Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The link between achieving sustainable development and the principles of good governance is gaining increasing acceptance. The Rio + 20  The Future We Want Declaration, paragraph 10, stated that to achieve sustainable development goals, we need institutions at all levels that are effective, transparent, accountable and democratic. These were incorporated in Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals and have been further elaborated as indicators. To support these goals, the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development , an informal government group, was created in the autumn of 2011. The main objective of the Friends group is to create an informal space for governments to have discussions among themselves, backed up by expert papers when requested, on issues relating to good governance and the Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development (IFSD) in relation to the d implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It builds on a rich ...

The UN General Assembly Heads of State starts early this year with a High-Level event on Monday the 18th which will be chaired by President Trump on UN reform. Reform is in the air with the process of reform started by the new  Secretary General . His first report came out a month ago and there is now a process of consultation with governments, stakeholders and within the UN and the second reform package will come out in December and governments will discuss both formally in the UN Committee Two process in early 2018. On Friday the 15th September Achim Steiner the new Administrator of UNDP presented his new vision for the organization. This was trialed out a couple of weeks before in an excellent power point presentation to the Member States. He throws out what was there and has a really impressive vision for UNDP which sits very well with the role it should be playign in the 21st century. He is giving UNDP a leadership it hasn't had throughout the last two Administrato...