Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Sometimes i do wonder about the press. They got it wrong on Rio+20 - except a few notable exceptions such as Richard Black at the BBC and afterwards John Vidal at the Guardian but most thought it was a failure - well clearly that has turned out to be a wrong assessment. That brings me to the yesterdays Economist article on the SDGs . Who ever wrote the article clearly did not research what has been happening on the SDGs,  why we have got to the position we have nor what the real implications A few things that might have helped them - if they had researched it and they might have liked to consider when writing the article or future articles The author doesn't seem to know that this is NOT a development agenda it is a sustainable development agenda It is not for developing countries it is for ALL countries .  It is not about developing countries it is about EVERY country Unlike the MDGs which were dropped in at the last moment this process has gone t...

I have to say I am getting bored with armchair journalists and academics who think they know better than 193 countries, thousands of NGOs and experts. So I am going to try and make this the LAST comment on an ill informed article....but i cant promise it. I am hoping at some point the UN will start dealing with these themselves... or someone will set up a 'war room' . The term 'war room' as some people will remember was made famous by James Carville and George Stephanopoulos as a rapid response team for then Governor Clinton to deal with the onslaught by President Bush (the first) campaign team. The backdrop is how they had destroyed Democratic contender for the Presidency Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis . Anyway back to what is this time an article by Jason Hickel an Anthropologist at the London School of Economics. His article in Jacobin called 'The Problem with Saving the World' suffers like many of a number of faults. It references already dis...

“Solutions imply new models that, above all else, begin to accept the limits of the carrying capacity of the Earth: moving from efficiency to sufficiency and well-being. Also necessary is the solution of the present economic imbalances and inequalities. Without equity, peaceful solutions are not possible.” Chilean economist Prof. Manfred Max-Neef Those of you who have been following my blog will have noticed my concern with the ongoing process in the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF). To just recap a little on the Committee’s work thus far, it has been done in private without the ability of stakeholders to watch and engage with the Committee’s members. There have been “briefings,” but in the 21 st century briefings don’t satisfy in the least what is expected regarding stakeholder engagement in intergovernmental processes. I was surprised to see the new draft (the zero draft was binned as very bad) to only be a...

Dear Friends I wanted to share with you what I have produced this year and what I already are planning for 2016. This year has been a  very productive year. I have tried to comment on today's challenges and opportunities as well as a political commentry on the sustainable development agenda more generally. Books I enjoy writing and had the opporunity to work with some great people this year. G overnance for Sustainable Development (May 2015) and I had the pleasure in editing it with  S. Luna, H. Lim, O. Rebedea, D. Banisar, and Q. McKew, A  New World Frontiers book . I also wrote two chapters on: Key questions for an interlinked and coherent governance for the review and follow-up of the post 2015 agenda and its SDG and the Addis Ababa commitments, and  Partnerships lessons from the first ten years of Type 2 Partnerships commitments  The Handbook of Water and Health (October 2015) edited by Jamie Bartram. I contributed a chapter:  Inte...