaired by Mohamed Khaled Khiari (Tunisia), Vice-President of the Council. Moderated by James Zhan, Director of Investment and Enterprise, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the panel featured: Hazem Fahmy, Secretary-General, Egyptian Agency of Partnership for Development, and Hildegard Lingnau, Senior Counsellor, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Stefano Prato, Society for International Development, Italy, served as lead discussant.
Opening the discussion, Mr. KHIARI said the deliberations were taking place at a critical juncture when the international community was poised to finalize both the sustainable development agenda and the means of its implementation.
Mr. ZHAN said the challenge was the implementation of the sustainable development goals rose above the issue of money. The concept of financing was concerned with mobilizing resources, channelling them to sectors critical to the agenda and ensuring the impact of initiatives.
Mr. FAHMY said the complexity of sustainable development required effective partnerships. Although the accumulation of partners entailed its own risks, there was an alternative to promoting joint and efficacious action. Citing the experience of his organization, he said South-South cooperation provided a useful model in the medical field. Such partnerships had created huge multiplier effects at minimal costs in critical areas like education, poverty alleviation and social development.
Triangular cooperation provided a better way of harnessing resources. The road was not always going to be smooth, but that need not discourage those willing to travel on it. No matter how much Governments did, they could not alone mobilize the resources needed for the post-2015 agenda. Nor could the private sector do so alone. That reality underlined the imperative of collective action.
Ms. LINGNAU said official development assistance (ODA), whose flows her organization was entrusted with monitoring, had increased by 66 per cent in real terms since the Millennium Development Goals were agreed upon in 2000. But the relative share of such assistance in financing for sustainable development had diminished. As the architecture of development finance had become more complex with more actors, sources and instruments, OECD had moved towards more and better assistance, investment and taxation. ODA as the core should be better targeted and used in a more catalytic way, she said. In order to ensure that no one was left behind, the organization was focused on risk, resilience and conflict. The knowledge and means to deliver on the ambitious aspirations were available but needed to be effectively mobilized and put to use through national and international, public and private finance and partnerships.
Mr. PRATO said discussions on investing in the future needed to address the asymmetry between the ambition and scope of the post-2015 framework and the state of negotiations on financing for development. It was important to place emphasis on the removal of structural barriers to development. Many developing countries were overwhelmingly reliant on commodity exports and imported everything else, a reality that was being ignored by ongoing deliberations on financing for development. Democratization of economic governance and financial decision-making were needed, as was progress on an intergovernmental tax body under the auspices of the United Nations. The emerging financing structure in effect threatened to limit the scope and ambition of the United Nations, he said, stressing that an unchecked role for the private sector would not bring to fruition sustainable development ambitions. The paradigm of partnership that placed the State as only one of many elements was not conducive to safeguarding public interest.
When the floor was opened, speakers stressed the need to fine-tune deliberations on identifying the most efficacious means of implementation based on specific contexts and needs. The representative of South Africa stressed the need to continue with the existing definition of ODA and targeted investment in agriculture, energy, transport, health, information and communication technologies and water. Africa lost up to $50 billion a year in illicit financial flows to developed countries, with their attendant threats to the economy, he stressed.
The speaker from Sweden said that while ODA remained extremely relevant to financing for development, nonfinancial means of implementation required effective partnerships and policies. She asked the panellists about what role the High-level Political Forum could have in following up on financial and nonfinancial means of implementation.
The representative of the major group on children and youth stressed the need for ambitious goals and a clear implementation mechanism with robust guidelines and means of financing. The monitoring process should be well defined and inclusive of all right holders, including children and youth.
Canada’s delegate said the scale of the post-2015 agenda had raised the importance of domestic resource mobilization and private sector financing. While ODA needed to be used to mobilize private finance towards sustainable development objectives, the growing role of remittances underscored the importance of accountability.
The representative of the G4 Alliance pointed out that 5 billion people around the world lacked surgical care, adversely affecting social and economic development, and stressed the need to incorporate such services as part of universal health coverage.
The speaker from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) said there was lack of discussion on how Governments could expand their domestic resource mobilization. Partnerships should focus on the issue of industrial capacity of those countries.
Saudi Arabia’s delegate said common but differentiated responsibility was an established principle that must be respected. While South-South cooperation was a valuable complement, it could not be a substitute for North-South cooperation.
The representative of other stakeholders agreed with the observation made earlier on the need for a global body to oversee the tax regime and asked the panellists for their thoughts.
