From: Post 2015 Development Agenda digest <post2015-l@lists.iisd.ca>
Date: 13 May 2014 06:00
Subject: post2015-l digest: May 12, 2014
To: post2015-l digest recipients <post2015-l@lists.iisd.ca>
Subject: post2015-l digest: May 12, 2014
From: "Post 2015 Development Agenda digest" <post2015-l@lists.iisd.ca>
Reply-To: "Post 2015 Development Agenda" <post2015-l@lists.iisd.ca>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 00:00:09 -0500
POST2015-L Digest for Monday, May 12, 2014.
1. @IISDRS Summary and Analysis of #OWG11 Now Available
2. Announcing @IISDRS Coverage of the Fifth Africa Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction #AfRP5
3. Reminder - 1 day left to submit ideas on the most important and most critical challenges for global change science to address in the next 5 years
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Langston James Goree VI <kimo@iisd.org>
To:
Cc:
Date: Mon, 12 May 2014 11:17:20 +0000
Subject: @IISDRS Summary and Analysis of #OWG11 Now Available
Eleventh session of the UN General Assembly's (UNGA) Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
5-9 May 2014 | UN Headquarters, New York, United States of America
http://www.iisd.ca/sdgs/owg11/
The eleventh session of the UN General Assembly Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) took place from 5-9 May 2014, at UN Headquarters in New York. Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya, and Csaba Kőrösi, Permanent Representative of Hungary, continued in their roles as Co-Chairs of the OWG, with participation from Member States and Major Groups for the third of five sessions in the OWG's second phase, which is seeking to narrow down preferences expressed during a year-long "stocktaking" phase to develop a report on preferred sustainable development goals and targets.
OWG-11 delegates commented on a list of 16 "focus areas" and approximately 150 potential targets related to each focus area, which had been distributed by the Co-Chairs two weeks before the session. Following the discussion of focus areas related to the "unfinished business in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)"—poverty eradication, food security, education, health, gender, and water—Co-Chair Kőrösi noted general agreement that these concepts should be included as goals in the new framework. The discussion on "newer" issues, such as climate change, ecosystems, oceans, sustainable consumption and production, energy, industrialization, infrastructure and economic growth and employment, human settlements, means of implementation, peaceful societies, and rule of law, revealed that delegates still have not settled whether these focus areas should be included in the framework and whether some of the areas should be combined or divided.
Delegates also discussed how the OWG should continue its work, including through four points of order that were raised on the first day. Some preferred to begin direct negotiations immediately and to hold intersessional negotiations. Others highlighted the number of participants attending from capitals and supported the Co-Chairs' guidance under the current process.
At the close of OWG-11, Co-Chair Kamau proposed that the next draft of the working document would include an additional focus area—equality—and would contain many more draft targets. He said informal-informals would convene the week before each of the two remaining OWG sessions, and delegates should be prepared to discuss the working document target by target. The next draft is expected to be available at the end of May, in advance of OWG-12 in June.
The Summary of this meeting is now available in PDF format
at http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/enb3211e.pdf and in HTML format at
http://www.iisd.ca/vol32/enb3211e.html
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A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF OWG-11
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
In the words of delegates, the OWG's eleventh session marked a "critical juncture." OWG-11 was billed as the last meeting before delegations turn to the long-awaited direct negotiating format. The Co-Chairs have guided the working draft through several iterations to help participants sharpen their focus before turning it over to negotiations, but many could sense the strains that negotiators felt from not yet engaging in their vocation.
As the process begins to pivot in a new direction, governments face several questions. And some of those who were relatively new to the process found it comforting to know that, since the SDGs are charting a new path for the UN, many who have been with the process from the start share the same questions they have. Queries regarding how the OWG process will evolve in the final two sessions, where the OWG's report fits into the other streams of activities feeding into the post-2015 development agenda, and how the OWG may resolve some of its key substantive issues featured in many discussions during OWG-11, both within and outside Conference Room 1. Looking back at the path that the OWG has taken during its first eleven sessions, some guideposts emerge, although many point towards an emerging process in which questions force choices that will determine the future direction of this process. This brief analysis examines the directions where their answers may take them.
QUESTIONS ON PROCEDURE
As the four points of order raised on the first day indicated, many delegates had questions about when the Member States would finally play the role they usually play in drafting a new agreement, reminding everyone that the outcome should emerge from a Member State-driven process. In anticipation that the next version of the Co-Chairs' working document will become the "zero draft," after which Member States would take ownership of the text, many speakers reiterated their lists of preferences, in a last chance to get their proposals into the text. The Co-Chairs' proposal at the end of the meeting addressed some of their concerns—informal discussions will take place prior to each of the final two OWG sessions—and the Co-Chair-led discussions will discuss the text "target-by-target." But answers regarding how much the Co-Chairs might further "tweak" the document and how open the informal discussions would be remained to be seen.
Questions of process also arose regarding the OWG's place as one of several intergovernmental processes that will help set the post-2015 development agenda. Many remained unclear as to which other processes will feed into the decision-making process, and how they will do so.
