Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The second Nexus Conference on Water-Energy-Food and Climate has finished and the Declaration should be finalized by next Wednesday and submitted to the Co-Chairs of the SDG OWG and the President of the UN General Assembly. Highlights of each day can be read at Campus blueprints web site. A great job done by Grace and the team from Campus Blueprint. Videos of the plenary sessions are now up on the Conference web site. Power points to go up very soon. The third Nexus Conference dates have been announced as 15,16,17th of March 2015 in Chapel Hill again at the excellent Friday Conference Center. What has been clear at the conference was a LOT has happened on the Nexus since the German Conference in 2011. This includes work on the ground, in companies, in intergovernmental bodies and in the academic and practitioners area. We will be build on thios for next years conference and we look forward to some announcements very soon on the follow up to the 2014 conference as well as prepa...

On Friday the 7 th of February the eighth SDG OWG finished its deliberations on oceans and seas, forests, biodiversity, promoting equality, including social equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment, conflict prevention, post-conflict peacebuilding and the promotion of durable peace, rule of law and governance. It marks nearly a year of meetings covering topics that will be drawn into 10-12 new development goals over the next 18 months. The meetings have been a great example of the UN’s new willingness to welcome the contribution of stakeholders. There have been side events, workshops, conferences, teach-ins and lots and lots of coffee drinking as governments have listened to, debated with, and questioned experts and stakeholders about their views and their evidence. As we got closer to the eighth OWG, governments were looking more and more for concrete suggestion on goals, targets and indicators. Let’s just remind us of the difference between these three items as it ha...