Responding, Mr. FAHMY said the High-level Political Forum provided a platform to negotiate issues that had not been addressed in other forums. There were serious concerns about the role of private sector partnerships, which could be discussed. With the issue of global economic governance having become more complicated after the creation of the Group of 20, the Forum could play a useful role there, too. It could deliberate ways of finding practical solutions to inequality and review why the principle of common but differentiated responsibility had suddenly become so controversial.
Ms. LINGNAU said that as a “think and do tank”, OECD stood ready to support the sustainable development agenda by comparing evidence and progress on achieving common goals. The agenda, however, needed to be set by Member States. The private sector was a major contributor that had been left out so far and OECD was working on ways of ensuring greater efficacy and quality of that sector’s contributions to the sustainable development goals.
Asked by the moderator to sum up the way ahead in one sentence, Mr. PRATO said much depended on the role of the High-level Political Forum and the role of the United Nations in economic governance.
Mr. FAHMY said deliberations in the Forum should be open, transparent and meaningful.
Ms. LINGAU said OECD stood ready to support the Forum in all possible ways.
Concluding the discussion, Mr. ZHAN called for a holistic approach to sustainable development with clear guiding principles on balancing different imperatives.
Panel Discussion III
In the afternoon, the Forum held a panel on “Tracking progress through existing mechanisms”, moderated by Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The panellists were: Gerda Verburg, Chair of the Committee on World Food Security, and Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the Rome-based agencies of the United Nations; Petra Bayr, Member of Parliament of Austria; Adam Bouloukos, Director of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction; and Charles Radcliffe, representative of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Caleb Otto, Permanent Representative of Palau to the United Nations and Chair of the Pacific Island Forum, and Louise Kantrow, representative of the International Chamber of Commerce were lead discussants.
Opening the panel, Forum Vice-President OH JOON (Republic of Korea) said the Forum was mandated to conduct regular national reviews on the implementation of sustainable development commitments, as well as thematic reviews of progress in specific areas of the proposed sustainable development goals. It would be important to ensure coherence among the various thematic platforms to understand how they would review implementation within their mandates.
Mr. GASS said this generation was the first that had poverty eradication within its reach. Indeed, there was agreement that a robust architecture to review implementation of the post-2015 agenda would be critical and the Forum was seen as a premier platform for that review. “There must be a space for everyone to feel engaged,” he said, stressing that the United Nations had a major role in supporting the thematic reviews. One task was to identify criteria for existing United Nations platforms to support the Forum. Those bodies should engage civil society and build on a solid scientific and evidence base. It was important to consider how they would aggregate the findings of thematic reviews to help the Forum take stock of progress and provide strategic guidance.
Ms. VERBURG said the Committee was the foremost multi-stakeholder platform that ensured food security and nutrition for all, citing its Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure in that context. The platform was supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and worked through a consensus-oriented approach with Governments, civil society, the private sector, academia and philanthropic foundations. It would track progress of the sustainable development goals by focusing, in part, on the draft goal on promoting economic growth and decent jobs within planetary boundaries. The goals were being prepared in a multi-stakeholder manner, which augured well for their implementation. Going forward, the Committee would take a “naming and faming” approach as a way to encourage stakeholders to tackle the challenges ahead.
Mr. RADCLIFFE said given that human rights were integral to the achievement of the proposed sustainable development goals, integrating human rights assessments into them would be important. He discussed the universal periodic review process in that context, saying the fact that it enjoyed universal participation had increased its credibility. The review had been built on “free, open and meaningful” stakeholder participation. While it was peer-led, it was immeasurably strengthened by the inputs of treaty bodies, reports of the Secretary-General and the Commissioner for Human Rights and others. It was a transparent process, webcast and actively followed by anyone with an Internet connection. Information from human rights mechanisms should be integrated into the review framework for the post-2015 agenda, he said, stressing that “this is a chance to transform the future.”
Mr. BOULOUKOS recalled that world leaders had convened in March for the Third United Nations Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, at which the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction for 2015-2030 was adopted. His office championed existing standardized tools for reviewing implementation, such as the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) Monitoring and Progress Review process and national disaster loss databases. Most sustainable development goals included disaster risk reduction aspects, he said, noting, for example, that the poor were disproportionally impacted by natural disasters, making it difficult for them to leave poverty. To reach the public and energize communities about the sustainable development goals, he supported the “cities campaign”.