For example, on implementation, other processes include the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing, preparations for the third international conference on financing for development, and ongoing discussions on a technology facilitation mechanism. Co-Chair Kőrösi suggested to delegations that the OWG's priority is to set targets, and that implementation will belong to another part of the negotiation "sequence." Meanwhile, many governments called for a target on a technology facilitation mechanism, with some specifying "operationalization of a UN global technology facilitation mechanism by 2017." Observers noted that both elements foreshadow another stream of negotiations, and more questions to be answered.
On accountability, the operationalization of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) is also running in parallel to the final OWG meetings. When the HLPF holds its second session, under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council, in July, its potential role in monitoring and reporting on the SDGs will be a key topic for consideration. In addition, one delegate told a meeting of stakeholders that, while the SDGs would likely include a reference to an accountability framework, this would be a subject of the intergovernmental post-2015 negotiations.
With regard to substance, some participants have questioned whether the eventual set of SDGs should aim to reflect as many of the other processes and existing agreements as possible, allowing the international community to focus on implementation, or to carve itself a separate scope, filling in what is currently an empty space in the international sustainable development framework. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is set to adopt a new global agreement in 2015, so many said that Convention is the only forum for goal-setting on climate change. However, others said if the SDGs lack a "headline" (stand-alone goal) on the importance of climate change, the agenda will not be considered complete or legitimate. On biodiversity, many argued that SDG targets should be aligned with the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Aichi Targets, since it would be unrealistic for governments to follow two separate sets of targets on the same issues. But positions diverged on this, too, with some calling for the SDGs to show higher ambition than what has been already agreed.
QUESTIONS ON RESPONSIBILITIES
Although the Rio+20 outcome document calls for the SDGs to be universal, it is clear from the last eleven meetings that delegates interpret this instruction differently. Many developed countries understand this to mean that the goals will be universally applicable to all countries, but many developing countries argue that the agenda should not treat all states alike.
The legacy of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and its agreed principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is affecting the elaboration of the SDGs, with Member States strongly calling both for and against its application to the new sustainable development agenda. Developed countries want the goals to recognize that all countries have responsibilities and stand to gain from pursuing a sustainable development agenda. But, as one speaker at OWG-11 pointed out, developing countries do not want to be held to the same goals as the developed world, especially without the resources to achieve them. Across the discussions on the focus areas, numerous proposals were made to specify which countries would be responsible for achieving a specific target, and which country groups should benefit from means of implementation. And as in previous discussions on the topic of sustainable consumption and production, some governments asserted that all of the goals and targets should only apply to developed countries.
Differentiation of responsibilities also arose in discussions of implementation. Governments stressed to the Co-Chairs that while some problems, such as lack of access to energy, exist only in developing countries, this does not mean that the burden for solving them should fall disproportionately on the shoulders of poor countries. They stressed that means of implementation targets must accompany each goal, and proposed targets that transfer knowledge and resources from developed to developing countries. On the other hand, developed countries called for universal implementation efforts by including non-state actors, such as the private sector, civil society, and philanthropists, in efforts to achieve the goals.
Many anticipated that procedural options for addressing questions regarding universality vs. differentiation would feature in the final outcome. At OWG-11, for example, the US/Israel/Canada troika suggested that all countries would individually select the percentage changes to be achieved. Others have suggested that indicators would be selected at the national level, leaving room for responses that are tailored to individual country circumstances. Nonetheless, observers anticipated that the competing interpretations on what universality means would extend beyond the last two months of the OWG's work, only to be defined in the subsequent intergovernmental negotiations on an accountability, financing, and a narrative framework for the entire post-2015 development agenda.
THE FIRST STEP IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST
Just like the ever expanding list of proposed goals and targets, the critical questions facing the OWG seem to be growing with each meeting. Whatever the result of the OWG's work, the post-2015 development agenda will be a reflection of multiple processes. One of many unanswered questions is which processes will ultimately be reflected in the SDGs. As the OWG dives headfirst into extended meetings and negotiations in the coming weeks and attempts to conclude a unified SDG framework, a key lingering question remains: Can the governments of the world come together to agree to a set of universal goals on some of humanity's biggest questions?