Ms. BAYR said strong, well-equipped parliaments often supported institutions that could play roles in implementing global goals, such as supreme courts of audits and ombudsman institutions. Parliaments could establish expert bodies, for example, or oversee budget decisions related to national implementation of the sustainable development goals. Parliamentary involvement should be considered from the start, as they were often crucial links between Governments and people at the grassroots level. Clear messages and best practices should be presented to the public to explain the importance of the goals. The Secretary-General should introduce an executive coordinator on the sustainable development goals who was already working on activities that could be adapted for different regions. In addition, parliamentarians should be included in that network.
Mr. OTTO, describing regional monitoring efforts, said that in 2009, Pacific island leaders made a plan of regional priorities and adopted a compact on strengthening development coordination, which included a peer review that examined national planning institutions. The peer review was country driven: a country volunteered to be reviewed and then chose two experts from regional countries and three from development partners to serve on a review panel. All 13 countries in the Pacific and two development partners had been reviewed, processes that had involved more than 4,000 stakeholders. Recommendations were used to strengthen country systems and lobby development partners for more coherent support. As a system based on respect for a country’s sovereignty and the principles of non-intrusiveness and non-confrontation, it was focused on solutions rather than challenges.
Ms. KANTROW said advancing sustainability would depend on more effective engagement of business in policy dialogue and implementation. Implementing the agenda would require significant resources from the public and private sector, while monitoring would require inputs from businesses in order to gain “the full implementation picture”. As for how business had been getting “fit for purpose”, she said the Global Business Alliance for Post-2015 included multinational corporations and small- and medium-sized enterprises alike.
In the ensuing dialogue, speakers discussed how existing thematic review platforms could best track the implementation of the sustainable development goals and, further, how the Forum could build on their work. Some offered examples of reviews conducted in the context of development and disaster-risk reduction, while others stressed the importance that any review must draw upon quality disaggregated data from various sources, as well as from scientific findings, a point underlined by Switzerland’s speaker, who said the Forum should draw on thematic reviews taking place in other intergovernmental forums. She welcomed the mapping of platforms, which had been published by the secretariat in May.
In a similar context, Chile’s representative said his Government supported disaster risk reduction as part of sustainable development, having facilitated a General Assembly resolution on an open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on indicators and terminology relating to disaster risk reduction.
Norway’s delegate asked how the sustainable development goals would be integrated into the work of the panellists’ respective organizations, wondering, for example, whether the Committee on World Food Security or High Commissioner for Human Rights envisaged returning to the Forum to report on progress.
Fiji’s speaker said existing mechanisms had the expertise to evaluate sustainable development issues, with structures in place to address interlinkages. The draft goal on oceans, however, was an “orphan”, lacking a mechanism to support review of its implementation. He proposed convening triennial global oceans conferences to put it on equal standing with other goals.
On that point, Mexico’s delegate asked if it would be more useful to use existing platforms that had a cross-cutting component rather than to create new ones. More broadly, she asked how to ensure an interaction among the various platforms and review processes.
Along similar lines, the representative of the major group on women asked about a “transversal” versus vertical approach to reviewing the goals. She also wondered whether the Committee on World Food Security knew how many women faced hunger.
The speaker from the major group on children and youth, turning the spotlight on citizen involvement, emphasized the need for citizen-led data collection and analysis. States should be mandated to consult with civil society, while United Nations agencies, such as UNEP, should organize formal multi-stakeholder reviews.
Offering a path forward, Canada’s delegate said it would be important to rethink the format of the Forum so it could better “connect the dots”. To operationalize the goals, a more structured approach was needed, including on rules and responsibilities, she said, welcoming ideas on how to advance those discussions.
A representative of Amnesty International cited a Human Rights Council resolution on the privatization of education, which had “fired the first salvo” on private sector involvement in the sustainable development goals. He supported idea of using the universal periodic review as a model for accountability.
Summarizing the day’s debate, Mr. GASS said the Forum did not have to do everything by itself. Structures, including outside the United Nations, were dealing with issues akin to those before the Forum and addressing challenges from a transversal perspective. Delegates had described how various thematic platforms could help break down work silos by addressing a range of goals and targets and showing how that “subsidiary system” could “dock in” to the Forum.
In closing remarks, MARTIN SAJDIK, President of the Economic and Social Council, said the Forum had covered a lot of ground, having gained better knowledge of what was needed to make the post-2015 agenda a success. Summarizing the week’s discussions, he said it was important to gear the Forum towards supporting the implementation, review and follow-up of the new development agenda, which would be adopted in September. Many of the ideas expressed would help advance the negotiations.