This analysis, taken from the summary issue of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin © enb@iisd.org, is written and edited by Faye Leone, Kate Offerdahl and Lynn Wagner, Ph.D. The Editor is Pamela Chasek, Ph.D. <pam@iisd.org>. The Director of IISD Reporting Services is Langston James "Kimo" Goree VI <kimo@iisd.org>. The Sustaining Donor of the Bulletin is the European Commission (DG-ENV). General Support for the Bulletin during 2014 is provided by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, SWAN International, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Japanese Ministry of Environment (through the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies - IGES), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Specific funding for the coverage of this meeting has been provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Funding for translation of the Bulletin into French has been provided by the Government of France, the Wallonia, Québec, and the International Organization of La Francophonie/Institute for Sustainable Development of La Francophonie (IOF/IFDD). The opinions expressed in the Bulletin are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IISD or other donors. Excerpts from the Bulletin may be used in non-commercial publications with appropriate academic citation. For information on the Bulletin, including requests to provide reporting services, contact the Director of IISD Reporting Services at <kimo@iisd.org>, +1-646-536-7556 or 300 East 56th St., 11D, New York, NY 10022 USA.
| Funding for coverage of this Session has been provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) |
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Langston James "Kimo" Goree VI
Vice President, Reporting Services and United Nations Liaison
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) -- United Nations Office
300 E 56th St. Apt. 11D - New York, NY 10022 USA
Direct Line: +1 973 273 5860 Email: kimo@iisd.org Mobile phone (new!): +12128107701 Skype: kimogoree
Where: NYC till 14 May, 16 London, 17-20 Oslo, 22-23 Nairobi, 25-26 Skeerpoort South Africa (trail running), 28-30 Cancún, 3-14 June in Colorado (Ride the Rockies cycling tour)
Notice:This email and any attachments may contain information that is personal, confidential, legally privileged
and/or copyright. No part of it should be reproduced, adapted or communicated without the prior written consent of the author.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Langston James Goree VI <kimo@iisd.org>
To:
Cc:
Date: Mon, 12 May 2014 18:10:34 +0000
Subject: Announcing @IISDRS Coverage of the Fifth Africa Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction #AfRP5
Fifth Africa Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction
| 13-16 May 2014 | Abuja, Nigeria |
http://www.iisd.ca/isdr/afrp5/
The 5th Africa Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (AfRP5) will bring together diverse stakeholders from national and local governments, regional intergovernmental organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors, UN and international agencies, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, the private sector, and the media to continue discussions towards an African position on a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction (DRR). The meeting is co-organized by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), African Union Commission, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Government of Nigeria.
The meeting is the latest in a series of multi-stakeholder consultations leading up to the Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction to be held in Japan in 2015, which will conclude discussions on a new global framework to replace the Hyogo Framework for Action that was adopted in 2005.
AfRP5 will be organized around three core themes that have emerged during the continental consultations: regional risk factors; integration of DRR and climate change adaptation for resilience; and investment in DRR. Participants are expected to finalize a draft ministerial declaration for adoption during the high-level segment. Other expected outcomes of the meeting include a common African position on a post-2015 framework for DRR and associated monitoring system, and voluntary stakeholder commitments.
Funding for coverage of this meeting provided by UNISDR
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Langston James "Kimo" Goree VI
Vice President, Reporting Services and United Nations Liaison
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) -- United Nations Office
300 E 56th St. Apt. 11D - New York, NY 10022 USA
Direct Line: +1 973 273 5860 Email: kimo@iisd.org Mobile phone (new!): +12128107701 Skype: kimogoree
Where: NYC till 14 May, 16 London, 17-20 Oslo, 22-23 Nairobi, 25-26 Skeerpoort South Africa (trail running), 28-30 Cancún, 3-14 June in Colorado (Ride the Rockies cycling tour)
Notice:This email and any attachments may contain information that is personal, confidential, legally privileged
and/or copyright. No part of it should be reproduced, adapted or communicated without the prior written consent of the author.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lizzie Sayer <lizzie@icsu.org>
To:
Cc:
Date: Mon, 12 May 2014 16:59:54 +0200
Subject: Reminder - 1 day left to submit ideas on the most important and most critical challenges for global change science to address in the next 5 years
Community consultation to identify the most important and most critical challenges for global change science to address in the next 5 years
If the future of global change research were in your hands, what would you focus on? Identifying extinction hotspots, understanding the impacts of sea level rise, or investigating how cultural values influence perceptions of risk?
Future Earth, the global research platform providing the knowledge and support to accelerate our transformations to a sustainable world, invites you to contribute to an online consultation on the key issues and knowledge gaps that global change science needs to address over the next 5 years.
Please take part in this brief online survey in order to give feedback on the challenges that have already been proposed by the international scientific community, and to share your ideas on priorities for research. The survey will close on 13 May 2014.
Future Earth is a 10-year international research programme that will provide critical knowledge required for societies to face the challenges posed by global environmental change and to identify opportunities for a transition to global sustainability. The programme was launched at the Rio+20 Conference by the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability, comprising the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the Belmont Forum of funding agencies, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations University (UNU), and the World Meteorological Organization as an observer.
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Lizzie Sayer | Communications Coordinator, Future Earth
Future Earth interim Secretariat
International Council for Science (ICSU)
5 rue Auguste Vacquerie, 75116 Paris, France
Tel. +33 1 45 25 57 76 | Fax. +33 1 42 88 94 31 | lizzie.sayer@futureearth.info | www.futureearth.info | www.icsu.org
Follow us on Twitter @FutureEarth @ICSUnews
Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/futureearth.info www.facebook.com/InternationalScience
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